Hello dear experts,
I'm currently developing a survey questionnaire to measure leadership attributes which involve a self evaluation by senior officer and a perceived evaluation from an employee or subordinate. I feel that subordinate seems to carry a negative connotation while employee or staff carry a more positive and neutral connotation. I would love to receive your views on these before i finalise my instrument.
Thank you.
My humble opinion: Employee is least negative. :-) Especially since you're in a university setting, the term Staff may have a negative connotation to a faculty member. I would tend to agree that Subordinate carries the most negative feeling.
Thank you for your kind feedback. I agree with you and i'm going to use the term employee for my research.
It goes without saying that "subordinate" had pejorative connotations. Assumptions about people working in organizations are less and less tenable. One misleading notion is that they are subordinate employees retained around the clock; another is that they rely on their organization for livelihood and career. One hundred years ago, in the United States and Europe, the largest single group of workers labored in agriculture. Sixty years later, it consisted of technical, professional, and managerial people. Today, it is made up of knowledge workers who may practice at an organization but might not be its employees. And, if they are in full-time employment, fewer and fewer are subordinates. Preferably, they should be managed as though they were partners (or at least volunteers).
PS: Managing Knowledge Workers, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266478125_Managing_Knowledge_Workers, may be of related interest.
Thank you for your sharing of viewpoint on the context of knowledge worker. I've read your article and to some extent, i agree on there'll be evolution in the workforce for organisation in the future; public and private sectors. As please do correct me if i put it wrongly, as based on my understanding a knowledge worker is referred to the category of an individual who has extensive knowledge and experience that enable he or she to contribute to organisations on flexible hours.
Based on literature review, there are differences between the workforce in these organisations that affect they way these organisations are operated and managed. As my study will be focusing on the public sector, one of the interesting factors that public sector issues are complex.
One of the main references is available at https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/psrc/publications/assets/pwc_future_of_government_pdf.pdf
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Applied Statistics
- Survey Design
- Questionnaire