Work values as "reinforcer groupings" - Is the underlying structure method free?

This study was conducted to examine whether the same underlying structure of occupational reinforcers (denoted the structure of work values) turns out when three different data analysis methods are used. A questionnaire requesting a respondent to indicate the importance of each of 21 occupational reinforcers was administered to 546 subjects, drawn so as to constitute a representative sample of the urban adult Jewish Israeli population. Factor analysis, Guttman's smallest space analysis, and cluster analysis were each applied to the subjects' responses from the questionaires, essentially resulting in different work values structure. Comparisons were made and theoretical implications have been discussed.