Multivariate Analyses of Factors Affecting Work Role Centrality of Occupational Categories

Abstract

This paper presents a theory concerning work-role centrality and its relationship with a number of variables related to the individual's background, orientation, role strains, job rewards, and career characteristics. It is examined empiricallyfor seven occupational categories in Israel. Occupations are found to vary in their work-role centrality and in the variables hypothesized to relate to it, and the general validity of our model is supported by the results. Stepwise multiple regressions of the independent variables upon work-role centrality explained between 30 and 70% of the variance within the occupational categories. Job reward variables, especially intrinsic rewards, have strongest explanatory weight, but in each occupational category a somewhat different configuration of independent variables emerges.