Responsiveness of measures in the effort–reward imbalance questionnaire to organizational changes: A validation study

Objective: To examine the responsiveness of measures adopted in the effort–reward imbalance (ERI) questionnaire to organizational changes. Method: For the employees who had been affected by restructuring of their company due to the economic hardship, two consecutive questionnaire surveys were conducted over a specific period. A total of 544 full-time employees responded to both surveys. Changes in four summary measures from the situation-specific model component and the person-specific component, and items/subscales that constitute the questionnaire were evaluated. Results: The summary measures on psychological deterioration in the total study population. The deterioration was prevalent in those employees who had presumably experienced the effects of stressful organizational changes related to the restructuring, while improvement in the summary measures was observed for those employees who were promoted during the period. On the whole, the measures for the items of the situation-specific component and subscales for the personal component changed in the expected direction. With regard to ERI, potentially stronger effects of multiple organizational changes on employees were indicated. Conclusion: Measurements of ERI at work are valid in terms of responsiveness to organizational changes.