Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 ABSRJ 4 (1): 55 ISSN 1855-931X ATTITUDES TOWARD WORK AND THE ORGANIZATION IN THE CONTEXT OF A BONUS REWARD SYSTEM Iva Mikulić Sunce International Health Centre, Zagreb Croatia iva.mikulic@live.hr Ana Šimunić Department o Psychology, University in Zadar f f Croatia asimunic@unizd.hr Matilda Nikolić Department o Psychology, University in Zadar Croatia mnikolic@unizd.hr SUMMARY Given that people spend most of their life in the workplace, it seems reasonable to expect some form of compensation with respect to the effort, time and knowledge. The aim of this study was to examine whether differences in the reward system with respect to the work place of the employees have any effect on attitudes toward work in these troubled economic times. The research was conducted on a convenience sample of 150 employees of an insurance company in Croatia ‘Koncern Agram’, of which 71 men and 79 women. Of the total, 65 employees performed their job in the office in different sectors and were awarded on group basis, while the remaining 74 were in the sales sector and were rewarded individually. Employees whose achievements were rewarded individually were more committed to the organization, estimated higher equity compensation, and accordingly were more satisfied Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 with the rewards. They had better relationships in the organization and were more motivated to work. Keywords: compensation, reward system, work place type, attitudes toward work Topic Groups: Managerial and organizational psychology INTRODUCTION Given that the average person spends a great amount of time at work, it is logical that this part of life greatly influences attitudes in general, especially attitudes about work and the work organization in particular. Compensation or rewarding may be divided into monetary and non-monetary. Monetary rewards may be given based on an employee's individual or group performance. Given that different studies on different populations have not given unambiguous results in terms of the influence of rewarding systems on attitudes towards work and the preferences of workers according to these systems, it was interesting to examine how different reward systems influence attitudes toward work and whether material gain is the most important in these times of unstable economy. THEORY Compensation or rewarding of employees is considered the most complex and sensitive human resource management function. It, inter alia, is used to motivate employees to behave and operate in a manner that ensures the full realization of organizational goals and interests. Over the basic functions that include management of human resources, the employer plans, organizes, manages and oversees the various types of payment systems to reward employees whether with respect to their job (individual position, tenure in current position, seniority, and/or contribution to the organization) and/or with respect to work performance (group and individual achievement). The main advantage of using both payment systems is the possibility of attracting, securing, and retaining employees to support organizational strategy and objectives (Gomez -Mejia & Balkin, 1992a i 1992b; Kanter, 1989; Ismail, 2007). Compensations may be intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic usually include the feeling of satisfaction that the job is completed or a goal is scored, while extrinsic include a tangible way of rewarding (monetary or other). This method of compensation is usually direct (fixed and variable wage), or indirect, which is mainly related to some kind of relief. Intrinsic rewards are typically ranging from achievement, satisfaction, and personal growth all the way to formal recognition, while the extrinsic from incentives, benefits, advancement to formal recognition. Material rewards and incentives include salary, benefits, and other forms of material compensation for the invested work, which can be categorized based on the direct material or financial rewards and inkind prizes. These include pension and disability insurance, health insurance, nutrition, scholarships and tuition fees, various forms of life insurance, days off, vacations, recreation and more. That part of the material benefits of employees is very diverse and in modern organizations are highly developed, so it accounts for an increasing proportion of total labor costs. Past experience indicates that it has a positive effect on attracting and retaining people, but there is no greater impact on their work behavior. A job usually regarded as something done by one person. However, where appropriate, the job can be designed to be performed by a group of employees. In an attempt to achieve ABSRJ 4 (1): 56 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 greater significance of the work and the exploitation of higher productivity and loyalty that occur as a result, more organizations are using a group of employees for certain jobs. The majority of employees belong to a formal work group, while organizations often set up a temporary group in order to achieve different tasks. In addition, different groups within the organization work together for common goals. However, teamwork is one of the challenges in designing a reward system, which is primarily to identify whether the award should be based on individual or group performance, or perhaps their combination. In awarding the group members, it is not enough to look only for the overall group effect, but also the individual contributions of each member, which makes one of the most complex and sensitive function of human resources even more complex. It should be noted that individual and group reward systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Deciding whether a system of rewards will be based on group or individual performance, is usually based on the assumption that, on the one hand, the individual rewarding limits group activities, on the other hand, group rewarding will limit individual motivation, primarily because individuals can easily lose a sense of how their performance contributes to the overall achievement. Thus, a survey on 2,000 employees from various organizations found that the majority voted in favor of individual incentives over group incentives at the organizational level (LeBlanc i Mulvey, 1998; Jackson i Mathis, 2008). When the performance of a whole group is rewarded, greater cooperation is needed and usually is achieved (Mathis and Jackson, 2008). However, competition between groups can lead to a reduction of the overall achievement in certain conditions. Adequate financial rewarding forms the basis upon which a broad structure of motivational incentives to increase the overall motivating potential and attractiveness of the work situation should be built. Material compensation is therefore a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of a broad motivational basis of diverse behaviors within the company. In developed economic systems intangible compensation is becoming increasingly important, while, for example, in Croatia, according to research from 1993 by the Institute of Economics the salaries were at the top of the motivational factors hierarchy. The reason for this lies in different economic conditions, culture, heritage, etc. (Bahtijarević-Šiber, 1991; Kutleša, 2005). In particular, the fact that employees must have confidence in the overall compensation system and its fairness should be taken into account. Good interpersonal relations must be accompanied by attractive salaries and incentive wages, because motivation is closely linked with earnings. From the individual perspective, wages and awards primarily provide existential needs, but a quality reward system contributes to the individual's sense of adequacy, purpose, unity, fairness, job and life satisfaction, and a sense of belonging, which all together leads to greater efficiency and effort of employees and ultimately a more profit organization. This is why quality reward systems are clearly presented to all employees, and they know exactly what is required for them to be adequately rewarded. Changes in expectations are stressful for people, keep them in suspense, and contribute to a sense of failure. Quality and adequate rewards provide employees a sense of recognition and respect by their employer. Although the financial and material part of employee compensation is not necessarily the most important aspect of the job, at the present time of economic instability, it is certainly one of the most important. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether differences in the way (individual and group) of rewarding employees influence their attitudes about the job. Given that teamwork encourages collaboration among employees and develops a sense of belonging, it is assumed that it will also promote stronger bonds and better relationships amongst the co-workers. When people work together they usually help each other and they ABSRJ 4 (1): 57 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 can manage to carry out larger tasks than they could do individually. Not only that, but group can create more realistic plan and objective than the individual can do by himself, and that can lead to highre feeling of accomplishment and of course, as a result, feeling more satisfied with their job. Many researchers (ex., Dimmlich, 1999, Reilly, 2003) indicate that rewarding on a group level motivates employees to help eachother as they are all working together and for the same goal on a highly competitive market. Working in a group also creates a positive atmosphere at the workplace which is very important since individuals in a group spend a lot of time working closely together. When people are rewarded as a team it reduces competition between the employees and increases wellbeing as well as satisfaction towards work, motivation and feeling of belonging, and workers are more likely to push harder for their team and company. Because individuals feel the need of belonging to a group so they can feel recognition, working in a group can lead to a higher commitment of the employees and, as we said earlier, make them feel a higher motivation to do a good job. Since many studies have shown that individual rewarding has the disadvantage that employees may care only for their profits and thereby impede the work of other employees because they are not motivated to cooperate, it is assumed that in situations when people are rewarded for individual work they will be less interested in communicating with other employees which can lead to an unhealthy atmosphere in a workplace. That can also lead to more competitivenes among employees on individual level which doesn’t necessarily mean more productivity because individuals only rely on themselves and often don’t have a very objective plan. Working as individuals can also lead to the diminissing feeling of belonging which can in addition lead to a lower feeling of commitment. As a result individuals can feel as if their employer does not value them enough, they can feel less satisfied with their pay, and job in general and may as a result look for another job. Hypothesis 1: Employees who are rewarded for group performance report greater commitment to the organization than employees who are rewarded for individual achievement. Hypothesis 2: Employees who are rewarded for group performance will be more satisfied by rewarding and procedural justice and more motivated at the job. Hypothesis 3: Employees who do their job in the field and are rewarded individually will be less willing to cooperate with colleagues, have poorer business relationships with colleagues and poorer communication. METHOD Participants The aimed participants were groups of employees which work in teams or individually and are thus rewarded according to group or individual performance. Insurance companies seemed convenient for this case. Numerous companies were contacted and approval was obtained from Agram. Therefore, the study was conducted on a convenience sample of a total of 150 employees of Agram insurance companies, 71 men and 79 women. Those who were rewarded individually (N=65; (individual rewarding) worked in the field, while those who were rewarded with their performance evaluated at the level of the organization or ABSRJ 4 (1): 58 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 group (N=74; group rewarding) worked in the office. Below is a display of the number of participants when groups are combined according to gender and rewarding system (Table 1). The results of the remaining 11 subjects, who work in the office and in the field, were excluded due to small sample. Sociodemographic characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 2. Statistical analyses showed that the participants in different rewarding systems do not differ according to the sociodemographic characteristics taken into account (age, education, years of total and current work, gender). Table 1: The number of subjects in each group according to gender and rewarding system Rewarding system Individual Group Men 34 34 Women 31 40 Table 2: Sociodemographic characteristics of the examined sample Rewarding system Individual (f) Group (f) men 34 34 Gender women 31 40 24-31 21 14 32-39 24 30 40-47 10 11 48-55 9 12 Age 56-59 3 7 Sales 65 0 Damages 0 14 Finances 0 14 Informatics 0 17 Sector Joint operations 0 29 Unqualified 0 0 High school 21 23 Higher school 10 12 Educational level College 34 39 0-6 13 13 7 – 13 25 25 Total years of work experience > 14 27 36 0-6 32 41 7 – 13 22 24 Years at current workplace > 14 11 9 Instruments A list of social-demographic-type questions and typical requirements within the profession where the respondents were asked to answer questions on gender, age, total work experience and years of experience at the current workplace, workplace at the organization, and qualifications. ABSRJ 4 (1): 59 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire consists of 32 items, which all relate to some aspect of commitment, such as emotional or functional loyalty to the place of employment, the willingness to invest effort in favor of the organization, etc. From a total of 32 items, the first 18 were constructed by Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993; Brown, 2003) and the remaining 15 by Porter and Smith (1970; Cook, Hepworth, Wall, and Warr, 2000). The items were evaluated on a 7-degree scale, where the number 1 indicates total disagreement with a particular statement, while the number 7 means complete agreement with the statement. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation resulted in one factor with an Eigen value greater than 1, explaining 44.7% of the total variance. Three items were excluded from further analysis due to nonsatisfactory psychometric properties (low correlation with the total score and a low saturation with the derived factor) and their ejection increased the internal homogeneity of the questionnaire or the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha coefficient = 0,95). All the remaining items had a greater than 0,58 correlation with total score. Rewarding Fairness Questionnaire - consists of 6 items related to some aspect of fairness in remuneration within the organization. All 6 items were adapted from the research of Brashear, Brooks, and Boles (2002), whose goal was to design and validate scales for measuring procedural and distributive justice. The items used in this study were taken from the subscale of distributive justice, which showed satisfactory psychometric properties in the original design. The items were evaluated on a 7-degree Likert-type scale, where 1 marked the complete unfairness of the rewarding system, while 7 marked total fairness of the system. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation derived one factor with Eigen value greater than 1, which explained 82.25% of the total variance. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) of the extracted factor was 0.96. Further analysis included all items, as they were shown to have satisfactory psychometric properties. All the items had a equal to or greater than 0.86 correlation with the total score. Rewarding Satisfaction Questionnaire consists of 19 items, which were taken from the questionnaire constructed in the study of Ismail (2007). Satisfaction with rewarding includes aspects such as satisfaction with the work environment, free work mode, the ability to use skills, satisfaction with available health benefits, etc. The items in the research cover four areas: financial and non-monetary rewards, distributive justice, and job satisfaction. For the first three areas items were constructed on the basis of the literature on these areas (Adams, 1963 and 1965; Folger and Cropanzano, 2001; Moorman, 1991), a part of job satisfaction was measured using the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale constructed by Warr, Cook, and Wall (1979). The items are evaluated on a 7-degree scale, where the number 1 marks complete disagreement and the number 7 complete agreement with the statement. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation derived one factor with an Eigen value greater than 1, explaining 43.6% of the total variance. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) for this scale was 0.93. Further analysis included all 19 items, since they have satisfactory psychometric characteristics and all of them have an equal or greater than 0.44 correlation with the total score. ABSRJ 4 (1): 60 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 Job Satisfaction Scale and Scale of the Importance of Various Aspects of the Job - these two scales, which are two identical versions of a questionnaire consisting of 15 items, constructed in the study conducted by Gibbs (1980) who used 3 items from the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (Weiss, Dawis, England, and Løfquist, 1967) for constructing the scale design of the questionnaire used three particles from, and the remaining twelve items from the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) (Smith, Kendall, and Hulin, 1969) for constructing the scale. Strength of motivation is a measure designed for this research so that the individual items of Job Satisfaction Questionnaire were multiplied with the items of the Importance of Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, in order to obtain the motivation index or the strength of motivation. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation derived one factor with an Eigen value greater than 1. The extracted factor explains 57.4% of the total variance. Internal consistency reliability of the construct obtained was 0.95, and correlations of particles with the total score were equal or greater than 0.52. In further analysis we used the constructed measure of motivation strength rather than the measures of job satisfaction and the importance of various aspects of job satisfaction. Procedural Justice Questionnaire is composed of 15 items that were used in the research of McNeilly and Lawsons (1999), and adapted from the original questionnaire which was constructed by Folger and Konovsky (1989). The selected items are related to processes managers use in their relations with employees. "Procedural justice" refers to situations in which employees evaluate the way their supervisors treat them and deal with their work and how fair they are in this process due to the given effort, time, and energy. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation derived one factor with an Eigen value greater than 1, explaining 70.7% of the total variance. The items were evaluated on a 7- degree scale where 1 meant total disagreement and 7 total agreement with the statement. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) was 0.97, while the correlation of the items with the total score was equal or greater than 0.76. Teamwork Questionnaire consists of 18 items each representing one aspect of the work environment, teamwork, relationships with coworkers and the quality of those relationships. The scale was adapted from the research of Kotze (2008), originally constructed by Seers (1989; Team Member Exchange Quality). The items were evaluated on a 7-degree Likert- type scale, where ‘1’ denoted complete disagreement, and ‘7’ total agreement with the statement. Exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation derived three factors with an Eigen value greater than 1, which together explain 59.6% of the total variance. The first factor, with respect to the contents of the seven items it saturated, can be interpreted as "business relationship with colleagues", explaining 21.1% of the total variance, with a 0.89 internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) and an equal to or greater than 0.58 correlation of the items with the total score. Business relationship with coworkers refers to all those aspects of work and situations in which employees affect each others’ work and tasks in some way. Situations range from exchanging information at meetings, conflict resolution, expressing ideas, etc. The second factor obtained was interpreted as "collaboration with colleagues", explaining 19.6% of the total variance. Five items entered this factor, whose content relates to situations in which coworkers and colleagues mutually seek help, offer help, or are ready to complete the job for their colleague. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) for this ABSRJ 4 (1): 61 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 factor was 0.85, while the correlation of the items with the total score was equal to or greater than 0.59. The third extracted factor, with respect to the content of the saturated items, can be interpreted as "communication among colleagues", explaining 18.9% of the total variance. The content of these six items refers to close relationships between coworkers and the quality of these relationships in terms of the possibility of establishing communication, achieving a sense of community, trust, etc. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α) was 0.86, while the correlations of the items with the total score were equal to or greater than 0.55. RESULTS Analyses of variance One-way analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences in organizational commitment between the employees who worked in the field, or those who were rewarded for individual performance and achievement, and those who did their job in the office and were rewarded grouply. The employees who were rewarded for their individual performance had a higher level of organizational commitment. In addition, a significant difference was found between these groups of employees with regard to the fairness of rewarding, satisfaction with rewards, procedural justice, business relationship with colleagues, communicating with colleagues, and motivation. Employees who did their job in the field, who were rewarded individually, had higher results in all of the variables mentioned above. Although these results are not consistent with the hypothesis, there are many factors that could explain these findings. One of these factors may be the process of developing commitment, especially affective, which, to be developed, must be preceded by the assessment of the organization as one that rewards employees for performance and contributions, which are based on estimates of fair rewarding. So, as the results show, the group that was rewarded individually assessed a more equitable rewarding system and we thus morre committed to the organization. In addition, commitment is affected by other work related attitudes, such as procedural justice, which was also found to be greater in the group of employees who were rewarded grouply. Differences in motivation and satisfaction with rewarding were obtained between men and women only in the group rewarding system (Figures 1 and 2). Specifically, women showed less motivation and satisfaction with the rewarding system than their male counterparts. There was no such difference when it comes to individual rewarding. ABSRJ 4 (1): 62 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 Table 3: One-way analyses of variance and the descriptive parameters of the examined variables among employees in different workplaces and rewarding systems Rewarding system Mean sd df F P group 5,530 1,065 Organizational commitment individual 6,019 0,797 1/137 9,205 0,003 group 5,024 1,484 Rewarding fairness individual 5,536 1,431 1/137 4,261 0,041 group 4,849 1,082 Satisfaction with rewarding individual 5,442 0,963 1/137 11,505 0,001 group 4,695 1,510 Procedural justice individual 5,518 1,111 1/137 13,077 0,000 group 5,301 1,072 Business relationship with colleagues individual 5,758 1,014 1/137 6,601 0,011 group 5,425 1,094 Communication with colleagues individual 5,855 0,898 1/137 6,326 0,013 group 24,341 5,921 Motivation strength individual 27,562 4,549 1/137 12,660 0,001 Figure 1: Graphical display of the differences in satisafaction with rewarding according to gender and the rewarding system F(1, 135)=2,838, p=0,094 Gender; F(1, 135)=11,075, p=0,001 Rewarding system; F(1, 135)=10,868, p=0,001 M F Individual Group Rew arding system 0 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 Sa tis fa ct io n w ith re w ar di ng ABSRJ 4 (1): 63 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 Figure 2: Graphical display of the differences in motivation strength according to gender and the rewarding system F(1, 135)=2,674, p=0,104 Gender; F(1, 135)=4,250, p=0,041 Rewarding system; F(1, 135)=11,971, p=0,001 M F Individual Group Rew arding system 0 20 22 24 26 28 30 M ot iv at io n st re ng th REGRESSION ANALYSES To determine the predictive value of some social-demographic variables and attitudes toward work for organizational commitment and satisfaction with rewards as the criteria, standard regression analyses were conducted (Table 4). Table 4: A display of the results of standard regression analyses with organizational commitment and satisfaction with rewarding as criteria. Organizational Commitment Satisfaction with Rewarding Variables Beta t p Variables Beta t p Gender 0,098 1,891 0,061 Gender -0,129 -2,970 0,004 Education -0,132 -2,629 0,010 Education 0,086 2,001 0,047 Work track (cwp) 0,105 2,095 0,038 Work track (cwp) 0,023 0,529 0,598 Rewarding fairness 0,298 4,241 0,000 Rewarding fairness 0,283 4,725 0,000 Satisfaction with rewarding 0,365 4,535 0,000 Satisfaction with rewarding 0,283 4,798 0,000 Procedural justice -0,015 -0,220 0,826 Procedural justice 0,223 4,082 0,000 Business relations with coworkers 0,119 1,835 0,069 Business relations with coworkers 0,144 2,642 0,009 Collaboration with coworkers 0,030 0,498 0,619 Collaboration with coworkers 0,041 0,801 0,424 Communication with coworkers 0,135 2,040 0,043 Communication with coworkers 0,036 0,633 0,528 ABSRJ 4 (1): 64 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 R 0,795 R 0,858 R2 0,632 R2 0,737 Corrected R2 0,608 Korigirani R2 0,720 F (9, 140)= 26,662 F (9, 140)= 43,540 The regression analysis identified education as a significant negative predictor and work track at the current workplace as a positive predictor of organizational commitment. Specifically, it is likely that employees with higher education have more alternatives for employment, and it has generally been shown that the number of possible alternatives for employment negatively correlates with organizational commitment. The results of previous research showed that commitment to the organization increases in the function of work track at the given workplace, because it increases the difference between the perception of relative investment in the organization and the cost of leaving the organization and seeking new ones. Likewise, if one takes into account that the increase of service also means the increase of age, in situations of financial crisis, age can be a limiting factor for the number of possible employment alternatives. Furthermore, fairness of rewarding and satisfaction with rewarding were also shown as significant predictors of organizational commitment, which is consistent with some research that showed that the assessment of the organization as one that fairly rewards employees for their effort, giving them a feeling of competence, influences the development of organizational commitment (Meyer and Allen, 1997). It was found also that the quality of communication with colleagues is a significant predictor of organizational commitment. Although some studies have shown a low correlation between organizational commitment and measures of group cohesiveness, and the quality of communication in the group is one of the indicators of cohesiveness (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Kutleša, 2005), the fact that the organization which was included in the research involves group rewarding systems should be considered, which is probably the reason that good and quality communication with colleagues and the work environment contributes to the development of organizational commitment. Generally speaking, all predictors together explain 63.2% of the variance of organizational commitment. When it comes to satisfaction with rewarding, distributive and procedural justice proved to be significant predictors. Besides the amount of rewards, it is understandable that the adequacy and fairness of compensation determines satisfaction with rewarding. Employees who believe they are fairly rewarded are thereby more satisfied with the rewarding system. Organizational commitment and the quality of business relationships with coworkers were significant correlates of satisfaction with rewarding; they themself directly affect the performance of the whole group and the remuneration of the individual as part of a group, in group rewarding, which reflects onto the sense of satisfaction with rewards. Generally, men were more satisfied with rewarding than their female colleagues. It was also found that the increase in qualification is followed by the increase of satisfaction with rewarding; probably because the qualification partly determines the amount of remuneration, at least the regular (base) salary. It should be noted that the regression analyses did not include the motivation strength variable, which showed a high correlation with all examined work attitudes. DISCUSSION A rewarding or compensation system is, in the simplest terms, a system of the exchange of goods. An employee offers his work in exchange for some form of payment. The rewarding system does not include only material compensation, but given the unstable economic situation, employees are largely focusing and evaluating material rewards, because that is ABSRJ 4 (1): 65 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 the part that ensures existence. Besides this important aspect of life, one's attitudes towards work are determined by the relationship of what an organization offers, what it expects in return and what it actually gets. So it is not surprising that varieties in the rewarding system affect attitudes towards work. While taking into account the specific characteristics of the jobs (individual fieldwork and teamwork in the office), the work organization the survey was conducted in has developed two reward systems: individual and group. Such combinations within an organization can lead to dissatisfaction of employees who are not in the favored rewarding system, especially when they have to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both systems in the organization (Britt and Jex, 2008). Differences in comparison can result in increased dissatisfaction with one’s own rewarding system, which was also shown in the results of this study. Specifically, employees in the individual bonus rewarding system were more satisfied than those whose reward size depends on group performance. Generally, the research results indicate the benefits of individual over group. Hans Lindblom (1996) states that, to be taken into account as an individual and not just as an individual in a crowd, or a number in a collective, is perceived as a reward in itself. Individual compensations are often considered better motivators than group compensations; so, even though the results of different studies are not always consistent with this assumption, this research has found that employees who work in the field and are rewarded individually are more motivated than employees who are rewarded at the group (office) level. Individual evaluation and rewarding obviously create healthy competition among employees. Employees in the individual rewarding system have an impact on the size of the rewards, which leads to increased motivation (Merchant et al. 2003; Ahlgren, 2007). On the other hand, employees who work in the office know that, although their individual contribution is also to be evaluated, the amount of remuneration is affected by the contribution of their colleagues which they generally can not influence directly, and are therefore less motivated. The differences between men and women in motivation and satisfaction with rewarding when they are rewarded grouply also go in favor of this. Specifically, women were less motivated and less satisfied with the rewards than their male counterparts in the group rewarding system, whereas no difference was found between men and women either in motivation or satisfaction with the rewards when it comes to individual rewarding. It is hard to tell what lies beneath these differences. Perhaps an explanation can be found in the results of a large number of studies that show that women are still negatively discriminated in the system of promotion and rewarding. Yet such an explanation remains at the level of speculation, because this study did not include measures of discrimination which could confirm it, and ultimately it was not in the aim of this research. In addition to differences in satisfaction with rewarding and motivation, a difference in the assessment of justice, both procedural and distributive, between the two groups of employees was found. Employees rewarded based on their individual performance, evaluated the rewarding system as fairer than the employees whose reward size depended on the effect of the group. One of the criteria which must be fulfilled in order for the system of individual rewarding to be successful and just is the existence of the possibility to identify and measure each individual employee’s performance (Jackson and Mathis, 2008). The group rewarding system included in this research does not involve the evaluation and rewarding of the performance of individuals within groups. Furthermore, the question is how these differences in motivation, satisfaction with rewarding, and perceptions of rewarding fairness reflect on the relationships within the group. It was found that the employees rewarded individually, who predominantly work in the field, have more quality business ABSRJ 4 (1): 66 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 relations and better cooperation and communication with fellow employees than the employees who work in offices and are rewarded grouply. Although it was expected that employees who spend more time together at work and whose business tasks require cooperation, due to group evaluation, will generate more business relationships and better communication, it seems that the negative side of the group rewarding system prevailed in this case. Although cooperation is one of the main factors that make organizations use group rewarding systems, it is not necessarily always a positive factor (Ahlgren, 2007). Group rewarding can result in conflicts among the members as individuals seek certificates and awards, which is enabled with regard to group evaluation. Group rewards can also lead to a phenomenon known as social loafing (Ahlgren, 2007) which refers to the fact that when individuals find themselves in a group where individual contribution can not be evaluated, they tend to reduce the effort they invest, while still benefitting from the investment efforts of other group members. This so-called loafing usually does not go unnoticed and negatively affects relationships among colleagues (associates) and the achievement of good communication and business relationships. All the above stated differences in attitudes toward work among employees who were rewarded grouply and those rewarded individually may reflect on the commitment to the organization. Employees who did their job in the field, and whose achievements depended on individual performance felt greater commitment to the organization than the employees rewarded on the basis of group performance, which was not in line with the expectations. The explanation may lie in the development process of commitment and the factors that influence it. One of the factors that influence the development of affective commitment is the assessment of the organization as one that rewards performance, which was confirmed by various studies (Meyer and Allen, 1997). The results of these studies are based on the belief that employees develop a sense of affective commitment if they evaluate the organization as a place where they feel important and competent, and to feel important they must be adequately rewarded for their efforts. As demonstrated by the statistical analysis the employees who were rewarded individually and working in the field believed that they are more justly rewarded and were more satisfied with rewarding as opposed to employees who were working in the office and were rewarded grouply; so, it is not unusual that these employees have developed a stronger sense of commitment to the organization. Therefore, although wage and rewards are not necessarily the most important aspects of job satisfaction, as already noted, in today's unstable economic situation, people find material benefits which provide a livelihood more important than the relationships in the organization. Furthermore, another factor that influences the development of commitment is the assessment of procedural justice (Lok and Crawford, 2001; Britt and Jex, 2008). Employees who assess that the organization was fair in relation to them feel a greater commitment to the organization. As was expected, the analysis showed a significant association between commitment and rewarding fairness, and procedural justice and satisfaction with rewarding. In addition, regression analysis revealed that the most important predictors of organizational commitment were fairness of rewarding and satisfaction with rewarding. Undoubtedly, it is hard to talk about causal relationships without an adequate experimental design so it is very possible that the interindividual differences in the contribution to group performance are consequences of reduced motivation and satisfaction with rewarding, in fact probably both is true. In addition, for reward systems to be consideres as fair, it must be primarily assessed as significant by employees (Lawler, 1990; Britt and Jex, 2008). The manner in which employees assess the significance of increasing rewards for success is somewhat subjective and depends on several factors, such as the current state of inflation, ABSRJ 4 (1): 67 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 the comparison with other colleagues’ rewards or with the rewarding of employees in other organizations. Thus, among the employees who work in the field, there is a comparison of rewarding between people according to their position and achievement who get rewarded for individual performance and do not depend on one another. Rewards for the effect of one employee does not depend on the effect of another employee and objectively in terms of individual achievement can not be compared because their work assignments do not imply intensive cooperation with colleagues and, from their perspective, there are no differences that could affect the dissatisfaction with rewards and distributive and procedural justice. On the other hand, employees who work in the office, they have for comparison not only other employees within the group, on which the possibility of achieving their rewards depends, but also other groups of employees within the company that are rewarded in a different (individual) manner. CONCLUSIONS Employees who perform most of their work in the field while being rewarded individually were more commited to the organization, felt that they were more justly rewarded, and were more satisfied with rewarding and the procedural justice than the employees who work in the office and whose achievements have been awarded grouply. In addition, employees who are rewarded individually cited better working relationships and communication with colleagues and were more willing to collaborate with them in comparison with the other group of employees. Qualifications, work experience at current job, satisfaction with rewarding, communication with colleagues, and rewarding fairness were significant predictors of organizational commitment, while gender, qualifications, organizational commitment, rewarding fairness, procedural justice, and business relationships with coworkers were significant predictors of satisfaction with rewarding. It should be emphasized that in this study, a respectable amount of variance of satisfaction with rewarding was explained (73.7%), primarily by perceived rewarding justice (procedural and distributive) and organizational commitment, which in a way confirms that the rewarding fairness is more important than the amount of the remuneration. Also, it is important to emphasize the benefits of the individual over the group reward system, which is primarily reflected in a higher level of positive attitudes towards work. IMPLICATIONS The theoretical implications suggest, that is confirm, that there is no ideal rewarding system, but rather a combination of the group and individual system, depending on the preferences of workers, the organization of labor, the economic and politic situation, etc. Besides that, this research shows that the unstable economic situation induces a change in the importance of different factors of job satisfaction, that is, that you cannot generally talk about job commitment, relationships, nor salary as the most important factor in job satisfaction. Furthermore, this research indicates gender as an important variable in studying attitudes towards work, especially in countries where gender equality in the workplace is still only apparent on the one hand, and on the other hand, where women who are equal to men in these objective measures of work performance and yet less satisfied with the job than men. Practical implications suggest different options for employers and workers; choosing the best combination of group and individul rewarding to stimulate collective (team) work which ABSRJ 4 (1): 68 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 1 r - t r : t , elevates the collective solidarity, commitment, and efforts for productivity on the one hand and which fairly rewards individual work for the workers to gain a higher sense of value and independent contributions on the other hand. Individual rewarding ensures individual effort and the filtering of workers who contribute to the progress of the organization and of those who malinger. This could simultaneously create a high-quality and productive group of such workers, which would ultimately reduce the number of supervisors. Surely, studying attitudes towards work in times of an unstable economic situation like this has drawbacks, and in the future it would be good to compare our results with those conducted in more stable times, or to do a longitudinal study. In addition, it would be a good time to research workers of state companies who have somewhat more secure jobs so the suspence is not so large which would greatly affect work attitudes. It would certainly be interesting to further investigate the influence of gender on work attitudes, to examine the possible effect of the "glass ceiling" in work organizations, as well as personality traits of workers and employers in this sense. REFERENCES Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67 (5): 422-436. Ahlgren, A., Anderson, I. & Sköld, H. (2007). 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