Preference for Job Attributes: Tradeoffs from Present Position

Successful implementation of incentive systems in organizations depends in part on accurate assessment of employee preferences for different job attributes. Traditionally, such preferences are measured by the use of rating scales to determine the attractiveness of job attributes. This study uses a different method. Senior executives of a large electronics firm are asked to make direct tradeoffs between five attributes: salary, interest and challenge, authority, influence on company policy, and status. The data are analyzed by means of minimizing a least square loss function to estimate tradeoff coefficients based on which attribute importance was derived. Analysis of the effect of present position shows that the higher a manager's position is on a certain attribute, the more important this attribute is relative to others. The tradeoffs method's advantages for understanding the processes by which job attributes acquire their relative importance are discussed