Douglas G. Bonett

The contribution of burnout to work performance

While the notion that ‘burnout’ is related to a decline in work performance is widely recognized, empirical support for this relationship is lacking. The present study, composed of human services personnel, is the first to empirically test the relationships among Maslachs three dimensions of burnout and work performance. A negative relationship was established between one dimension of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and subsequent work performance. However, the results failed to establish relationships among work performance, depersonalization and diminished personal accomplishment. These results provide further support for emotional exhaustion as a key component of the burnout experience. Future directions and implications of these findings are introduced.

Job Satisfaction and Psychological Well-Being as Nonadditive Predictors of Workplace Turnover

Data from a 2-year field study were used to examine the relationships among psychological well-being, job satisfaction, and employee job performance with employee turnover. Using a sample of 112 managers employed at a large organization on the West Coast of the United States, and controlling for employee age, gender, ethnicity, and job performance, well-being and job satisfaction were found to predict turnover in a nonadditive manner. As expected, well-being was found to moderate the relation between job satisfaction and job separation, such that job satisfaction was most strongly (and negatively) related to turnover when well-being was low.

The Moderating Effects of Employee Tenure on the Relation Between Organizational Commitment and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis investigated the correlation between attitudinal commitment and job performance for 3,630 employees obtained from 27 independent studies across various levels of employee tenure. Controlling for employee age and other nuisance variables, the authors found that tenure had a very strong nonlinear moderating effect on the commitment-performance correlation, with correlations tending to decrease exponentially with increasing tenure. These findings do not appear to be the result of differences across studies in terms of the type of performance measure (supervisory vs. self), type of tenure (job vs. organizational), or commitment measure (Organizational Commitment Questionnaire [L. W. Porter, R. M. Steers, R. T. Mowday, & P. V. Boulian, 19741 vs. other). The implications and future research directions of these results are discussed.

The Moderating Role of Employee Positive Well Being on the Relation Between Job Satisfaction and Job Performance

This research provides further clarification to the age-old quest to better understand the happy/productive worker thesis. Using data from 109 managers employed by a large (over 5000 employees) customer services organization on the West Coast of the United States, both job satisfaction (r=.36, p<.01, 95% CI=.18 to .52) and psychological well-being (PWB; r=.43, p<.01, 95% CI=.26 to .58) were associated with supervisory performance ratings. Using Fredricksons (2001) broaden-and-build model as the theoretical base, the authors found that PWB moderates the relation between job satisfaction and job performance. Consistent with Fredricksons model, performance was highest when employees reported high scores on both PWB and job satisfaction. This moderating effect of PWB may account for some of the inconsistent results of previous studies.

Sample size requirements for estimating pearson, Kendall and Spearman correlations

Interval estimates of the Pearson, Kendall tau-a and Spearman correlations are reviewed and an improved standard error for the Spearman correlation is proposed. The sample size required to yield a confidence interval having the desired width is examined. A two-stage approximation to the sample size requirement is shown to give accurate results.

Sample Size Requirements for Testing and Estimating Coefficient Alpha

An approximate test and confidence interval for coefficient alpha are derived. The approximate test and confidence interval are then used to derive closed-form sample size formulas. The sample size formulas can be used to determine the sample size needed to test coefficient alpha with desired power or to estimate coefficient alpha with desired precision. The sample size formulas closely approximate the sample size requirements for an exact confidence interval or an exact test.

An empirical study of maturing out: conditional factors.

Using data from the California Civil Addict Program, the study tested hypotheses about the possible conditional nature of the process of maturing out of heroin addiction. Hypotheses were tested in a five-way contingency table using the log-linear model. Results show that maturing out of addiction with increasing age is inhibited by high levels of involvement in crime and drug dealing.

Confidence interval for a coefficient of quartile variation

An approximate confidence interval is proposed for a robust measure of relative dispersion-the coefficient of quartile variation. The proposed method provides an alternative to interval estimates for other measures of relative dispersion.

Inferential Methods for the Tetrachoric Correlation Coefficient

The tetrachoric correlation describes the linear relation between two continuous variables that have each been measured on a dichotomous scale. The treatment of the point estimate, standard error, interval estimate, and sample size requirement for the tetrachoric correlation is cursory and incomplete in modern psychometric and behavioral statistics texts. A new and simple method of accurately approximating the tetrachoric correlation is introduced. The tetrachoric approximation is then used to derive a simple standard error, confidence interval, and sample size planning formula. The new confidence interval is shown to perform far better than the confidence interval computed by SAS. A method to improve the SAS confidence interval is proposed. All of the new results are computationally simple and are ideally suited for textbook and classroom presentations.

The role of pleasantness and activation-based well-being in performance prediction.

This study examined the relationships between 2 measures of psychological well-being and work performance using the circumplex model of emotion as the theoretical framework. Although the pleasantness-based measure of well-being predicted subsequent work performance, the results failed to establish a relationship between the activation-based measure of well-being and work performance. Future directions and implications of the findings regarding the further refinement of the role of psychological well-being in performance prediction are introduced.