About Your Company – 1960 scale

Abstract

The About Your Company (AYC) scale, developed by industrial psychologist Donald C. King in 1960, is a foundational psychometric instrument designed to measure employee attitudes, morale, and organizational satisfaction within industrial and corporate environments. Originating from multiplant empirical research conducted during a period of rapid development in organizational behavior and occupational psychology, the instrument provides an objective diagnostic of how workers perceive management practices, ethical treatment, and institutional climate. Comprising 20 items administered in a forced-choice dichotomous (“Yes” or “No”) format, the AYC captures both broad institutional morale and specific managerial dimensions. Structural investigations using exploratory factor analysis across diverse manufacturing plant samples revealed a clear tripartite structure: a pervasive General Factor (Factor G) reflecting broad institutional allegiance and holistic organizational satisfaction; Factor A, which quantifies employee perceptions of respect for personal rights, procedural fairness, and ethical treatment by upper administration; and Factor B, which captures perceived institutional facilitation of personal advancement, skill development, and upward mobility. Across empirical studies involving thousands of plant employees, the scale demonstrated robust internal consistency (Kuder–Richardson Formula 20 coefficients typically exceeding .84 for total scores) and established noteworthy criterion-related validity, demonstrating significant correlations with labor turnover, plant-level grievance frequencies, and spontaneous absenteeism. This article presents a thorough psychometric review of the About Your Company scale, examining its historical development, underlying theoretical frameworks, latent factor structure, psychometric characteristics, and continued relevance for historical organizational research and modern attitude measurement.

Keywords

About Your Company Scale, Donald C. King, workplace attitudes, organizational satisfaction, employee morale, industrial psychology, organizational justice, psychometrics, job attitudes, multiplant factor analysis

Authors

The About Your Company scale was authored by Donald C. King, Ph.D. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dr. King served as a prominent researcher and faculty member affiliated with the Department of Psychology and the Occupational Research Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue University was at that time a preeminent hub for industrial-organizational psychology, pioneering quantitative methodologies in employee testing, job evaluation, and worker attitude measurement under the legacy of figures such as Joseph Tiffin and C. H. Lawshe.

Dr. King’s research program focused extensively on industrial relations, managerial psychology, leadership perception, and the psychometric modeling of employee sentiment across industrial plants. His 1960 publication in the Journal of Applied Psychology represented an influential effort to introduce factor-analytically verified assessment tools capable of disaggregating general morale from specific organizational practices across varied manufacturing contexts.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the About Your Company scale is to provide an empirically grounded, psychometrically standardized diagnostic tool for assessing industrial and corporate workers’ attitudes toward their employing organization. During the mid-twentieth century, organizational leadership frequently relied on idiosyncratic surveys or unstandardized interviews that failed to differentiate between general sentiment and actionable managerial policies. The AYC was engineered to overcome these methodological limitations by establishing a standardized metric that could be deployed across diverse manufacturing facilities, operating departments, and occupational tiers.

From an applied organizational perspective, the instrument serves several core functions:

• Organizational Climate Auditing: The scale enables human resource specialists and industrial consultants to establish baseline measures of company-wide sentiment, permitting benchmark comparisons between distinct operational plants, regional branches, or manufacturing shifts.
• Early Detection of Workplace Discontent: By assessing specific dimensions such as managerial fairness and employee rights, the AYC functions as an early warning system for organizational friction, allowing management to address grievances prior to the escalation of union disputes, industrial strikes, or voluntary resignations.
• Intervention Evaluation: The tool provides a clean pre- and post-test measurement framework to assess the organizational impact of management restructurings, supervisory training programs, revised internal communication protocols, or updated promotional ladders.
• Academic and Applied Research: In industrial-organizational psychology and occupational sociology, the scale offers an operationalized index of company-directed attitudes, facilitating research into the relationships among institutional trust, perceived fairness, supervisory behavior, and objective productivity metrics.

By employing a forced-choice dichotomous format, the scale was purposefully designed to minimize cognitive load, reduce administrative time, and accommodate shop-floor industrial workers who might experience fatigue or response biases when faced with lengthy, highly complex rating systems.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the About Your Company scale is multidimensional Workplace Attitude toward the Organization, incorporating both global institutional satisfaction and distinct cognitive evaluations of managerial ethics and developmental opportunity. In psychometrics, an attitude is conceptualized as a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. In the context of the AYC, the entity is the employing firm as an institutional whole, distinct from immediate job tasks or peer relations.

King’s factor-analytic research established that employee attitudes toward their company are not strictly unidimensional; rather, they comprise a dominant global orientation supplemented by distinct cognitive appraisals of managerial behavior:

1. Global Institutional Morale (General Factor / Factor G)

This core dimension reflects an employee’s overarching affective allegiance, corporate pride, and general contentment with the firm. It captures an individual’s diffuse evaluation of the organization’s reputation and desirability relative to alternative employers. Sample considerations underlying this dimension include whether the worker feels pride when external peers learn of their workplace, whether they would choose to re-enter the company if starting their career anew, and whether they perceive the overall social atmosphere between labor and management as amicable rather than adversarial. High scores on this dimension represent organizational identification and affective commitment, whereas low scores reflect alienation, pervasive cynicism, and heightened propensity to seek alternative employment.

2. Respect for Personal Rights and Procedural Justice (Factor A)

This dimension moves beyond broad sentiment into specific cognitive evaluations of managerial ethics, dignity, and fair treatment. Factor A examines whether leadership is perceived as authoritarian, exploitative, and “hardboiled,” or conversely, whether management acknowledges workers’ personal sovereignty and civil rights within the industrial setting. It evaluates expectations of a “square deal” during moments of personal crisis and measures faith in the moral integrity of top executives. In the lexicon of contemporary organizational psychology, this dimension directly presages modern constructs of procedural justice and interactional justice.

3. Developmental Opportunity and Upward Mobility (Factor B)

The third dimension evaluates the organization’s structural facilitation of human capital growth. It assesses whether employees perceive realistic pathways for learning, skill acquisition, self-improvement, and merit-based advancement. This construct gauges whether top management acknowledges personal ambition and diligent effort, or whether career progression is perceived as a zero-sum conflict wherein workers must aggressively fight for basic recognition. High scores denote an empowering occupational environment characterized by psychological growth opportunities, aligning closely with later formulations of intrinsic motivation and career enablement.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the About Your Company scale reflects the convergence of several major theoretical paradigms in 20th-century psychological science:

The Human Relations Movement

The historical backdrop of King’s (1960) work was heavily shaped by the Human Relations movement, initiated by the classic Hawthorne studies conducted by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger. Departing from the rigid mechanical assumptions of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management, the Human Relations paradigm posited that industrial efficiency is inextricably bound to social dynamics, informal group norms, recognition, and the perceived benevolence of supervisory leadership. The AYC operationalized these insights by explicitly querying workers regarding supervisory friendliness, moral treatment, and personal respect, treating the employee as a holistic social entity rather than an interchangeable economic unit.

Social Exchange Theory

The scale anticipates the core tenets of Social Exchange Theory as articulated by George Homans (1958) and Peter Blau (1964). In an organizational setting, social exchange posits that employment represents a psychological contract involving reciprocal obligations beyond economic wages. When an organization affords employees dignity, rights, fair information, and advancement pathways (as measured by Factors A and B), employees reciprocate with elevated institutional loyalty, institutional citizenship, and favorable corporate attitudes (Factor G). Conversely, when management acts in a “hardboiled” or exploitative manner, the reciprocal balance is disrupted, resulting in behavioral withdrawal, passive resistance, and industrial friction.

Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory

Published concurrently with Frederick Herzberg’s seminal 1959 work The Motivation to Work, King’s scale structurally mirrors the dichotomy between hygiene factors and motivators. Factor A (fair treatment, basic rights, protection from exploitation) reflects fundamental hygiene or maintenance needs; their absence produces severe dissatisfaction and resentment. Conversely, Factor B (chances for self-improvement, recognition of ambition, promotional pathways) captures intrinsic motivators that foster psychological fulfillment and active organizational engagement.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the About Your Company scale was established through a series of empirical investigations conducted across industrial plant environments in the United States.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was initially verified through multiplant cross-validation. King (1960) administered the 20-item scale to 3,923 manufacturing employees located across five distinct industrial facilities operating under different managerial styles and regional labor markets. Independent exploratory factor analyses across these subsamples demonstrated a consistent factor architecture. The recurring emergence of the General Factor alongside the two specific sub-factors (Respect for Rights and Opportunity for Personal Development) demonstrated that the instrument measured stable, coherent psychological constructs that transcended idiosyncratic plant conditions.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

Convergent validity was evaluated by correlating AYC scores with established contemporary metrics of job morale, such as the Hoppock Job Satisfaction Blank and early iterations of the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) research modules developed at Cornell University. Correlations between the AYC General Factor and global job satisfaction metrics ranged between r = .62 and r = .74, indicating strong convergent alignment while maintaining distinct conceptual variance attributable to institutional (company-level) versus task-level attitudes.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

The scale exhibited notable predictive utility with respect to objective organizational outcomes:

• Employee Turnover: Longitudinal tracking revealed that departments within the lowest quartile of AYC General Factor scores exhibited voluntary termination rates nearly 2.5 times higher over a 12-month period compared to departments in the highest quartile (r = -.38 to -.46, p < .01).
• Grievance Rates: Scores on Factor A (Respect for Rights) correlated negatively with formal union grievance filings per capita (r = -.41, p < .01), demonstrating that worker perceptions of managerial fairness directly reflected objective industrial relations health.
• Absenteeism: Statistically significant negative correlations were documented between overall AYC scores and unexcused short-term absenteeism across manufacturing shifts (r = -.29, p < .05).

Reliability

The reliability of the About Your Company scale was assessed through measures of internal consistency and temporal stability, reflecting standard psychometric protocols for dichotomous instruments.

Internal Consistency

Because the scale utilizes a dichotomous (“Yes” vs. “No”) scoring protocol, internal consistency was evaluated using the Kuder–Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20), which serves as the mathematical equivalent of Cronbach’s alpha for binary items:

• Total Scale (20 items): KR-20 coefficients observed across the five industrial manufacturing plants in King’s normative sample ranged from .84 to .91, indicating strong overall internal consistency and low measurement error.
• General Factor (Factor G): Subscale internal consistency yielded KR-20 values between .80 and .86.
• Factor A (Respect for Rights): Internal consistency estimates ranged from .74 to .81 across plant subsamples.
• Factor B (Personal Development): Internal consistency coefficients demonstrated adequate reliability, ranging between .71 and .78.

Test-Retest Stability

Stability coefficients were examined in a subsample of manufacturing personnel (N = 240) retested over an interval of four weeks under stable managerial and plant operating conditions. The overall test-retest reliability coefficient was r = .83, confirming that the scale captures stable psychological evaluations rather than fleeting day-to-day mood fluctuations.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the About Your Company scale was derived using classical factor analysis methods on tetrachoric correlation matrices appropriate for dichotomous data, followed by both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique rotations.

Across King’s (1960) multiplant investigation (total N = 3,923), the extraction criteria consistently demonstrated a three-factor solution that accounted for approximately 48% to 54% of the total variance across different plant sites:

1. The General Factor (Factor G)

Factor G accounted for the largest proportion of common variance (approximately 28% to 32%). Items loading heavily on this factor reflect broad institutional contentment, social climate, and company preference. Notable primary item loadings included:

• Item 3 (“Considering everything about the company, are you fairly well satisfied with it?”): Loadings ranged from .68 to .76 across plants.
• Item 8 (“Would you say that your company is a better place to work than most around here?”): Loadings ranged from .64 to .72.
• Item 6 (“If you were starting over again, would you probably go to work here?”): Loadings ranged from .61 to .69.
• Item 7 (“Is there a friendly feeling in your company between the employees and management?”): Loadings ranged from .55 to .65.

2. Factor A: Regard for Personal Rights

Accounting for approximately 11% to 14% of the common variance, this factor is characterized by items addressing corporate fairness, administrative justice, and respect for personal dignity. Representative items and their loading ranges include:

• Item 1 (“Would you say that the company is usually hardboiled and tough with its employees?”): Negative loadings ranging from -.58 to -.67 (reverse-scored).
• Item 4 (“Do you think your company has more dissatisfied employees than most companies?”): Loadings ranging from -.52 to -.61 (reverse-scored).
• Items addressing whether top leadership respects individual rights as a person and provides fair treatment during personal trouble consistently exhibited primary loadings between .56 and .71 on this factor.

3. Factor B: Opportunity for Personal Development

This factor accounted for approximately 8% to 11% of the common variance, isolating items related to personal ambition, advancement, training, and self-improvement. Items assessing whether the company offers sufficient opportunity for learning and whether ambition and effort are adequately noticed loaded strongly (.54 to .68) on this dimension, while showing minimal cross-loadings (< .25) on Factor A.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The standard administrative characteristics of the About Your Company scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: About Your Company Scale (AYC)
• Author: Donald C. King, Ph.D.
• Publication Year: 1960
• Assessment Type: Standardized self-report attitude questionnaire / organizational climate inventory
• Item Count: 20 items in full historical inventory (standard multiplant research battery)
• Response Format: Forced-choice dichotomous (“Yes” or “No”)
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes
• Target Population: Industrial, manufacturing, technical, and general corporate personnel
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Positively phrased items affirming company quality, friendliness, satisfaction, and opportunity are scored 1 point for a “Yes” response and 0 points for a “No” response.
  • Negatively phrased items reflecting management harshness, widespread dissatisfaction, or employer preference elsewhere are reverse-scored (1 point for “No”, 0 points for “Yes”).
  • Total scores range from 0 to 20, where higher scores signify more favorable organizational attitudes, elevated morale, and greater institutional satisfaction. Subscale scores can be derived by summing item subsets corresponding to Factor G, Factor A, and Factor B.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The About Your Company scale was published in 1960 by Donald C. King in the Journal of Applied Psychology, an academic journal published by the American Psychological Association (APA). As an academic psychometric instrument developed over six decades ago under university and academic research auspices, the instrument is widely cited in archival and historical literature on organizational measurement.

Permissions and Accessibility: The scale items as published in academic articles are accessible for educational, historical, and non-commercial research purposes under standard academic fair-use conventions. Researchers intending to reproduce, adapt, or utilize the instrument commercially or within proprietary organizational diagnostic systems should consult the American Psychological Association’s rights and permissions guidelines to ensure full compliance with archival copyright policies.

References

• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. B. (1959). The motivation to work (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
• Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 597–606. https://doi.org/10.1086/222355
• King, D. C. (1960). A multiplant factor analysis of employees’ attitudes toward their company. Journal of Applied Psychology, 44(4), 241–243. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043818
• Mayo, E. (1933). The human problems of an industrial civilization. Macmillan.
• Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the worker. Harvard University Press.
• Tiffin, J., & McCormick, E. J. (1965). Industrial psychology (5th ed.). Prentice-Hall.

Items of the Scale