Work meaning among mid-level professional employees: A study of the importance of work centrality and extrinsic and intrinsic work goals in eight countries.

Table of Contents

Section One. 2

Section Two. 3

Section Three. 5

Reference. 7

Section One

The article seeks to find out what work means, according to the chosen respondents. It was found out that some of the major factors that are supported universally are family and work issues. Furthermore, other vital aspects included community involvement, religion, and leisure. Also, work centrality is associated with human orientation, assertiveness and performance indices. On the other hand, there are varying work goals that are either intrinsic or extrinsic, and this depends on the various country clusters. The article has given vital information regarding resistance to change and organization change issues. This is when it is compared to other literature that exists concerning the mentioned topics (Kunchike & Arcdichvili & Borchert, 2011).

The article has addressed the fact that work is constantly changing, and it occurs in various countries. Other sectors that are affected by the change include individuals, families as well as organizations. It should be known that strategic management and human resource management are vital when dealing with matters that relate to work provisions. When employees are in work environments, which are new, they attempt to find ways of navigating, negotiating and adapting to the new environments. The countries that were used in the study are the United States, Russia, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Hungary, Germany and Brazil (Kunchike & Arcdichvili & Borchert, 2011).

According to the article, there were more males as compared to females, who were in their mid-career stage. Also, there were more males who had a master’s degree and other higher qualifications. Community involvement and religion played a vital role in determining how people behaved at the work place. For example, in South Korea and Germany, employees did not have high levels of work centrality. Moreover, people preferred to work and money was not a key consideration. It seems that the respondents valued work, and this had an effect on their performance (Kunchike & Arcdichvili & Borchert, 2011).

The family is another factor, which influenced the respondents work centrality. It should be known that according to the article, when the employees were given rewards and monetary compensation, their performance increased. On the other hand, those who were paid poorly had a low, work centrality. Stress at the work place affects organization, which has a low centrality. This means that employees are often not motivated to work, and often end up being stressed, thus affecting their work performance. In terms of resistance, those with high, work centrality do not offer as much resistance, as those with low, work centrality. The article has not provided much information regarding the relationship between work place stress and resistance to change. The only information obtained is that only 56% of the entire population was comfortable working in changing work place environments. Also, 12% of the population claimed that they would not continue working if the work environments were changed. The latter is based on the assumption that the individuals won the lottery (Kunchike & Arcdichvili & Borchert, 2011).

Section Two

A table was used to provide information regarding the study about the eight countries. The latter had varied human development and economic levels, and thus the need to use a suitable method. The authors used a research method that is based in surveying. This means that it considered characteristics such as demographics, positions, organizations and industries. Data was collected by the authors from their respective home countries, in order to make the sampling strategy successful. Other procedures used were translation and instrument selection. In the United States, Poland, Germany and Brazil, respondents were chosen from certain universities. They were students undertaking human resources and business administration courses. Moreover, the surveys were to be done outside class and online. On the other hand, in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea and Hungary, respondents were recruited through personal communication and the email. Also, questionnaires were to be filled and then submitted to a website on the internet. A disadvantage of the on-line survey is that i.............