Research Methods for Business

1. Chapter 11
Measurement of
variables: Operational
definition

2. 1. Explain how variables are measured.
2. Explain when operationalization of
variables is necessary.
3. Operationally define (or operationalize)
abstract and subjective variables.
Topics to be discussed

3. Measurement of the variables is an integral
part of research and an important aspect of
research design.
Unless the variables are measured in some
way, we will not be able to find answers to
our research questions.
In this chapter we will discuss how variables
lend themselves to measurement.
Measurement of Variables

5. Measurement is the assignment of numbers
or other symbols to characteristics (or
attributes) of objects according to a
prespecified set of rules.
To test the hypothesis that workforce
diversity affects organizational effectiveness
we have to measure workforce diversity and
organizational effectiveness.
Measurement of Variables

6. To be able to measure you need an object and attributes
of the object, and also a judge.
Objects include persons, strategic business units,
companies, countries, bicycles, elephants, kitchen
appliances, restaurants, shampoo, yogurt, and so on.
Examples of characteristics of objects are arousal seeking
‐
tendency, achievement motivation, organizational
effectiveness, shopping enjoyment, length, weight, ethnic
diversity, service quality, conditioning effects, and taste.
You cannot measure objects (for instance, a company);
you measure characteristics or attributes of objects (for
instance, the organizational effectiveness of a company).
How Variables are Measured

7.  A judge is someone who has the necessary knowledge and skills to
assess “the quality” of something, such as the taste of yogurt, the
arousal seeking tendency of stockbrokers, or the communication
‐
skills of students.
In many cases the object and the judge are the same person. For
instance, if you want to measure the satisfaction level (the attribute)
of your employees (the objects), or the shopping enjoyment (the
attribute) of women (the objects), you can simply ask the objects
(employees and women respectively) to provide you with the
necessary details via a self administered questionnaire.
‐
However, in some cases it is not possible that the object has the
necessary knowledge and skills to act as a judge. For example,
when you want to measure the taste (the attribute) of yogurt (the
object), the service quality of a restaurant, the communication skills
of students, or even the managerial expertise of supervisors.
How Variables are Measured

8. Identify the object and the attribute.
Give your informed opinion about who
would be an adequate judge.
a) Price consciousness of car buyers.
b) Self esteem of dyslexic children.
‐
c) Organizational commitment of school teachers.
d) Marketing orientation of companies.
e) Product quality of tablets (such as the Apple iPad
and the Samsung Galaxy Tab).
EXERCISE 11.1

9. Certain variables lend themselves to objective, concrete and
precise measurement through the use of appropriate measuring
instruments
 For example, physiological phenomena pertaining to human beings, such as blood
pressure, pulse rates, and body temperature, as well as certain physical attributes
such as length and weight. Also data representing several demographic
characteristics are also easily obtained by asking people simple, straightforward
questions, such as: “How long have you been working in this organization?” or
“What is your marital status”.
The measurement of certain factors or variables such as
people’s subjective feelings, attitudes, and perceptions, becomes
more difficult. These variables are more nebulous and do not
lend themselves to accurate measurement because of their
abstract and subjective nature.
 For instance, it is relatively difficult to measure the level of achievement motivation
of office clerks, the shopping enjoyment of women, or the need for cognition of
students. Likewise, it is not straightforward to test hypotheses on the relationship
between workforce diversity, managerial expertise, and organizational effectiveness.
How Variables are Measured

10. Reduction of abstract concepts to observable behavior
and/or characteristics in order to render them measurable
in a tangible way is called operationalizing the concepts.
Operationalizing is done by looking at the behavioral
dimensions, facets, or properties denoted by the concept.
These are then translated into observable and measurable
elements so as to develop an index of measurement of the
concept.
The process of operationalization links the language of
theory with the language of empirical measures. Theory is
full of abstract concepts, assumptions, relationships,
definitions, and causality. Empirical measures describe
how people concretely measure specific variables.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION
(OPERATIONALIZATION)

11.  Operationalizing a concept involves a series of
steps.
1. The first step is to come up with a conceptual definition of
the construct/concept that you want to measure.
2. Secondly, it is necessary to think about the content of the
measure; that is, the development of an adequate and
representative set of items or questions (an instrument)
that actually measures the concept that one wants to
measure.
3. Thirdly, a response format (for instance, a seven point
‐
rating scale with end points anchored by “strongly
‐
disagree” and “strongly agree”) is needed.
4. Finally, the validity and reliability of the measurement
scale has to be assessed.
OPERATIONALIZATION

12. An abstract concept such as need for cognition (the tendency
to engage in and enjoy thinking (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982)) can
be reduced to observable behavior and/or characteristics in a
similar way.
For instance, we would expect individuals with a high need for cognition;
 to prefer complex to simple problems,
 to find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours
 to enjoy tasks that involve coming up with new solutions to problems (examples
taken from Cacioppo & Petty, 1982).
We may thus identify differences between individuals in need
of cognition by measuring to what extent people prefer
complex to simple problems, find satisfaction in deliberating
hard and for long hours, and enjoy tasks that involve coming up
with new solutions to problems.
EXAMPLE: Operationalizing the concept “need for cognition”

13.  An example of a construct with more than one dimension is aggression.
Aggression has at least two dimensions: verbal aggression and physical
aggression. That is, aggression might include behavior such as shouting
and swearing at a person (verbal aggression), but also throwing objects,
hitting a wall, and physically hurting others (physical aggression).
 A valid measurement scale of aggression would have to include items that
measure verbal aggression and items that measure physical aggression. A
measurement scale that would only include items measuring physical
aggression would not be valid if our aim were to measure aggression.
Likewise, a scale that would only include items measuring verbal
aggression would also not be a valid measure of aggression.
 Thus, a valid measurement scale includes quantitatively measurable
questions or items (or elements) that adequately represent the domain or
universe of the construct; if the construct has more than one domain or
dimension, we have to make sure that questions that adequately
represent these domains or dimensions are included in our measure.
Operationalization: dimensions and elements

14. Operational definition of Job satisfaction, a concept of
interest to educators, managers, and students alike.
What behavioral dimensions or facets or characteristics
would we expect to find in people with high job
satisfaction? Let us first of all have a conceptual
definition of job satisfaction. We can start it like this:
 Employees' feelings toward their job.
 Degree of satisfaction that individuals obtain from various roles they
play in an organization.
 A pleasurable or positive emotional feeling resulting from the appraisal
of one's job or job experience.
 Employee's perception of how well the job provides those things (`some
things') that are important. These things are the dimensions of job
satisfaction.
Example: Operationalizing Job Satisfaction

15.  Dimensions of job satisfaction: For measuring job satisfaction it is
appropriate to look at this concept from different angles relating with
work. While employed in an organization the workers might be
looking for many "things." Each of these things may be considered as
a dimension; a person may be highly satisfied on one dimension and
may be least satisfied on the other one. Those things that have
usually been considered important at the place of work can be:
 The work itself.
 Pay/fringe benefits.
 Promotion opportunities.
 Supervision.
 Coworkers.
 Working conditions.
 On each dimension the researcher has to develop logical arguments
showing how this particular aspect(thing) relating to a worker's job is
important whereby it has a bearing on his/her job satisfaction.
Example: Operationalizing Job Satisfaction

16. Elements of job satisfaction: It means breaking each dimension
further into actual patterns of behavior that would be exhibited
through the perception of the workers in an organization. Here
again the researcher shall develop logical rationale for using a
particular element for measuring a specific dimension. For
example let us look at each dimension and some of the
corresponding elements:
1. Elements of Work itself: Opportunities to learn, sense of
accomplishment, challenging task, routine task.
2. Elements of Pay/fringe benefits: Pay according to
qualifications, market competitive salary, annual increments,
and availability of bonuses, old age benefits, insurance benefits,
and other allowances.
3. Elements of Promotion opportunities: Career mobility ,
equitable policies, dead end job.
Example: Operationalizing Job Satisfaction

17. 4. Elements of Supervision: Employee centered
approach, employee participation in decisions.
5. Elements of Coworkers: Primary group relations,
supportive attitude, level of cohesiveness.
6. Elements of Working conditions: Lighting
arrangements, safe working procedures, building
security, hygienic conditions, first aid facility,
recreation activities, availability of canteen.
On each element ask question (s), make statements.
Look into the scalability of questions. The responses
can be put on a scale indicating from high satisfaction
to least satisfaction.
Example: Operationalizing Job Satisfaction

18. Dimensions (D) and elements (E) of the concept (C) “Job Satisfaction”

19. An operationalization does not describe the correlates of the
concept.
For example, success and performance cannot be a dimension of
achievement motivation, even though a motivated person is likely to
meet with it in large measure. Thus, achievement motivation and
performance and/or success may be highly correlated, but we cannot
measure an individual’s level of motivation through success and
performance. Performance and success may have been made
possible as a consequence of achievement motivation, but in and of
themselves, the two are not measures of it.
Operationalizing a concept does not consist of delineating the
reasons, antecedents, consequences, or correlates of the concept.
Rather, it describes its observable characteristics in order to be able
to measure the concept. It is important to remember this because if
we either operationalize the concepts incorrectly or confuse them
with other concepts, then we will not have valid measures. This
means that we will not have “good” data, and our research will not
What operationalization is not

20. Learning is an important conceptin the educational
setting. Teacherstend tomeasurestudentlearningthrough
exams.Students quite often feel, probablyrightly, that
exams do not reallymeasurelearning—atleast not the
multiple-choice questionsthatare askedinexams.
How then might we measuretheabstract conceptcalled
learning?Asbefore,we need todefine the concept
operationallyand break itdown toobservableand
measurablebehaviors.Inother words, we should
delineatethedimensionsand elementsoftheconceptof
learning.
Example: OPERATIONALIZING THE CONCEPT
OF LEARNING

21. The dimensions of learning may well be as follows:
1. Understanding
2. Retention
3. Application
In other words, we can be reasonably certain that a student
in the class is ―learning (when the individual (1) understands
what is taught in the classroom, (2) retains (i.e., remembers)
what is understood, and (3) applies whatever has been
understood and remembered.
Terms such as understanding, remembering, and applying are
still abstract even though they have helped us to get a better
grasp of what learning is all about. It is necessary to break
these three dimensions into elements so that we can measure
the concept of learning.
Example: OPERATIONALIZING THE CONCEPT OF
LEARNING

22. Example: OPERATIONALIZING THE
CONCEPT OF LEARNING