Alternative Questionnaire Approaches to the Measurement of Influence in Organizations

Employees in a manufacturing company and in a set of auto dealerships were asked to make global judgments about the distribution of influence in their organizations; they were also asked about influence in specific decision areas. An index based on reports of influence in specific areas shows better reliability among non-supervisory respondents than does the global influence measure. There is, however, poor agreement across organizational levels (supervisory versus non-supervisory) in responses to either influence measure.Neither measure shows clear superiority as a predictor of employee morale.