Within research on the quality of working life the variables of trust, organizational commitment and the fulfilment of personal needs play an important part. Yet relevant measures with adequate psychometric support are difficult to locate, especially ones applicable to blue-collar British working populations. The present paper introduces new measures of these variables, each of which has a number of subscales. Internal homogeneity, reliability and factor analytic data are described which show the scales to be psychometrically adequate and stable. To support the future use of the measures for diagnostic and evaluative purposes, normative data are also provided. RESPONSE C A R D SCard W'(for trust and organizational commitment) 1. No, I strongly disagree.

Two studies of male manual workers are described, in which eight scales relevant to the quality of working life are introduced and assessed. The scales build upon previous work, but are designed to remedy certain conceptual and operational deficiencies. They cover work involvement, intrinsic job motivation, higher order need strength, perceived intrinsic job characteristics, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, happiness, and self‐rated anxiety. In addition, components of job satisfaction and life satisfaction, derived through cluster analyses, are also identified. The scales are shown to have good internal reliability and to be factorially separate. Comprehensive psychometric data are provided as a base‐line for future applications.

Despite increasing recognition of the importance of fostering innovation among shop oor employees, little empirical research has been conducted on the topic. Moreover, within work psychology, studies have tended to focus on the generation of ideas (creativity) rather than on their implementation. This study examines the impact of individual perceptions of individual, group and organizational factors on both elements of innovation. It was found that the suggestion of ideas was more highly related to individual (personal and job) characteristics than the group and organizational characteristics; whereas the implementation of ideas was more strongly predicted by group and organizational characteristics. As expected, interactions were found between the number of suggestions made and group and organizational characteristics, demonstrating how successful implementation of new ideas requires both their formulation in the rst place and an appropriately supportive environment. Analysis to explore which factors have the greatest impact on the innovation process was also conducted. The practical, theoretical and methodological implications of the study are discussed.

Subjective measures of company performance are widely used in research and typically are interpreted as equivalent to objective measures. Yet, the assumption of equivalence is open to challenge. We compared the use of both types of measure in 3 separate samples. Findings were consistent in showing that: (a) subjective and objective measures of company performance were positively associated (convergent validity); (b) those relationships were stronger than those between measures of differing aspects of performance using the same method (discriminant validity); and (c) the relationships of subjective and objective company performance measures with a range of independent variables were equivalent (construct validity).

Developments in work design theory have not kept pace with the changes occurring in the organizational landscape. We propose a theoretical framework that specifies five categories of work design variables that span individual, group and organizational levels of analysis. Specifically, we propose an elaborated model of work design that includes: systematic consideration of antecedents of work characteristics; expansion of the traditional range of work characteristics to include aspects salient to the modern context; extension of the range of outcome variables beyond the existing narrow focus on affective reactions; analysis of the mechanisms, or processes, that explain why work characteristics lead to particular outcomes; and consideration of contingencies that moderate the effects of work characteristics. We argue that the particular choice of work design variables should be guided by theory and an analysis of the organizational context.