Analysis of identified questionnaire data collected from 196 office employees at the start and end of a 6-month period showed that change in overall job satisfaction as perceived at the end was a very poor, though statistically significant, proxy measure of change as computed from initial and terminal reports on levels of satisfaction. Perceived change in job satisfaction had zero regression on initial satisfaction but regressed very significantly on terminal satisfaction and on change in 14 job aspects as perceived at the end of the period The findings cast serious doubts on the usefulness of the quasi-longitudinal design in studies of the impact of technological and organizational changes upon job satisfaction.

Questionnaire data on office employees' general readiness for change, satisfaction with existing amounts of 14 job aspects, and desire for job-aspect change are used in testing the hypothesis that a person's desire for specific changes is governed not only by the discrepancy between the attractiveness to him of existing and potential job characteristics but also by his assessment of the very process of change The hypothesis, is upheld by results of multiple-regression analyses of aggregate scores and of data for several individual job aspects

Job preferences of employees and applicants have become more and more widely recognized as important factors in the success or failure of personnel and industrial relations programs in industry. According to Jurgensen, accurate informatibn on job preferences is a valuable aid in designing and revising personnel policies and practices, including recruitment programs, in supervisory training, in diagnosis of employee morale, in collective bargaining, and in interviewing job applicants ( 7).The study reported in this paper was designed to measure job preferences of employees in two department stores by means of the Jurgensen Job Preference Blank (7) and, in particular, to measure the test-retest stability-of these preferences. Most of the above applications of the Blank require high test-retest stability of mean rankings of job preference factors by groups. Use of the Blank for selection, placement, and transfer of individuals would require high test-retest stability of job preference rankings by individuals.

THE widespread use of suggestion plans and the voluminous descriptive and hortative literature on their form, installation, and operation show both that the potential value of employee suggestions is well recognized and that the success of such plans is not automatic. Some of the factors affecting the functioning of suggestion plans are doubtless plantwide and can therefore best be studied by cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons of entire plants. Studies using largely this approach have been published by Dickinson (1932) and Holmes (1952). Suggestion behavior differs not only from plant to plant, however, but also among employees eligible to participate in a common scheme within a single plant. It is often found that a minority of eligible employees account for a majority of the suggestions submitted and awards received in a plant and that some persons make suggestions and receive awards very frequently. The large interpersonal differences in suggestion behavior probably result not only from differential exposure to inefficient working methods and conditions and from random incidence of ideas, but also from differential ability and motivation to create and present improvement ideas appropriate to the situation.Interpersonal comparisons within a plant constitute a second and complementary method of obtaining information on the reasons for success and failure of suggestion schemes. They have also not been used extensively. In fact, published findings on interpersonal differences in suggestion behavior are frag-'This study was supported by the School of Labor and Industrial Relations a t Michigan State University. The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable comments made by Professor Dalton E. McFarland, Department of Management, on an earlier draft. He is indebted to Laurent BBIanger, Daniel P. Kearney, and Tommie Welch, Jr., research assistants in the School, for data processing and the checking of references.289

No abstract