The Contemporary Foreman Status

Abstract

We have completed a pilot study of 34 foremen in a modern automobile assembly plant. Our findings generally support the ideas that the contemporary foreman's position involves less role conflict and more satisfaction than is commonly supposed in the literature. When we differentiated management-oriented supervisors from dualoriented foremen, we found no statistically meaningful differences in their rates of interaction with others or the reported quality of such relationships. Two other components of self-perception of the supervisors were found to be statistically related to the reported quality of interaction with others and to job satisfaction: namely, feelings of power and security. Although both these perceptions were statistically related to a management orientation in our sample, they were found to be unrelated to the traits of background and career experience that correlated with a management identification. Results suggest the need for studying the independent sets of conditions that lead to foremen's orientations toward management and their feelings of power and security. Finally, our study suggests that supervisors are less troubled by the demands of their current status than by their perception that they will be unable to advance further in management. Further study of the implications of the actual and perceived promotions opportunity for foremen is in order.