| Abstract: | Two hundred and five telecommunications field-service technicians underwent a job change and responded to our questionnaire. The amount of time since experiencing the job change was measured for each technician. We found support for the hypothesis that the more an employee focuses on his or her job, the stronger that employee will react to a job change. Technicians who focused highly on their jobs reported fewer excused absences and were more job involved as time passed after the change, compared to technicians who focused little on their jobs. Moreover, high off-job focused technicians became less committed, less job involved, less satisfied, and more likely to leave over time. Focus also was related to perceptions of job complexity, and moderated the relationship between complexity and employee responses. These findings provide further support for hypotheses posited by Gardner, Dunham, Cummings, and Pierce (1987a, 1989) regarding employee focus of attention. |
