Job Involvement: An Analysis of its Determinants Among Male and Female Teachers

Interest in the concept of job involvement has grown in recent years, beyond its value as an index of the quality of work life (Cherns & Davis, 1975), because of the concept's fundamental importance to the understanding of work behaviours like turnover, tardiness, and absenteeism (Blau, 1986; Mathieu & Kohler, 1990). Job involvement has been variously conceptualized in the literature as (a) the degree to which one is actively participating in one's job (Allport, 1943), (b) the degree of importance of one's job to one's self-image (Lawler & Hall, 1970), and (c) the extent to which one's self-esteem is affected by one's perceived level of performance (Gurin, Veroff, & Feld, 1960). Of the three conceptualizations, Blau (1985) reported that only the self-image-job involvement conceptualization is empirically independent. Based on Blau's finding, job involvement is conceptualized here as the degree to which one psychologically identities with one's job (Kanungo, 1982a, b) and therefore, one's motivational orientation to the job. Interest in the concept of job involvement has been focused on identifying the determinants of the concept (Hollenbeck, Connolly, & Rabinowitz, 1982; Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977. Three classes of antecedents of job involvement have been identified: personal characteristics, situational characteristics, and work outcomes. A multivariate study of the determinants of job involvement, however, indicated that the personal characteristics class of antecedents could more appropriately be divided into personal-demographic and personal-psychological (Saal, 1978). Earlier efforts at identifying the determinants of job involvement led to a universally applicable model for both men and women, and did not take into consideration variables external to the work environment. In the past two decades or so, there has been a substantial increase in the labour force participation of women, on a global basis. While the increased labour force participation of women has generated a steady stream of research, most of these studies have examined gender differences in work values (Brenner, Blazini, & Greenhaus, 1988; Kaufman & Fetters, 1980; Lacy, Bokemier, & Shepard, 1983; Walker, Tausky, & Oliver, 1982), and only a few studies have examined the processes through which men and women become attached to their jobs (Chusmir, 1982; 1986; Graddick & Farr, 1983; Lorence, 1987; Yammarino & Dubinsky, 1988). Predicated on the assumption of a dichotomy of men as breadwinners and workers, and women as mothers and wives, subjective differences in the work attachment of men and women have been dominated by two competing explanatory frameworks, the job and gender models (Feldberg & Glenn, 1979). The job model suggests differences in working conditions as the primary independent variable in explaining the work commitment of men and women. The reported lower job involvement of women (Sekaran, 1982) is, therefore, attributed to women occupying lower-level, disadvantaged positions, devoid of intrinsic satisfaction and with limited advancement opportunities rather than some gender-related differences (Fagenson, 1986; Kanter, 1977). The gender model, on the other hand, contends that on the basis of sex-role socialization, women are socialized to view their status of mother and wife as their primary role and their social position as determined by the family. In contrast, men are socialized to view their primary role as economic provider and their social position as determined by work. Thus, differences in subjective work attachment can be understood in terms of gender-related differences via sex-role socialization (Feldberg & Glenn, 1979). In the only study that specifically tested the gender and job models of job involvement, Lorence (1987) reported that gender socialization and family responsibilities did not explain the lower job involvement of women and that, women tend to be more job involved than men after controlling for differences in autonomy. …