Job Involvement and Work Environment: Unpacking the Interrelationship

It is obvious that man must work to ensure his survival on earth. As a result, the modern world produces employees who are either given fully to their work or those who do not take their work serious. Evolving from the studies of psychologists, and focusing on the analysis of the motivational states of an employee in the work environment, job involvement (JI) describes the attitudes, feelings, and beliefs an employee holds regarding the job situation. In fact, it describes a situation where a worker is absorbed in his/her work; where he/ she recognizes his/her work as paramount and gives in his/her best to the work. This study presents a review of job involvement, its approaches and dimensions, measures of JI, theories, determinants and consequences, among other things. Psychological identification with work and the importance of work productivity or efficiency to individual self-esteem are the two dimensions that constitute the main theoretical conceptualizations of job involvement. Conclusively, this work submits that the tendency to experience low job involvement will be higher for those who experience disconfirmation of expectations and lower for those whose expectations are met even when the context of the work remains constant.