Fresh/long-time employees have better perspective but what of the others?

In a cross-sectional survey of seven companies, Takahashi (1996b) discovered a U-shaped curve, with (a) newly hired employees and long-time employees tending to have a high perspective index, and with (b) those with 5–10 years of service tending to be at the bottom of the index. This paper is an examination of Company X, using 12 years of exhaustive survey data. We found that (a) for data in all years, the trend was represented by a similar U-shaped curve, with recent hires and long-time employees being high on the perspective index, and with (b) those at the bottom of the perspective index having shifted over time. This points to the existence of a generation that holds a relatively low perspective index regardless of their number of years of service with the company. This phenomenon seems to develop as the number of years of service increases.


Introduction
In Axelrod's (1980Axelrod's ( , 1984 computer tournament, at each move, the next move will be played with probability w, or the game will end 1 in that move with probability 1-w. Takahashi (2013) calls this probability w the future parameter. Abegglen's (1958) "lifetime commitment" is a representation of the future parameter w ≈ 1. Takahashi's (1996a) perspective index as a type of future parameter was developed in 1992 and validated by the JPC Survey data. It is possible to explain job satisfaction and turnover candidates in Japanese companies using the perspective index: in the near-perfect linear relationship, the job satisfaction ratio increases and the turnover candidate ratio decreases as the perspective index rises (Inamizu, 2015;Okada & Inamizu, 2014;Takahashi, 1997Takahashi, , 2004Takahashi, , 2014Takahashi, Ohkawa, & Inamizu, 2014).
In a cross-sectional survey of white collar workers at seven companies, Takahashi (1996b) distributed questionnaires from October through December 1995 and analyzed data received from 1,168 responses (out of 1,603 distributed, translating into a response rate of 72.9%). When the survey sample was classified into classes of 5-year increments by their number of years of service, the perspective index depicted a U-shaped curve with (a) newer employees (with less than 5 years of service) and long-time employees with a high perspective index, whereas (b) those with 5-10 years of service were at the bottom of the curve. This indicates two possibilities.
Possibility (1): The number of years of service is an explanatory variable for the perspective index.
Possibility (2): There exist high index employees and low index employees independently of the years of service. Accidentally, high index employees are clustered together in the "less than five years" of service class and the long years of service classes, while low index employees are clustered together in the "5-10 years" class.
However, a single survey cannot determine the correctness of either of the two possibilities. Confirming this will require an ongoing examination of that company over a period of about 10 years. This paper, therefore, examines Company X using exhaustive survey data over a 12-year period.

Method
Survey X is an exhaustive survey of all employees of Company X that is conducted once a fiscal year. The questionnaires were distributed simultaneously to all the employees and collected once filled (placement method). This paper uses data gathered for the The perspective index is defined as the sum of scores of the following five questions designated as dummy variables: P1. Are you able to see the desirable shape that your company will take in the 21st century? 1 = yes, 0 = no.
P2. Are most of your work hours spent on routine tasks? 0 = yes, 1 = no.
P3. Are your job targets clearly specified by your superiors? 1 = yes, 0 = no.
P4. Does your company have an atmosphere in which reaching the short-range norm tends to have priority over pursuing long-range goals? 0 = yes, 1 = no.
P5. Can you visualize a positive future for yourself 10 years down the line staying at this company? 1 = yes, 0 = no.
Responding "yes" to questions P1, P3, and P5 and "no" to questions P2 and P4 is deemed to have a high future parameter. Thus, "yes" to questions P1, P3, and P5 scores 1 point per question, while "no" scores 0 points; "no" to questions P2 and P4 scores 1 point per question, while "yes" scores 0 points. A high perspective index indicates a high future parameter within an organization. As part of its definition, it is given that the perspective index is scored as an integer value from 0 to 5.

Results
The survey sample was classified into six classes of 5-year periods: less than 5 years of service; 5 or more and less than 10 years of service; 10 or more and less than 15 years of service; 15 or more and less than 20 years of service; 20 or more and less than 25 years of service; and 25 or more years of service. The average perspective index was then calculated for each class. Figure 1 shows the average of each class for each year. The thick red line that shows the 12-year average is typical; however, the perspective index is high among those who are new and those with long years of service, such that each year's trend over the 12-year period is a stable U-shaped curve.
Furthermore, as seen in Figures 2-6 (the legends for which are the same as that for Figure 1), which show the percentage of who answered "yes" to questions P1, P3, and P5 and "no" to questions P2 and P4, this trend is similar for all questions from which the perspective index was calculated. In other words, the perspective index tends to be U-shaped, being high for those who are new to the   In contrast, we can see from Figure 1 that no particular class is at the bottom of the perspective index. Furthermore, by shading in purple the classes that are at the bottom of the index in Table 1, we see a shift in increments of almost exactly 5 years (except for 2008), from "5-10 years" to "10-15 years" and onward to "15-20 years." In the case of Company X, from the 2006 survey onward, almost no employees left the company before retirement age; hence, it is reasonable to believe that there is a generation of a relatively low perspective index regardless of their number of years of service and that this phenomenon occurs as their number of years of service increases.

Conclusion
In a cross-sectional survey of seven companies, Takahashi (1996b) found that (a) recently hired and long-time employees tend to have a high perspective index, whereas (b) those with "5-10 years" of service are at the bottom of the same index, forming a U-shaped curve. This paper examined Company X using 12 years of exhaustive survey data and found the following: (A) Recent hires and those with many years of service have a high perspective index, and a stable U-shaped curve is observable in each year over the 12-year period. Therefore, the number of years of service is considered to be an explanatory variable for the perspective index. However, at the same time, (B) The perspective index has no set bottom as the bottom shifts about every 5 years, from the "5-10 years" to "10-15 years" and onward to "15-20 years" classes. It seems that there is a generation of individuals with a relatively low perspective index regardless of their number of years of service and that this phenomenon develops as the number of years of service increases.