The Relationship Between Higher Order Need Strength and Sensitivity to Environmental Variations.

Higher order need strength (HONS) has been shown to moderate the relationship between work role characteristics and some traditional dependent variables in organizations. It was hypothesized that employees with strong HONS might be more sensitive to variability in their work environments than people with weaker HONS. This would happen because these employees expect that their needs can be statisfied at work. Second, it was hypothesized that employees with strong HONS would be more likely than employees with weaker HONS to notice more variability especially in two aspects of work (intrinsically motivating job characteristics and performance-contingent rewards) that are most relative to these needs. Employees with strong HONS would be less sensitive, however, to supervisory style and coordination, the other two variables measured. The sample was 957 (response rate = 79%) employees of all levels and all units of a heavy manufacturing company located in the Midwest. The results supported the hypotheses that employees' HONS is related to the variances in their perceptions of their work environments and that the sensitivity to environmental variation is more pronounced for aspects of the work environment that may be instrumental in satisfying HONS (job characteristics) and that may serve as feedback on job performance (contingent rewards). (Author)