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Organizational Surveys
The Diagnosis and Betterment
of Organizations
Through Their Members
Frank J. Smith
College of William and Mary
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2003 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah,NJ 07430
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Frank]., 1927-
Organizational surveys : the diagnosis and betterment of organiza-
tions through their members / Frank J. Smith,
p. cm. - (Applied psychology series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4384-1 (alk. paper)
1. Employee attitude surveys. 2. Organizational effectivenes—
Evaluation. I. Title II. Series in applied psychology.
HF5549.5.A83 S65 2003
658.3'007'23—dc21 2002029470
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on
acid- free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and dura-
bility.
Printed in the United States of America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Edgar B. Stern, Jr., visionary,
who always had the courage to ask
and the wisdom to act.
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Series in Applied Psychology
Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason University,
Jeanette N. Cleveland, Pennsylvania State University
Series Editors
Gregory Bedny and David Meister
The Russian Theory of Activity: Current Applications to Design and Learning
Michael T. Brannick, Eduardo Salas, and Carolyn Prince
Team Performance Assessment and Measurement: Theory, Research, and Applications
Jeanette N. Cleveland, Margaret Stockdale, and Kevin R. Murphy
Women and Men in Organizations: Sex. and Gender Issues at Work
Aaron Cohen
Multiple Commitments in the Workplace: An Integrative Approach
Russell Cropanzano
Justice in the Workplace: Approaching Fairness in Human Resource Management,
Volume I
Russell Cropanzano
Justice in the Workplace: From Theory to Practice, Volume 2
James E. Driskell and Eduardo Salas
Stress and Human Performance
Sidney A. Fine and Steven F Cronshaw
Functional Job Analysis: A Foundation for Human Resources Management
Sidney A. Fine and Maury Getkate
Benchmark Tasks for Job Analysis: A Guide for Functional Job Analysis (FJA) Scales
J. Kevin Ford, Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Kurt Kraiger, Eduardo Salas, and Mark
S. Teachout
Improving Training Effectiveness in Work Organizations
Jerald Greenberg
Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science, First Edition
Jerald Greenberg
Organisational Behavior: The State of the Science, Second Edition
Uwe E. Kleinbeck, Hans'Henning Quast, Henk Thierry, and Hartmut
Hacker
Work Motivation
Martin I. Kurke and Ellen M. Scrivner
Police Psychology Into the 21st Century
Joel Lefkowitz
Ethics and Values in Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Manuel London
How People Evaluate Others in Organizations
Manuel London
Job Feedback: Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement,
Second Edition
Manuel London
Leadership Development: Paths to Self-Insight and Professional Growth
Robert F. Morrison and Jerome Adams
Contemporary Career Development Issues
Michael D. Mumford, Garnett Stokes, and William A. Owens
Patterns of Life History: The Ecology of Human Individuality
Kevin R. Murphy
Validity Generalization: A Critical View
Kevin R. Murphy and Frank E. Saal
Psychology in Organizations: Integrating Science and Practice
Erich P. Prien, Jeffery S. Shippmann, and Kristin O. Prien
Individual Assessment as Practiced in Industry and Consulting
Ned Rosen
Teamwork and the Bottom Line: Groups Make a Difference
Heinz Schuler, James L. Farr, and Mike Smith
Personnel Selection and Assessment: Individual and Organizational Perspectives
John W. Senders and Neville P. Moray
Human Error: Cause, Prediction, and Reduction
Frank J. Smith
Organisational Surveys: The Diagnosis and Betterment of Organizations Through
Their Members
Contents
Series Foreword xiii
Edwin A. Fleishman and Jeanette N. Cleveland
Foreword xvii
Charles Hulin
Preface xxi
PART I: INTRODUCTION: SURVEY FUNCTIONS,
TOOLS, AND DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1 Functions of Organizational Survey Programs 3
Chapter 2 Stages of Survey Program Development 11
Chapter 3 Survey Tools 21
Chapter 4 Survey Pitfalls and Managerial Questions 35
PART II: INTRODUCTION: SURVEY RESEARCH
Chapter 5 Employee Attitudes and Customer Satisfaction 57
Chapter 6 Employee Attitudes and Attendance 62
ix
X CONTENTS
Chapter 7 Organizational Commitment and Turnover 67
Chapter 8 Work Attitudes and Unionization Activity 75
PART III: INTRODUCTION: SURVEY CASES
Chapter 9 Improving Supervisory Recruitment: A 6-Year Study
of an Organizational Intervention in a Coal Mine
Operation 83
Chapter 10 Identifying Disparate Needs of Scientists
in a Research Institute 95
Chapter 1 1 Improving Organizational Communication
in a School of Nursing 105
Chapter 12 Realigning Departmental Practices With Company
Policies: A Survey of a Corporate Advertising Agency 116
Chapter 13 Effecting Managerial Change: An 11-year Managerial
Survey Project 136
Chapter 14 Influence of Surveys in Initiating Top Management
Action 152
Chapter 15 Contrasting Use of Surveys in Organizational
Development: A 19-Year Project in Two Ski Resorts 161
Chapter 16 Diagnosing Organizational Unrest: A Study
in a Television and Radio Station 185
Chapter 17 Employee Attitudes Toward Health, Safety,
and Environmental Issues: A Decade of Surveys 192
Chapter 18 Survey Prediction of Worker Reactions
to Organizational Changes 201
Chapter 19 Use of a Survey in Determining CEO Succession 211
Chapter 2O A Survey-Driven Supervisory Training Exercise 22O
Chapter 2 1 A Survey's Role in a Federal Court Case 229
CONTENTS xi
Appendix A Technical Documentation: Steps in the Development
of the Index of Organizational Reactions (IOR)
Questionnaire 24O
Appendix B A Guide to Nondirective Interviewing 243
Appendix C An Evening With Leonardo 257
References 263
Author Index 269
Subject Index 273
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Series Foreword
Series Editors
Edwin A. Fleishman
George Mason University
Jeanette N. Cleveland
Pennsylvania State University
There is a compelling need for innovative approaches to the solution of
many pressing problems involving human relationships in today's society.
Such approaches are more likely to be successful when they are based on
sound research and applications. This Series in Applied Psychology offers
publications that emphasize state-of-the-art research and its applications
to important issues of human behavior in a variety of societal settings. The
objective is to bridge both academic and applied interests.
Surveys conducted within organizations have become an important as-
pect of human resource management and organizational functioning.
These surveys provide management with information about the organiza-
tion that can provide a basis for informed and competent decision making
and organizational development and change. Surveys can provide feed-
back to organizational members and have a critical role in assessing em-
ployee attitudes, training needs, diagnosing organizational situations, and
motivating organization members. Thus, surveys constitute an important
research tool in developing and maintaining effective organizations. The
most effective surveys are those based on sound research procedures and
xiii
xiv SERIES FOREWORD
grounded in knowledge drawn from research in industrial psychology and
organizational behavior.
The present book, Organizational Surveys: The Diagnosis and Betterment of
Organizations Through Their Members, by Frank Smith offers a unique per-
spective on organizational surveys by a recognized leader in this field. Dr.
Smith draws on 40 years of experience in formulating, directing, and inter-
preting organizational surveys. He served as Director of Organizational
Studies at Sears Roebuck and Company for 21 years and, after that, as Presi-
dent of Organizational Studies, Inc.
The program developed at Sears is regarded as a model of how organiza-
tional surveys can be conducted and used to enhance organizational devel-
opment, with benefits to employees and to management. The fact that the
Sears program has endured for more than 40 years, and has led to hundreds
of applications, is a tribute to the success of the program Dr. Smith and his
colleagues developed.
In this book, Smith does not focus on specific methodological issues, such
as details of questionnaire construction, sampling, and highly technical as-
pects of conducting surveys, which are covered nicely elsewhere (see e.g.,
Dr. Smith's book with R. Dunham, Organizational Surveys: Internal Assess-
ment of Organizational Health, which includes methodology and survey con-
struction). Rather, he has chosen to emphasize the experience of developing,
carrying out, and interpreting surveys on a wide variety of organizational is-
sues in a very diverse set of organizations. The reader will learn a lot about
life in organizations and what it feels like to deal with organizational issues,
and how the data provided by appropriately formulated and designed sur-
veys can lead to the "betterment of organizations through their members".
It should be noted that, in addition to developing sound sets of question-
naires, the Sears program placed particular stress on interviewing, and this is
reflected in this book. It will be seen that these interviews proved to have con-
siderable explanatory value in the interpretation and impact of survey results.
After presenting some fundamentals of organizational survey research
and development, the author provides specific "cases" of survey applica-
tions in organizations, with illustrations of actual reports of survey results
to top management. Each case is presented with its historical context in
the organization and with a discussion of the aftermath and consequence
of the study. These cases illustrate a variety of organizational problems and
settings for which survey data turned out to be remarkably useful. An espe-
cially useful feature is the book's description of the follow-up impact of sur-
SERIES FOREWORD xv
veys and of the sometime unexpected consequences of the survey's
administration and findings.
The book is appropriate for human resource managers and professionals,
as well as students, teachers, consultants, and practitioners in the field of
organizational behavior who want to learn more about this important area
of research and application.
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Foreword
I first met the author of this book at an Illinois Psychological Association
meeting when we were both members of a symposium, "Attitude surveys in
large organizations." At the beginning of the session the audience outnum-
bered the symposium members eight to five. The eight audience members
included four nuns, all in the first row. After the first paper the four nuns
arose as one to leave. One of them said apologetically that they were in the
wrong session; they wanted to be in the session on sex in therapeutic rela-
tions. Of the remaining four audience members, two left after the second
paper and one left a bit later. One avid fan of job attitude surveys sat in the
back row and refused to leave voluntarily or be driven away by our pointed
comments. We presented our papers to an audience of one. After the sym-
posium, we retired to the nearest bar to complain about the lack of perspi-
cacity of the psychologists who were in attendance at the meeting. Perhaps
because we survived the embarrassment of this traumatic first meeting,
Frank Smith and I began a series of collaborative efforts that lasted for the
next 40 years. I served as a consultant to his department. Frank served as an
occasional (and unpaid) consultant to our students, a research collaborator
with some of them, and as an occasional PhD committee member.
During most of this 40-year period, Frank was director of the Sears Em-
ployee Attitude Survey Department. This book is the result of Frank's expe-
rience directing the internal attitude survey program and later as a
consultant to organizations. The book reflects his intellectual curiosity and
willingness to devote time and effort to aspects of his program and job-atti-
tude research well removed from a narrow focus on his specific set of scales
and their use with Sears employees.
xvii
