ABSTRACT

OCCUPATIONAL ATTITUDES
OF OVER-THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVERS:
AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY

by Lewis M. Latta

Studies of occupational attitudes are characterized by two
rather persistent tendencies: (1) research among blue-collar
workers other than craftsmen has been largely confined to the
manufacturing industries, and (2) researchers are prone to gener-
alizing the results of their studies of factory workers to be appli-
cable to all industrial workers. Although the first tendency is
most likely a matter of convenience, the second requires an
implicit assumption that the nature and conditions of the work
itself and of the environment within which it is performed have
little or no impact on the attitudes, interests, and aspirations of
the persons engaged in the work, or that these factors vary so little
from one industry to another as to be negligible.

This study was based upon the proposition that the environment
within which over-the-road truck driving is performed and the
nature of the work itself may exert significant influences on the

attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers toward their work. In

2 Lewis M. Latta
conjunction with the investigation of occupational attitudes, selected
characteristics of the background and socio-economic status of over-
the-road truck drivers were examined for possible relationships
to their occupational attitudes and occupational choice.

Three different measures of occupational attitudes were ad-
ministered to a sample of 349 over-the-road truck drivers employed
by 16 common and contract carriers of interstate motor freight.
The focus of the three attitudinal measures and the major finding
from each are as follows:

1. Over-the-road truck driving as a social role:

Only one of every eight respondents selected his work and
workplace as a central life interest.

2. Over-the-road truck driving as a source of psychological

identification:
Seven of_«every eight respondents were classified as
moderately-to-highly involved in their work.

3. Over-the-road truck driving as a career:

Seven of every eight respondents were classified as
highly-to-moderately committed to their work in pref-
erence to other possible fields of employment.

Examination of selected background and status characteristics
of the sample provided no evidence that over—the-road truck drivers
are a unique species. Neither were any of the characteristics

examined found to be of value as predictors of the existence or

3 Lewis M. Latta
strength of the attitudes expressed by the three attitudinal mea-
sures. Besides being comparatively free from strong and/or
disproportional influence by characteristics of the respondents,
the three instruments were found to be independent of each other
in that scores on one measure were of no value as predictors of
scores on either of the others.

The evidence shows, however, that characteristics of this
segment of the trucking industry and of over-the-road driving are
major factors in the development of occupational attitudes. In fact,
the very characteristics of the work and its environment which make
the job unique in comparison to other industrial occupations preclude
the recognition of over-the-road truck driving as a central life
interest. On the other hand, these same characteristics provide a
logical basis for psychological identification with over-the-road truck
driving and the development of a commitment to the occupation as
a career.

The findings of this study then support the proposition that the
nature of the work and the work environment do, in fact, exert sig-
nificant influences on the occupational attitudes of over-the-road
truck drivers. Although the present study is unquestionably an
extreme example, there is no reason to believe that less drastic
differences among other occupational milieux do not exert propor-

tional degrees of influence on the respective employees' attitudes.

OCCUPATIONAL AT TITUDES
OF OVER-THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVERS:

AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY

Lewis M . Latta

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Department of Management

1968

Copyright by
LEWIS M. LATTA

1969

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the members of my committee for their guidance of
this dissertation: Professor Darab B. Unwalla, Chairman;
Professor William A. Faunce; and Professor Richard F. Gonzalez.

A special thanks is due the officers and members of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters whose cooperation made
the research possible.

I am deeply indebted to Dr. John G. Maurer for his encourage-
ment and innumerable favors; to Mrs. Peggie McAllen, Executive
Secretary of the Department of Management, for coordinating com-
munications and assuming responsibility for a multitude of details;
to Mrs. Louise Plachta for secretarial and editorial assistance; and
to Mrs. Jeanne Bour‘nazos for typing the manuscript.

I dedicate this work to my wife, Loretta, whose encourage-

ment and devotion contributed greatly to its successful completion.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........ . . . . . . . . . . . ii
LIST OF TABLES ............ . . . ...... v
Chapter

I. THE CONTEXT AND CONTENT OF OVER-
THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVING . ....... 1

Introduction

Economic and Social Significance of Motor
Freight Transportation

Structure of the Industry

Unionization of the Trucking Industry

A Brief Commentary

Nature of the Work

II. RESEARCH PROBLEM, CONCEPTUAL FRAME-
WORK, AND RESEARCH DESIGN ...... 26

The Research Problem
The Conceptual Framework
Research Design and Procedures

III. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAMPLE OF OVER-
THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVERS ........ 68

Selective Sum‘mary of Findings

Time Factors

Income

Marital Status, Dependents, Home Ownership
and Religious Preferences

Education

Occupational Mobility

Social Participation

iii

Chapter

IV. OCCUPATIONAL ATTITUDES OF OVER-
THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVERS . . .

Work as a Central Life Interest of Over-

the -Road Truck Drivers

Job Involvement of Over-the -Road Truck

Drivers
Career Orientation of Over-the-Road
Truck Drivers

V. COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF THE
RESEARCH FINDINGS .......

Characteristics of the Sample and
Occupational Attitudes
Inter-Instrument Comparisons of Occu-
pational Attitudes
Interpretation of the Results
Work as a central life interest
Job involvement
Career orientation

VI. SUMMARY, FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . .

Summary
Further Considerations
Recommendations

APPENDIXES ..... . . ...... . .........

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......

iv

Page

94

127

172

188

200

I"

Table

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

LIST OF TAB LES

Total central life interest and subordinate
experience patterns from six studies using
the "Central Life Interests" Schedule--in
percentages

Selected characteristics of over-the-road

truck drivers. Summary statistics in years .

Education of over-the-raod truck drivers
and of their fathers, mothers and wives.
Percentage distribution by years of school
completed and summary statistics . . . .

Education of over-the-road truck drivers
and of the general population. Percentage

distribution by years of school completed

Distribution of over-the-road truck drivers
by first full-time job, in percentages .

Distribution of over-the-road truck drivers
by first job in trucking, in percentages . . .

Occupations of the fathers, fathers' fathers,

mothers' fathers, and wives' fathers of over-
the-road truck drivers. Percentage distribu-

tion by two occupational groupings

Percentage distribution of over-the-raod

drivers by number of organizational member-

ships, attendance, and offices held, with
summary statistics

Page

47

71

76

78

81

83

84

88

. __..‘4<-
_ .’.._‘——~—~

Table

Total Central Life Interest and subordinate
experience patterns for over-the-road truck
drivers and industrial workers, in
percentages

Percentage distribution of over-the-road
truck drivers by total job involvement score .

Percentage distribution of over-the-road
truck drivers by job-involvement level with
class ranges and class means . . . . . .

Distribution of over-the-road truck drivers

by response to questions concerning their
feelings and opinions about work, and by
career orientation, in percentages . . . . . . .

Percentage distribution of over-the-road
truck drivers by total career-orientation
scores I O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O O C 0

Percentage distribution of over-the-road
truck drivers by career-orientation level
with class ranges and class means . . . . . .

Coefficients of correlation between character-
istics of over-the-road truck drivers and
three measures of occupational attitudes .

Coefficients of correlation between character-
istics of over-the-road truck drivers and
components of Career-Orientation Index .

Coefficients of correlation among three
measures of occupational attitudes and
selected components. . . . . .

Distribtution of scores on three instruments
measuring occupational attitudes, in '
percentages
Summary of seven applications of the Central

Life Interests questionnaire-~in percentages .

vi

Page

98

108

111

115

121

122

130

131

138

143

179

CHAPTER I

THE CONTEXT AND CONTENT OF

OVER -THE-ROAD TRUCK DRIVING

Introduction

 

Much time and energy has been devoted to the study of human
beings at work. The focus of interest and attention has varied
from broad attempts to determine why pe0ple work, to microscopic
examinations of specific organizations and occupations in an effort
to account for observable variations in individual behavior and
attitudes within narrowly circumscribed job situations. Hundreds
of jobs and occupations have been scrutinized from various view-
points.

Industries examined range from those employing only a hand-
ful of workers to major industries employing literally hundreds of
thousands of production workers. However, a search of the litera-
ture has revealed no behavioral studies of motor freight trans-
portation, either as an industry or as an occupation. This in
itself would appear to be sufficient justification for an occupational

study of the industry. In 1950 Delbert Miller and William Form

wrote in the preface to their text:

In many ways it is unfortunate that most of the research
in industrial sociology has been done on the factory. This
has led to a semantic confusion-—one of identifying research
on the factory with industrial sociology. Already many of
us are prone to look at the factory as the main locus of work.
The fact is that not more than one-quarter of the workers
in the United States are employed in factories. The workers
in trade, transportation, government, and other services
constitute significant proportions of the labor force.

We prefer to use the word "industrial" in its broader
meaning; as referring to all forms of economic activity,
including financial, commercial, productive, and pro-
fessional enterprises generally.

In spite of this admonition, the tendency toward such a
narrow research focus still persists. While there has been a
proliferation of studies in the white-collar occupations, research
among blue-collar workers is still largely confined to the manu-
facturing industries. The importance of the problem is increased
further by the fact that the proportions of workers in the non-
manufacturing and service industries are increasing more rapidly
than the proportion of production workers in manufacturing.

An even more important consequence of the narrow focus of
most industrial research is the tendency of the researchers to
generalize the results of their studies of factory workers to be
applicable to all industrial workers. Such generalization must be

based on the assumption that the nature and conditions of the Work

itself and of the environment within which it is performed have

 

1Delbert C. Miller and William H. Form, Industrial
Sociology: An Introduction to the Sociology_of Work Relations
(New York: Harper 8: Brothers, 1951), p. ix.

 

little or no impact on the attitudes, interests, and aspirations
of the persons engaged in the work, or that these factors vary so
little from industry to industry as to be negligible.

The validity of such assumptions is, at least, open to
question in view of observable differences between the occupational
environments of manufacturing industries and the environment of
the trucking industry. It is this question which provides the basis
for the present study.

This study, then, is based upon the proposition that the
environment within which over-the-road truck {driving is performed
and the nature of the work itself may exert significant influences on
the attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers toward their work. In
conjunction with this investigation, selected characteristics of the
background and socio-economic status of over-the-road truck
drivers will be examined for possible relationships to their occupa-
tional attitudes and their occupational choice.

The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of
the significance of the trucking industry, its structure, and char-
acteristics of the industry and of over-the-road truck driving which

distinguish the occupation from manufacturing employment.

Economic and Social Significance of
Motor Freight Transportation

 

 

Just as the automobile has become the basic mode of personal

transportation, so has the motor truck become an integral and

4
indispensable part of the system by which all sorts of raw
materials and foodstuff are moved from their sources through
the channels of production, processing, and distribution to the
ultimate consumer. Every community, large and small, is at
least partially dependent upon motor-truck transportation for the
satisfaction of its needs. At the same time, there are thousands
of commmities which depend entirely upon truck service for
everything that they consume. As a matter of fact, there are
very few products or commodities available today which have not
traveled at least part of the way from their origin to their desti-
nation by motor truck.

Fifty years ago there were only about 600, 000 trucks in
use, most of which were engaged in local delivery service. At
present there are approximately 15 million privately-owned motor
trucks and combination vehicles in operation in the United States.
Of this number, less than 10 percent are for hire while the
remainder are privately operated by producers, distributors,
utilities, stores, farmers, and non-commerical owners. However,
more than half of the one million combination vehicles with three
or more axles (tractors and trailers or semi-trailers) are in the
for-hire service. 2

Gross revenues of the for-hire motor carriers regulated by

 

ZAmerican Trucking Associations, Inc. , Department of
Research and Transport Economics, American Trucking Trends:
1966 (Washington, D.C.‘, 1967), p. 5.

 

the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1967 were almost eleven
billion dollars. This figure, representing more than 48 percent
of the total amount paid to all types of federally regulated trans-
portation media, exceeds the gross operating freight revenue of
all railroads by more than a billion dollars. 3 Although it is
virtually impossible to calculate the total value of the service
rendered by motor freight transportation, the American Trucking
Associations, Inc. estimates that the total value of all motor
carrier services would at least triple the gross revenues of
federally regulated for-hire carriers.

The impact of truck transportation upon the economy is
scarcely less evident from the consumption side. For example,
in 1965 private and for-hire trucking purchases included some
20. 5 billion gallons of motor fuel, plus 350 million gallons of
lubricating oil at a total cost of over 4. 6 billion dollars, excluding
taxes. Purchases of new trucks and trailers, replacement parts
and accessories, and tires and tubes accounted for another 8.4
million dollars of purchases. At the same time, the nation's
trucks generated over 3. 8 billion dollars in federal and state

taxes for highway use, exclusive of property, income, sales, and

 

3The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan), June 28, 1968,
p. 14.

 

4
American Trucking Trends: 1966, oLcit., p. 9.

 

local taxes . 5

However impressive these figures may be, they are dwarfed
by the immeasurable importance of motor truck transportation as
a vital link in the chain of production and distribution of this

nation' 5 output.

Structure of the Industry

 

From the previous section it becomes apparent that, in
general, truck transportation may be divided into two broad cate-
gories--"private" and "for hire. "

Private carriers, which account for a large majority of
vehicles in the industry, are defined as those companies and
individuals who operate vehicles which they own or lease and
directly control for the transportation of their own materials,
products, or equipment. Thus, private carriers include manu-
facturers, processors, merchants, utilities, farmers, and other
truck Operators whose principal business is not transportation,
and whose transportation service is not for hire to the public.

For-hire carriers are those providing transportation, for
compensation, of freight that is owned by someone else. Their
operations may be classified as local cartage, intrastate carriage
and interstate carriage. As the name implies, local cartage

involves pickup and delivery service within the limits of a metropolitan

 

51bid.. p. 1.

 

area or commercial zone. Intrastate carriage is restricted to

the movement of property wholly within the confines of a single
state, while interstate carriage involves the movement of property
between states of the United States.

Carriers in the first two categories are usually regulated
by local or state authorities, while interstate carriers are regu-
lated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). However,
most inter-city trucking and even some local operations are
classified as interstate commerce.

Under federal law, for—hire carriers in interstate commerce
are classified as common carriers, contract carriers and exempt
carriers. Interstate common and contract carriers are regulated
by the ICC as to rates, routes, types of service, and types of
commodities transported, as well as to hours of service for
employees, equipment standards, and safety of operations. Exempt
carriers in certain specific types of service are subject to safety,
equipment, and hours of service rules, as are private carriers,
but are not subject to the Interstate Commerce Commission's
economic regulation.

Common carriers must offer their services impartially to
all shippers to transport, at published rates, a given type of freight
between points within their operating authority. Such authority may
be for service on a regular basis over designated highways (regular

route service) or for non-scheduled operation between designated

8
points or areas (irregular route service). In order to operate,
every interstate common carrier must qualify for a certificate of
public convenience and necessity granted by the ICC.

Contract carriers limit their offers of service to particular
shippers under continuing contracts and need not serve all shippers
equally. By providing special services or vehicles to the shipper,
a contract carrier often designs a unique service to meet the
specific needs of individual customers. To qualify for a permit to
operate, an interstate contract carrier must satisfy the ICC that
the pr0posed service is consistent with the public interest and that
the carrier is capable to properly perform the service.

Common and contract carriers can be further categorized by
commodities transported or types of service provided. General
freight carriers may haul a wide variety of merchandise and
packaged goods, usually called general commodities, but their
rights often exclude certain freight such as bulk commodities,
household goods, and heavy, dangerous, or other articles requiring
special equipment or special handling. These and other types of
freight may be handled by carriers who specialize in transporting
specific items such as petroleum, chemicals, milk, frozen products,
automobiles, bulk flour, sugar, syrup, cement, gravel, coal, and
many others.

It is readily apparent that generalization about truck driving,

per se, is impossible. Many driving jobs are as regular as factory

9
work with respect to hours and duties; other jobs, such as house-
hold goods moving may keep a driver away from home for periods
of up to six weeks or more. Likewise, the types of equipment
utilized range from pickup trucks to multiple-trailer trains weighing
fifty ton-s or more.

For the purpose of this study, attention is confined to over-
the-road drivers for inter-city common carriers and inter-city
contract carriers. The reasons for this limitation are several.
First, the limitations of time and money for research required
that the project be restricted to manageable proportions. Second,
the types of carrier selected for the survey are the most rigidly
and uniformly regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission,
thus minimizing the differences in working conditions and constraints
short of a case study in a single firm. Third, over-the-road drivers
are the highest paid category of driver personnel in the industry,
making this job the most attractive in terms of economic rewards.
Fourth, to further provide uniformity of working conditions and
basic wages among respondents, all of the drivers selected for
inclusion in this survey are members of the same union and operate
under a National Master Freight Agreement negotiated between
their union and the carriers for which they work. A brief account

of the structure and bargaining methods of the union follows.

10

Unionization of the Trucking Industry

The dominant labor organization in the trucking industry is
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Ware-
housemen, and Helpers of America, hereinafter referred to as the
Teamsters, or The Union. By far the largest independent union
in the nation, the Teamsters Union has some 50 percent more
members ihan either the United Auto Workers or the United Steel
Workers--the largest unions affiliated with the AFL—CIO. The
Teamsters' 1, 800, 000 members, of whom about one-third are
over-the-road drivers, are distributed by states in about the same
proportions as the dispersion of the national population. 6

The Teamsters Union is organized into four sections: the
internationalunion, four area conferences, about 50 city and state
joint councils, and some 900 local unions. 7 In small cities where
no one craft is large enough to support its own local union, all
organized drivers may belong to a single general union regardless

. l ,
of their specific type of employment. In larger cities, however,
there may be a number of locals, each of which represents a single

craft such as milk‘drivers, bakery drivers, over-the-road drivers,

local cartage drivers, or an affiliated trade such as hotel and

 

6Sam Romer, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters:
Its Government and Structure (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
Inc., 1962), p. 4.

 

 

71bid. , pas sim.

ll

restaurant workers, and office workers. These locals are joined
together in a Joint Council which may include all Teamster-
affiliated unions ina state. Locals representing a single craft
or trade are also united in one of the area or national trade divi-
sions which form the core of the four area conferences. 8 All
affiliated locals and joint councils in the United States and its
territories are represented in one of the area conferences each of
which is directed by a vice—president of the International Union. 9

Collective bargaining is conducted, to a certain extent, at
all levels of the organization with a continuing trend toward national
contracts with uniform nationwide conditions. For example, in the
motor freight division, in 1967, negotiations between the Interna-
tional Unions' National Over-the-road and City Cartage Policy and
Negotiating Committee and Trucking Employers, Inc. , representing
some 30 employer associations resulted in the National Master
Freight Agreement Covering Over-the-road and Local Cartage
Employees of Private, Common, Contract and Local Cartage
Carriers. This agreement was then expanded and explicated by
the addition of a number of supplements such as the Central States
Area Over-the-road Supplemental Agreement, the National Iron and
Steel and Special Commodity Supplemental Agreement, and others,

negotiated by the same committees with the addition of appropriate

 

91bid., p. 56.

8Ibid.. p. 92.

12
regional or special interest representatives. The supplemental
agreements, in turn, contain special clauses, riders, or excep-
tions, to account for unique circumstances or conditions obtaining
in a more limited area or a more specific segment of the industry.

Local and individual-employer contracts may be further modi-
fied to meet the unique requirements of a specific employment
situation by the addition of special riders or clauses, but only with
the express approval of the international officers. However, such
modifications or restrictions are not encouraged, and where they
do exist, probably result as often from concessions to local power
sources in the union, as from an interest in tailoring the contract
to individually fit specific situations.

Although the Teamsters Union accounts for only a fraction of
the employees in the trucking industry, it wields a great deal of
power. Through control over strategic segments of channels of
production and distribution, the union is able to exert tremendous
pressure on a for-hire carrier who is caught between the union's
demands and the demands of customers for uninterrupted service.
A manufacturer whose operations depend upon a steady flow of
materials into, or products out of, his plant will not usually
tolerate an interruption of that flow caused by a carrier's diffi-
culties with the union; he will instead seek an alternative means of

transportation. Thus, the constant threat of losing its customers

 

13
is an effective deterrent to a sustained stand against the union's
demands by a single carrier.

The keenness of intra-industry competition as well as com-
petition between motor carriers and other modes of freight trans-
portation largely explains why motor carriers have been amenable
to the nationalization of bargaining with the Teamsters. In addition
to keeping the union from playing off one carrier against another in
contract negotiations, each carrier knows that he is at least no
worse off competitively than any other company operating under the
same contract terms.

The union, however, maintains its power position to break a
stalemate in negotiations by threatening selective strike action
against recalcitrant carriers. In 1967, this strategy forced the
employers to call a nationwide lockout and thereby assume responsi-
bility for the resulting work stoppage.

The point to be made was well expressed in a business maga-
zine in 1941:

There is simply no substitute for truck transportation.
That is the nub of the union's power. Furthermore, it
must be supplied continuously. It cannot be stored up
like oil or wheat or coal. The railroads may continue

to run and carry freight but the Teamsters can effectively
halt its movement at any time. In the case of most

unions, a strike is just a strike. In the case of the

Teamsters, it can be a death warrant for the opppdsition. 10

 

10%. May. 1941. p. 97. Quoted in Romer, op. cit.,

14
Although various legal restraints have considerably diminished
the threat to the national economy, to the individual carrier it is
still very real.

In this same vein it is worth noting that the potential for the
exercise of power is not lost upon the union's membership. Un-
fortunately, the potency of the various legal :resiraints is not
equally apparent, giving rise to frequent charges by the rank and
file that the union's leadership has "gone soft" in their dealings
with the carriers--that they are not militant enough in contract
negotiations nor aggressive enough in the settlement of grievances.

For purposes of the present study the existence of a national
contract covering all over-the-road drivers serves primarily to
reduce the number of variables in the occupational environment
which impinge upon the attitudes and opinions of the subjects of

this survey.

A Brief Commentary

 

The foregoing sections of this chapter have attempted to set
a generalized picture of the trucking industry together with some of
the unique conditions which influence the occupational milieu within
which the present study was conducted. As it is seen today, the
industry is almost purely a product of the 20th Century. Despite
its roots in wagon haulage, only the development of modern motor

trucks and highways to accommodate them have made the growth

15

of the industry to its present magnitude and importance possible--
both as an individual entity and as an adjunct to other modes of
freight transportation. Even the newest mode, i. e. , air freight,
is totally dependent upon trucks to initiate its shipments at their
source and to terminate the movements at the destinations. Federal
and state regulation of the public elements of the industry have
developed and increased as trucking has grown in public interest.
The industryis presently in a period of consolidations and mergers
as strong organizations expand their operations and weak or ineffi-
cient operators are absorbed into larger networks. 11 Union
strategy has kept pace with developments by continually expanding
the scope and area of negotiations with industry representatives.

Within the trucking industry there are several additional
factors at work which serve to differentiate truck driving, and
particularly over-the-road driving from most other industrial
occupations. First, there is no formal hierarchy of jobs in the
industry through which an employee must, or can, progress to
reach the highest paid positions among the production workers.
Many companies do not have a formal training program for inexperi-
enced drivers. Training programs often start with a test of the

prospective driver's knowledge of traffic laws and ICC safety

 

11A concise discussion of the present state of the industry

and current trends is presented in "Here Come the Trucks, "
Forbes, December 1, 1964, p. 24 ff.

16
regulations. Successful completion of oral or written tests may
be followed by a driving test and/or several road trips with a
driver-trainer before final acceptance of an applicant. Prior
experience may have been obtained in any of a variety of ways,
including local hauling, construction driving, unregulated over-
the-road hauling, or even hostling trailers around a terminal.

Second, there is no precise relationship between the skill
requirements of different driving jobs and the wages they command.
Rather, the higher pay for over-the-road driving seems to reflect
compensation for unorthodox work schedules and erratic hours more
than for superior ability or qualifications.

Third, the over-the-road agreement is one of the few, if not
the only, union contracts which makes no specific provisions for
overtime pay. The ICC limits over-the-road drivers to 10 hours
driving ina single shift after which a driver must have at least 8
hours off. Driving hours are also limited to 60 hours in any seven
days, but if the driver is a regular employee, it makes no differ-
ence whether the hours are worked by day or by night, or on which
days of the week. A single hourly rate covers the entire span of
driving time.

Last, but not least, outside the industry there is little or
no distinction among the variety of occupational roles and statuses
that actually exist under the generic title of truck driver. To many

people, there is little or no difference between a driver of a pickup

17

delivery truck who may work for the minimum allowable wage rate
and the driver of a large highway tractor-trailer unit who may earn
up to $15, 000 a year. 12 They are both truck drivers despite the
difference in at least the economic part of their socio-economic
statuses.

Within this environmental framework, attention is now turned
to over-the-road truck driving as a separate and distinct occupation

in the indus try .

Nature of the Work13

 

Most of the 600, 000 over-the-road drivers presently employed

by private and for-hire motor carriers throughout the United States

 

12Lest one is led to wonder how a maximum of 60 hours per
week x $3. 25 (the hourly wage rate in 1965) can total $15, 000, it
should be noted that the pay rate for many runs is based on the
number of miles driven, rather than the number of hours actually
worked. Rates that were developed years ago when trucks could
average only 25 to 30 miles per hour of elapsed time have been
preserved through union pressure. Thus, it is sometimes possible
for a driver to earn almost double the nominal rate per hour. The
union justifies its position by the claim that not only are drivers
often hauling much heavier loads than they used to haul, but that
the company is also enabled to increase substantially the utilization
of its equipment and to render much faster service to its customers.
That these claims are at least partially justified is evidenced by
the fact that although the average annual wage per employee in the
trucking industry has more than tripled since 1945 (from $2, 545 in
1945 to $8, 030 in 1964), total wage costs as a percentage of revenue
have risen only from 52. 9% to 61. 6% during the same period. (c.f.
American Trucking Trends: 1966, op. cit., pp. 23-24.

13This section is based in part on the job description in the
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupa-
tional Outlook Handbook, 1966-67 edition, Bulletin No. 1450,
pp. 423-27.

 

18

operate gasoline or diesel-powered truck-tractors in combination
with various kinds of cargo—carrying vehicles. In general, a
tractor-trailer, or "semi," consists of a short-chassis power unit
and a semi-trailer, the front of which rests on a coupling device
known as a fifth wheel attached to the tractor frame so that part

of the weight of the cargo is borne by the power unit. A truck-
trailer, or "double bottom, " consists of a longer power unit with

an integral cargo-carrying body, in combination with a full

trailer which is towed behind the power unit. A combination made
up of a power unit and two trailing vehicles is known as a ”train. "
Tractors alone may cost as much as $25, 000, and complete "rigs"
may cost $50, 000. The cargo they carry is often valued at $100, 000
or more.

The drivers of these rigs are on their own practically all
the time; they are away from direct supervision, and must accept
responsibility for the equipment and cargo entrusted to them. Con-
siderable initiative and judgment are also required, not only because
of the value of the equipment and the freight, but also because
customers depend on safe and prompt delivery of the goods and
materials which are necessary for the Operation of their stores and
factories.
In many cases, the speed and flexibility of motor freight

» transportation have made it an integral link in the chain of continuous

production and distribution processes. At the same time, the

19
attendant reduction in warehousing places a premium on the
reliability of the service provided by the carrier.

Over-the-road drivers spend most of their working time
driving. Runs between terminals of a carrier and relay runs
rarely involve loading or unloading freight unless a pickup or
delivery is made at an intermediate point enroute. In terminal-
to-terminal or relay operations a driver's responsibility for the
vehicle and its load usually ends when the sealed trailer is
delivered to the destination terminal or is turned over to a relief
driver at a relay station.

Drivers such as steel haulers, household goods movers, and
others who make the complete movement of a load from its origin
to its destination, often have to assist or supervise the loading and
unloading of the freight. For these drivers, responsibility for the
cargo continues until it is accepted by the consignee. However,
these drivers generally arrange their schedules so that most of
their waiting time may be used for required rest periods. Thus,
they too spend most of their working time driving.

Much over-the-road driving is done at night to avoid traffic
congestion as well as to make early morning deliveries to destina-
tion points. Hours of work are generally quite irregular because
of variations in the length of runs, irregularity of demand for
service, and restraints upon driving time imposed by regulatory

agencies. Interstate Commerce Commission regulations provide

20

that no driver may drive more than 10 hours following eight
consecutive hours off duty, or drive for any period after having
been on duty 15 hours following eight consecutive hours off duty. 14
The regulations further provide that no driver shall be on duty
more than 60 hours in any seven consecutive days, except that
carriers operating vehicles every day in the week may permit
drivers to remain on duty for a total of not more than 70 hours
in any eight consecutive days. 15

Drivers subject to hours of service regulations are required
to maintain a continuous daily log of their time and work-related
activities. These include driving time, on-duty-not-driving time,
and time spent in a sleeper berth, as well as Off-duty time. 16
Hours of service include both driving time and on-duty-not-driving
time. The latter includes time spent in work-related activities
such as loading, unloading, waiting, inspecting, and the time during
which a driver is directly responsible for the equipment he Operates,
even though he is not actually driving. Over-the-road drivers

typically try to be conservative in their allocations of time to on-

duty-not-driving because these hours are counted in hours of

 

4Interstate Commerce Commission, Motor Carrier Safety
Re ulations (1952 ed. revised) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1965), sec. 195.3(a), p. 65.

 

15mm, sec 195.3(b), p. 65.

16Ibid., sec. 195.8. pp. 66-67.

21
service, thus reducing time available for actual driving.

To provide service within the regulatory framework, and
to meet the needs of their particular operations in terms of
lengths of runs, frequency, regularity and type of service pro-
vided, carriers have adopted a variety of methods of scheduling
runs, which have tremendous impact on the drivers' hours and
conditions of work.

Turn-around runs are usually established between points
which are close enough to enable a driver to complete a round trip
within ten hours driving time. Between more distant points which
may take up to ten hours driving one way, the driver must lay over
for the required eight hour rest period before making the trip back
to his home terminal. On regular through-runs of this type, which
keep a driver away from home for 24 hours or more, the carrier
provides sleeping accommodations in a company dormitory or at
a hotel. In recent years there has been an increasing tendency to
convert this type of run to a relay operation wherein two drivers
start out from Opposite ends of the run and meet at a designated
intermediate point to exchange rigs. Each driver then returns to
his home terminal with the load from the other terminal, completing
his run within the prescribed hours of service.

On very long distance runs, some carriers establish a two-
man operation to speed the movement of freight and to achieve

increased equipment utilization. In this type of Operation, two men

22
are assigned as a team to a tractor equipped with a built-in
sleeper berth in which one man may rest while the other is driv-
ing. These teams typically alternate between driving and resting
at four-hour intervals, with the time spent in an approved sleeper
berth being equivalent to Off-duty time in hours of service regula-
tions. 17 Total hours of service rules are applicable, however,
and provide some limitation on the length of a continuous tour of
duty. Even so, drivers on two-man operations may spend a major
part of their time away from home.

Because of the nature or direction of movement of a commodity,
the kind of equipment utilized, or limitations on the carrier's rights
to offer service, the transportation provided may be primarily a
one-way operation. Automobile transport, livestock hauling,
produce hauling from some areas, and much steel hauling are
examples. In such cases the driver, upon completing delivery of
a cargo, must "deadhead" home, that is, he must make the return
trip without a load. The hours of service regulations apply
equally to both parts of the run, but typically the driver selects
his own time and place to make necessary rest stOps within the
requirements of the regulations.

In certain kinds of irregular operations, such as household

goods moving and otherllong distance hauling over irregular routes

 

l7Ibid., sec. 195.3(a), p. 65.

23
where the driver handles the complete movement of freight from
origin to destination, prescheduling of the entire run is often
impossible. A tour of duty may involve a circuitous route, taking
from several days to several weeks to complete, with the driver
deciding the direction and duration of the tour after the initial
outbound load is delivered.

If a return load is not immediately available, he may elect
to wait for one; he may "deadhead" to another point to pick up a
load; or he may take an available load to another destination in
hopes of getting a homeward-bound load from that point. This type
of operation is often conducted by drivers who own their equipment
and are paid on the basis of tonnage hauled and miles traveled,
rather than on an hourly basis. Carriers in this type of Operation
usually develop a national dispatching system to provide loads for
their drivers to and from all parts Of the country. When a driver
does return home, he may take one or two days off for each week
spent on the previous trip before starting another run.

For over-the-road drivers subject to ICC regulation, safe
driving practices and safety of the equipment which they operate
are of primary importance. Drivers must inspect their vehicles
before and after each trip and make out a report on their condition

18

at the end of a run. In addition to a running log of daily activities,

 

IBI—m-g" secs’ 192"“ 192-8, 196.7 and 196.9. pp. 11.
73-75.

24
detailed reports of any accidents are required, 19 and special
precautions must be observed in transporting and handling
flammables, explosives, or other hazardous materials. 20 On
occasion, drivers may have to prepare way bills for the shipper,
collect transportation charges and C.O.D. payments, and obtain
signed delivery receipts from consignees.

Minimum qualifications for over-the-road drivers are pre-
scribed by the ICC. 21 A driver must be at least 21 years old,
able bodied, with good hearing, and vision of at least 20/40 with
or without glasses. He must be able to read and speak English,
and he must have at least one year's driving experience and a good
driving record.

Many companies establish requirements more stringent than
the prescribed minimum. For example, many companies will not
hire over-the-road drivers under age 25. 22 Some specify height
and weight limitations. Minimum educational requirements and
several years' experience driving the particular type of vehicles
a driver would be operating in over—the-road service are demanded

by a number of companies.

 

19%. SECS. 192.40(e) and sec. 194, pp, 16, 60-63,

201bid., sec. 197, pp. 76-78.

2
1Ibid., sec. 191, pp. 5—10.

22

Of 349 respondents in the survey sample, only two were
under 25 years of age.

25

Over-the-road driving is considered a senior driving job,
and most such drivers have had previous experience in local
driving, or in driving for private unregulated carriers. Very few
trucking companies offer extensive training programs for the
neophyte; however, in recent years specialized schools for train-
ing highway drivers have been developed in some areas. Of
course, a young man with some capital or good credit may some-
times circumvent the age and experience requirements by pur-
chasing a tractor and leasing it to a carrier as an owner-operator.

Inasmuch as over-the-road driving is the top operating job
in the trucking industry, opportunities for promotion are almost
non-existent. A few drivers may advance to jobs as safety super-
visors, driver supervisors, or dispatchers, but these jobs are
often unattractive because the starting pay is usually less than
driver wages. Most drivers can only look forward to moving up,
on the basis of seniority, to driving runs that provide increased
earnings or preferred schedules and working conditions. Also,
the Teamsters Union has been quite successful in maintaining and
improving wages of its members, thereby enhancing their position

relative to other occupations.

CHAPTER II

RESEARCH PROBLEM, CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK,

AND RESEARCH DESIGN

The Research Problem

 

This dissertation is primarily concerned with an explora-
tory investigation of the attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers
toward their work. It is based on the proposition that the environ-
ment within which over-the-road driving is performed and the
nature of the work itself may exert significant influences on their
attitudes.

From the foregoing description Of the industry and the job,
it is readily apparent that over-the-road truck driving differs in
significant aspects of its content and context from most factory
employment. Most notable among these differences are:

l. The actual work of an over-the-road truck driver is
done in isolation from fellow workers and supervisory
personnel. As a consequence, he has a considerable
amount of freedom as well as responsibility.

2. Despite his freedom from close supervision in the

26

27
performance of his work, an over-the-road driver is
under the direct or indirect jurisdiction of three distinct
entities: his employer, state and federal regulatory
agencies, and the Teamsters Union.

3. Most over-the-road drivers work irregular hours and
erratic schedules which do not conform to any orthodox
patterns of work and leisure.

4. Although over-the-road driving is the highest paid
operating job in the trucking industry, it is not part of
a formal hierarchy of jobs with opportunities for further
advancement, nor is it accorded any particular prestige
outside the industry itself.

These differences suggest that over-the-road driving involves

rather unique relationships between the driver, his work and its
environment, his fellow workers, his employer, and the environment
external to his work. In view of the fact that these relationships

are also interrelated and impinge upon one another, it becomes
obvious that no simple measure of occupational attitudes is adequate
to explore the complexities of this work situation.

During the preliminary planning stage of this research project,
several interviews were conducted with representatives of the
trucking industry and executives of a number of trucking companies
to explore the feasibility of the study itself, as well as the means

of collecting the data required to accomplish the purpose of the

28
research. It may be noted in passing that company executives
were generally receptive (although several were somewhat less
than enthusiastic) to the idea of an attitude survey of their employees--
providing that it did not cause any trouble with the Union.

In the course of these interviews it became apparent that
to conduct the research by means of personal interviews would be
virtually impossible. In the first place, the problems involved in
setting up interviews at the homes of respondents would be almost
insurmountable because of the irregularity of their work schedules
and the wide geographical dispersion of their residences. One
company, for example, employed drivers working from its Detroit
terminal who lived in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.
Other company executives were rather doubtful that the addresses
in their personnel files were the actual places of residence of many
of their drivers. At the same time, it was proposed that many
potential respondents might consider a home interview an intrusion
on their leisure time as well as an unwarranted invasion of their
privacy.

The possibility of conducting interviews at the companies'
terminals was also rejected. Many companies do not have facilities
suitable to the conduct of private interviews on the premises, and
if (available, they would have to be staffed by an interviewer on
almost a 24-hour basis over a period of time to meet most of the

prospective interviewees. It was also pointed out that some over-

29
the-road drivers rarely come to the companies' terminals; many
who do appear occasionally are not there long enough to participate
in an interview; and those who do hang around the terminal are
apt to have different attitudes and opinions about their work than
do those who do not. Consequently, the idea of personal interviews
as the means of collecting the desired data was abandoned in favor
of aquestionnaire survey.

This decision raised another set of problems, not the least
of which was again the problem of gaining access to potential
respondents. Opportunities to administer a questionnaire to groups
of over-the-road truck drivers are scarce. Although some com-
panies hold regular safety meetings which all drivers are supposed
to attend, personnel directors and safety supervisors revealed
that such meetings are not uniformly scheduled by all companies,
and that they are rather poorly attended in those companies that
do hold them. This finding suggests that those drivers who do
attend safety meetings might express quite different attitudes toward
their work than do those who do not attend. Consequently, it was
decided to forego the opportunities for a mass administration of
a questionnaire that might be available to avoid-the possible intro-
duction of bias into the data.

Preliminary interviews with industry representatives, then,
yielded two major guidelines for the development of the proposed

research project. First, the most feasible method of data collection

30

would be by a mailed questionnaire, even though there seemed to
be some doubt about the effectiveness of this approach. Several
industry representatives suggested that if their own experiences
with getting log-sheets turned in and accident reports completed
were any indicators, a ten percent response to a voluntary survey
questionnaire would be an Optimistic estimate. There was almost
a consensus that over-the-road truck drivers have an aversion for
paper work.

The second point on which there was almost universal agree-
ment was that it would be mandatory that the Teamsters Union
endorse the study before any attempt was made to establish contact
with potential respondents. It is interesting to note, with respect
to this point, many executives felt that an endorsement by the
company might have a negative influence on the drivers' willing-
ness to participate in the survey, whereas the Union's approval
would be essential to any success at all.

The decision to utilize a questionnaire for the collection of
the desired data immediately raised the problem of selecting an
instrument or instruments appropriate to the aims of the study
and within the capability and willingness of the subjects to answer.
To satisfy the requirements of the proposition that the nature of the
work and its environment may influence the attitudes of over-the-
road truck drivers; and to avoid, at the same time, a charge that

the design of the questionnaire dictated the desired responses, it

31
seemed imperative to select a measure or measures of job atti-
tudes that had been applied to more conventional occupations. To

this end attention is turned now to the literature in the field.

The Conceptual Framework

 

In the preceding chapter it was noted that efforts to define,
describe, and evaluate the relationship of man to his work have
been numerous and varied as to focus, technique, and results.
Aside from a plethora of philosophizing, moralizing, and impres-
sionistic writing about work congruous to the development of
various political, religious, and economic doctrines, very little
in the nature of systematic investigation was accomplished prior
to World War I.

The past fifty years, however, have been marked by an in-
creasing number of more or less "objective" attempts to find out
how the worker himself feels about his job and about work in
general. This increase has been so rapid that in the bibliographies
of a review of research and opinion on job attitudes to 1955, some

1500 items are listed.1 There is no evidence that the pace of

 

lFrederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, Richard O.
Peterson, and Dora F. Capwell, Job Attitudes: Review of Research
and Opinion (Pittsburgh: Psychological Service of Pittsburgh,

1957). It should be noted that the figure stated is the approximate
total of items listed at the end of all chapters of the book. Because
each chapter is a somewhat discrete unit reflecting a different
approach to the subject matter, there is of necessity considerable
duplication in the separate listings. On the other hand, the authors
make no claim that theirs is an exhaustive review of the literature.

 

 

32
investigation, nor even its rate of acceleration have diminished
in the last decade.

The magnitude of the task undertaken by Herzberg and his
associates can be better appreciated by considering briefly a few
of the problems with which they were confronted in their attempt
to bring some sort of order to the almost chaotic mass of research
evidence under examination. Besides the diversity of purpose and
methodology mentioned previously, a major difficulty in comparing
research results arose from the lack of consensus in defining
precisely what was being measured.

It may be fairly stated that the research purposes ranged
from simply trying to find out why workers quit their jobs, through
assessments of morale, motivation, and mental health, to attempts
to evaluate the place and importance of work in the total life
concept of individuals. Likewise, methods of investigation varied
from asking a single direct question such as "Why did you quit your
job? " to the utilization of depth interviews and projective techniques
intended to tap the innermost and Often unconscious feelings of
respondents. As a consequence, results of the researchers were
often stated in terms which made comparison extremely difficult.

Since Herzberg was more concerned with casting the results
of the studies into comparable form than with a critique of the
methods by which the data were obtained, relatively little attention

was given to the differences in purpose and methodology of the

33
studies reviewed. However, a contemporary study of motivation
and morale by Morris S. Viteles complements the work of

Herzberg in that more attention is addressed to the methodology

of data collection and its attendant problems. 2

Overshadowing and contributing to the diversity of research
evidence was, and still is, the problem identified by Robert Guion
as "confusion of concept" which "makes communication collapse
and argument inevitable. "3

To illustrate the extent of confusion in defining a single
concept, Professor Guion listed the following definitions in vogue
at the time:

Morale is the absence of conflict.
Morale is a feeling of happiness.
. Morale is good personal adjustment.
Morale is ego-involvement in one's job.
. Morale is the extent of "we feeling" or cohesiveness
of the group.
. Morale is a collection of job-related attitudes.
. Morale is the personal acceptance of the goals of the
group.
8. Morale is the extent to which an individual's needs are
satisfied and the extent to which the individual perceives
that satisfaction as stemming from his total job situation.

mitt-www-

\lO‘

Needless to say, the last of these definitions is the most pleasing to

Profes sor Guion.

 

2Morris S. Viteles, Motivation and Morale in Industry
(New York: W. W. Norton 8: Company, Inc., 1953). See especially
Chapter 12 for a concise , comprehensive discussion of employee-
attitude surveys.

 

3Robert M. Guion, "Industrial Morale-—The Problem of
Terminology," Personnel Psychology, XI (1958), 60.

 

41bid., 60-62.

34

In general, Frederick Herzberg accommodated this diversity
by equating job attitudes, in whatever terms defined in the litera-
ture, with job satisfaction. That this method is not unusual even
today is well stated by Professor Victor Vroom:

The terms job satisfaction and job attitudes are typically
used interchangeably. Both refer to affective orienta-

tions on the part of individuals toward work roles which they
are presently occupying. Positive attitudes toward the job
are conceptually equivalent to job satisfaction and negative
attitudes toward the job are equivalent to job dissatisfaction. 5

The problem of classifying evidence from the studies for
tabulation and comparison was solved by separating the studies
into two categories. Studies which attempted a broad general
assessment of job satisfaction were separated from those which
were primarily concerned with identifying specific elements of
the job or work environment that seemed to contribute to the
development of favorable or unfavorable attitudes.

Herzberg noted that studies in the first category generally
included three types of questions. First, I'Are you satisfied with
your job? " Second, "If you could do it over, would you go into
the same job?" Third, "Are you interested in your job? " Although

the wording of questions varies, all are aimed at evoking a global

assessment by the individual of his feelings about his job. 6

 

5Victor H‘. Vroom, Work and Motivation (New York: John
Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964), p. 99.

 

6Herzberg, et a1., op. cit., p. 2. Herzberg's second cate-
gory of studies consisted of some 155 researches conducted between

35
Questions such as these provide the basis for the determination of
the prevalence of job dissatisfaction in the intermittent reviews of

job satisfaction research which appear in Personnel and Guidance

 

Journal. 7

The forerunner of these reviews was reported in 1935 by
Robert Hoppock in conjunction with his own study of job attitudes
in New Hope, Pennsylvania. 8 Hoppock's examination of 32 studies
yielded 77 separate percentages which, in his words, "might con-
ceivably be considered to indicate the proportion of dissatisfied
workers in the various samplings. " A simple average of the 77
percentages yielded a mean of 26 percent and a median Of 19 per-
9

cent of workers dissatisfied with their jobs.

By 1953 the cumulative median of 266 percentages had

 

1920 and 1954. From these the reviewers identified 134 descrip-
tive phrases or "aspects" of the job situation which could be sub-
sumed under ten major headings or "job factors. " Because these
factors were found to contribute in varying degrees to the develop
ment of both favorable and unfavorable job attitudes on the part of
workers, it was decided that this methodology is beyond the scope
of the present research. Therefore, this category of studies will
not be discussed in detail in this report.

7The first ten reviews appeared in Occupations between
April, 1938 and May, 1952. Beginning in September, 1953, they
appeared in Personnel and Guidance Journal. For the most recent
review see H. Alan Robinson, Ralph P. Connors, and G. Holly
Whitacre, "Job Satisfaction Researches of 1964-65, ” Personnel and

 

 

 

Guidance Journal, XLV (December, 1966), 371-79.

 

8Robert Hoppock, Job Satisfaction (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1935).

 

91bid., p. 215.

36

decreased to 13 percent dissatisfied workers. In the most
recent review the cumulative total had risen to 494 percentages
with the median percentage of dissatisfied workers holding stable
at 13 percent. 10

Both the validity and the utility of such global assessments
of job satisfaction have been questioned repeatedly. Herzberg
notes that the percentage of respondents dissatisfied seems to
vary from study to study according to the type of question used.
He further suggests that the use of a dichotomy of "yes" or "no"
responses to the "Are you satisfied with your job?" type of ques-
tion pmhes workers who are only partly satisfied with their jobs
into the satisfied category of respondents. 11

Herzberg's examination of the literature revealed that
workers in lower level occupatiOns are the least satisfied with
their jobs. Since lower status jobs predominate in business and
industry, the H0ppock-Robinson estimate of the level of dissatis—
faction among all workers is probably understated to the extent
that the makeup of individual samples included in the estimate are
disproportional to the numbers of workers in the various occupa-
tional levels. 12

In a perceptive but less extensive review of the literature,

Robert Blauner suggests that over-all assessments of job attitudes

 

10H. Alan Robinson, et al., op. cit., p. 372.
11 . 12 .
Herzberg, et a1., Op. c1t., p. 4. Ibid.

37

are apt to be distorted by a cultural bias toward indicating con-
tentment. He comments as follows:

There is a certain naivete in expecting frank and simple

answers to job satisfaction questions in a society where

one's work is so important a part of one's self that to

demean one's job is to question one's very competence

as a person. 1
Blauner concludes that even though it is difficult to reject evidence
that a sizable majority of American workers are at least moderately
satisfied in their work, in his words,

. . such a finding is neither particularly surprising nor

sociologically interesting. Under "normal" conditions there

is a natural tendency for people to identify with, or at least

to be somewhat positively oriented toward, those social

arrangements in which they are implicated. 14

In spite of these qualifications, two conclusions evolve from

the studies of the over-all level of job satisfaction which appear to
be of considerable interest and importance within the framework of
the present research. The first of these, noted by both Herzberg
and Blauner, is that job satisfaction tends to vary with occupational
level. Herzberg states his conclusion as follows:

One unequivocal fact emerges from the studies of job satis-

faction; the higher the level of occupation, the higher the

morale. Of the 18 studies in which evidence as to level of

occupation is presented, only one fails to report higher job
satisfaction at higher levels. The 17 positive studies cover

 

l3Robert Blauner, "Work Satisfaction and Industrial Trends
in Modern Society," Labor and Trade Unionism, ed. Walter
Galenson and Seymour Lipsit (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
1960), p. 355.

14Ibid., p. 341.

 

38

a wide range of occupations ranging from unskilled
laborers through professional and managerial positions. 15

Blauner similarly reports:

When a scale of relative job satisfaction is formed,
based on general occupational categories, the resulting
rank order is almost identical with the most commonly
used occupational status c1assification--the Edwards Scale
of the Bureau of the Census. 16

Of even greater singificance to the present study is the con—
clusion evolving from Blauner's qualifications of the foregoing
statement:

Although this generalization is, to an impressive extent,
supported by the evidence, it does not hold unfailingly. We
can note occupations with relatively high prestige whose
general level of satisfaction is lower than would be expected,
whereas some low-status jobs seem to be highly satisfying. 17

In a different but related context, Blauner also comments:

Although railroading is a high-status industrial occupation--
railroaders have historically been part of the labor aris-
tocracy-~its occupational prestige is below most white-collar
occupations. On the other hand, truck driving is a lower-
status manual occupation (truck drivers are classified as semi-
skilled operatives by the census, and the popular stereotypes
of this occupation are somewhat derogatory), and yet in the
Hoppock survey the satisfaction of truck drivers .outranked

all industrial occupations except railroading and was approxi-
mately the same level as.that of salesmen. 8

Blauner's reference is to H0ppock's original study of job

satisfaction in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Although this study

 

15Herzberg, et al., op. cit., p. 21.

17

16Blauner, op. cit., p. 341. Ibid., p. 345.

18Ibid., p. 348.

39
included only five truck drivers (not otherwise identified), the
implications of the findings would seem to require the inclusion of
a measure of job satisfaction in the present survey questionnaire. 19

It becomes obvious, however, that, alone, a measure of job
satisfaction is an inadequate determinant of workers' attitudes
toward their work. Three specific clues to this inadequacy are
provided by Blauner. Although two Of these have been cited pre-
viously, they are worthy of repetition.

First, Blauner suggests that there is a natural tendency for
people to identify with, or at least to be somewhat positively oriented
toward, those social arrangements in which they are implicated. 20
In the context of this statement, Blauner is implying that "identi-
fication with" and "positive orientation toward" work as a social
arrangement are virtually synonymous with job satisfaction.

In another comment Blauner points directly to the inadequacy
of job satisfaction as an over-all indicator of occupational attitudes
as follows:

But, work has mficant positive meaning to persons

who do not find overall satisfaction in their immediate job.
A still viable consequence of the Protestant ethic in our

society is that its work ethic (the notion of work as a call-
ing, an obligation to one's family, society, and self-respect,

 

 

 

19Robert Hoppock, op. cit., pp. 237ff. The questions used
by the author to construct his Job Satisfaction Index are presented
in Appendix A.

20Blauner, op. cit., p. 341.

40
if no longer to God), retains a powerful hold. 21

Blauner's third clue to the inadequacy of job satisfaction
questions, alone, appears in his reference to the influence of a
cultural bias toward reporting satisfaction (see above, p. 37).
Here he refers to the importance of one's work to one's self as
being something distinct from job satisfaction.

The concepts implicit in these comments provide the rationale
for the selection of the research instruments used in this explora-
tion into the occupational attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers.

It must be noted that the foregoing comments by Blauner are
not unique. As a matter of fact, they are typical of almost the
entire field of job attitude literature. For example, four years
prior to Blauner's study, Robert Dubin, in the introduction to his
own research report, remarked:

It is a commonplace to note that work has long been

considered a central life interest for adults in most
societies, and certainly in the Western world. Indeed,
the capitalist system itself is asserted to rest upon the
moral and religious justification that the Reformation

gave to work, as Weber and Tawney have pointed out. 22

Dubin continued, however, with this comment:

 

21M 1 P- 353. Italics are Blauner's.

zZRobert Dubin, "Industrial Workers' Worlds: A Study of
the 'Central Life Interests' of Industrial Workers, " Social
Problems, III (January, 1956), 131. Dubin's references preceded
his writing by nearly 30 years. They are: R. H. Tawney,
Relijgm and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, 1926),
and Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(London: Geo. Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1930).

 

 

 

41
Our research shows that for almost three out of every four
industrial workers studied, work and the workplace are not
central life interests. 23
In this report, published about the same time as the Herzberg
review of the literature on job attitudes, Dubin not only takes issue
with the validity of the Protestant ethic, but he questions the utility
of management activity in personnel and industrial relations directed
at "restoring work to the status of a central life interest. " He
further challenges the efforts of "human relationists" whose major
purpose is to "center primary human relationships in work and make
it functional for productivity. "24
The bases for these criticisms are the results of a study of
491 workers in three diversified manufacturing plants located in
different urban midwestern communities. The results were obtained
by the administration of a 40-item Central Life Interests question-
naire designed "to determine whether the job and workplace were
central life interests of workers or whether other areas of their
social experience were important to them. "25
The forty items dealt with four categories of experience:
formal aspects of membership and behavior in organizations, tech-
nological aspects of the environment, informal group life experi-

ences, and general everyday experiences. According to Dubin,

Each question represented an activity that had an approxi-
mately equal likelihood of occurring in connection with

 

23M: 241bid., p. 140. 251bid., p. 134.

42

some aspect of the job or workplace, or at some definite
point in the community outside of work. 26

With a third choice added to represent an indifferent or
neutral answer, responses to each question were individually
scored as job-oriented, non-job-loriented or indifferent, according
to the respondent's expressed preference for a given locale or
situation in carrying out the designated activity. Responses to the
items in each of the four categories were summed and similarly
scored. Respondents who selected a job-oriented response to at
least 50 percent of the items in each category, and those who had
at least 70 percent of their answers made up of job-oriented and
indifferent responses with at least 40 percent job-oriented, were
designated as job-oriented workers. Those workers who did not
meet either of these criteria were classified as non-job-oriented.
The same criteria were used to determine whether a respondent was
classified as job-oriented or non-job-oriented in his total pattern
of responses to all forty questions. 27

Dubin developed theoretical support for his study from two
basic axioms: (1) social experience is inevitably segmented, that
is, the social world of urban man is continuously subdivided into
areas of activity and interest, with each social segment lived out

more or less independently of the rest, and (2) an individual's social

participation may be necessary in one or more sectors of his social

 

2611nd. 271bid.

experience but may not be important to him.

43

28

From these two axioms Dubin derived three general proposi-

tions which, in turn, generated five testable hypotheses. The

propositions, hypotheses, and empirical findings in support of

the hypotheses are as follows:

1. Proposition:

Hypothesis:

Ldeasure:

Finding:

2. Proposition:

. individuals will exhibit adequate
social behavior in sectors of social experi-
ence in which participation is mandatory
but not valued.

. a significant proportion of industrial
workers will be classified as non-job-
oriented when central life interest is
measured with the CLI questionnaire.

The entire 40 item CLI questionnaire.

. only 24 percent of all the workers
studied could be labelled job-oriented in
their life interests. Thus, three out of
four of this group of industrial workers
did not see their jobs and work places as
central life interests for themselves.

They found their preferred human associa-
tions and preferred areas of behavior out-
side of employment.

. an individual's attachment to a situa-
tion in which his social experience is not
valued by him will be to the most physically
and directly obvious characteristics of
that situation.

 

281bid., p. 132.

29Dubin assumes that continued employment is evidence of
the adequacy of social behavior at work and that holding a paying
job is evidence of conformity both to societal mandates that most
male adults should work for a living, and to the imperatives and
requirements of the job.

Hypothe sis:

Measure:

Finding:

Hypothe sis:

Measure:

Finding:

Proposition:

Hypothe sis:

hdeasure:

Finding:

44

. a significant proportion of industrial
workers will score job-oriented for their
organizational experience when measured
on the organizational section of the CLI
schedule.

Seven items of the CLI questionnaire.

More than three out of five of the workers
were scored as job-oriented with respect
to their experiences in organizations:7 61
percent chose their companies as the most
meaningful context to them when their life
experiences in organizations were brought
into focus.

. a significant preportion of industrial
workers will be job-oriented for their
experiences with technological aspects of
their environments when measured on the
technological section of the CLI question-
naire.

Ten items of the CLI questionnaire.

In the technological sector, 63 percent of

the respondents were scored as job-oriented.
. almost two out of three of the workers

studied identified their workplace as the

locale of their preferred relationships with

the purely technical aspects of their environ-

ment.

. primary human relations take place
only in situations where social experience
is valued by the individual.

. a significant proportion of industrial
workers [will be] non-job-oriented with
respect specifically to informal group ex-
periences when measured on the relevant
portion of the CLI questionnaire.

Fourteen items of the CLI questionnaire.

Only 9 percent of the industrial workers in
the sample prefer the informal group life

45

that is centered in the job. Nine out of
ten of those studied clearly indicated that
their preferred informal human associa-
tions and contacts were found in the com-
munity, among friends, and in the family.

Hypothesis: . . . a significant proportion Of industrial
workers will not respond to work as a
valued social experience when this is tested
by the general experience sector of the
CLI questionnaire.

Measure: Nine items of the CLI questionnaire.

Finding: Only 15 percent of the workers give job-
oriented preferences. The rest--about
eleven in thirteen—-saw experiences of
theirs that were sampled in the study as
taking place somewhere away from the
workplace. 30

On the basis of these findings, Dubin concludes:

The industrial workers' world is one in which work and
the workplace are not central life interests for a vast
majority. In particular, work is not a central life interest
for industrial workers when we study the informal group
experiences and the general social experiences that have some
affective value for them. Industrial man seems to perceive
his life history as having its center outside of work for his
intimate human relationships and for his feelings of enjoy-
ment, happiness, and worth. On the other hand, for his
experiences with the technological aspects of his life space
and for his participation in formal organizations, he clearly
recognizes the primacy of the workplace. In short, he has
a well-developed sense of attachment to his work and work-
place without a corresponding sense of total commitment to
it.

 

30_I_b_i£1_-. pp. 135-38. These propositions, hypotheses, and

findings were scattered throughout the pages noted. They have
been grouped here for expository purposes.

31Ibid., p. 140.

46
This research has since been replicated a number of times,
and includes separate studies of Registered Nurses, 32 Cooperative
Extension Agents, 33 Industrial Education Teachers, 34 Industrial

35 and Lumber Workers. 36 The results

Production Supervisors,
of these researches are summarized in Table 2.1.

The results of these studies are presented here, not for
the purpose of detailed comparison, but primarily to illustrate that
the Central Life Interests schedule does discriminate among
different occupational groups. In one of the first replications of
Dubin's study, Louis Orzack reported that "for four out of every

five nurses studied, work and the workplace are central life

interests. "37 Except for a slight preference for non-work settings

 

32Louis H. Orzack, "Work as a 'Central Life Interest' of
Professionals," Social Problems, VII, No. 2 (Fall, 1959), 135-32.

 

3'3Raymond R. Ranta, "The Professional Status of the
Michigan Cooperative Extension Service" (Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1960).
34Hilding E. Nelson, "Occupational Self-Images of Teachers:
A Study of the Occupational Involvements and Work Role Orienta-
tions of Michigan Industrial Education Teachers" (Unpublished
Ed.D. thesis, Dept. of Education, Michigan State University, 1962).
35John G. Maurer, "Work as a 'Central Life Interest' of
Industrial Supervisors, " forthcoming in Academy of Manafiment
Journal, XI, No. 3 (September, 1968).

 

3()Nelson, op. cit. Data from an unpublished study of 400
lumber workers by Kenji Ima, provided by Dr. Robert Dubin.

37Orzack, op. cit., p. 127.

47

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48
as a source of informal social relations, the nurses scored heavily
job-oriented in terms of general social experiences, formal work
relations and technological experiences (column 2 of Table 2.1).
On the basis of his study, Orzack concludes:
The differences between Dubin's findings for industrial

workers and the current findings for professional nurses

imply a greater commitment to work by these and perhaps

other professionals. Many facets of the professionals' lives

are affected by the nature of their work and the extent of

their commitment to it and to their places of work. Work is

obviously a highly-valued, demanding and important feature

of the many roles played in our society by professionals. 38

Work and the workplace are central life interests for an even
greater percentage of the Cooperative Extension Agents included
in Ranta's study (column 1 of Table 2.1). The agents studied also
scored correspondingly larger percentages job-oriented on the
sub-sectors of the CLI schedule.

Perhaps the most striking facet of Table 2. 1 is the similarity
between the CLI scores and general status ranking of the occupa-
tions. Large percentages of workers in the at least semi-pro-
fessional occupations are scored as job—oriented, as opposed to
the small percentages of job-oriented respondents in the manual
occupations, with Maurer's Production Supervisors standing inter-
mediate to the two extremes. Except for the Industrial Education

Teachers, the CLI scores reported suggest a pattern such as that

reported for job satisfaction levels by Herzberg and his associates,

 

331bid., p. 131.

49
and by Robert Blauner.

This suggestion raises the question as to what kind of
responses might be expected when this instrument is administered
to over-the-road truck drivers. On the one hand, if the results
presented in Table 2. l truly represent a pattern, it would be
expected that CLI patterns for over-the-road drivers would be
similar to those of Dubin's industrial workers. On the other hand,
if over-the-road drivers digress from the norm with this instrument
as suggested by Blauner with respect to job satisfaction, one might
expect considerably larger percentages of these subjects to be
scored as job-oriented on the CLI schedule. Despite the fact that
prediction of the outcome Of its application to the present research
problem is impossible, the Central Life Interests questionnaire
would appear to add a distinctive dimension to the exploration of
occupational attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers.

It is not to be implied, however, that Dubin's Central Life
Interests questionnaire is universally accepted as 313 measure of
occupational attitudes. It has, in fact, been subjected to several
criticisms with respect to both methodology and results. Prominent
among its critics are Harold Wilensky, Arthur Kornhauser, and
Robert Blauner.

Wilensky suggests that the measure may be weak. He feels

that

50

Dubin's assumption that each question represents an activity
that is as likely to occur "in connection with some aspect of
the job or workplace" as "at some definite point in the com-
munity outside of work" seems dubious. Also, it is possible
that a friendship in the neighborhood or a social club was
originally formed in the workplace, and many "community"
answers should have been coded "job oriented. "39

In spite of his criticism, Wilensky reports that his own research,
"which relates feelings about work to actual patterns of social

life, supports Dubin's polemic: . . . the core of life for most men

in the middle mass is not the job. "40

In a similar vein, Kornhauser Offers the following criticism
of Dubin's study:

In our opinion, the methods and data of that research do not
all justify the conclusion that work is not of central significance
for workers. What the results indicate is that workers find
their Lleasures and intimatflersonal relationshifi more in
non-work situations than at work. A clear distinction must
be made between the subjective importance of work and the
satisfactions it provides. Dubin defines "central life interest"
to refer to "expressedpreferences" for work relationships.
Our own results, on the other hand, indicate how large the
job looms in the worker's life, including its negative implica-
tions as well as the positive, and including feelings about the
job's importance as a source of economic gratifications, its
contribution to a sense of personal worth, and its implica-
tions regarding the worker's place in the community.41

 

 

 

 

39Harold L. Wilensky, "Varieties of Work Experience, "
Institute of Industrial Relations, Reprint No. 231 (Berkeley:
University of California, 1964), p. 152. Reprinted from Henry
Borow (ed.), Man in a World of Work (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1964), pp. 125-54.

4°1bid.

41
Arthur Kornhauser, Mental Health of the Industrial Worker:
A Detroit Study (New York: John Wiley 8: Sons, Inc. , 1965), p. 328.

51
Blauner's criticism of the Dubin study focuses primarily on
the basic axiom that social experience is inevitably segmented and
that the various segments are relatively independent. He comments

as follows:

It is fashionable to argue that work alienation is not an
important present or potential problem because work has
lost its former position as "the central life-interest, " particu-
larly for manual workers. It is the hope of many that the
opportunities for self-expression and creativity denied by
modern technology and bureaucracy can be found again in the
freely chosen pursuits of leisure time. . . . The problem
with the leisure solution is that it underestimates the fact
that work remains the single most important life activity for
most people, in terms of time and energy, and ignores the
subtle ways in which the quality of one's worklife affects the
quality of one's leisure, family relations, and basic self-
feelings.

Now it must be noted that the research problems with which
these critics were dealing at the time, as well as their respective
frames of reference, were distinctly different from Dubin's inquiry
into his subjects' "expressed preferences for a given locale or
situation in carrying out an activity. "

Wilensky was primarily concerned with the measurement of
work alienation-indifference-attachment in terms of the impact and
importance of specific features of the work situation upon five

attributes of his interviewees' self images. 43

 

42Robert Blauner, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory
Worker and His Industg (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1864), pp. 183-84.

 

 

4t3Wilensky, op. cit., p. 140.

52
Kornhauser, in addition to the differences pointed out in
the quotation above, comments as follows:
. it [work] also performs essential psychologicalfunc-
tions. It Operates as a great stabilizing, integrating, ego-
satisfying central influence in the pattern of each person's
life. If the job fails to fulfill these needs of the personality,
it is problematic whether men can find adequate substitutes
to provide a sense of significance and achievement, pur-
pose and justification for their lives.44
With this kind of a predisposition, it is understandable that
Kornhauser would be critical of research findings which, in his
eyes, appear to disagree. However, he offers as evidence of the
psychological salience of the job for his sample of factory workers
the finding that in response to broad questions asking how the
individual feels about his life and the way it has been working
out, 26 percent of the volunteered comments referred to the man's
job, in contrast to 74 percent pertaining to other sectors of his
life interests. Again, by counting only those topics that respondents
particularly stressed or mentioned repeatedly, 22 percent of their
salient ideas referred to the job while 78 percent dealt with other
sectors of their life interests. 45
Blauner, on the other hand, appears to be more critical of

the extent to which Dubin and others have generalized the results

of the Central- Life Interests questionnaire to all industrial workers

 

45

44Kornhauser, op. cit., p. 7. Ibid., p. 8.

53

than he is of the methodology of the study itself. 46

According to
Blauner, his own comparative analyses of alienating tendencies
in four different industrial settings show that an employee's
industry decides the nature of his work and affects the meaning
which that work has for him. He further concludes that the‘indus-
try in which a man is employed

. . . greatly influences the extent to which he is free in his

work life and the extent to which he is controlled by technology

or supervision. It also influences his opportunity for personal

growth and development--to learn, to advance, to take on

responsibility. His industry even affects the kind of social

personality he deve10ps, since an industrial environment

tends to breed a distinctive type. 47

Considered together, these opposing views immediately

suggest an additional dimension of the problem of job attitude mea-

surement. Wilensky's concept of self-image, Kornhauser's concept

 

46That such criticism is not entirely unjustified is amply

evidenced in Dubin's own conclusions from his reserch findings
(see above, p. 45). From his usage of the terms one can either
conclude that "factory workers" are the only kind of "industrial
workers" there are, or that his findings pertaining to factory
workers are indeed applicable to workers in all other industries.
Dubin also appears to go beyond the sc0pe of his research evidence
in his observation that "Factory work may now very well be
viewed by industrial workers as a means to an end-~a way of
acquiring income for life‘in the community. The factory as a
locale for living out a lifetime seems clearly secondary to other
areas of central life interest. The factory and factory work as
sources of personal satisfaction, pride, satisfying human asso-
ciations, perhaps even of pleasure in expressing what Veblen
called the 'instinct of workmanship, ' seem clearly subordinated
in the American scene. " (p. 135)

4:7Blauner, Alienation and Freedom, op. cit., p. 166.

 

54
of ego-satisfaction, and Blauner's concept of alienation, all
suggest an evaluation of one's work role from a different perspec-
tive than that involved in either a measure of job satisfaction or
the Central Life Interests schedule. Unfortunately, none of the
studies cited employed, for that part of their research, a tech-
nique adaptable to the needs of the present project.

Both Kornhauser and Wilensky collected their data from
extensive personal interviews with their subjects, while Blauner
combined participant-observation with data from secondary sources
for his comparative analyses in four industries.

However, the concepts embodied in the foregoing criticisms
of Dubin's study appear to provide the framework upon which
Lodahl and Kejner construct their Job-Involvement Scale. 48 They
define job-involvement first, as "the degree to which a person is
identified psychologically with his work, or the importance of work

49

in his total self-image. " They further state that "job involve-
ment is the internalization of values about the goodness of work
or the importance of work in the worth of the person. "50 They
further comment that for this work, "job involvement was defined

as the degree to which a person's work performance affects his

self-esteem. "51

 

48Thomas M. Lodahl and Mathilde Kejner, "The Definition
and Measurement of Job Involvement," Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, XLIX, No. l (1965), 24-33.

50 51
49Ibid. , 24. ‘ Ibid. Ibid. , 25.

 

 

55
In support of their conceptualization Lodahl and Kejner note
its similarity to Allport's concept of ego—involvement, French and
Kahn's ego-involved performance, and Guion's definition of morale
as ego involvement. In summarizing, they assert:
These definitions have a common core of meaning in that
they describe the job-involved person as one for whom work
is a very important part of life, and as one who is affected
very much personally by his whole job situation: the work
itself, his co-workers, the company, etc. On the other hand,
the non-job-involved worker does his living off the job. Work
is not as important a part of his psychological life. His
interests are elsewhere, and the core of his self-image, the
essential part of his identity, is not greatly affected by the
kind of work he does or how well he does it. 5
Considerable evidence of the "conceptual confusion" referred
to by Guion (see above, page 33) appears in Lodahl and Kejner's
development of the framework for their study. In the present
instance, apparently legitimate criticisms of Dubin's Central Life
Interests formulation give rise to the search for a measure of job-
involvement. Now Lodahl and Kejner, in their approach to the
construction of such a measure, draw theoretical support from
Dubin's research.
Furthermore, Lodahl and Kejner assert that job involvement
"operationalizes the 'Protestant Ethic. "'53 At the same time,
Dubin, whose research they cite in support of their conceptualiza-

tion of job involvement, strongly implies that his findings refute

those very tenets (see above, page 45). However, in spite of this

 

53

52Ibid. Ibid.

 

56

confusion, there is further evidence that the Lodahl-Kejner approach
to the measurement of job attitudes does, in fact, differ from
Dubin's.

The rationale for a distinction between the conceptualizations
of Dubin's Central Life Interests questionnaire and the Lodahl-
Kejner Job Involvement Scale is contained in Friedmann and
Havighurst's distinction between the functions of work and its
meanings for the individual. According to the authors, the func-
tions or characteristics of any job include the provision of income
or economic return, the regulation of life-activity, the identifica-
tion of the person in his group (status), the fixing of patterns of
association, and the provision of a set of meaningful life-experiences,
i.e. , a source of contacts with persons, objects, and ideas. 54

Although these functions are posited as being found in any
work situation, Friedmann and Havighurst propose that the signifi-
cance of the job, as interpreted by the worker himself, varies
first according to his recognition of the functions of the job and
the importance which he attaches to them. 55 The importance of

work as a source of meaningful life-experiences is, of course, the

basis for Dubin's Central Life Interests questionnaire.

 

54Eugene A. Friedmann and Robert J. Havighurst, The

Meani‘gg of Work and Retirement (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1954), p. 4.

 

55Ibid., p. 5.

57

The significance of the job also varies according to the type
of evaluation the worker makes of his work. All the functions of
work are surrounded by a cluster of emotional experiences. From
the job the worker; derives such feelings as success, failure,
accomplishment, frustration, good fellowship, aesthetic pleasure,
and boredom. 56 The direction and strength of these types of
emotional experiences appear to provide the content of the worker's
psychological identification with his work and the importance of
his work to his total self-image. In other words, these are the
means by which the worker can test his self-esteem in the workplace.

The Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement Scale was constructed by
submitting a list of 87 statements potentially related to job involve-
ment to a panel of 22 "expert" judges who were instructed to judge
each statement as to the degree of job involvement it expressed.
On the basis of their ratings, 40 items with low Q values and medians
tending toward the extremes of the distribution were retained. 57

These 40 items were cast into a Likert-type format with four
categories of response (strongly agree, agree, disagree, and
strongly disagree; scored 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively). This 40-

item scale was administered to 137 nursing personnel in a large

general hospital. Total scores summed over the 40 items were

 

56Ibid., p. o

57Lod’ahl and Kejner, op. cit., p. 26.

58

obtained and together with the data from the individual items were
intercorrelated and factor analyzed. 58

On the basis of these results, the scale was reduced to 20
items and administered to 70 engineers in an advanced development
laboratory. 59 The final 20 {items were also rescored for the
sample of nursing personnel to make the two sets of data comparable.
Analysis revealed low inter-item correlations (averaging about . 17)
and relatively highitem-total correlations. Asia result, most of
the variance in total job-involvement score appeared on the first
(unrotated) principal axis. 60 Similarity of factoral structure suggests
that job involvement has at least three dimensions: (1) non-acceptance
of items expressing very high involvement, (2) an indifferent response
to work, and (3) for nurses, duty-bound positive involvement; for
engineers, a rejection of extra duties and of the notion of work as a
measure of self. 61

The authors conclude that the reliability of the 20-item scale
is adequate although not extremely high. Validity is indicated in
that the scale discriminates among groups and has plausible corre-

62

lations with other variables.

 

531bid., p. 27.

59The 20 ~item scale is presented in Appendix B.

62
601b1d., p. 28. 6111nd,, p. 30. Ibid., p. 32.

59

Research Design and Procedure

In Chapter I it was stated that in conjunction with this investi-
gation of occupational attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers,
selected characteristics of their background and socio-economic
status would be examined for possible relationships to their attitudes
and occupational choice. To this end, the questionnaire included a
number of questions designed to elicit specific information which
might exert an influence on the occupational attitudes under investi-
gation. However, it would seem to be almost equally important to

know that such influences do not exist if that is the case.

63

The Que stionnaire

The research questionnaire consisted of two parts. Part I
was made up of questions pertaining to specific characteristics of
the respondents and selected members of their families. The
information requested included the following:

What is your present age?

. At what age did you become completely self-supporting?
What was your first full-time job? ~

. At what age did you get your first job in the trucking

industry?

What was your first job in the trucking industry?

How many years have you been an over-the-road truck

driver?

7. How many years have you been driving for your present

employer?

.1:me

C‘U1

 

6 . . .
3The questionnaire included a number of items which have
no relevance to the present problem; therefore, the entire ques-
tionnaire is not presented here.

60

8. How many trucking companies have you worked for full-—
time?
9. How many full-time jobs have you had outside of the
trucking industry?
10. Are you single, married, widowed, divorced, or separated?
11. How many other persons depend on you for a major part
of their support?
12. Do you own your home, rent, live with relatives, room or
board?
13. List the organizations you belong to and check the ones
you attend regularly and the ones you hold, or have held,
office in.
14. What is the highest grade of school completed by you, your
your wife, your father, and your mother?
15. What is, or was, the major occupation of your father, your
father's father, and your wife's father:
Unskilled worker or farm hand
Semiskilled worker or machine operator
Skilled craftsman or mechanic
Truck or bus driver
Policeman, fireman, mailman, custodian or guard
Farm owner or manager
Foreman or supervisor
Office worker or salesman
Junior or minor executive
Owner of small business (sales under $100,000)
Owner of large business (sales over $100, 000)
Profession (Engineer, Teacher, Doctor, Lawyer, etc.)
Career military service
Other occupation
16. What is your total annual income (before taxes) from your
work?
17. What is your religious preference?

Questions 3 and 5 provided blank spaces for the respondents
to write in their first full-time job and their first job in the trucking
industry, respectively. These responses were coded according to
the check list provided for the occupations of others in the respond-
ent's family (question 15). Question 16 provided a check list of
incomes in brackets of $2,000 from $5,000 tol"More than $21, 000. ..

Two of the measures of occupational attitudes used in the

61

survey were‘included in Part I of the questionnaire. The first of
these consisted of an abbreviated version of the Lodahl-Kejner
Job Involvement Scale. This scale is made up of items 3, 6, 8, 11,
15, and 18 of the 20-item scale presented in Appendix B. These
items were selected by the authors because they had the highest
loadings on the first (unrotated) principal component in the 20-item
analyses of both their samples. 64

When these six items were rescored as a single scale for
both the engineers and nursing personnel, the corrected split—half
correlation yielded a reliability estimate of . 73. The correlation
between the 6-item total and the 20-item total is . 87. Lodahl and
Kejner conclude that with about 76 percent of the variance in the
20-item total accounted for in the six items, it is reasonable to
substitute the 6-item scale where space is at a premium. 65

The 6-item scale was administered and scored exactly as
specified by Lodahl and Kejner in their original study except that
in the present study the item scores are reversed so that high
scores on positively worded items indicate stronger agreement
with the item, and a high score on the one negatively stated item
indicates stronger disagreement with the statement.

The scale was preceded in the questionnaire by the following

instructions:

 

65

64Lodhal and Kejner, op. cit., p. 30. Ibid.

62
Read each of the following statements carefully and place
a check in the column which best expresses your own feelings
about the statement. If none of the choices exactly fits your
feelings right now, check the one that shows how you feel

about each statement most of the time. Please check one and
only one choice for each statement.

The second attitude measure included in this section of the
questionnaire consisted of four questions dealing with the respondent's
feelings and opinions about his work in comparison to other fields
of work:66

Compared to other possible fields of work, how satisf in is
your work in trucking?

How sure do you feel that you will stay in the trucking industry
until you retire?

How easily could you be persuaded to go into some field other
than trucking?

How often do you think you might like some other work better
than truck driving?

The respondent had a choice of checking "Very, " "Fairly, " "Not
very, " and "Not at all" in response to the questions cited above.
A detailed presentation of the rationale and interpretation of
these questions will be reserved to Chapter IV where the results
are presented. For the present it is sufficient to note that this
measure combines the standard "satisfaction" question, which has

been subjected to so much criticism, with other questions which,

 

66These questions were adapted from "The Cornell Study of
the Hospital Administrator" (an undated, unpublished questionnaire,
Sloan Institute of Hospital Administration, Graduate School of
Business and Public Administration, Cornell University, Ithaca,
N. Y.), p. 9.

63
taken together, provide a longer time perspective for the considera-
tion of job satisfaction as well as the opportunity to express dis-
satisfaction without self-castigation.

Part II of the questionnaire is devoted entirely to the pre—
sentation of Dubin's Central Life Interests schedule. The 40-item
instrument is headed with the original instructions for completing
the schedule. A few, very minor modifications of some questions
were necessary to make them appropriate to the trucking industry,
but none were sufficient to alter the original meaning of the questions.
This schedule is reproduced in its entirety, with the modifications,

in Appendix C .

Sample and Procedure

This study is confined to over-the-road truck drivers who
are union members in the employ of common or contract carriers
which are regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
and have an office, but not necessarily their headquarters, in the
Detroit metr0politan area. Within these constraints, which were
imposed to provide some homogeneity to the sample and to facili-
tate the research procedures, an effort was made to include in the
sample drivers from large and small companies, a variety of
operations including one-man through runs requiring layovers away
from home, relay and turnaround runs, and two-man sleeper

operations. General commodities carriers, steel haulers, and

64
some special products carriers were included in the sample.
Although no claim can be made that the sample is either random,
representative, or pr0portional, neither is there any reason to
believe that it is atypical of the industry or particularly biased in
any specific direction.

The officers and business agents of Teamsters Local 299
in Detroit were of inestimable help in the selection of companies
to be sampled, establishing contacts with company executives, and
encouraging the membership to participate in the survey. The
Secretary-Treasurer of Local 299 provided a personal letter of
introduction to the operating executives of the companies included
in the survey, as well as an Open letter of introduction to the mem-
bership which was reproduced and mailed to prospective respondents
with the survey questionnaire. In addition, an opportunity was made
available to the researcher to speak at a mass meeting of the mem-
bership of Local 299 to explain the purpose and methodology of the
research project.

A pretest of the survey questionnaire was made at a relay
station of a large company where incoming drivers were asked to
complete the questionnaire in the presence of the writer and en-
couraged to criticize its construction and to ask for assistance with
any question that was unclear. As a result of this pretest, a few
minor changes were made in the questionnaire to improve its

clarity, and a mass distribution was planned.

65

A list of trucking companies was drawn from the telephone
directory. Companies on the list were discussed with union offi-
cials familiar with their operations to determine their suitability
for inclusion in the sample. Some of these were rejected because
they employ no over-the-road drivers at the local terminal.
Others were eliminated because peculiarities of their operation
might distort the sample. In some cases, particular companies
or divisions were sought to provide the desired variety of
operations.

In all, 19 different companies were contacted, of which 16
companies comprising 21 different divisions agreed to participate.
In most cases, the divisions within a company differed according
to the commodities hauled or the type of service rendered, but in
one instance, multiple divisions of the same company were selected
because of geographical differences as well as differences in the
types of Operations. The sample included two companies with
fewer than ten over-the-road drivers in their employ and several
from among the largest in the nation.

The initial contact with most of the companies selected was
made by telephone. A personal interview was requested to explain
the nature and purpose of the research, and to enlist cooperation.
One large company refused to participate on the grounds that it
was undergoing an extensive reorganization which was apparently

arousing a great deal of hostility in the company. The local

66

managers of two companies declined on the grounds that authori-
zation for a survey of this type could only be granted by the main
office of the company. To avoid the rather lengthy trips to these
companies' headquarters for interviews to gain that authorization,
these two companies were dropped.

Fifteen of the participating company divisions supplied lists
of the home addresses of their over-the-road drivers. Two com-
panies addressed and mailed the questionnaires to their drivers
themselves, and four companies hand-distributed the question-
naires to their drivers with their pay. In all cases, the question-
naires were delivered in sealed envelopes with a copy of the union's
letter of introduction and a stamped envelope enclosed.

A total of 1092 questionnaires were distributed in the first
mailing. Of these, 9 were returned undelivered, leaving an assumed
net distribution of 1083 questionnaires. Respondents returned 380,
or 35 percent, of the net mailing. Of these, 31 were unanswered
or only partly answered. Thus, the net sample consisted of 349
usable responses, for a net return of 32. 2 percent. Before this
return was achieved, however, follow-up letters were sent to
almost all of the first mailing, and a second questionnaire was dis-
tributed to nearly 700 of the prospective respondents.

It is worth noting that the sampling was conducted during
and immediately after the lock-out resulting from the breakdown

in contract negotiations between the union and the carriers in the

67
Spring of 1967. Certainly, this would not appear to be the most
Opportune time to conduct an attitude survey in the trucking

industry.

CHAPTER III

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAMPLE OF

OVER ~THE -ROAD TRUCK DRIVERS

Although a variety of background information has been
obtained from respondents to the survey questionnaire, the pur-
pose of this research is not to make an exhaustive study of the
genealogical, demographic, and socio-economic origins of over-
the-road truck drivers. The purpose is, instead, to inquire into
specific aspects of respondents' backgrounds which might be found
to be associated with reported differences in their present attitudes
and orientations toward this particular type of work.

Because this study is primarily exploratory and descriptive
rather than experimental and analytical, no control group of non-
over-the-road drivers Was established to which the sample could be
directly compared. Neither was any effort expended in casting the
questions or the sample into a format comparable to other studies
reporting similar kinds of information. Rather typically, researchers
impose limitations on their data or on their sample which seriously
impair the transfer and comparability of their findings to different
research efforts. For example, Arthur Kornhauser, in his study

68

69
of Detroit factory workers, collected much data similar to that of
the present study. However, he restricted his respondents to
"predescribed job categories: white, native-born men on payroll at
least three years, and in one of two age categories, 20-29 or
40-49. "1 A feat such as this would be extremely difficult to dupli-
cate, especially when lists containing only names and addresses
of potential respondents were available for use in this work.

On the other hand, it is practical, in light of the foregoing
descriptions of motor freight transportation as andndustry, and
over-the-road truck driving as an occupation, to describe the men
who occuply positions as over-the-road truck drivers. This
description, then, is the purpose of the present chapter. It must
be emphasized that the sampling methods of this survey preclude
any inference that the findings can be generalized to all truck drivers
or even to any other specific group of over-the-road drivers. At
the same time it is felt that the survey sample was drawn from a
base of such breadth and diversity that a conclusion that the respon-
dents are, in fact, atypical of over-the-road drivers in general

would be totally unjustified.

Selective Summary of Findingg

 

A brief summary of some of the more important findings from

 

1Kornhauser, op. cit., p. 19.

70
questions asked about the background and characteristics of over-
the-road drivers is presented here, rather than following the dis-
cussion of specific items, to enable the reader to consider the
particular data presented later within the context of a generalized
view of the research results.

A rough profile generated from selected measures of central
tendency reveals that the man who might be termed a "typical"
respondent to the survey questionnaire was born about 42 years ago
in a rural area, or in a town of less than 10, 000 population. His
father was a farmer or a blue-collar worker who had completed
eight years of school. Generally speaking, the respondent dropped
out of his third year of high school to become self-supporting at
age 17. His first full-time job was in farming, unskilled, or semi-
skilled work. He had worked at two or three jobs before taking his
first job in the trucking industry at age 21. After four years at
other jobs in the industry, he became an over-the-road driver, the
job he presently holds. He has worked for three different trucking
companies and has been with his present employer about nine years.

The typical driver married a girl with a background similar
to his own. She attended school about one year longer than he did.
He has three dependents, owns his home, and earns more than
$11, 000 a year. He is a Protestant, and belongs to two organiza-
tions, one of which is the Teamsters Union. He attends meetings

of only one of the organizations on a regular basis.

71

Time Factors

 

Measures of central tendency (means and medians) from which
the preceding profile of a typical respondent was, in part, created,
and their corresponding measures of dispersion (standard devia-
tions and ranges) for selected distributions of sample data are
presented in Table 3. 1.

TABLE 3. 1. --Se1ected characteristics of over-the-road truck
drivers. Summary statistics in years.

 

 

Sample characteristic N* Median Mean S,D. Range

 

Present age 347 41.9 42.7 8.88 21-63

Age self—supporting 346 17. 4 17. 5 1. 97 12-27

Age first job in
trucking 345 20. 8 21. 6 5. 17 14-48

Years as over-the-
road driver 347 16. 7 l6. 9 8. 77 1-42

Years with present
employer 348 7. 9 9. 8 7. 95 1-42

 

*Variations in N (number of respondents) result from
unanswered questions on survey questionnaire.

In general, it may be noted that a fairly close coincidence
between the mean and median values indicates comparatively little
distortion of the means caused by extreme values in the distributions.
Where comparison of the range to the mean reveals some skewing of
a distribution, it is generally in the direction to be expected. At the

same time the size of several of the standard deviations suggests a

72

lack of concentration of values around the corresponding means.

The median age of over-the-road drivers is somewhat higher
than the median age of all "truck drivers and deliverymen" (37. 1
years) as reported by the Bureau of the Census. 2 Inasmuchlas
over-the-road driving is considered the top driving job in the
industry, it is to be expected that these positions would tend to be
occupied by older employees who have high seniority. The median
age of the over-the-road drivers is also higher than the median
age of all "operatives and kindred workers" (38. 4 years), 3 the
general census classification to which they are assigned. In fact,
the median age of survey respondents closely corresponds to that
of "craftsmen, foremen, and kindred workers" in industry as a
whole (41. 8 years).4 Since accession to most jobs in this census
category also comes with experience and seniority, there appears
to be little difference in the age grading and job progression of the
over-the-road drivers in comparison with other industrial occupa-
tions in general.

Table 3.1 indicates that survey respondents became self-
supporting at an average age of 17. 5 years, and took their first
jobs in the trucking industry at an average age of 21. 6 years. The

difference between these two figures suggests that respondents

 

2U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the

United States, 1967, Table 330, p. 234.

 

 

4

3Ibid., p. 233. Ibid.

73
worked an average of four years before taking their first job in
the trucking industry. However, approximately 30 percent of the
respondents reported that truck driving was their first full-time
job when they became self-sufficient. Therefore, if these respon-
dents who spent _N_O_ years in some other occupation prior to their
entry into the trucking industry are eliminated from the calculations,
the average tenure in another occupation Of those who held such a
job before entering the trucking industry is increased to approxi-
mately six years.

From the data in Table 3. 1 it can be determined that respon-
dents worked an average of 4. 2 years in the trucking industry prior
to their accession to over-the-road driving. Utilizing the means,
present age (42. 7 years) minus age first job in trucking (21.6 years)
yields an average number of years in the trucking industry of 21. 1
years. The average time as an over-the-road driver is reported
as 16. 9 years. The difference between the latter figures (4. 2
years) may be interpreted as the mean number of years in-jobs
other than over-the-road driving within the trucking industry. How-
ever, this conclusion is subject to some qualification, in that the
calculations involve the implication that respondents have remained
in the industry continuously from the time or original entry. That
this assumption is not completely tenable can be determined from
the data.

It was noted above that 30 percent of the respondents reported

74
their first full-time job as truck driving, which means that 70 per-
cent of the sample took their first full-time job in a non-trucking
occupation. At the same time, 83 percent of the sample reported
that they had worked for at least one employer outside the trucking
industry. Therefore, at least 13 percent (83 percent less 70 per-
cent) of the sample must have taken their first full-time job in the
trucking industry but, at some time during their career, had tried
another kind of work outside the trucking industry.

While specific data pertinent to this type of movement was not
accumulated, an over-all view of the data suggests that complete
withdrawal from the industry followed by re-entry is comparatively
infrequent and when itl‘does occur, the period of absence is of
relatively short duration. Some support for this view is afforded

by comments of respondents:

Truck driving isn't even an occupation--it's a disease--
uncurable, too.

I quit once--took a regular job in a factory--lasted two
full weeks, then back on the road.

I quit about every other trip, but I haven't missed a run
for years.

Income

Annual earnings of the 311 over-the-road drivers who re-

ported their approximate earnings average $11, 500.5 This figure

 

5The arithmetic mean is $11, 479; the median is $11,496.
However, because the data were reported in classes, the use of

*1

U1

is 43 percent greater than the average annual wage of $8,030 paid
to full-time employees by for-hire carriers--intrastate, interstate,
and loca1--and by public warehousing companies in 1965. o In the
same place, the average annual wage per employee in the trucking
industry is reported to be 40. 7 percent higher than the average of
$5, 706 for all private industry. Therefore, average annual earn-
ings Of over-the-road driver-respondents are more than twice as
high as the average for all private industrial employees.

Marital Status, Dependents, Home Ownersh_ip
and Religious Preference

 

 

Of the 345 respondents who reported their marital status,
all but eight are, or have been, married. Only 16 of the 340
respondents reporting have no dependents; for those who have
dependents, the average is 3. 5 per respondent. Eighty-five per-
cent of all respondents either own, or are buying their home. Of
the 329 drivers who stated their religious preference, 81 percent
are Protestant, and 13 percent are Catholic. All but three of the

remainder reported no religious preference.

 

these figures might imply a degree of accuracy not warranted by
the data.

6
American Trucking Trends: 1966, (m cit., p. 23.

 

76

Education

Table 3. 2 presents information pertaining to the education
of respondents, their parents, and their wives. Examination of
the means reveals that respondents received roughly two years
more schooling than did their fathers, and one year more than
their mothers, but almost a year less than their wives. The wives,
in both cases, had more schooling than did their respective husbands.
TABLE 3. 2. --Education of over-the-road truck drivers and of

their fathers, mothers and wives. Percentage distribution by
years of school completed and summary statistics.

 

 

Years

of School Over-the-road Drivers' Drivers' Drivers'

Completed Truck Drivers Fathers Mothers Wives
Less than8 4.1 23.1 15.7 0.0
8 14.8 43.0 40.5 8.8
9-11 40.1 9.0 9.8 28.1
12 32.3 17.7 26.6 53.4
13—15 8.1 3.6 4.4 8.8
16 or more .6 3.6 3.0 .9

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
N* 344 277 274 320
Median 10.8 8. l 8.3 11.7
Mean 10.6 8.7 9.3 11.3
Std. Dev. 1.91 3.03 2.91 1.54
Range 5-17+ 0-l7+ 0-l7+ 8-17+

 

*Number of respondents on which percentages are based.

Accumulating percentages from Table 3. 2 reveals that 41
percent of the respondents completed 12 or more years of school.

In contrast, less than 25 percent of their fathers, and 34 percent of

77
their mothers finished high school. On the other hand, almost 63
percent of the wives of drivers had completed 12 or more years
of school.

Data pertaining to the education of white males 25 years old
and over in the general population of the United States and of over-
the-road truck driver respondents to the survey questionnaire are
presented in Table 3. 3. From the table, the median years of school
completed by the total white male population 25 years old and over
is 12 years, compared to 10. 8 years for survey respondents, which
suggests that the general population is better educated than over-
the-road truck drivers. However, such a comparison can be mis-
leading because the difference is primarily accounted for by the
fact that comparatively few of the truck drivers in the sample
attended college.

Respondents who have completed up to 12 years of sctnol make
up a considerably larger proportion of the sample than the com-
parable proportion in the total white male population 25 years of
age and older. Of all drivers reporting, 95. 9 percent completed
elementary school (8 years), compared to 83. 6 percent of the total
white male population. Further, 81. 1 percent of the respondents
completed one to three years of high school, compared to 67. 2 per-
cent of all white males. It is at the next step that the truck drivers
begin to lag; only 41. 0 percent of those reporting completed high

school (12 years) compared to 50. 2 percent of the white male

 

78
population. Thus, it appears that substantially more of the driver
respondents attended school up to the twelfth grade but did not
graduate from high school nor did they continue to college in the
same proportion as did the general population.
TABLE 3. 3. --Education of over-the-road truck drivers

and of the general population. Percentage distribution
by years of school completed.

 

White males

 

Years of school 25 years old Over-the—road
completed and over* truck drivers

Less than 5 6. 1 0. 0

5-7 10. 3 4.1

8 16.4 14. 8

9-11 17.0 40.1

12 28. 2 32. 3

13615 9.3 8. l

16 or more 12.7 .6
Total 100.0 100. 0

Median 12.0 10. 8

 

*This column was abstracted from Table 155 in the
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1967, p. 113.

 

It is virtually impossible to make any meaningful comparisons
between the sample and the general population in terms of education,
age, and income combined. In the first place, there is almost no
relationship between age and income nor between education and
income among respondents in the sample (product-moment correla-
tions are . 027 and .132 respectively). Secondly, in the distribution

of incomes of all males 25 years of age and older, by years of school

79
completed, the median income for those with five years or more
of college is only $9, 613, compared with the median income of
$11,496 for all respondents in the sample. 7 Furthermore, of
those males 25 years Old and older who earn between $10, 000 and
$14, 999, more than 50 percent have completed four or more years

of college, and 66 percent have had some college education. 8

Oc cupational M obility

 

In Chapter I it was suggested that for much of the general
population specific gradations within the generic classification
"truck driver" have little or no meaning. In the occupational c1assi-
fication of the Bureau of the Census, truck drivers and deliverymen
(including tractor drivers) are combined categorically under the
heading "Operatives and Kindred Workers. "9 Also, none of the
generally used techniques for scaling or ranking occupations in
terms of prestige, status, or socioeconomic position differentiate
among the numerous truck-driving jobs. Moreover, such devices
typically place truck drivers on a par with, or below, most semi-

skilled, routine machine-operator types of jobs. 10

 

7Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1967, op. cit. ,
Table 161, p. 117.

 

8 9Ibid., Table 330, p. 234.

Ibid.

 

loW. Lloyd Warner gives truck drivers an assigned rating

of 6, along with baggagemen, night policemen, and watchmen, gas
station attendants, waitresses and small tenant farmers, outranking

80
According to Theodore Caplow, vertical mobility is
. a movement of the individual upward or downward,
with a gain or loss in social rank. . . . The simplest kind

. is a change of occupation which involves a change in
social position. . . 11

Further, he defines horizontal mobility thus:
[It is] . . . a change in function, including both the tech-
nical and the social functions which arise from group
membership. . . . Horizontal mobility of the simplest type
involves a change in employment within the same occupa-
tion. . . .

Either of these types of mobility may occur between successive

generations or within the work life of the individual himself.

Table 3. 4 presents information pertaining to the full-time

jobs taken by over-the-road truck drivers when they first became

s elf-suppor ting .

 

only migrant workers, miners, janitors, scrub-women and news-
boys. W. Lloyd Warner, Marcia Meeker and Kenneth Eells,
Social Class in America (Chicago: Science Research Associates,
Inc., 1949), reprinted as Harper Torchbook, 1960, pp. 140-41.
The North-Hatt prestige scale assigns "truck-driver" the rank

of 70, between "restaurant cook" and "lumberjack" and seven
ranks below "machine operator in factory. " Albert J. Reiss, Jr. ,
Occupational and Social Status (New York: The Free Press of
Glencoe, Inc. , a division of the Crowell-Collier Publishing Com-
pany, 1961), p. 57. In this same source Otis Dudley Duncan
assigns "truck- and tractor-drivers"a socio-economic index of
15, on a par with low-ranking "operatives and kindred workers,"
but outranking most "laborers. "

 

 

llTheodore Caplow, The Sociology of Work (Minneapolis:
The University of Minnesota Press, 1954), p. 59. -

 

12Ibid., p. 60.

81

TABLE 3. 4. --Distribution of over-the-road truck
drivers by first full-time job, in percentages. *

*—
—_.i m

 

Percentage of over-
Occupation or type of the-road drivers in
work performed respective occupations

 

Unskilled worker or

farm hand 37. 1
Semi-skilled worker or

machine Operator l9. 0
Truck driver 29. 8
Skilled craftsman, mechanic,

or fireman 3. 9
Farm owner or manager 0. 6
Office worker or salesman 0. 6
Owner of small business 0. 6
Schoolteacher 0.3
Military service 8. 1

Total 100. O

 

*Percentages based on 332 responses.

Of 332 drivers responding, nearly 49 percent reported their
first full-time job as truck driving or some other semi-skilled
occupation of approximately equal status. These drivers, then,
have not demonstrated any significant upward mobility since gaining
their Own initial occupational status.

Another 37 percent of the sample reported their first full-
time job as unskilled laborer or farm hand. This group could be
identified as experiencing at least some upward, intragenerational

mobility when they began their truck-driving career. Six percent

82
of the respondents began their full-time work career in various
skilled trades--as farm owners, office workers, small business
owners or school teachers. These would largely be classified as
experiencing downward mobility upon transferring to truck driving.
The remaining eight percent of the respondents reported their
first full-time jobs as military service, which is not readily com-
parable to civilian occupations. For this group, occupational
status typically would not be established until their entry into
civilian jobs. Because many of these respondents entered the
trucking industry upon completion of their military service, rela-
tively little vertical mobility would have been involved.

Turning now to another potential source of vertical mobility,
it will be seen that Table 3. 5 presents available data to relate
respondents' first jobs in the trucking industry to their present
occupation. The classifications used in Table 3. 5 attempt to rank
the jobs according to conventional job scaling techniques, rather
than by intra-industry standards. In these terms then, 8. 4 percent
of the respondents may have achieved a minimal amount of upward
mobility since taking their first job in the trucking industry, while
1. 7 percent have experienced downward mobility.

A number of those who started as drivers reported their first
jobs in the industry as "truck driving, " without further elaboration.
Thus the 89. 9 percent in this classification in Table 3. 5 includes

those respondents who entered the industry as dump truck drivers,

83

coal, lumber, or milk haulers, local delivery men and others,
as well as those who began their careers in freight transportation
or over-the-road driving. For this group, then, it is impossible
to relate first job in trucking to present position. However,
although job changes within this category are recognized and
rewarded in the industry, according to conventional occupational
scaling practices, such movements would be viewed as primarily
horizontal mobility.

TABLE 3. 5. --Distribution of over-the-road truck

drivers by first job in trucking, in percentages.

r
_.

First job or type of Percentages of over-the-

work performed in the road drivers performing
trucking industry respective jobs

 

Helper, dockworker,
gas station attendant,

 

or service man 8.4
Truck driver 89. 9
Mechanic or office worker 1. 7

Total 100. 0
N = 346

Table 3. 6 presents the occupational origins of survey
respondents as represented by two generations of their familial
ancestors. Since the respondents themselves represent a single
occupational classification, three generations of occupations are
actually encompassed. The four pairs of columns in Table 3. 6
show the occupational distribution, in percentages, of respondents'

fathers, fathers' fathers, mothers' fathers, and fathers-in-law.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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85
The first column of each pair presents the distribution among the
13 occupational groups of the survey questionnaire. In the second
column of each pair, these occupations are combined into 6 broader
categories for convenience of discussion.

Occupations of the respondents' fathers-in-law are included
in the table for two reasons. First, there is some evidence that
the occupation of a young man's father-in-law (or prospective
father-in-law) is often influential in his own occupational choice.
Secondly, these data illustrate the similarity of the backgrounds of
the respondents and their wives. Perhaps the most striking facet
of this table is the similarity in the two occupational distributions
from each of the generations represented.

Unskilled labor and farming are listed as occupations for
almost two-thirds of the paternal and maternal grandfathers of
over-the-road truck drivers. These same occupations employ
less than 30 percent of the fathers of respondents and their wives.
Although this combination of occupations may appear to be unusual,
it is justified by the research data.

Examination of the completed questionnaires suggests that
some respondents experienced difficulty in distinguishing between
"farm hand" and "farm manager" for purposes of classifying
relatives' occupations. This difficulty arose, possibly, from the
omission of "sharecropper" and ”tenant farmer" from the available

choices. However, the combination of the two groups includes all

86
types of farm workers though it does not exclude a minority of
other unskilled workers.

The remaining categories show increases from the grand-
father’sgeneration to that of the respondents' fathers in the per-
centages engaged in the occupation. By far the largest proportion
of the movement out of the unskilled labor and farming classifica-
tion is accounted for by increases in the semi-skilled and skilled
occupations. Although there are substantial increases in the per-
centages of fatlers in white collar jobs and owners of small busi-
nesses, relative to the grandfathers similarly employed, these
increases account for less than one-fifth of the decrease in farm
employment.

It should also be noted that Table 3. 6 takes no account of
movements between intermediate occupational classifications. That
is, the increased number of respondents' fathers in the business-
owner and white-collar categories may originate from grandfathers
in the skilled-worker or foreman classifications with the movement
being obscured by the greater shift into the skilled occupations
from the unskilled and farming category. Detailed considerations
of such changes are beyond the scope and purpose of the present
discussion.

Only 8. 5 percent of the over-the-road drivers directly suc-
ceeded their fathers in the occupation. Another five percent may

have followed their fathers-in-law into truck driving inasmuch as

87

only two respondents report both their fathers and fathers-in-law
as drivers. It is impossible, however, to draw any conclusions
from these findings relative to the attraction of the sons to the
fathers' occupations. The entire history of the trucking industry
spans scarcely 50 years while its rapid growth has occurred almost
entirely within the present generation.

Twelve percent of the respondents have experienced horizontal
intergenerational mobility in that their fathers were employed
in semi-skilled occupations at the same level as truck driving.
Twelve percent of the fathers of over-the-road truck drivers are
classified as unskilled workers or farm hands--the only category
of occupations in Table 3. 6 that is clearly subordinate to truck
driving in terms of accepted status scaling techniques--while the
remaining 68 percent occupy positions superior to the occupations
of their sons. Thus, over two-thirds of the respondents have
experienced downward, intergenerational mobility in that they now
work at less prestigious occupations than did their fathers. Twenty
percent are on the same occupational level as their fathers, and
twelve percent have achieved a minimum of upward occupational

mobility in comparison with their fathers.

Social Participation

 

Some measure of an individual's orientation toward the social

life of his community is provided by information about the number

88

and kinds of voluntary organizations to which he belongs. A
measure of his involvement in these activities may be provided
by the extent to which he participates by attending meetings and
holding offices in these organizations. Table 3. 7 provides sum-
mary information of these types for 309 respondents to the survey
que stionnaire .

TABLE 3. 7. —-Percentage distribution of over-the-

road drivers by number of organizational memberships,
attendance, and offices held, with summary statistics.

 

 

 

 

Number of Attended Offices
organizations Memberships regularly held
0 O. 0 52.4 76.7
1 36. 9 25. 2 15. 5
2 20.1 12. 9 4. 9
3 19.1 7.1 2. 9
4 8. 7 l . 6 0. 0
5 or more 6.2 0.7 0.0
N 309 309 309
Mean 2. 22 . 82 . 34

S.D. 1.31 1.08 _ .71

 

Two qualifications are in order regarding the data. °First,
it may be noted that Table 3. 7 reports that all respondents belong
to at least one organization. Respondents who reported no organi-
zational affiliations were credited with membership in the Teamsters
Union, as Were all respondents to the question, whether or not such
membership was indicated in the response. The rationale of this

decision was, in part, to distinguish those who responded to the

89
question from those who did not respond. Strictly speaking, then,
memberships in purely voluntary organizations are, in all cases,
one less than the number indicated in the table.

Although union membership is compulsory, and therefore not
comparable with memberships in voluntary organizations, attendance
at meetings and office-holding in the union are not mandatory.
These activities, then, are properly includable with voluntary
participation in other organizations as indicators of social involve-
ment.

In the case of an individual whose only organizational activity
is attendance and/or office-holding in the union, it would be
incongruous to report the activity without a corresponding organiza-
tional affiliation. Neither would it be correct to omit the activities.
Consequently, the data in Table 3. 7 include regular attendance and
office-holding in the union as reported by respondents.

A second qualification of the data in Table 3. 7 pertains to
church affiliation. Respondents were requested to indicate member-
ships, attendance and office-holding in church related groups such
as choirs, ushers’ clubs, youth groups, etc. , but were not asked
to indicate membership in the church itself. The reasoning here
is that for some persons, religious activity is personal and private,
rather than a social activity. For some, church membership may
involve an element of compulsion, and even attendance may stem

from a sense of duty quite different from the motivations to

9O

participate in voluntary activities. Furthermore, information
regarding religious affiliation was requested elsewhere in the
questionnaire.

In some cases respondents did include church membership
in the listing. In those instances where only church membership
and attendance were reported, they were not included in the tabu-
lation. On the other hand, where the listing included church mem-
bership, regular attendance and office-holding such as Elder,
Deacon, Sunday School Superintendent or Teacher, the listings
were included as indications of activity of a voluntary nature similar
to union office—holding. The data are incomplete, however, to the
extent that all respondents may not have included such information.

Taking account of these qualifications, then, it may be noted
that 63 percent of the drivers responding to this item belong to at
least one organization other than the union. About half (47. 6 percent)
of the respondents regularly attend meetings of at least one organi-
zation, and 22. 3 percent attend meetings of two or more organiza-
tions. Furthermore, 23. 3 percent of the drivers now hold, or have
held, office in at least one of their organizations.

These data standing alone, however, are not very meaningful.
The irregularity and uncertainty of working hours and schedules
inherent in the occupation might be expected to impose strong con-
straints on over-the-road drivers' regular attendance and active

participation in the social organizations of the community. The

91
effectiveness of these constraints or of the respondents' efforts
to overcome them can only be measured by comparison to others
not subject to such constraints. To this end the reported social
participation of workers in other industrial occupations may prove
enlightening.

In his study of Detroit factory workers, Kornhauser reports
that for seven age-occupation categories, percentages of respondents
belonging to more than two organizations range from 20 percent of
young, ordinary semi-skilled workers to 42 percent of middle-aged,

l3

skilled workers. Although Kornhauser specifically includes church

membership in his listing, only 24 percent of his sample reported

14

memberships in more than two organizations. In comparison,

34 percent of over-the-road truck drivers report memberships
in more than two organizations, exclusive of their church member-
ships, except as noted above.

Regarding his findings, Kornhauser noted the following:

Actually, . . . only 17 of the 407 Detroit factory workers
refer to any active organizational participation away from
work, anything that goes beyond attending church services or
occasional meetings and social events. Only four workers
mention spending any time on labor-union affairs or labor
political action; six men are active in church work, five in
political or civic organizations (with no union connections),
three in lodges, and two in Boy Scout work (three individuals
appear twice in these figures). 15

 

l3Kornhauser, op. cit., p. 63.

1 15
4Ibid., p. 1%. Ibid.. pp. 200—201.

92

Kornhauser's evidence suggests that only four percent of
the Detroit factory workers in his study are active in any social
organizations, and less than one percent are active in two organi-
zations. In contrast to these findings, Table 3. 7 shows that more
than 23 percent of the over-the-road drivers in the present survey
are active to the extent of holding office in at least one organization,
while nearly eight percent hold, or have held, office in two or more
organizations.

Disregarding the previously mentioned occupational constraints
against social participation, it is apparent that the over-the-road
truck drivers take a more active interest in social organizations
than is expressed by the Detroit factory workers. However, the
effectiveness of these constraints is very much in evidence in the
survey responses.

A number of over-the-road drivers appear to be very aware
of, and even resent, their inability to take a more active part in
various organizational activities. In addition to oral comments by
interviewees, several respondents wrote on the questionnaire, or
attached notes explaining their reactions to the question. Typical
of these are the following:

This [the question] is ridiculous. You can't attend
meetings on the road.

Question 16 in Part I is almost impossible to answer
because a truck driver (as you should know) seldom gets
to hold an office or attend regularly anything.

93
The following comment appeared at the bottom of a list of several
organizations, with attendance and office-holding checked.

I used to be active in all of these, but I had to give them
all up since I started driving truck.

For at least some of the respondents, then, the absence of
social participation seems to be less a matter of choice than a
consequence of the erratic and uncertain schedules their work
demands, which make membership in any organization with regular

meetings difficult, if not entirely impossible, to maintain.

CHAPTER IV

OCCUPATIONAL ATTITUDES OF OVER-THE-ROAD

TRU CK DRIVERS

The purpose of this chapter is to present the results obtained
from the administration of three measures of occupational attitudes
to a single sample of over-the-road truck drivers. The findings
reported are primarily exploratory and descriptive, rather than
a testing of specific hypotheses. However, in the first section some
meaningful comparisons are made between the present sample of
truck drivers and Robert Dubin's sample of factory workers rela-
tive to the hypotheses of his original study. Comparative exami-
nation of the three sets of findings will be undertaken in the chapter
following.

In preceding chapters attention has been largely confined to
two aspects of the research problem: (1) the nature of over-the-
road truck driving and the environment in which the work is per-
formed as distinct from other industrial occupations, and (2) char-
acteristics of the sample of individuals engaged in the occupation in
terms of their demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds and
status. Within this framework attention is now directed to

94

95
investigating attitudinal relationships of the encumbents to their
occupation. Three different but conceptually related instruments
are utilized to measure the existence and strength of pertinent
occupational attitudes and opinions of the survey sample.

The first area of investigation involves the relationships of
over-the-road truck drivers to truck driving as a social role.
These relationships are examined in terms of the importance of
over-the-road driving and its environment, first, as preferred
sources of valued social experience and second, as the preferred
location for technological experiences and for participation in
formal organizations. The instrument used to measure these rela-
tionships is Robert Dubin's Central Life Interests questionnaire.
The findings are also compared with the results of Dubin's original
study of factory workers.

The second area of investigation deals with the degree to
which respondents identify psychologically with their work, or the
importance of work in the total self-image of over-the-road truck
drivers. These relationships are measured by the shortened version
of a job-involvement scale developed by Thomas Lodahl and Mathilde
Kejner for a study of nursing personnel, engineers, and graduate
students. 2 There is, however, no basis provided for direct com-

parisons between their findings and the results of the present survey.

 

l 2
Dubin, op. cit. Lodahl and Kejner, op. cit.

96

The third area of investigation deals with the extent to which
over—the-road truck drivers view their occupation as a life's work
or career. Measures of the existence and strength of respondents'
long-term commitment to over-the-road truck driving are provided
by an adaptation of questions from a Cornell University study of
hospital administrators. 3 Responses to these questions are then
scaled to create an index of career orientation.

Work as a Central Life Interest of
Over-the-road Truck Drivers

 

 

It has been noted previously that in many respects the physical
environment and conditions within which over-the-road truck driving
is performed differ significantly from other occupational settings.
The lack of ”social opportunity" in the work environment leads to
the expectation that these drivers would express strong preferences
for non—work situations as the sources of socially satisfying experi-
ences. On the other hand, the social deprivation stemming from
irregular and uncertain schedules necessitated by their occupations,
suggests that over-the-road drivers might seek to maximize their
interaction with similarly situated others. Mere recognition of such
contending forces, however, offers few clues to their relative
strength. Moreover, although opportunity for social interaction
may be necessary to its occurrence, it is not sufficient to a deter-

mination of preferences among existing opportunities, nor does it

 

3"The CornellStudy, " op. cit.

97

preclude an expression of preference for situations embodying
relatively little opportunity.

Central life interest is determined by the 40—item question-
naire designed by Robert Dubin for his study of factory workers. 4
With this instrument respondents are scored as "job-oriented, ”
"non-job-oriented, " or "indifferent" with respect to their responses
to 40 statements involving their work and the social relationships
generated therein. The statements deal with formal organizational
relationships, the technological environment, informal group
participation and general everyday experiences. Individual scores
are computed for each of these categories of experience and for
the questionnaire as a whole. A respondent is designated as job-
oriented if 50 percent or more of his responses are job—oriented or
if at least 40 percent of his answers are job-oriented and 30 percent
are indifferent. Those respondents whose answers do not meet
either of these criteria are designated as non-job-oriented. This
scoring method and the criteria used here are exactly as prescribed
in the original report. 5

Central life interest patterns obtained from 349 over-the-road

truck drivers are presented in Table 4. 1. To facilitate comparisons,

 

Dubin, op. cit. The original questionnaire has been made
available by Professor Dubin of the University of Oregon. The
rationale and methodology of the study are discussed in detail in
Chapter II, but a recapitulation of the sectors and scoring tech-
nique is apr0pos.

5
Ibid., p. 134.

98
the results of Dubin's study of 491 factory workers are included in

6

the same table. In general, whey the Central Life Interests ques-
tionnaire is scored according to the foregoing criteria, the findings
of the present study provide strong support for Dubin's three general
propositions, and for four of his five specific hypotheses. Moreover,
the single hypothesis which the evidence does not support, is not
entirely disproven but must be rejected, instead, because it is
inappropriate to the occupational milieu within which the present
study was conducted.

TABLE 4. 1. -—Total Central Life Interest and subordinate

experience patterns for over-the-road truck drivers and
industrial workers, in percentages.

 

 

 

 

Over-the-road Industrial
Interest Pattern Truck Drivers Workers
(Dubin)

Total Central Life Interest

Job-oriented 12. 0 24. 0

Non-job-oriented 88. 0 76. 0
Informal relations

Job-oriented 8. 0 9. 0

Non-job-oriented 92. O 91. 0
General relations

Job-oriented 18.0 15.0

Non-job-oriented 82. 0 85. 0
Formal relations

Job-oriented 34. 0 61 . 0

Non-job-oriented 66. O 39. O
Technological relations

Job-oriented 62. 0 63. 0

Non-job-oriented 38. 0 37. 0
N 349 491

6

Ibid. , passim. The results are not presented in table form
in the original report.

 

99

Results

As measured by the pattern of responses to all 40 questions,
only 12 percent of the over-the-road drivers can be classified as
job-oriented in their life interests. This figure is just one-half
as large as the 24 percent of factory workers similarly labeled in
Dubin's sample. In terms of Dubin's hypothsis that "a significant
proportion of industrial workers will be classified as non-job-
oriented when central life interest is measured with the CLI ques-

"7 seven of every eight over-the-road drivers in the

tionnaire,
sample are non-job-oriented. Undoubtedly this proportion is more
significant than the three of four of his group of factory workers
who did not see their jobs or workplaces as central life interests
for themselves.

It should be noted that nowhere does Dubin prescribe a cri-
terion for the determination of the significance of a “proportion. "
From his use of the term, it appears that he actually means ”a
simple majority. " In the present instance the difference between
corresponding percentages of over-the-road drivers and of factory
workers is statistically significant at considerably less than the one
percent level. Judging by responses to the CLI questionnaire, it

may be said that a significantly larger proportion of over-the-road

drivers, compared to factory workers, is non-job-oriented.

 

7Ibid., p. 134.

100

Examination of Table 4.1 reveals, however, that this rela-
tionship does not persist uniformly throughout the four component
categories of the CLI questionnaire. In three of the four sectors
of experience, the differences between the reported percentages
are negligible; in the formal sector the percentage of job-oriented
truck drivers is markedly smaller than the percentage of job-
oriented factory workers.

Informal and general
relationships

 

 

Dubin hypothesized that a significant proportion of industrial
workers will be non-job-oriented with respect to informal group
experiences. He defined group experiences as "those relations
between people that are not directly a product of an official rela-
tionship in an organization or related positions in a division of labor. "8
Although the difference is insignificant, an even smaller percentage
of over-the-road drivers than of factory workers selected their work
environment as the setting for preferred human associations and
contacts. Conversely, a slightly larger percentage of over-the-road
drivers than of factory workers is scored as non-job-oriented in the
informal category of experience.

Closely related to this component of the CLI questionnaire is

the sector designated as "general experience" and defined by Dubin

 

81bid., p. 135.

101
as “dealing with activities giving pleasure, satisfaction, or general
rewards, which may be pursued in varying places and at varying
times. "9 With respect to these activities Dubin again hypothesized
that a significant proportion of industrial workers will not respond
to work as a valued social experience. In response to questions
in this sector, 82 percent of the over-the-road drivers expressed
non-job-oriented preferences in comparison to 85 percent of the
factory workers in Dubin's survey. Despite the three percentage
points difference, it can hardly be concluded that the proportion of
non-job-oriented truck drivers is much less significant than the
corresponding proportion of factory workers.

The findings of the present study, then, provide more than
adequate support for both of the relevant and related hypotheses.
For over-the-road truck drivers, as for factory workers, the work-
place is not the preferred location for informal social relations,
such as those involving small-talk, leisure-time behavior, friend-
ship interactions, and affectional attachments. Nor is it the situs of
valued social experience, that is, general activities of emotional

importance to these individuals are not identified with the work

envir onment.

 

9113111., p, 136.

102

Formal and technolochal
relations

Regarding formal organizational experiences, the findings of
the present study are the least congruous with the results of Dubin's
study of factory workers. Experience in this sector encompasses a
variety of relationships between an organization, its officials, and
its members, such as hiring, joining, firing, disciplining, reward-
ing, directing, and ordering. In response to questions dealing with
this kind of relationship, Dubin found that 61 percent of his sample
chose their companies as the most meaningful, or preferred,
context for the described activities. In contrast, only 34 percent
of the sample of over-the-road drivers are scored as job-oriented
in this category of organization experiences. Thus, only one of
every three truck drivers identifies the company he works for as
the most significant formal organization with which he comes in
contact; more than three of every five factory-worker respondents
made similar choices.

Dubin's relevant hypothesis is that "a significant proportion
of industrial workers will score job-oriented for their organiza-
tional experience when measured on the organizational section of

10

the CLI questionnaire. " Despite the lack of a criterion for deter-

mining the size of a significant proportion, the 34 percent of the

 

lolbid., p. 137.

 

103
over-the-road drivers scored as job-oriented in this sector can
hardly be considered significant. Inasmuch as Dubin concludes
that the 61 percent of his respondents who are job-oriented con-
stitutes a significant proportion, it appears that the 66 percent of
non-job-oriented truck drivers is at least equally significant.
Therefore, it may be concluded that a significant proportion of the
sample of over-the-road truck drivers is non-job-oriented in terms
of their formal organizational experiences and attachments.

The final component of the CLI questionnaire deals with rela-
tions between the respondents and the technical and physical aspects
of their environments. Concern for economy, efficiency, improve-
ment, and cleanliness of the work itself, as well as the care and
maintenance of tools and equipment are examples of the relation-
ships encompassed in this segment of environmental experience.

Again, in this sector of experience, the findings of the present
study parallel the results obtained in Dubin's study of factory workers.
Sixty-two percent of the over-the-road drivers and 63 percent of the
factory workers are scored as job-oriented in terms of their pref-
erences with respect to the technological sector of experience. This

finding, it should be noted, substantiates Dubin's pertinent hypothesis.

Summary of Findings and a Conclusion

When the Central Life Interests questionnaire is administered,

scored, and interpreted according to Dubin's criteria, work and the

104
workplace are not central life interests for a large majority of
the sample of over-the-road truck drivers. As measured by their
patterns of responses to the whole questionnaire, the larger propor-
tion of non-job-oriented truck drivers provides even stronger support
for Dubin's major hypothesis than the proportion of non-job-oriented
factory workers in his own study.

In three of the four component sectors of experience included
in the CLI questionnaire, the findings of the present study tend to
support the relevant hypotheses from the original study of factory
workers. In fact, re—examination of Table 4. 1 suggests that such
close correspondence between comparative percentages in the in-
formal, the general, and the technological sectors would hardly be
expected if the two samples were drawn from the same population.

The results reported in the formal sector, however, create
somewhat of an anomaly; in this sector, the relevant hypothesis is
forcefully rejected by the evidence. Even more provocative is the
fact that the rejected hypothesis and the affirmed hypothesis per-
taining to relations with the technical aspects of the environment
are similar and were developed from the same general proposition.
Dubin stated this proposition in the following manner.

. An individual's attachment to a situation in which his

social experience is not valued by him will be to the most

physically and directly obvious characteristics of that
situation. 1

 

11Ibid., p. 133.

105

In preceding chapters a number of unique characteristics of
over-the-road truck driving and its environment have been described.
It has been noted that an over-the-road driver works most of the
time in isolation from his fellow workers, his superiors, and the
environment of his employing organization. He may have no regular
boss or foreman in the same sense as a factory worker does, and
his interaction with supervisory personnel is irregular and infre-
quent, as well as impersonal.

Furthermore, the rules and regulations which guide and sanc-
tion his work behavior are formulated and often enforced by agencies
of government (the Interstate Commerce Commission, State Public
Service Commissions and Highway Safety Departments) and by his
union, rather than by his employer. All these factors operate to
obscure the visibility and importance of the formal organization in
the occupational perspective of the over-the-road truck driver.

It appears that the apparently weak attachment of over-the-
road truck drivers to their employing organizations is not attributable
to attitudinal differences between truck drivers and factory workers.
It is, instead, more likely to be a consequence of the fact that for
over-the-road truck drivers the formal organization is not one of
the most physically and directly obvious characteristics of the work
situation. Dubin's hypothesis, then, is not disproven, but it is
rejected as inappropriate to the occupational milieu within which the

present study was conducted.

106

Job Involvement of Oven-the—road
Truck Drivers

 

The findings reported in the preceding section of the chapter
can now be taken as a given: For the over-the-road truck drivers
responding to this survey, work is not a central life interest nor is
it a souce of valued social experience. What attachment does exist
is centered in relationships to the technological aspects of the work
environment.

Questions may now be raised as to the degree to which these
respondents identify psychologically with their work. Of what
importance is work in the total self-image of an over-the-road
truck driver? To what degree does his work performance affect
his self-esteem? It is to this type of question that Lodahl and
Kejner addressed themselves in constructing their job involvement
scale.

In its final form their instrument consists of twenty items cast
into a Likert-type format with four categories of response (strongly
agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree; scored 1, 2, 3 and

12 From this ZO-item scale, the authors extracted

4, respectively).
six items which they endorse as a reasonable substitute for the

larger instrument. Their recommendation is based on a correlation

 

12Lodahl and Kejner, op. cit., pp. 26-28. Although the

authors do not so state, it is most likely that the scoring sequence
was reversed for negatively worded items.

107

of . 87 between the 6-item total scores and the 20-item total
scores.13

The 6-item scale was administered to the sample of over—
the-road truck drivers exactly as it was developed by Lodahl and
Kejner with a single exception. In the present study the item
scores are reversed so that high scores on positively worded items
indicate stronger agreement with the statements, and a high score
on the single negatively stated item indicates stronger disagreement
with the statement. The effect of this modification is that high
total scores on the six items are indicative of high job involvement,

whereas under the Lodahl-Kejner scoring system high scores indi-

cate lower involvement.

Results

The distribution of scores obtained by administering the
6-item job involvement scale to 343 over-the-road truck drivers
is presented in Table 4. 2. Total scores range from 6 to 24 with a
midpoint of 15. The median score for all respondents is 15. 9 and
the arithmetic mean is 15. 99 with a standard deviation of 3. 0.
Unfortunately, Lodahl and Kejner provide a minimum of comparable
statistics from their own applications of the scale, inasmuch as their

analysis was primarily limited to factor analysis of the results on

 

13Ibid., p. 30.

108
the 20-item version. Only by assuming that the mean total score
of the 6-item scale is proportional to the mean of the 20-item scale
can any comparison be made between means of this and the original
studies.
TABLE 4. 2. --Percentage distribution

of over-the-road truck drivers by
total job involvement score.

 

Six-item Percentage
total of
score respondents

 

24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10

t—‘t—‘l—‘l—i
wxlarbwt—n-Fxoslwwww

O WWOOWCDOF-‘OtbO‘xOOONxoU'INO

Total 100.

 

By projecting the mean total score of the present sample on
this basis and inverting it to match the Lodahl-Kejner scoring method,

it may be estimated roughly that over-the-road truck drivers are

109
someehat less job-involved than either the nurses or the engineers
surveyed by Lodahl and Kejner, but they are slightly more involved

than the sample of graduate students. Mean scores for the four

 

 

samples are as follows:14
Survey sample Mean total score
Nurses (N=l37) 43. 37
Engineers (N=70) 42. 62
Students (N=46) 48. 06
Truck drivers (N=343) 46. 70

It may be recalled that under the Lodahl-Kejner scoring system low
scores indicate higher involvement.

Of greater significance than the foregoing nebulous comparison
is the obvious difficulty of making any comparisons at all between
replications and the original study data. This is particularly dis-
tressing when the authors present their instrument with the suggestion
that it offers promising possibilities as an improved measure of
job involvement.

Although Lodahl and Kejner do not present the supporting
evidence, they report that "examination of the correlation matrices
revealed low interitem correlations (averaging about . 17) and rela-
tively high item-total correlations. "15 Insofar as comparisons are
possible, interitem correlations of the 6-item scale in the present

study range from . 09 to . 60 with a mean of . 31. Item-total ‘

 

”Ibid., Table 2, p. 30. 15Ibid., p. 28.

110
correlations range from . 43 to . 76 with a mean of . 65.16 It is,
of course, impossible to compare the latter to Lodahl and Kejner's
"relatively high item-total correlations. "

Examination of Table 4. 2 reveals a heavy concentration of
scores around the midpoint of the distribution with some skewing
toward the upper end of the scale. Thus, it may be noted that 32. 4
percent of the total scores fall below the midpoint, while 54. 2 per-
cent are above the midpoint. In the absence of any prescribed
criteria for evaluating individual scores in terms of the degrees of
job involvement they represent, an arbitrary decision is required.

For pm'poses of this report, respondents with scores of 18
or more on this scale are designated as exhibiting high job involve-
ment; those who score between 13 and 17 are designated as exhibiting
medium job involvement; and those who score 12 or less are desig-
nated as exhibiting low job involvement. The rationale of this
decision is that a score of 18 or higher represents an average score
of 3 (a mildly positive response) on each of the six items in the
scale. This does not mean that negative re3ponses are ruled out,
but they must be offset by strongly positive responses to achieve a
total score of 18 over all six items. Similarly, a total score of
12 represents an average item score of 2 (a mildly negative response)

over the 6-item scale. Here, any positive responses must be offset

 

16The correlation matrix for the present sample scores is
presented in Appendix D, Table l.

111
by strongly negative responses to hold the total score to 12 or
below.

Those respondents whose scores meet neither of these cri-
teria, that is, whose scores are concentrated around the midpoint
of the scoring range are the medium job-involved. The over-all
justification for this method of classification is based on the assump-
tion that the mere presence of a respondent in the survey sample--
the mere fact that he is employed in over-the-road truck driving--
represents some minimal amount of job involvement. Categorizing
the data from Table 4. 2 according to these criteria yields the
distribution presented in Table 4. 3.

TABLE 4. 3. --Percentage distribution of over-the-road truck

drivers by job-involvement level with class ranges and class
means.

 

 

 

Job-involvement Percent of Class Class mean
level respondents range score
High 28.0 18-24 19.7
Medium 60. 0 13-17 15. 3
Low 12.0 6-12 11.2
Total 100. 0
N = 343

To further emphasize the concentration of scores around the
midpoint of the total distribution, Table 4. 3 also shows the class
range and the arithmetic mean of the scores included in each of the
three categories. The inclusion of these class mean scores also

serves to avoid any inclination to interpret the midpoints of the

 

 

112
extreme categories as being representative of all the values con—

tained the r ein .

Summary

As measured by the abbreviated version of the Lodahl-Kejner
Job Involvement scale, then, Table 4. 3 shows that 28 percent of
the over-the-road truck drivers in the present sample are classi-
fied as highly job-involved, 60 percent are moderately job-involved,
and 12 percent exhibit low job involvement. It must be emphasized
that these classifications are purely arbitraryand, for lack of
comparable information, are in no way relatable to the findings of
the original study from which the instrument is borrowed.

Career Orientation of Over-the—road
Truck Drivers

 

Given the nature of over-the-road truck driving, the rewards
it offers, the demands it places upon workers, and the practical
non-existence of further promotional opportunities, to what extent
do incumbents view their positions as permanant? To what extent
is truck driving considered a career or life's work by those who
have reached the top in the occupation? This section is addressed
to questions such as these.

From the preceding chapter, it becomes obvious that for the

most part, entry into the trucking industry by over—the-road drivers

113
has not been the result of ancestral inheritance, that is, the son
following in the occupational footsteps of his father. Neither does
the occupation demand the early commitment in terms of prepara-
tion and training that is required of professions such as medicine,
law, teaching, et cetera. Nor does truck driving even require the
apprenticeship necessary to a craft or skilled trade. It would
almost appear that for most of the respondents in this sample
entry into the industry constituted a drift into an available job,"
without much consideration of their occupational future. On this
basis, then, it is logical to conclude that any presently-existing
commitment to over-the-road driving has largely developed after
the fact, as a consequence of experience in the occupation and
acceptance of, or adjustment to, the demands and constraints of
the work.

A variety of evidence relative to the existence and strength
of the respondents' occupational commitment or career orientation
toward over-the-road truck driving can be extracted from the survey
data. The most direct evidence is provided by the answers given
to four questions designed to tap the respondent's feelings and
opinions about his work without reference to his employer or to

specific factors in his job environment. 17 The four questions and

 

Although these questions were adapted from the Cornell
Study of Hospital Administrators questionnaire cited in footnote 3,
above, the scoring and interpretation are the sole responsibility
of the writer and bear no necessary relationship to the utilization
intended in the original study.

114
the percentage distribution of answers by 348 respondents are
presented in Table 4.4.

The format of the questions provides four categories of
response (very, fairly, not very, and not at all) as measures of
the strength of feeling or opinion evoked by each question. The
first two questions are positively stated so that the most favorable
responses to the questions indicate the most favorable attitude and
strongest commitment toward the respondent's work. The third
and fourth questions are negatively stated so that the most favor-
able responses to the questions signify a lack of commitment to
the respondent's work.

In the survey questionnaire, the response alternatives for
each of the four questions were arranged in the order given above--
most favorable to least favorable. Thus, if respondents tended to
answer all questions affirmatively or to check answers down the
same column of alternatives, any distortive effect on occupational
commitment from the first two answers would be nullified by an
opposite effect from the third and fourth answers. Examination of
the completed questionnaires suggests that the respondents did, in
fact, discriminate among the alternative responses with considerable
consistency. Interitem correlations range from .45 to . 76 and

average . 56. 18

 

18

The correlation matrix for the present sample scores is
presented in Appendix D, Table 2.

115

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Results

For convenience of interpretation, the sequence of alternative
answers to the first two questions has been reversed in' Table 4.4.
Reading from left to right, all four sets of responses indicate a
progressively stronger positive attitude or commitment to over-the-
road truck driving on the part of the respondents. Thus, the three
percent who get no satisfaction from their work, the four percent who
are not at all sure they are going to stay in the industry, the fifteen
percent who could very easily be persuaded to change jobs, and the
nineteen percent who very often think they would prefer some other
work are exhibiting a very poor attitude and a lack of commitment
toward their work. At the other extreme the percentages in column 4
of Table 4.4 are interpreted as the proportions of respondents express-
ing a very favorable attitude and strong commitment toward their work.

Choosing between the extremes of the alternatives would be
expected to be quite easy. On the other hand, making a choice between
the intermediate alternatives might be expected to be considerably
more difficult, and therefore not as consistently performed as the
former. However, comparisons between percentages in columns
2 and 3 of Table 4. 4 for questions involving related content generally
indicate that respondents were consistently able to choose between
alternatives representing milder degrees of feeling or opinion about

their work.

117

Because of the extremely small percentages in some cells of
Table 4.4, the percentages in columns 1 and Z are combined in
column 5, and the percentages in columns 3 and 4 are combined in
column 6. Column 5, then, contains the pr0portions of respondents
who express a poor attitude or weak commitment to over-the-road
truck driving. These respondents are labeled as low—career oriented.
Conversely, the proportions of respondents in column 6, being
favorably disposed or strongly committed to their work, are identi-
fied as high-career oriented toward over-the-road truck driving.

In terms of these criteria 89 percent of the respondents-~those
who get a great deal of satisfaction from their work--are career
oriented. Likewise, the 87 percent who are reasonably sure that
they are going to remain in the industry until they retire, the 67 per-
cent who could not readily be persuaded to go into some other work,
and the 61 percent who rarely think that they would like another kind
of work better than truck driving, are classified as career oriented
in terms of the relevant factors.

It should be noted that the third and fourth questions appear to
be biased rather heavily toward evoking the non-career-oriented
responses, which may account for the larger percentages in this
category. For example, the third question goes considerably beyond
mere consideration of the desire for a different kind of work. Implicit
to the concept of persuasion is the element of an offer made--a defi-

nite opportunity-~coupled with the exertion of at least some pressure

118
or inducement to make a change. Thus, each respondent's answer
to this question would tend to be conditioned as much by the attrac-
tiveness of the offer and the strength of the inducement to make a
change which he visualizes as by his commitment to his present work
and its attendant perquisites.

In a similar vein, the fourth question does not necessarily
involve the consideration of either the opportunity or the feasibility
of actually making the change to some other work visualized as more
desirable. The question is stated broadly enough to encompass day-
dreaming and wishful thinking without regard for the practicalities
of implementing the notion. At the same time it seems that frequent
thought about other kinds of work that might be more desirable than
truck driving does not necessarily imply dissatisfaction with, or
disassociation from, one's present occupation.

To test the reality of the desire for change which may be implied
in their answers to this question, respondents were asked what kind of
work they would prefer if they often think they might like some other
work better than truck driving. Of the 135 respondents indicating
that they fairly often or very often think of a different kind of work,
22 expressed no specific preference and 15 were undecided. The

expressed preferences of the remaining 98 respondents are as follows:

119

 

 

Type of Work Preferred Number of Respondents
Factory or construction 3
Mechanic 36
Policeman or fireman 3
Foreman in a shop 3
Farming 5
Sales or office work 17
Owner of a small business 26
Professions (engineer,

teacher, lawyer) 5

Total 98

While several of these selections may well involve some wish-
ful thinking on the respondents' part, only a very few can be classified
as probably out of reach or beyond their capabilities. At least one
of the five respondents expressing a preference for a profession
already possesses the necessary educational qualifications, and at
least one other is young enough to have a reasonable chance of acquiring
the necessary education if he were strongly motivated. For the other
three respondents in this category, the possibility of achieving such
positions seems quite remote.

On the other hand, several respondents report that they are
already established in the preferred occupation on a part-time basis
or in a small way, and are developing the activity in preparation for
retirement or as a hedge against forced withdrawal from over-the-
road driving. There is also a strong possibility that many of the
respondents who express a preference for another kind of work,
either specific or not, are really verbalizing their dissatisfaction

with some particular aspect of their present occupation rather than

120
a general dislike for the work.

Some evidence to support this view is contained in both oral
and written comments of respondents who expressed a preference
for “any kind of job with regular hours" or "a job that would give
me more time with my family. " Other respondents added a touch
of reality with comments such as ”Sure, I'd like a job with a regular
starting time and a regular quitting time like other people have, but
what could I do that would pay me half as much as I make driving?"

In summary, then, career oriented responses to each of the
four questions are in a decisive majority. Eight of every nine
respondents report that over-the-road truck driving is a fairly or
very satisfying occupation, and seven of every eight of the drivers
expect to remain in the industry until they retire. In spite of the
negative bias in the third and fourth questions, two of every three
respondents could not easily be persuaded to leave the industry, and
three of five seldom even think that they might like some other work

better than truck driving.

An Index of Career Orientation

For further analysis and comparison to other measures of
occupational attitudes, responses to these four questions were scaled
to form a single composite measure of career orientation. The four
alternative answers to each question were scored 1, 2, 3, and 4 in

the order they appear in the first four columns of Table 4. 4.

121
Individual scores on each of the four questions were then summed to
provide a total score ranging from a minimum of 4 to a maximum
of 16. The percentage distribution of respondents by total scores
is presented in Table 4. 5.
TABLE 4. 5. --Percentage distribution

of over-the-road truck drivers by
total career-orientation scores.*

 

 

 

Four-item Percentage
total of
score respondents

16 14.4
15 11.5
14 14.4
13 14.4
12 11.5
11 6.0
10 8.3
9 7.2
8 3.8
7 3.4
6 2.9
5 1. 1
4 1.1
Total 100.0
*N = 348

The median score of this distribution of 348 responses is
12. 8, and the mean total score is 12. 2 with a standard deviation
of 2.98. These statistics, and Table 4. 5 itself, show a strong con-
centration of scores toward the upper end of the scale. Only 19. 5
percent of the total scores fall below the midpoint of the distribution,

while 72. 2 percent are above the midpoint. This finding follows

122

and sustains the pattern established by responses to the individual
questions as reported in Table 4.4. Item-total correlations range
from . 73 to . 89, and average . 82.19

In the interest of consistency, these data are interpreted by
the same criteria applied to the Lodahl-Kejner job-involvement scale
in the preceding section of this chapter. A respondent whose total
score on the four questions is 12 or higher is designated as exhibiting
high career orientation; one who scores between 9 and 11 is desig-
nated as moderately career oriented; and a respondent who scores
8 or lower is classified as exhibiting low career orientation. Com—
bining the percentages from Table 4. 5 according to these criteria
and rounding to the nearest whole number yields the distribution
presented in Table 4. 6.
TABLE 4. 6. --Percentage distribution of over-the-road truck

drivers by career-orientation level with class ranges and
class means.

 

 

 

Level of career Percent of Class Class mean
orientation respondents range score
High 66.0 12-16 14.0
Moderate 22.0 9—11 9.9
Low 12. 0 4-8 6. 6
Total 100. O
N = 348

This scaling method does not differ significantly from that

 

l
9The correlation matrix is presented in Appendix D, Table 2.

123
employed in interpreting responses to the individual questions
which comprise the index of career orientation. To be classified
as highly career oriented, a respondent must, on the average,
score each of the four questions at least moderately career-
oriented (3). To be classified as expressing low career orientation,
a respondent can average no better than slightly career oriented (2)
on each of the four questions. These two classifications are similar
to the dichotomization of responses adopted in the discussion of
responses to the individual questions. The introduction of the
moderately career oriented category simply accommodates those
respondents whose total scores are so close to the midpoint of the
distribution that a clear distinction between high and low career
orientation cannot be justified.

Although the criteria for classifying career-orientation scores
are the same as those applied to the Lodahl-Kejner scale, the
rationale supporting the interpretation differs considerably from
that applied to the job-involvement data. The mere fact of employ-
ment as an over-the-road truck driver does not signify any commit-
ment at all to the occupation as a career. A respondent could as
well consider his employment in the industry as very temporary
while he waits for the right opportunity to make a change. Even
after years of service in the occupation it is conceivable that some
drivers might rationalize that they are really cut out to be chicken

farmers, or politicians, or salesmen, or whatever, and will be

124
when the time is ripe.
However, the alternative responses provided for the career-
”(orientation questions do not call for degrees of agreement or dis-
agreement with an idea or a concept as is required in the job-
involvement instrument. Rather, the alternative answers to the
career-orientation questions are unidirectional in the measurement
of the strength of the attitude or opinion evoked by the questions.
Thus, the respondents who select the least career-oriented response
to all four questions might well be classified as non-career oriented.
To these workers, over-the-road truck driving appears to be just
a job, and possibly, a quite distasteful one. If this interpretation
is valid, the one percent of the sample who responded to the ques-
tions in this way (those with a total scores of 4) perhaps ought to be
placed in a separate category and labeled as non-career oriented.
Table 4. 6 shows, then, that 66 percent of the over-the-road
truck drivers sampled are classified as highly career-oriented.
Taking account of the distribution of responses to the four component
questions (Table 4.4) and the item-total correlations, these respon-
dents generally derive a great deal of satisfaction from their work
and are quite sure that they are going to remain in the industryuntil
they retire. They could not easily be persuaded to change occupa-
tions and seldom even think that a change would be desirable.
Another 22 percent of the respondents, designated as moder-

ately career-oriented, also get considerable satisfaction from their

125
work and are reasonably sure that they will stay in the industry
until retirement. These drivers, however, may often view another
occupation as more attractive than truck driving and could more
easily be persuaded to make a change of occupations.

The remaining 12 percent of the survey respondents apparently
derive little or no satisfaction from their work and are not sure that
they will remain in the industry. These drivers may well be some-
what preoccupied with thoughts of more attractive employment possi-
bilities and would readily respond to an offer in a different field of
employment.

Whether the attitudes expressed by these drivers who are
classified as low career-oriented is limited to their feelings and
Opinions about their work, or whether it may be indicative of a more
general dissatisfaction with their whole environment is indeterminate
within the confines of the present research. There is, however, a
strong possibility that the latter interpretation may be the more
valid, at least in some cases. When the subject of negative attitudes
was broached during an interview with one trucking company execu-
tive, he commented thus:

. . Of course we do have a few employees who seem to
have a negative attitude toward everything. They complain
when they are working, and then scream their heads off when
they aren't working. They gripe about the trips they make,
and gripe about the trips they don't get. They complain that
they aren't making enough money and then take time off when
we need them most. They talk as though they would quit com-

pletely at the drop of a hat, but the truth of the matter is, you
couldn't drive them away with a club.

126
That there is considerable basis in fact for such a commentary
was borne out in some of the informal interviews with respondents
and also with non-respondents to the survey questionnaire. In one
instance, an interviewee, explaining why he would not participate
in the survey, became so vociferous in his denunciation of prying
interviewers, communists, government at all levels, politicians,
capitalists, et cetera, as to be overheard by several other drivers
who were waiting to be interviewed.
When the next interviewee entered, he laughingly remarked,
"I guess Jack isn't going to help you with your project, is he?"
After some discussion of the necessity for voluntary participation,
the interviewee said:
I would be very much surprised if Jack had agreed to
participate-~in fact I'm surprised that he even came in to
talk to you. He's been with the company a long time, and
he's a good worker, but he's the only man I ever knew who's
so suspicious that he won't even accept his paycheck if he
thinks it's short a dollar.
Later, the terminal manager apologized to the interviewer
for Jack's behavior, but explained:
I should have warned you-~I though Jack would act the

way he did, but he would have been mad at everyone around
here for a month if he hadn't been invited to talk to you.

CHAPTER V

COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF THE

RESEAR CH FINDINGS

The survey findings presented in the preceding chapter provide
a relatively rare research opportunity--the opportunity to compare
data from the administration of three distinct research instruments
to a single sample of respondents. Except for minor adjustments
for missing data, no qualifications or reservations need be made
about the findings and their comparability because of differences in
size, composition or disposition of the survey sample.

To determine whether and to what extent the responses evoked
by the research instruments are uniformly or differentially influ-
enced by the background and status of the respondents, the three
measures will be compared first in terms of correlations with
sample characteristics which were presented in Chapter III. Secondly,
the attitude measures will be inter-correlated to determine the
degree of association or independence among the instruments them-
selves. Finally, the results will be examined for interpretable
similarities and differences in the response sets evoked by the three
measures of occupational attitudes.

127

128

Characteristics of the Sample
and Occupational Attitudes

 

 

One of the major purposes of this study is to determine whether
or not significant relationships are discernible between selected
aspects of socio-economic origin and present status character-
istics of respondents and their evaluation of and attitudes toward
their work and its environment. In Chapter IV it was suggested that
in general respondents to this survey had apparently drifted into
truck driving as an available job without much consideration of their
future. Consequently, to the extent that these respondents have
developed a career orientation toward their work, it has developed
after the fact as a consequence of, or adjustment to, the demands
and constraints of the work. In view of the findings now reported
pertinent to career orientation as well as to other occupational
attitudes, it is appropriate to reexamine the background character-
istics of the respondents for possible associations or relationships
to the attitudes expressed.

Two basic correlation techniques have been used to measure
relationships between continuous variables from the background data
and each of the three attitude survey results. Pearson product-
moment correlation coefficients were computed to relate these
variables to the Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement Scale and to the
Career Orientation Index and its components. Because the Central

Life Interests questionnaire responses are dichotomized into job-

129
oriented and non-job-oriented classifications which do not form a
continuous distribution, point biserial correlation coefficients were

computed to compare these scores to the background variables.

Findings

Table 5.1 presents the coefficients of correlation between
selected sample characteristics and each of the three attitude mea—
sures as well as the four component sectors of experience from the
Central Life Interests questionnaire. Table 5. 2 presents correlation
coefficients between the same sample characteristics and the com-
ponents of tle Career Orientation Index.

Only variables with at least one statistically significant coeffi-
cient, or in which the lack of significance seems to be especially
pertinent are presented in the tables. Coefficients for none of the
other variables are statistically significant at even the . 05 level.

Examination of Tables 5.1 and 5. 2 reveals a number of the
coefficients which are statistically significant well beyond the . 001
level, despite their small size. It is quite possible that this finding
results from the relatively large sample size in combination with

the narrow ranges of many variables. However, none of the

 

1N. M. Downie and R. W. Heath, Basic Statistical Methods
(2nd ed.; New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 189-93. The
authors state: "This coefficient is a product-moment correlation
coefficient and is used and interpreted just as the Pearson r is. "

[p. 191]

 

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132
coefficients indicate any more than a small but definite relation-
ship between the paired variables. 2

Although the correlation coefficients are too small to be of
value for predictive purposes, there are several tendencies re-
vealed which are worth noting. Two characteristics of the sample,
age and education, correlate significantly with total scores on all
three research instruments.

The consistently positive relationships between total scores
on the attitude measures and respondent's age mean that these
variables tend to move in the same direction suggesting that older
drivers tend to score higher, or to be more favorably disposed
toward their work. Dubin entertains a similar idea in commenting
about changing life interests of workers:

In entering on his permanent work career, the individual

may still be community-oriented. However, as he develops
his career and finds gratification in work, he may shift his
interests more and more to a work-centered outlook. 3

Lodahl and Kejner also report a significant correlation between job-

involvement and age (r = . 26, p(. 01) among the sample of nursing

 

ZJ. P. Guilford, Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and
Education (3d ed.; New York: McGraw Hill, 1956), p. 145.
Abraham N. Franzblau, in A Primer of Statistics for Non-Statis-
ticians (New York: Harcourt, Brace 8: World, Inc. , 1958),

p. 88, states: "Actually, in attempting to predict one measure
from another, coefficients below .40 do not yield a guess even
10 per cent better than chance. "

 

3
Robert Dubin, The World of Work (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1958), p. 259.

 

133
personnel in their study. 4
Significant correlations would, of course, be expected between
Career Orientation and age, experience, and seniority. A driver
who is approaching retirement would be expected to be more
certain that he is not going to change jobs. Similarly, the ancillary
attractions to the job, such as choice of runs, longer vacations,
and pension rights, which increase with seniority in the industry
and company should make it more difficult to entice the older worker
to leave the industry.
These suggestions are supported by the relatively large
coefficients of correlations between the pertinent variables in
Table 5. 2. However, it may also be noted that these considera-
tions apparently do not contribute proportionally to satisfaction with
the work, nor do they appear to reduce the frequency of thoughts
that some other work might be preferable to over-the-road driving.
Tables 5. l and 5. 2 reveal a similar pattern of relationships
between total scores on the attitude measures, the components of
Career Orientation and respondents' education, except that the
coefficients are negative. This suggests that respondents with less
education tend to have more positive or favorable attitudes toward

their work. However, such a conclusion must be approached with

caution. There is also a significant negative correlation (r = -. 24)

 

4Lodahl and Kejner, op. cit., p. 31.

 

134

between respondents' age and education, that is, older drivers
tend to have had less formal schooling. Thus the relationship
between attitudes and education may be merely concomitant to the
age-attitude relationship previously discussed. On the other hand,
the less educated driver may place a higher evaluation on his
present position relative to the limited occupational alternatives
available to him.

The similarity of the patterns of correlations for respondent's
education and wife's education across all columnar variables in
Tables 5. l and 5. 2 is to be expected. It was noted in Chapter III
that over-the-road driver respondents in general appear to have
married women from socio-economic backgrounds quite similar
to their own, Furthermore, education of the marriage partners
shows a small but definite degree of inter-correlation (r = . 26);
therefore, no particular significance is attributable to the pattern
or magnitude of the correlations between the respondents' occupa-
tional attitudes and their wives' education.

Notable for their lack of correlation with the measures of
occupational attitudes are the sample characteristics pertaining
to income and social participation.

Annual earnings exhibits a slight but statistically significant
correlation with only two columnar variables in the tables. Table 5. 1

shows that earnings tend to be inversely associated (r = -. 15)

pbs

with recognition of the respondents' employer as the most significant

 

135

formal organization in his social world. Table 5. 2 shows that the
degree of correlation (r = .11) between annual earnings and the
attractiveness of over-the-road truck driving, although statistically
significant, is almost negligible. Here, a much higher correlation
might well be expected. Aside from the two coefficients noted,
there appear to be virtually no relationship between annual earnings
and any of the three measures of occupational attitudes.

Somewhat more provocative is the absence of significant
correlations between the three measures of social participation
and total scores on the Central Life Interests schedule. Table 5. 1
shows only slight and insignificant inverse relationships between
job-oriented responses on the Central Life Interests total and number
of organizational memberships (rpbs = -. 09), while the number of
offices held appears to be completely independent of the measure
of Central Life Interests. The implications of these findings will

be discussed in a later section of this report.
Conclusion

In Table 5. 2, two components of the Career Orientation Index
show small but definite degrees of correlation with age, work experi-
ence and seniority of the survey respondents. While these relation-
ships are reflected in the correlations between the same sample
characteristics and scores on the Career Orientation Index itself,

their import is not sufficient to make them of predictive value.

136

In view of the observation that the over-the-road drivers in
this sample do not appear to have entered the industry with an
inherent career-orientation, and the proposition that to whatever
extent respondents have developed a career-oriented attitude toward
over-the-road driving, it has emerged as a consequence of, or
adjustment to, the demands and constraints of the work, it is to be
expected that career orientation would increase with age, experi-
ence and seniority. In fact, the degree of relationship could be
expected to be much higher than is shown in the tables.

Therefore, none of the characteristics of the survey sample
that have been identified in this study is correlated with any of the
three measures of occupational attitudes to a degree that knowledge
of the characteristic would be of significant value in predicting the
existence or strength of the attitude measured by the instrument.
Career Orientation, Job Involvement, and work as a Central Life
Interest, as measured by these instruments, appear to be equally
independent of the socio-economic background and status character-
istics of this sample of over-the-road truck drivers.

Inter-instrument Cougarisons of
Occupational Attitudes

 

 

With the finding that scores on the three measures of occupa-
tional attitudes are comparatively free from strong and/or dispro-
portional influence by characteristics of the sample, attention may

now be directed to comparisons among the research instruments

 

137
themselves. The purpose of such comparisons is, of course, to
determine whether or not, and to what degree, the three attitudinal
measures are related to one another. Stated differently, the purpose
of these inter-instrument comparisons is to determine whether the
instruments are all measuring the same attitudes or whether each
is tapping different areas of feeling and opinion about the respondents'
work.

To measure the degree of association among the three instru-
ments, the results were paired and inter-correlated. Pearson
product-moment coefficients of correlation were computed to com-
pare the continuously distributed scores on the Lodahl-Kejner Job
Involvement scale to the scores on the Career Orientation Index
and its four components. Point biserial correlation was used to
compare all of these to the dichotomized responses to the Central
Life Interests schedule and the four sub-sectors thereof. These

coefficients of correlation are presented in Table 5. 3.

Findings

The most notable characteristics of,Table 5. 3 are the large
proportion of statistically significant coefficients of correlation
and the consistency among the patterns of association shown. Of
the 35 coefficients presented, 28 are statistically significant beyond
the .05 level, but again, none of the coefficients is of sufficient

size to indicate any more than a small but definite relationship

 

138

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139

between the correlated variables. 5

The ten largest coefficients in Table 5. 3 appear in the pairing
of job involvement scores with Career Orientation and its components
and with the Central Life Interests total and its subsectors. Although
none of the coefficients are large enough to be of predictive value,
they do show a consistently similar and definite relationship between
job involvement and the other measures of occupational attitudes.

Support for the contention that these coefficients are of little or
no predictive value is provided by a test of their reliability. Standard
errors of the coefficients of correlation appearing in Table 5. 3
range from . 05361 to . 05399, which means that three times the
largest standard error is slightly more than .16 (36'r = .162). There-
fore, there is a probability of only . 01 that different samples from
the same population would yield a coefficient of correlation even as
large as . 53 (. 37 + . 16) which could be interpreted as a moderate
degree of correlation. 6

On the other hand, the coefficient of correlation between the
Career Orientation Index and a job-oriented posture on the Central
Life Interests total (1‘pr = .17) shows a considerably smaller degree

of association than occurs when either of these measures is paired

m

5See footnote 2 above.

6Franzblau, op. cit., p. 79. The author further states:
"To yield a prediction which is 25 percent better than a chance
or random guess, the correlation must be at least . 66.” i[p. 88]

140
with the index of job involvement. Correlations between the sub-
categories of Central Life Interests and components of Career
Orientation are correspondingly small and consistent, with a single
exception. Five of the seven coefficients which are not even sta-
tistically significant appear in the column relating attachment to the
employing organization to career-orientation and its components.
Even in the technological sector of the Central Life Interests schedule,
where the pr0portion of job-oriented respondents is most proportional
to their scores on the other instruments as well as the components
of the Career-Orientation Index, there is a notable lack of meaningful
correlation. The implications of these findings will be considered

in the following section of this chapter.

Conclusion

The evidence presented in Table 5. 3 suggests, then, that the
three measures of occupational attitudes under consideration are
independent of each other. Although there are many statistically
significant associations among the scales, none are large enough to
enable the prediction of scores on any of the instruments from scores
on either of the others.

A certain amount of consistency among the measures is to be
expected since the three instruments were administered to a single
sample of respondents. It seems highly unlikely that large propor-

tions of the sample would be deeply involved in their work without

141
showing some interest in it, or that they would be highly career-
oriented without being somewhat involved in their work.

Even though there may be a great deal of truth in Lodahl's
suggestion that "very angry people may be just as involved in their
jobs as very happy ones, "7 when it is applied to individual cases,
one would hardly expect such a combination to prevail as the general
attitude of several hundred workers in 15 or more different companies.

On the other hand, a considerably higher degree of correlation
might be expected between the Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement scale
and Dubin's Central Life Interests schedule. The rationale as well
as the theoretical framework of the Lodahl-Kejner study are largely
based upon Dubin's study of "central life interests. " It would be
only natural that some effort would be exerted to cast pertinent
attitudinal concepts from his questionnaire into the Likert-type scale
used by Lodahl and Kejner.

In spite of what might have been expected, none of the instru-
ments are correlated to the degree that scores on one measure would
be valid predictors of scores on another. Furthermore, there is
only one chance in a hundred that further sampling of the same popu—
lation would yield correlations of even a moderate degree.

Therefore, it may be concluded that these three instruments

are not only independent of each other in their respective scores, but

 

7Lodah1 and Kejner, op. cit., p. 25.

 

142
edch of them is apparently measuring something different from

either of the others.

Interpretation of the Results

 

In the preceding sections of this chapter it has been demon-
strated that the three research instruments are comparatively free
from significant influence by characteristics of the survey sample
as well as independert of each other. Now, whatever similarities
or differences appear in the research findings ought to be attributable
to the response sets evoked by the instruments or to their inter-
pretation, that is, to similarities or differences in the occupational
attitudes of the respondents.

For convenient reference, the major findings r’fieported in
Chapter IV are presented in Table 5.4. To summarize these findings:
in terms of responses to Dubin's questionnaire, work is not a
"central life interest" for a vast majority of the over-the-road truck
drivers surveyed, nor is it a source of valued informal and general
social experiences. A majority of the respondents do not recognize
their employing company as the most significant formal organization
in their social world. It is only with respect to their relations with
technological aspects of their work and workplace that a majority
of drivers experience a sense of attachment to their occupation.

Despite the reported lack of interest in the social aspects of

their work, a large majority of the respondents are classified as

 

143

TABLE 5.4. -—Distribution of scores on three instruments
measuring occupational attitudes, in percentages.

 

H

Instrument

Percentages of
Over-the-road
Truck Drivers ‘

 

Dubin Central Life Interest Totala
Job- oriented
Non-job-oriented

Informal Social Experiences
Job- oriented
Non-job-oriented

General Social Experiences
Job-oriented
Non-job-oriented

Formal Organizational Experiences
Job-oriented
Non-job-oriented

Technological Experiences
Job-oriented
Non-job-oriented

Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement Scaleb
High Involvement
Medium Involvement
Low Involvement

Career Orientation IndexC

High Orientation
Medium Orientation
Low Orientation

How satisfying is your work?
High commitment
Low commitment

How sure to stay in trucking?
High commitment
Low commitment

How easily persuaded to change?
High commitment
Low commitment

How often think of other work?
High commitment
Low commitment

 

12%
88

8%
92

18%
82

34%
66

62%
38

28%
60
12

66%
22
12

89%
11

87%
13

67%
33

61%
39

 

3N = 349 bN = 343 CN = 348

144
being moderately-to-highly involved psychologically in their jobs,
as measured by the Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement scale.

A sizable majority of the respondents are designated as highly
career-oriented, and a large minority are moderately career-
oriented in terms of the Career Orientation Index created for this
study. It may be noted that only 12 percent of the sample of drivers
is classified as exhibiting low job involvement and low career
orientation in the respective distributions.

To determine whether or not the research instruments used in
this study really measure what they profess to measure is not within
the scope of this report. The ability of the Central Life Interests
schedule to discriminate among samples from different occupational
groups has been well demonstrated by the several replications of
Dubin's original study. Lodahl and Kejner report that their Job
Involvement scale demonstrates a similar ability to discriminate
among different occupational groups. Since this is its only applica-
tion as formulated, no such claim can be made for the Career
Orientation Index. However, comparisons among the findings of the
three instruments in the present study lead to the conclusion tlat
the Career Orientation Index measures something different from
either of the other instruments.

Without making any judgment as to whether or not the Dubin
Central Life Interests schedule is truly sociologically oriented and

the Lodahl-Kejner Job Involvement scale is truly psychologically

145
oriented, a basis for further comparisons can be developed by
combining the stated objectives of the authors of each instrument
with the findings from the previous section wherein the independence
of the instruments was established. In these terms, then, the
Central Life Interests schedule distinguishes over-the-road truck
drivers who identify their work and the workplace as the most
important social activity and setting in their lives from those
drivers who choose otherwise, but it is not a measure of job involve-
ment or of career orientation as herein defined.

The Job Involvement scale measures the degree to which over-
the-road drivers identify psychologically with their work, or the
importance of work in their total self-image, but it is not a measure
of the social value of work or ‘of career orientation.

The Career Orientation Index measures the extent to which
over-the-road truck drivers express a preference for or commit-
ment to their present occupation as the locus for their life's work,
but it is not a measure of either the social or psychological value
of work. 8

Thus, the complementarity of the three research instruments

provides a considerably broader base from which to examine the

 

The only reference point prescribed in this instrument is
comparison to other fields of work. Specific jobs or occupations
compared and the criteria for comparison are within the realm of
choice of each respondent. Therefore, the basis for comparison
might be physiological, psychological or sociological, or some com-
bination of the three.

146
occupational attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers than is
usually afforded by similar researches. At the same time, this
complementarity of the research instruments poses the problem of
accounting for, or explaining, the seeming diversity of the findings

reported in Chapter IV and summarized in Table 5. 4, above.

Work as a Central Life Interest

The finding that over-the-road truck drivers do not identify
their work and workplace as central life interests is not surprising.
In the description of the nature of the work it was noted that over-
the-road drivers spend most of their working time in comparative
isolation from their fellow workers, their supervisors, and other
personnel of the employing organization. Thus the relative absence
of social opportunity is an inherent characteristic of the occupation
to which incumbents must make some sort of adjustment. That a
satisfactory accommodation has been achieved is demonstrated by
the evidence that most drivers (89 percent) find their work quite
satisfying.

Further evidence that social deprivation is, at worst, not a
crucial factor in their evaluation of their work is found in the per-
centage of over-the-road drivers scoring high on the Career Orienta-
tion Index (66 percent). If the absence of opportunity for social
interaction in the workplace was of primary importance to the

respondents, it is unlikely that such a large percentage of them would

147
favor their present work in preference to other occupational oppor-
tunities.

On the other hand, there is no evidence that non-job-oriented
truck drivers display any stronger preference for or commitment to
non-work-oriented social activities than job-oriented respondents.
Correlations between responses to the Central Life Interests
schedule and the measures of social participation in Table 5. 1
(organization memberships, attendance and office holding) are too
small to be meaningful. Apparently, job-oriented over-the-road
drivers are as apt to be active in such outside organizations as the
non-job-oriented respondents.

It may be recalled that off—the-job social deprivation is a
consequence of over-the-road truck driving, if not an inherent
characteristic. The erratic schedules and irregular hours of work
which are characteristic of the occupation impose strong constraints
against regular attendance and active participation in many kinds
of social activities organized and scheduled to conform to orthodox
work schedules.

The impact of off-the-job social deprivation upon the central
life interests posture, or, in fact, upon the other attitudinal mea-
sures, cannot be estimated from the data at hand. Social depriva-
tion is not an absolute, but undoubtedly varies with the degree of
a respondent's recognition of it, its importance to him, his adjust-

ment to it, and the success of his efforts to circumvent it. However,

148
it is improbable that off-the -job social deprivation would enhance a
respondent's social attachment to over-the-road driving, since
social opportunity is unavailable in the work environment.

On the other hand, off-the-job social deprivation might well
increase a respondent's psychological identification with his work.
With restricted opportunities for developing and maintaining a mean-
ingful self-image in non-work sectors of his life space, an over-
the-road driver might be expected to maximize the importance of

his work in his total self image. 9

Job Involvement

By its very nature, one’s self-image is neither developed nor
maintained in a vacuum. It is a value judgment about one's worth,
for which there must be some reference point and some basis for
comparative evaluation within the total framework of experience.

If an individual's work is to be of major importance to his self-

image, his job and job environment must provide some means and

 

9Although the relationship of over-the-road truck driving to
other major roles such as husband, father, and head of a family
were not a part of the present study, the impact of unorthodox work
schedules on these and other social roles has been thoroughly
documented in numerous studies of specific occupations, as well
as in studies of the subject itself. A classic example of the former
is W. F. Cottrell, The Railroader (Stanford: The Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 1940). Recent examples of the latter are Paul E. Mott
et a1. , Shift Work: The Social, Pslcholcggal, and Plysical Conse-
quences (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1965), and
Clyde Daukert, Floyd Mann, and Herbert Northrop (eds.), Hours
of Work (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).

 

149
opportunity for testing and reinforcing his self esteem.

Preceding descriptions of the trucking industry and the nature
of the work suggest that over-the-road truck driving is singularly
lacking in a number of major role characteristics which frequently
serve as criteria for testing self-esteem.10

Truck driving as a whole is a relatively low-status occupation
wherein intra-occupational gradations are largely unrecognized by
the general public. Although over-the-road driving is the highest
paid operating job in the industry, it is not really part of a hierarchy
of jobs through which a worker must advance. It is also a dead-end
job in that there is no opportunity for promotion to a higher paying
position. Thus, except for the earnings associated with it, over-the-
road driving is not particularly prestigious either within or outside
the industry.

In over-the-road driving there is little basis for differentiating
work role performance in terms of quality--a trip is either com-
pleted and the freight delivered, or it is not--there is little room
for variation in the process and little opportunity for demonstrating
superior ability.

There is room for considerable ambiguity in the definition of

 

10
Much of this analysis is based on concepts derived from

William A. Faunce, "Occupational Involvement and the Selective
Testing of Self Esteem, ” Paper presented at the Meeting of the
American Sociological Association, Chicago, Illinois, September,

1959.

150
successful role performance--the goals of regulatory agencies, the
union, and the employer, all of whom participate in prescribing
work role performance, are not necessarily identical nor even
compatible at all times.

Most evaluations of role performance are indirect and remote
audiences (the groups who prescribe successful performance) who
are not considered as reference groups.

Evaluation of work role performance is relatively infrequent,
and such recognition of superior performance as is afforded, e. g. ,
safe driving awards, etc. , is often belatedly bestowed.

In the absence of strong social attachment to them, it is
improbable that fellow workers serve either as an audience of
evaluation or as a reference group for the self-evaluation of work
role performance.

Despite the apparent absence of prime criteria as well as
opportunities for comparative evaluation of their work and work role
performance, over-the-road truck drivers do tend to identify
psychologically with their jobs. The evidence demonstrates that a
vast majority of the respondents to this survey are moderately-to-
highly involved in their work and consider it important to their total
self image.

Upon what basis,.. then, is the reported psychological identi-
fication with over-the-road driving established? What factors in

the occupational environment are conducive to the development of

151
job involvement and provide criteria for testing self esteem?
Although the present study was not designed to provide answers
to questions such as these, the most plausible suggestions seem to
be grounded in the structure of the trucking industry itself and the
very nature of over-the-road driving.

The evidence shows that the characteristics of the trucking
industry and of over-the-road truck driving, which make the job
unique in comparison to other industrial occupations, are major
factors in the development of job involvement. Despite the seeming
incongruity of the statement, the absence of specific criteria for
judging the quality of work role performance as well as ambiguity
in the definition of successful role performance also serve to
enhance an over-the-road truck driver's attachment to, and involve-
ment in, his work.

The same characteristic of the work that contributes most to
social deprivation--the fact that over-the-road drivers spendlmost
of their working time in isolation from their fellow workers, their
supervisors and other personnel of the employing organization--
appears to be the most crucial factor in the development of job
involvement.

Because he works alone and away from direct supervision, an
over-the-road driver is on his own most of the time. Within certain
limits, he is able to exercise a great deal of control over the tech-

nical and social aspects of his work environment. He controls his

152
own work pace as well as the speed of his equipment. He may take
his relief breaks and his lunch periods when and where he chooses.
If he is hungry, he may stop at the nearest restaurant. If he thinks
the food is better or the waitresses more congenial at a more
distant eating place, he may postpone his lunch until he arrives
there. In some cases he may exercise his own discretion as to
when, where, how long, and even whether or not, he sleeps.

An over-the-road driver not only has the opportunity to, but
he must, exercise some independent thought and action in coping
with problems encountered in the course of his work. In short, he
is in charge, and he is responsible for the equipment he drives and
the freight he hauls while he is on the highway.

During most of his working time, then, an over-the-road
driver enjoys a considerable measure of autonomy and responsi-
bility which enhance the importance of his work in his total self-
image.

At the same time, working in isolation affords an over-the-
road driver a great deal of protection. He is protected from the
consequences of his own mistakes and errors of judgment as well
as from the sanctions that might be imposed for willful violations
of rules. Contributing to this protection are the absence of direct
supervision and ambiguity in the definitions of successful work role
performance.

In the absence of close supervision, delays on the road are

153
unavoidable; errors are made by someone else; even accidents are
caused by faulty equipment, careless driving by others, or condi-
tions beyond one's control; but the over-the-road driver is rarely
at fault.

The goals of those agencies and individuals who have authority
over the behavior of over-the-road truck drivers are different and
at times even incompatible. Regulatory agencies are primarily
concerned with safe and lawful operation of the vehicles on the
highway. The union is interested in adherence to the contract and
the work rules, as well as in maximizing the earnings of its mem-
bers. The trucking company is primarily concerned with fast and
economical transportation of the freight. However, none of these is
close enough to the work scene to consistently evaluate a driver's
work role performance in any of these aspects.

Unless an infraction of company rules is severe, the union
protects its member from the arbitrary exercise of authority by
employers. On the other hand, the company may sanction viola-
tions of both union work rules and official regulations if such viola-
tions serve to expedite the movement of freight. These ambiguities
may provide opportunities for the over-the-road driver to hedge in
his individual responsibilities to all three.

It must not be implied from the foregoing that poor work per-
formance and irresponsible behavior are characteristic of the

trucking industry as a whole or of all over-the-road drivers.

154
Undoubtedly the vast majority of over-the-road truck drivers are
mature self-disciplined workers who conscientiously strive to
fulfill their responsibilities to their employers and to the public.

This discussion is intended to illustrate how the lack of pre-
cise qualitative measures of work role performance, ambiguous
prescriptions of successful work performance and the absence of
direct supervision may be used to provide protection from the conse-
quences of poor performance if it should occur.

The combination of poorly defined criteria for success and the
reduced risk of failure should make it somewhat easier to maintain
a favorable self-image in the role of over-the-road truck driver.

The absence of specific criteria for judging the quality of
work role performance also protects an over-the-road driver from
the necessity of making potentially unfavorable comparisons between
his own work role performance and that of other drivers. He is
thus spared the pain of unfavorable evaluations of a self-image which
may, in truth, be unrealistically favorable. If he gets his job done
at all, he may rationalize that he has done it well.

In addition to providing a sheltered climate for the maintenance
of a favorable self-image in the intra-industry environment, the
criteria outlined provide an over-the-road truck driver a unique
opportunity for testing his self-esteem in comparison to other occu-
pations. Of particular importance in view of the social deprivation

inherent in his occupation, is the fact that a specific audience of

155
evaluation or reference group is not a necessity for selective test-
ing of his self-esteem in almost any sector of his total life space
in terms of the established criteria. His relatives, friends, ex-
schoolmates, neighbors, or others who work regular shifts under
direct supervision, who are told how, when, and where to work,
how much work to do, or who are otherwise restrained in the per-
formance of their work, are subject to unfavorable comparison to
over-the-road truck driving.

With respect to income, the average driver can compare
himself favorably to almost any blue-collar worker and even to the
lower levels of supervisory personnel. In terms of income, over-
the-road driving compares favorably to many white-collar occupa-
tions, and even where favorable comparisons are impossible, the
over-the-road driver may uphold his self-image by rationalization
such as "So he makes a few dollars more a month than I do, but
look what he has to give up to get it. I wouldn't have his job for
twice the money. "

Before the reader is led to ask why, under these circumstances,
all over—the-road truck drivers are not highly involved in their work,
it must be admitted that, for the sake of exposition, this analysis
of the evidence does present a somewhat idealized picture of the
prevailing work situation. Although no reservations need be made
concerning the analysis, some qualifications of the criteria are

appropriate .

156

First, the data in Chapter 111 show that annual earnings of
survey respondents range in classes from $5, 000 to over $21, 000.
This means, of course, that an over-the-road driver at the upper
end of the scale is afforded opportunities to make objective com-
parisons of his economic prowess to a much wider range of jobs and
occupations than is available to a driver whose earnings are near
the lower end of the scale. However, in the first section of this
chapter it is reported that there is no discernible relationship
between occupational involvement and annual earnings (See Table
5.1). This finding suggests that over-the-road drivers are selective
in their choice of reference groups or reference points against
which to test their self-esteem, or that income from their work is
not among the criteria by which they evaluate the importance of
their job in their total self-image.

The second qualification of the analysis pertains to the criteria
by which over-the-road truck drivers evaluate their work or which
provide the basis for the development of job involvement. The
factors which have been advanced as most likely to contribute to
job involvement, namely autonomy and responsibility, are by no
means uniformly available to all survey respondents.

The degree of autonomy an over-the-road driver may exercise
is, of course, conditioned by such factors as the length and type of
run he makes, the kind of freight hauled, and delivery schedules over

which he has no control. Furthermore, many companies have begun

157
to consciously impose restraints upon this independence to achieve
a larger measure of control over their over-the-road operations
and to expedite the movement of freight.

Among these restraints are the conversion of long runs to
relay operations wherein each driver is responsible for specific
portions of the total distance and may be required to adhere to a
definite schedule. Some companies establish check points along
their regular routes where a driver must punch a time clock to
verify his log book or where he must call a dispatch office to report
his position and justify any delay. Some companies install auto-
matic devices in their tractors to record details such as speed,
stops, elapsed time, etc. for each trip. Companies also employ
their own safety patrolmen to check their trucks along principal
routes. These and other methods are used to increase the efficiency
of over-the-road operations, but they serve to reduce the autonomy
enjoyed by over-the-road drivers. To the extent that autonomy in
the performance of his work is differentially available, it should
differ in its contribution to the job involvement of an over-the-road
driver.

A final and closely related qualification of this analysis per-
tains to the respondents themselves. It is highly improbable that
the factors suggested as a basis for the development of job involve-
ment are universally or uniformly valued by over-the-road truck

drivers. Only to the extent that autonomy and responsibility are

158
perceived as important and valued characteristics of the work would
they be effective contributors to involvement in over-the-road
driving. In fact, for a worker with tendencies toward dependence
and the avoidance of responsibility, the presence of these factors
in the work environment would be expected to exert a negative
influence on his self-evaluation.

Therefore, the affectivity of the factors suggested as poten-
tial contributors to job involvement and their utility as criteria
for testing self-esteem are conditioned by the extent of their per-
ceived presence in the work situation and the extent to which they
are valued by an over-the-road truck driver.

Although the present study does not provide a test of these
suggestions, the mere fact that they seem to offer the most plau-
sible explanation for the finding that over-the-road truck drivers
are psychologically involved in their work is of special interest.
If, in the context of over-the-road driving, job involvement arises
from factors associated with or resulting from the isolated nature
of the work which also gives rise to social deprivation (apparently
the major factor in a non-job-oriented stance on the Central Life
Interests schedule), then job-involvement cannot be equated with

Dubin's concept of job orientation.
Career Orientation

As a measure of occupational attitude, the Career Orientation

159
Index employs a strikingly different focus from either of the other
instruments used in the present study. The" Central Life Interests
schedule focuses attention on work and the work environment in
opposition to other areas of a respondent's life as the source of
satisfying and valued social experiences and activities. Similarly,
the Job Involvement scale focuses attention on the importance of
work to the individual as opposed to the importance of unspecified
non-work activities.

In contrast, the Career Orientation Index limits a respondent's
attention to comparisons between his present occupation and other
kinds of work. Of the four component questions only one, ”How
£3 do you feel that you will stay in the trucking industry until you
retire?" does not contain a specific reference to another field of
work. Even here the stage has been set by a reference to other fields
of work in the preceding question. Thus, there is no suggestion that
the respondent is not going to work at some kind of work until he
retires. He is under some inducement to think in terms of a choice
between the trucking industry and some other kind of work.

An objection may be raised that this format makes no provision
for the possibility that a respondent might prefer not to work at any
job. Such an objection may be deemed irrelevant in the context of
the present study. The fact that the respondent is now working and
has been working is evidence that he chooses to work in preference

to not working. An unemployed person might justify not working with

160
the excuse that he cannot find a job, but the argument cannot be
reversed to accommodate the employed person's situation. On the
other hand, if a man does happen to be working under some kind of
compulsion, he is under no more pressure to work in the trucking
industry than in any other.

One problem that the format of the Career Orientation Index
does pose is that it provides no uniform basis for analysis of the
findings. Respondents express their attitudes or opinions in each
of the components of the index without any explanation. Each
respondent is priviledged to provide his own frame of reference
and his own criteria for evaluating his present job. Because neither
his frame of reference nor his criteria of evaluation are identifiable
from his response, there is no way to determine the bases for his
personal evaluation of his work situation.

It is difficult to conceive an effective method of avoiding or
overcoming this problem short of specifying the occupations to be
used as a frame of reference as well as the criteria by which the
respondent is to make his judgment. The weakness of pre-specifi-
cation is that one might not include either the correct jobs or the
criteria by which all respondents actually formulate their preferences.
On the other hand, asking respondents to explain their own reasons
for their opinions and attitudes is equally impracticalbe in a survey
questionnaire. Even if the respondents were able to articulate their

own criteria, it is doubtful that the results would represent a

161

consensus. Hundreds of studies among thousands of workers in
a wide variety of occupations have not yet produced a universally
agreed upon set of variables to account for variations in job
attitudes. 11

In reviewing the literature preparatory to a comparative
study of workers' attitudes, Robert Blauner noted that most studies
attempt to explain variations in job satisfaction among individual
employees in the same company or occupation. 12 To satisfy his
own need for a means of explaining gross differences in work atti-
tudes among employees in different occupations and industries,
Blauner abstracted four factors which appeared to him to be useful
for this purpose. Briefly stated, they are as follows:

1. Occupational prestige relative to other occupations

2. Control in its most important dimensions: (a) Control
over time, physical movement and pace of work, (b) Control over

technical and social environment, and (c) Control as freedom from

direct supervision

 

1A list of 134 specific aspects of ten major factors of the
job situation identified as contributing to job attitudes is presented
in Herzberg et a1. , op. cit. , pp. 39-40. The most recent review
of research findings in the field lists 73 topics which were investi-
gated for the presence or absence of relationships to job satisfac-
tion alone during 1964 and 1965. See Robinson et a1. , op. cit. ,
p. 372.

12 . . .

Blauner, "Work Satisfaction and Industrial Trends in

Modern Society, " op. cit. , p. 343.

162

3. Integrated work groups

4. Occupational communities. 13

That these four factors are useful in making inter-industry
comparisons is amply demonstrated in Blauner's recent compara-
tive study of occupational attitudes among workers in four techno-
logically and structurally different industries. 14 It would not be
illogical, then, to suppose that workers themselves might utilize
the same or similar factors to evaluate their own occupation in
comparison to other potential fields of work. Therefore, it should

be meaningful to examine the evidence of the present study in terms

of the factors listed above.

Occupational pres ti ge

 

Blauner suggests that occupational prestige is the one best

measure of job satisfaction because of the generally marked asso-

15

ciation between the two. However, he qualifies his generalization

 

13%, pp. 344—52. Blauner noted, on page 357, that the
omission of other factors such as skill, variety of operations,
wages, and job security does not imply that they are unimportant.
He suggests that besides being closely related to occupational
prestige and control, they do not seem as useful in explaining gross
occupational differences.

4Blauner, Alienation and Freedom, op. cit.

 

Blauner, "Work Satisfaction and Industrial Trends in
Modern Society, " op. cit. , p. 344.

163
by noting that truck driving is an example of a relatively low-
status occupation in which job satisfaction is unusually high. 16
This qualification of the proposition appears to describe the over-
the-road drivers in this study quite precisely.

The generally low status ascribed to truck driving in general
and the lack of intra-occupational differentiation have been discussed
previously. However, the findings of the Central Life Interests
schedule suggest that survey respondents are little concerned about
social prestige either on the job or off the job. At the same time,
only 11 percent of the respondents report that they derive little
or no satisfaction from their work. In contrast, the most recent
summary of published studies of job satisfaction reports that the
total of 494 percentages accumulated over the past 31 years yields
a median percentage of 13 percent of workers judged to be dissatis-
fied with their jobs. 17 These studies span the entire spectrum of
prestige rankings and yield individual percentages ranging from

0 to 92 percent dissatisfied.
Control

According to Blauner, the fact that some low status jobs seem
to be highly satisfying suggests that in these cases other factors play

a role even more important than occupational prestige. 18 Considering

 

16 .
Ibid., p. 348. 17Robinson et al., op. cit., p. 372.

18Blainer, "Work Satisfaction and Industrial Trends in
Modern Society, " op. cit. , p. 345.

164
the dimensions of his second factor, control, one would almost
suspect that he is referring specifically to over-the-road truck
driving.

Freedom from direct supervision is an inherent character-
istic of the occupation. Working in isolation, away from direct
supervision, not only makes it possible but also mandatory for an
over-the-road driver to exercise control over his own work per-
formance and to c0pe with environmental conditions encountered in
the performance of his work. Where he is restricted only by the
demands of the work itself and the restraints of regulatory agencies,
the freedom of an over-the-road driver would seem to approximate
that of an' executive or a self-employed person.

In the preceding section of this chapter a variety of constraints
were listed which may be imposed on over-the-road operations by
the employer. However, under even the most stringent of these
constraints, over-the-road driving would compare favorably to
most blue-collar occupations in terms of the criteria of control.
Thus there is little doubt that these dimensions of control are cru-
cial to an over-the-road driver's evaluation of his occupation in

comparison to other possible fields of work.

Integrated work groups

 

The third factor listed generates the proposition that the

greater the extent to which workers are members of integrated

165
work teams on the job, the higher the level of job satisfaction. 1‘9
ThiSjproposition is virtually meaningless in the context of over-
the-road truck driving. Although most drivers work alone, even
those employed on two-man operations do not evidence any greater
commitment to their work as a consequence of their close associa-

tion during relatively long tours of duty.

Occupational communities

 

Blauner suggests that occupational communities tend to
develop in occupations that are isolated, either spatially or on the
basis of peculiar hours of work. The essential features of an occu-
pational community are: (1) workers tend to socialize among their
own kind in their off-work time; (2) its participants "talk shop" in
their off-hours; (3) as a little world in itself, the occupation is the
reference group, and its standards of behavior, and its system of
status and rank guide the conduct of its members. 20

Although ove-the-road truck driving meets, in a sense, both
the criteria for the development of an occupational community, it
has been pointed out that these same characteristics inhibit the
development of communality in the occupation. Besides working

in isolation from each other, over-the-road drivers do not even

share the affiliations of working the same hours or the same shifts

 

19Ibid., p. 349. 20Ibid., p. 351.

166

or of close residence that might be associated with a mill- or a
mining-town environment. Respondents to this survey demonstrate
no notable tendency to reside in clusters either close to their bases
of operations or at any other place in the larger communities.

Responses to the Central Life Interests questionnaire again
offer ample evidence that the work and work environment are not
conducive to the development of occupational communities of over-
the-road truck drivers. Only 21 percent of the respondents express
a preference for talking shop during their free time on the job, and
only 13 percent prefer to talk about their work when away from the
job. In response to items concerning off-the-job social activities,
no more than 11 percent of the over-the-road drivers prefer to
socialize with co—workers in their leisure activities.

The relevance of the third feature of an occupational com-
munity--as a little world in itself wherein the occupation itself
is the reference group with its own standards of behavior and its
own system of status and rank to guide its members--is more diffi-
cult to assess in the context of the present research. As it stands
within the conceptual framework of a social community of over-the-
road truck drivers, it seems to have no validity or interpretative
potential in terms of the research data. However, with its social
connotations stripped away, the concept of the occupation as a little
world in itself offers several interesting possibilities in explanation

of the survery findings.

167

Standing apart from its social aspects, then, over-the—road
truck driving becomes a very private world rather than a social
world. It becomes a psychological frame of reference rather than
a social source of identification. Its standards of behavior and its
system of status and rank represent the internalized value system
by which incumbents evaluate their behavior and measure their worth
as working members of the larger society.

This interpretation does not require reading into the concept
of occupational community something which is not included in its
original formulation. It is, instead, simply separating out the
sociological elements and leaving the psychological elements of the
concept to stand alone. In his suggested mechanisms by means of
which occupational communities increase job satisfaction, Blauner
states:

An effect of the isolation of the occupation is that workers

are able to develop and maintain a pride in and devotion to
their line of work; at the same time, isolation insulates them
from having to come to grips with the general public's image
of their status, which is likely to be considerably lower than
their own. . . . In such worlds one's skill and expertise in
doing the actual work becomes an important basis of individual
status and prestige. Finally, unlike the "alienated" assembly
line worker, who is characterized by a separation of his work
sphere from his non-work sphere--the work and leisure
interests of those in occupational communities are highly
integrated. 21

The points included in this quotation lend themselves to indi-

vidual examination in terms of the research data. While there is no

 

21Ibid., p. 352.

168
direct evidence available concerning the amount of pride that over-
the-road drivers take in their work, neither is there any evidence
that they are ashamed of it. There is no doubt, however, about
the respondents' devotion to their occupation.

The extent to which they are job-involved and the strength of
their commitment to over-the-road driving as evidenced by the
Career Orientation Index provide ample support for this observation.
Furthermore, the components of the Career Orientation Index pre-
clude any notion that their devotion is shallow or superficial. It
may also be recalled that the respondents have been employed as
over-the-road drivers for an average of nearly 17 years. In the
face of this evidence of devotion to their occupation, it would almost
seem preposterous to assume that over-the-road drivers do not take
pride in their work as well.

In the preceding discussion of job involvement it was shown
that isolation served to insulate an over-the-road driver from the
necessity of comparing himself to other drivers in terms of his
work role performance. In other words, he is enabled to maintain
a favorable self-image--to take pride in his own expertise, without
subjecting himself to potentially unfavorable objective comparisons.
Inasmuch as he is socially and physically isolated from the general
public, an over-the-road driver need not concern himself about its
evaluation of his position. At the same time, he may make his own

comparisons to other occupations in terms of the dimensions of

169
control outlined above.

Using the dimensions of control as criteria, over-the-road
driving can be favorably compared to most other occupations within
the scope of a driver's acquaintance. Thus, in his private world,
the over-the-road truck driver is insulated from direct challenges
to his self-esteem, while he is privileged to make almost unlimited
tests of his self-image against individuals and occupations on his
own terms. From such a position, it is small wonder that commit-
ment to over-the-road driving is so strong.

The proposition embodied in the last sentence of the above
quotation is untenable as stated. It has been shown that the isola-
tion inherent in over-the-road truck driving prevents the develop-
ment of integrated work groups and occupational communities within
the work sphere itself. Similarly, the demands of the work inhibit
social participation in the non-work sphere of over-the-road drivers.
In view of the evidence, then, it is more appropriate to hypothesize
that the social interests,both work and non-work, of over-the-road

22

truck drivers are subordinated to the demands of their work. So

stated, of course, the proof precedes the hypothesis.

 

22 . . . .
This formulation is comparable to Becker's observations

about another isolated occupational group, the jazz musicians:
"Musicians tend to feel that the imperatives of their work must
take precedence over those of their families, and they act accord-
ingly. . . . The family, then, as an institution which demands that
the musician behave conventionally, creates problems for him of
conflicting pressures, loyalties and self-conceptions. The indi-
vidual's response to these problems has a decisive effect, in terms

170
To summarize to this point, it has been shown that the domi-
nant characteristic of over-the-road truck driving--isolation--
causes social deprivation in both the work and the non-work spheres
of an over-the-road driver's life. At the same time, isolation and
its concomitants--primari1y, control--are functional to psycholog-
ical identification with the occupation as well as to job satisfaction.
However, in view of the conclusion that the social interests of
an over-the-road driver must be subordinated to the demands and
requirements of the work itself, one wonders at the strength of the
long-term commitment to over-the-road driving which is evidenced
by the Career Orientation Index. The rationale for a possible answer
to this question is offered by Theodore Caplow:
We may note, in passing, that work tends to be regarded as
an end in itself precisely in those spheres where it is highly
rewarded, and as a painful necessity wherever it is meanly
paid. 23
That over-the-road truck drivers are highly paid is unques-
tionable. In Chapter 111 it was shown that they are the highest paid
operating employees in the trucking industry. Annual earnings

reported by survey respondents also compare very favorably with

the earnings of other industrial workers and with all working males

 

of duration and direction, on the development of his career. "
Howard S. Becker, "Some Contingencies of the Professional Dance
Musician's Career, " Human Organization, XII (Spring, 1953), 26.

 

23Caplow, op. cit., p. 133.

171
having considerably more education and technical training than the
respondents.

However, it was pointed out in Chapter I that there is no
precise relationship between the skill requirements of different
driving jobs and the wages they command. Rather, the higher pay
for over-the-road driving seems to reflect compensation for unortho-
dox work schedules and erratic hours more than for superior ability
or qualifications.

Now, it would be unseemly to suppose that over-the-road
drivers themselves are unaware of this situation. To assume that
they think they are being paid only for work they do is to conclude
that they are unable to make reasonable judgments about the relative
worth of a man or the relative value of a job. Such a conclusion
negates the whole idea of psychological identification based on com-
parative evaluations of one's self in terms of others.

On the other hand, if an over-the-road driver recognizes that
his earnings consist of more than remuneration for his physical
efforts, this in itself, may be a source of pride and self—satisfaction.
Even though he may be unable to justify, in his own mind, his earn-
ings on the basis of his education, his technical training, or his
expertise in the performance of his work, they are justified by the
personal sacrifices required to earn them. Thus, the apparently
negative aspects of over-the-road truck driving become the basis for
the development and maintenance of a career orientation toward the

occupation.

CHAPTER VI

SUMMARY , FUR THER CONSIDERATIONS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary

 

The major objective of this study-—an exploratory survey of
occupational attitudes of over—the-road truck drivers--has been
accomplished. Three measures of occupational attitudes have been
administered to a sample of 349 union over-the-road truck drivers
employed in 21 divisions of 16 companies of various sizes engaged
in for-hire, interstate motor freight transportation.

In terms of responses to the three research instruments, over-
the-road truck driving is not a "central life interest" for a vast
majority of the sample. The work environment is neither the situs
nor the source of valued general and informal social experiences for
most respondents, nor do they identify with their employing organi-
zation. However, a majority of the respondents experience a sense
of attachment to the technological aspects of their work and work-
place.

At the same time, a large majority of these drivers find their

172

173
work psychologically rewarding and important to their self-image;
in other words, they are job-oriented. Furthermore, an equally
large majority is highly-to-moderately career-oriented in that
they find their work satisfying, expect to stay in the'industry until
they retire, could not easily be persuaded to leave the industry, and
do not often think they would prefer a different kind of work.

The second objective of this study was to examine selected
characteristics of the background and socio—economic status of over-
the-road truck drivers for possible relationships to their occupa-
tional attitudes and their occupational choice. This investigation
failed to reveal anything even suggestive of a predisposition toward
over-the-road truck driving as either an occupation or a career.
Entry into the industry was characterized as a drift into an available
job rather than a conscious embarkation upon a truck-driving career.
Neither were any of the characteristics of the respondents found to
be related to the three attitudinal measures to a degree that knowl-
edge of the characteristic would be of significant value as a predictor
of the strength, or even the existence, of any of the occupational
attitudes under investigation.

What might be termed a third objective, or an obligation, of
this research stems from the proposition advanced in Chapter I that
the environment within which over-the-road truck driving is per-
formed and the nature of the work itself may exert significant influ-

ences on the attitudes of the respondents toward their work. In

174
Chapter IV, it was shown that while certain characteristics of over-
the-road driving and its environment were undoubtedly unique by
comparison to most factory jobs, the direction and strength of
their influence on the occupational attitudes of the incumbents was
almost impossible to predict.

However, it was shown that the physical isolation inherent in
over-the-road truck driving could explain the one major discrepancy
between the findings of this study and the results of Dubin's original
study of factory workers. Apparently because their contacts are
often irregular and infrequent, a much smaller proportion of over-
the-road drivers than of factory workers identify their employing
company as the most significant formal organization in their lives.

In Chapter V it was further shown that unique characteristics
of over-the-road driving (primarily isolation and its consequences)
could explain apparent inconsistencies among the findings of the
three measures of occupational attitudes. Thus, it has been pro-
posed and demonstrated that occupational attitudes are differentially

influenced by the nature of the work and the work environment.

Further Considerations

 

Now the problem is to account for the close similarity between
over-the-road truck drivers and factory workers in terms of their
response patterns on the Central Life Interests Total and three of

the four categories of experiences it encompasses. Unfortunately,

175
the explanation of differences is somewhat easier than the explana-
tion of similarities. There are available, however, a number of
clues which may serve not only to explain these similarities, but
also to shed some light upon the differences to be found among other
replications of Dubin's research.

For a large majority of industrial workers, and particularly
for those who deal primarily with products or impersonal services,
the first two components (the informal and general sectors) of the
CLI questionnaire involve relationships which are almost purely
voluntary. A worker may, at his own discretion, seek out or even
reject opportunities for interaction with his fellow employees involv-
ing the activities described in these sectors of experience without
detriment to his job performance and without jeopardizing his posi-
tion in the formal organization. Even in work situations requiring
group c00peration to achieve task completion, common civility to
his co-workers is likely to be sufficient to avoid conflict, even though
the non-participant may be branded a "loner. "

On the other hand, so much freedom of choice is not available
with respect to the other two components of the questionnaire. Some
concern for, and involvement with, the formal and technological
aspects of the work and workplace are basic requirements of most
industrial occupations. From the time (usually designated by the
formal organization) a worker arrives at the work site until he leaves

at the end of his shift, the worker is exposed to countless unavoidable

176

contacts with the formal organization and the technology surround-
ing his work. Rules and routines prescribed by both of these must
be followed to some degree, not only to assure coordination of
activities and the completion of tasks, but also to guarantee the
continued employment of the worker in the organization.

Meeting these requirements is what Dubin apparently means
in the operationalization of his proposition:

. individuals will exhibit adequate social behavior in
sectors of social experience in which participation is man-
datory but not valued. Remunerative work is mandatory both
in the general sense that most male adults (or female heads
of households) are expect to work for a living and in the
specific sense that each job is surrounded by many impera-
tives and requirements for its performance. We have thus
assumed that continued employment is evidence of adequacy
of social behavior and that holding a paying job is evidence
of mandatory participation in the two senses mentioned. 1

 

While the strength of these mandates is within the realm of choice
of each individual worker, the same cannot be said for the adequacy
of the behavior required to fulfill the mandates.

The level or degree of participation which constjtutes adequate
performance of the work role is determined in the main by the
formal organization and the technology of the work itself. For the
individual worker, freedom of choice enters into the determination
of the degree of participation only after the prescribed level of
adequate behavior has been surpassed. Thus, an individual's

attachment to the formal and technological aspects of organizational

 

1
Dubin, "Industrial Workers' Worlds," op. cit. , 134-35.

177
experience will be the sum of the participation required by the
organizational role plus the voluntary participation which the
occupant sees as appr0priate to the role in light of his own expec-
tations and aspirations.

For the worker who deals with personal services or whose
face-to-face contacts in the workplace involve clients or customers
as well as fellow workers, the situation may be perceived some-
what differently. In theory, at least, almost the same freedom of
choice with respect to informal and general experiences and inter-
actions with fellow employees should obtain. In practice, however,
it may be difficult to distinguish between activities and interactions
involving clients or customers that are required by the formal and
technological aspects of the work environment and the informal and
general experiences which may involve both clients or customers
and co-workers. This difficulty may also tend to obscure or con-
fuse the bases for attachment to the formal organization and the
technological environment of the work situation in the sense that
they are presented by Dubin.

Orzack provides support for this proposition in his description
of professional preparation when he comments as follows:

Training as a professional may stress technological

details as well as the learning of behaviors appr0priate to
future roles in work settings. Such training also encourages

aspirants to professional status to prefer a work setting to
other settings for the location of informal social relationships

178

and as sources of personal satisfactions.
On the strength of this observation, Orzack predicted that:

Professionals will be quite likely to prefer the environment
of the workplace as the setting for technological and organi-
zational experiences. They will to a lesser degree locate
informal social relationships and general personal satisfac-
tions within the arena of work.

Examination of column 2 of Table 6. 1 reveals that his pre-
diction is substantiated by the results. Column 1 shows a strikingly
similar pattern of responses from Ranta's sample of Cooperative
Extension Agents. This group would be classified as at least semi-
professional in their orientation, with the generally higher pro-
portions in the job-oriented category of responses possibly accounted
for by the fact that these respondents are men and are apt to be
more job-oriented than women in the long run.

However, it is not the differences between these groups but
the similarities that are significant. Both of these occupations may
be identified as having a very high social content. Informal and
general relationships with clients or patients may be almost indis-
tinguishable from, and as important to success as, the fulfillment
of the formal and technological requirements of the occupations.

At the other extreme are Ima's lumber workers and the

present sample of over-the-road truck drivers. These two occupa-

tions appear to be almost equally devoid of social content except that

 

3
2Orzack, op. cit., p. 126. Ibid.

 

179

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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00030000 0000000
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180
the lumber workers are not isolated from their employing company
as are the truck drivers.

Somewhat surprising is the close similarity of the response
patterns of Dubin's factory workers and Nelson's sample of Indus-
trial Education Teachers. It would seem more appropriate to
find the teachers expressing a pattern of job-orientation in closer
proximity to those of the nurses and c00perative extension agents.
However, the pattern shown again emphasizes the danger in general-
izing that common characteristics pervade an occupation without
taking account of specific factors in the job situation which may
exert significant influences on the occupational attitudes of the
workers involved.

Although Nelson casts his analysis in terms of job-involvement,
his efforts to explain his findings provide a firm basis for a con-
clusion that the nature of industrial education teaching and the
environment in which the job is performed are not conducive to
either psychological identification with, or social attachment to,
the work and the workplace. The core of the argument is contained
in Nelson's attempt to account for his finding that ". . . almost 90
percent of the industrial education teachers chose situations outside
the work situation as the places most valued for their primary social

. . 4
interactions. "

 

4Nelson, op. cit., p. 96.

 

181

From his evidence, Nelson hypothesizes the possible existence
of the following conditions:

1. The occupation may not offer opportunities conducive to

the establishment of informal social relationships on the

job.

2. Memberhip in the occupation of teaching may not provide
recognized status for the teacher in his society.
3, The primary social relationship expectations of teachers

may conflict with those of other teachers.

4. Competition for status recognition in the educational
institution may exist among teachers.

According to Nelson, the first condition may arise from lack of
time and suitable rewards for the development and maintenance of
close personal relationships on the job. The second condition may
result from the fact that the position of school teacher is unranked
in the public image.

Nelson proposes that the third condition may stem from con-
flicting value systems produced by differences in work experiences
and formal education. Especially between the so-called academic
and practical fields of education--not only may interests conflict,
but subject specialists may have difficulty in communicating with,
and evaluating the personal characteristics of, one another. At the
same time, teachers in competition with one another for recognition
and promotion within the school hierarchy may be reluctant to expose
themselves to close scrutiny by their competitors. This is, of

6

course, the fourth condition posited above.

 

51bid. 6Ibid. , p. 97.

 

182

While there is undoubtedly an element of truth in all these
hypotheses and their suggested causes, a more adequate explana-
tion for the pattern of attitudes expressed by the industrial educa-
tion teachers seems to reside in a characteristic of the work at
which Nelson hints, but with which he never really comes to grips.

Taken together, the four hypotheses present a picture of the
industrial education teacher as an isolate in the teaching unit.
Although physical isolation of the work station is probably inherent
in many schools (the shops are often rather remote from the class-
rooms), if the teaching unit were a source of valued social experi-
ences, opportunities to interact with other teachers could be created.
However, if the experience is not valued, such opportunities for
social interaction as do exist may be foregone.

With respect to Nelson's second hypothesis, the condition
would Bit seem to result from the fact that different teaching posi-
tions are undifferentiated in the public image. School teachers
generally enjoy relatively high occupational prestige in comparison
to other occupations. A more plausible explanation is that positions
113 ranked within the occupation. Within the intra-occupational
hierarchy, industrial education teaching is a relatively low-status
job, in that the practical fields of specialization are not accorded the
same prestige that accrues to the academic disciplines.

Nelson's evidence suggests that the industrial education teacher

is further disadvantaged by differences in his work experience and

183
formal education. Besides being close to the bottom of the status
hierarchy, he may be unable to communicate effectively with other
members of the teaching unit and may feel that they are not qualified
to evaluate his position or his performance as a member of the group.

At the same time, the industrial education teacher is forced
to compete for recognition by his superiors and for promotions in
an environment wherein he appears to be at a distinct disadvantage.
Thus, it is small wonder that the industrial education teachers do not
choose their workplace as the preferred situs for their primary
social interactions.

The problem may be compounded by a lack of conviction of
the worth of his position on the part of the industrial education
teacher himself. Nelson notes that attachment to the technological
aspects of the job tends to decrease with the acquisition of higher
academic degree status. In other words, an industrial education
teacher with a master's degree, apparently gaining greater accepta-
bility among other members of his occupational hierarchy, is less
apt to identify with his area of specialization.

The comparison of industrial education teaching to factory work
discloses that two apparently widely divergent occupational environ-
ments evoke strikingly similar patterns of responses to the central
life interests questionnaire. However, examination of the occupa-
tional environment of the teachers leads to the conclusion that the

pattern of responses evoked should not be unexpected. Specific

184

factors in the work and its environment are not conducive to a job-
oriented stance on the central life interests questionnaire. In a
manner of speaking, it might also be concluded that industrial
education teaching is a product-oriented occupation performed in
relative isolation from significant others and thus, has a relatively
low social content.

Now, in the case of Maurer's sample of production supervisors,
a group of employees in an environment essentially identical to that
of Dubin's factory workers exhibit a substantially different pattern
of responses to the central life interests schedule. Except for the
subsector dealing with informal experiences, the response pattern
of production supervisors is somewhat closer to that of the pro-
fessional nurses than it is to that of the factory workers. Again,
however, the pattern exhibited should not be unexpected.

These respondents, comprising the three lower levels of
management, are directly responsible for the effective functioning
of the technological aspects of their respective environments. At
the same time, they are undoubtedly very much aware of, and con-
cerned with, the formal organization of which they are a part. More-
over, it is to be expected that their positions would provide a larger
measure of satisfaction with the general aspects of the work environ-
ment since they have not only assumed these positions voluntarily,

but in most instances, have consciously strived to attain them.

185

On the other hand, production supervision is still primarily
a product-oriented occupation involving relatively little social
content. In fact, the evidence suggests that the job is equivalent
to over-the-road truck driving and lumber work in terms of on-the-
job informal social experiences. In other words, much of a super-
visor's working time may be spent in comparative isolation of one
kind or another.

Despite the physical proximity of other members of the organi-
zation, hierarchical stratification and the nature of authority rela-
tionships serve to isolate the production supervisor from meaning-
ful informal social interaction with either his superiors or his
subordinates. At the same time, the physical separation of super-
visory work stations plus the fact that other supervisors on the
same level of the occupational hierarchy are apt to be viewed as
competitors for recognition and promotion effectively isolate the
supervisor from close personal relationships with his peers. Within
the factory environment, then, the specific demands and constraints
imposed by different jobs appear to exert significant influences on
the occupational attitudes exprssed by similarly situated respondents.

It is appropriate to interject a cautionary note lest one con-
clude that the social content of a job or occupation is proportional
to its socio-economic status or prestige level. Although the results
presented in Table 6. 1 would seem to support such a propositon, its

validity could not be established without a great deal more testing

186
among a wide variety of occupations.

With the findings that radically different occupational environ-
ments evoke similar attitudes toward one's work, and that similar
environments evoke drastically different responses to the same
measure of occupational attitudes, it becomes apparent that generali-
zation from the results of any single study is extremely perilous.
Furthermore, the present study has demonstrated that the adminis-
tration of different measures of occupational attitudes to the same
sample of respondents can produce widely divergent findings. Even
though simultaneous analyses of the different patterns of responses
obtained from three attitudinal measures shows that the findings
are not incompatible, the results of any one of the measures, by
itself, would yield an unrealistic appraisal of the occupational
attitudes of over-the-road truck drivers.

From these results it becomes further apparent that none of
the factors examined-~the background and predisposition of the
subjects, the nature of the work and the work environment, extrinsic
and intrinsic rewards offered and constraints imposed by a particular
job or occupation--is sufficient in itself to explain the attitudes of
workers in that occupation without taking account of the influence

exerted by each of the others.

187

Recommendations

 

It is customary to conclude a study such as this with a plea
for further research and some indicators of the direction the
recommended research should pursue. In the present instance,
this privilege need not be exercised. The need for further research
is obvious; the directions it may pursue are unlimited. As long
as there are people engaged in remunerative employment, there
will be a continuing need to learn why they work and how they feel
about the work they do.

It is equally obvious, however, that there is a distinct need
for greater care and precision in the specification of what is being
investigated. Continued confusion of sociological and psychological
conceptualizations offers little promise for the production of
enlightening research results. At the same time, the present
study has demonstrated that generalization of findings obtained
within either fram of reference alone can lead to conclusions

untenable in the light of additional knowledge.

APPENDIX A

Questions Used to Compute the Job Satisfaction Index in Robert
Hoppock's Survey of Job Satisfaction, New Hope, Pennsylvania,

Choose the ONE of the following statements which best tells
how well you like your job. Place a check mark (I) in front
of that statement:

I hate it.

I dislike it.

I don't like it.

I am indifferent to it.

I like it.

I am enthusiastic about it.
I love it.

Check one of the following to show HOW MUCH OF THE TIME
you feel satisfied with your job:

All of the time

Most of the time

A good deal of the time
About half the time
Occasionally

Seldom

Never

Check the ONE of the following which best tells how you feel
about changing your job:

I would quit this job at once if I could get something else to do.

 

Items 1 and 3 were scored from one to seven, and items 2

and 4 were .scored from seven to one. The Job Satisfaction Index
was expressed as the average of the four scores carried to two
decimal places and the decimal point dropped. Hoppock, op. cit. ,
pp. 245ff.

188

189

I would take almost any other job in which I could earn as
much as I am earning now.

I would like to change both my job and my occupation.

I would like to exchange my present job for another job in
the same line of work.

1 am not eager to change my job, but I would do so if I
could get a better job.

I cannot think of any jobs for which I would exchange mine.

I would not exchange my job for any other.

4. Check one of the following to show how you think you compare
with other people:

No one likes his job better than I like mine.

I like my job much better than most people like theirs.
I like my job better than most people like theirs.

I like my job about as well as most people like theirs.
I dislike my job more than most people dislike theirs.
I dislike my job much more than most people dislike theirs.
No one dislikes his job more than I dislike mine.

NH

*-

U'IAUJ

10.
*11.
12.
13.

14.
*15.
16.

17.
*18.

APPENDIX B

THE LODAHL-KEJNER TWENTY ITEM

JOB INVOLVEMENT SCALEI

I'll stay overtime to finish a job, even if I'm not paid for it.
You can measure a person pretty well by how good a job

he does.

The major satisfaction in my life comes from my job.

For me, mornings at work really fly by.

I usually show up for work a little early, to get things
ready.

The most important things that happen to me involve my work.
Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking ahead to the next
day's work.

I'm really a perfectionist about my work.

I feel depressed when I fail at something connected with

my job.

I have other activities more important than my work.

I live, eat, and breathe my job.

I would probably keep working even if I didn't need the money.
Quite often I feel like staying home from work instead of
coming in.

To me, my work is only a small part of who I am.

I am very much involved personally in my work.

I avoid taking on extra duties and responsibilities in my
work.

I used to be more ambitious about my work than I am now.
Most things in life are more important than work.

 

Each item was followed by four categories of response:

strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. The items
preceded by asterisks comprise the short version recommended
by the authors and used in the present study. Lodahl and Kejner,

op. cit., pp. 24-33.

190

19.

20.

191

I used to care more about my work, but now other things
are more important to me.

Sometimes I'd like to kick myself for the mistakes I make
in my work.

 

APPENDIX C

ROBERT DUBIN'S CENTRAL LIFE INTERESTS SCHEDULE

Directions: For each of the following statements, there are three
possible answers. Please read each statement and the three
answers very carefully. After you have read the statement and
the three answers under it, pick out the answer which comes
closest to your own feelings about the matter. Place a check in
the space in front of this answer. Sometimes, none of the answers
will exactly fit your own ideas, but you can pick out one which is
closest to the way you feel, and check it. Please be sure to

check one answer and onll one answer to every statement.

Do not skip any!

 

 

 

 

If I received a promotion that meant moving to another city
my friendships wouldn't make any difference in my moving.
I would most dislike leaving my friends at work.
I would most dislike leaving my other friends.

I sometimes hope that
I'll get to be a more important member in my club,
church, or lodge.
I'll get a promotion at work.
such things won't ever bother me.

 

I most enjoy keeping

my things around the house in good shape.
my equipment on the job in good shape.
my mind off such things.

I would rather spend my evenings with
different people, depending mainly on what we do.
my family.
pe0p1e from work.

192

193

In order to get ahead in the world, I think
you have to have a lot of luck.
you have to be well liked and-known about town.
you have to be well liked where you work.

I like to read
things about lots of different subjects.
things about my job.
things about what I most like to do.

I believe that

the things I do away from the job are more important
than anything else.

most things are about equally important.

my job is more important than anything else.

 

I most like
talking with my friends about things that are happening.
talking about whatever my friends want to talk about.
talking shop with my friends.

In my spare time .

I often think up better ways of doing my job.

I just prefer to relax.

I often think about keeping my car in good shape.

The most pleasant things I do are concerned with
things away from work.

different things at different times.
things about work.

 

I am happier if I am praised for doing a good job of
something at work.
something in an organization I belong to.
anything, but it doesn't matter very much what.

In my free time at work, I would rather
talk sh0p with the fellows.
talk about whatever comes up.
talk about things not concerned with truck driving.

I would most hate
missing a day's work.
missing a meeting of an organization I belong to.
missing almost anything I usually do.

194

When I am doing some work, I usually try not to waste time
on my job.
seldom; I don't worry about wasting sime.
on a project at home.

It is easier for me to take a bawling out from
an officer of an organization I belong to in town.
a policeman.
my supervisor.

 

I don't mind getting dirty

while working at home.
when working at my job.
hardly ever.

Noise bothers me most

when working at home.
when working at my job.
hardly ever.

I hope my sons can

be sure to work at the same kind of job as mine.
be sure to work at a different kind of job from mine.
work at any job, I don't care what.

I would enjoy taking classes to learn more about
my hobby or other interests.
my job.
only something very special and important.

I would rather take my vacation with
my family.
some friends from work.
by myself.
I get a bigger kick out of playing cards
with the fellows at work during free time.
Only with people I can win from.
at home with friends.

It hurts me more if I am disliked by
the people at work.
the people around town.
anyone I know.

195

I would much rather be a leader in
the employee activities of my company.
an organization away from work.
any organization, just so it's a good one.

I prefer talking to
different pe0ple depending on what we talk about.
my neighbors.
the people I work with.

I do my best work
when I am at my job.
when I work around the house.
when I'm not bothered by people.

 

When I am doing some work
I am usually most accurate working at home.
I seldom think about being accurate.
I am usually most accurate working at my job.

I am most interested in
things about my job.
things I usually do around the house.
anything I happen to be doing at the moment.

I prefer to join a club or lodge where
people from my neighborhood are members.
people from work are members.
the members come from all over.

I prefer to have as friends
people who do not work at the same place as I do.
different people according to what they're like.
people who work at my company.

If I have to work with someone else who is a slow worker to get
a job done

I am most annoyed on a job at work.

I am most annoyed when working on a project at our
church or club.

I am annoyed regardless of where we are working.

I would prefer going to
a company dance.
any dance, depending on the orchestra.
a dance at my lodge or other favorite organization.

196

If I get poor material or equipment to work with
I am most annoyed when it slows me up at my job.
I just accept it as a matter of bad luck.
I am most annoyed when it makes me lose time on a
project I am doing at home.

When I am not around them, the people I miss most are
just people in general.
my friends around town.
my friends at work.

If a job I know about was giving everybody trouble, and I heard
that another company had solved this problem
I would tell my bosses about it.
I don't worry about things and would forget the whole
matter.
I'm too busy to worry about company problems.

 

The people I would be most likely to borrow money from are
the people I know around town.
anyone who would lend it to me.
the people I know at work.

Moving ahead on my job

is so important that I'm willing to spend all the time
necessary to make contacts and pick up information

about my work,

is not so important that I would give up time to make
contacts and get information about my work.

is not particularly important to me.

 

The people I can count on most when I need help are
almost any of my friends.

the friends I have around town.

the friends I have at work.

 

I think that if I were suddenly to get a much better job
probably my life would change and be better in lots
of ways.
probably my life would not change much except that I'd
live a little better.
I wouldn't know what would happen to my life.

When I am worried, it is usually about
how well I'm doing on my job.
just little things.
things that happen to me away from my job.

197

It is more important to me that
I be tops at my job and that my friends know it.
I be good at other things (away from my job) and that
my friends know this.
things go smoothly whether or not my friends think
I'm good at them.

 

 

APPENDIX D

TABLE 1

Interrelations among component items and the composite Lodahl-
Kejner scale of job-involvement of over-the-road truck drivers
(Product-moment correlation coefficients) ~ -

 

Correlation Coefficients
components 0f JOb" Inter-item Item
Involvement Scale

 

B C D E F Total

 

A. The major satisfac-
tion in my life comes
from my work. . 60 . 24 . 43 . 32 . 22 . 73

B. The most important
things that happen to
me involve my work. . 23 . 49 . 42 .18 . 76

C. I'm really a perfec-
tionist about my work. .30 . 31 . 06 . 54

D. I live, eat, and breathe
my job. .50. .12 .73

E. I am very much in-
volved personally in
my work. . O9 . 67

F. Most things in life
are more important

 

than work. . 43
Inter-item range: . 09 to . 60; mean r = . 31
Item-total range: .43 to . 76; mean r = . 65

198

APPENDIX D

TABLE 2

Interrelations among components and the composite index of

career-orientation of over-the-road truck drivers. (Product-

moment correlation coefficients)
W

Correlation Coefficients

Components of Inter -item Item

Career-Orientation
Index B C D Total

 

 

A. Compared to other
possible fields of work,

how satisfying is your
work in trucking? . 45 . 47 . 57 . 73

B. How sure do you feel
that you will stay in
the trucking industry
until you retire? . 60 . 51 . 77

C. How easily could you
be persmded to go into
some field other than
trucking? . 76 . 88

D. How often do you think
you might like some
other work better than
truck driving? . 89

 

.56
.82

Inter-item range: .45. to . 76; mean r
Item-total range: .73 to . 89; mean r

199

 

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