Organizational demography, job attitudes and perceptions: A field study of the effects of group-level demographic composition

Organizational demography offers a unique method to better understand the job related attitudes and perceptions of employees through examination of the demographic composition of work groups. A field study was conducted to determine if individual-level demographic isolation, group-level demographic composition, and perceptions of isolation and composition can explain important job related attitudes and behavioral intentions.;Correlational and regression analysis yielded poor results with respect to the proposed hypotheses. Tenure isolation was found to be a significant predictor of the behavioral intention to quit within the largest department, but not in the other department analyzed. Group heterogeneity showed no significant effects when subjected to similar analyses.;Perceived individual similarity and perceived group homogeneity also yielded limited results. Perceived tenure similarity was also found to be a good predictor of intention to quit in the larger of the two departments evaluated. Other hypothesized relationships were not supported in the data. Some intriguing suppression effects were noted between the perceived and objective measures of group-level demographic composition.;While the overall results were weak, they do indicate the need for continued research into the processes mediating the effects of demographic composition, job related attitudes, and work outcomes. Suggestions are provided for future steps in such a research program.