Industrial Relations Event Scale

Description

This measure, (Industrial Relations Event Scale) developed by Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993), uses 25 items to describe stressful industrial relations events drawn from a larger measure originally developed by Bluen and Barling (1987). The measure uses a life events methodology and provides three scores: the occurrence of industrial relations events, the perceived negativity of such events, and the positive perception of industrial relations. Respondents are asked to score only the industrial relations stressors that had occurred on a selected day or period.

Reliability

The stressful industrial relations events recorded by each respondent for the day or time period specified and the nature of impact (negative or positive) may differ from individual to individual. Thus, different items may be scored for each respondent making customary measures of internal consis­tency inappropriate.

Validity

Positive industrial relations stress correlated positively with positive mood and job satisfaction. Negative industrial relations stress correlated negatively with positive mood and job satisfaction, while correlating positively with negative mood (Kelloway et al., 1993).

Source

Kelloway, E. K., Barling, J., & Shah, A. (1993). Industrial relations stress and job satisfaction: Concurrent effects and mediation. Journal of Organiza­ tional Behavior, 14, 447-457. Items were taken from the appendix, p. 456. Copyright © 1993. Reproduced by permission of John Wiley & Sons Limited.

Items

Instructions and items:

Listed below are a number of events sometimes experienced by individuals which bring about change in the work situation. Please respond to only those events which you experienced at work today. For those events that you expe­ rienced today, please indicate the extent to which you viewed the event as having either a positive or negative impact when it occurred. That is, indi­ cate the type (positive or negative) and extent of impact that the event had. A rating of -3 would indicate an extremely negative impact. A rating of +3 would indicate an extremely positive impact. A rating of O would indicate that the event occurred to you, but that it had no impact on you.

List of events:

  1. Change in work rules
  2. Conflict with supervisor or subordinates
  3. Unfair labor practices
  4. Dealing with resistance to change
  5. Being discriminated against
  6. Failure to use industrial relations procedures
  7. Being victimized
  8. Being intimidated
  9. Being disciplined
  10. Shop steward or worker representative elections
  11. Representing others
  12. Injustice and inequality
  13. Anticipating or being approached by the trade union
  14. Being powerless to act in the face of corruption
  15. Inter-group conflict
  16. Management resistance to minority (e.g., women, black) advancement
  17. Being called abusive names
  18. Not knowing who to tum to
  19. Problems with accommodation, transportation, schools,
  20. Not being treated with human dignity
  21. Lack of trust
  22. Making or handling complaints
  23. Job insecurity
  24. Change in working conditions
  25. Not being represented adequately
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