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The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the participants in an employee survey who do not answer one or more demographic items differ systematically from those who fill out all demographic items.

Logistic regression, with affective commitment, job satisfaction, and attitude towards leadership as predictors of responding to demographic items is used to analyze the data of an employee survey in a German company.

Survey participants with low commitment, poor job satisfaction, and negative attitudes towards leadership are more likely not to provide demographic information, while highly committed participants tend to answer all demographic items. Non‐respondents are also more concerned that their skills become obsolete, and they feel that employees do not have enough say.

The paper does not distinguish among demographic item non‐respondents on the basis of how many and which items are omitted. Future research should take a closer look at the different sensitivity of the demographic items.

Managers should be aware that it is likely that the results of an employee survey for their organizational subunits tend to be biased and show a picture that is too optimistic as compared to company‐wide results.

The value of the paper lies in demonstrating a systematic and practically important bias in employee survey statistics that has been overlooked so far.

Items that ask the respondent for a comment in his/her own words are becoming increasingly popular in online employee surveys, but research on such comments is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to analyze, theoretically and empirically, what kind of comments are generated in employee surveys by respondents who differ in terms of job satisfaction and commitment.

The data studied here are from an online employee survey conducted in 2004 in a multinational IT organization with a German headquarter. Some 24,000 employees generated about 75,000 comments focusing on 15 topic fields. The comments were additionally coded on their tone, using a computerized dictionary approach especially developed for this purpose. Frequencies, wordiness, and the tone of different types of comments are measured. The statistical relationship of comments to job satisfaction and to organizational commitment is analyzed.

Some 40 per cent of the respondents provide comments. Most comments have a negative tone. Negative comments are wordier than positive ones. The likelihood of writing comments is inversely related to the respondents’ job satisfaction and to their organizational commitment. Dissatisfied employees and employees with low commitment also write more negative and wordier comments.

The study sets benchmarks on what to expect when using open‐ended comment fields in employee surveys. A methodology for analyzing huge text files with respect to their tone is presented.

This is the first paper that investigates a realistically large data set of comments. It also shows how to use computer methods to relate frequencies, wordiness, and tone of comments to standard variables such as job satisfaction or commitment.

Examines the relations between feelings of job insecurity (JI) and various attitudes and opinions of employees towards their work and the organization. Analyses survey data from 11 European high‐tech organizations with a total of 8,483 respondents. Shows that JI is associated with more negative evaluations of all aspects of the company and the job, including more objective variables such as the quality of products and services. Particularly high correlations are observed between JI and negative judgements on management and the company in general. Further presents the development of a questionnaire to assess JI. The questionnaire is then used to study differential effects of JI on persons with internal and external locus of control, and with high and low social support.

Work enthusiasm and organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) were compared in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau (a former Portuguese territory in China) and Zhuhai in the People’s Republic of China. Data were collected from 276 (96 Macau and 180 Zhuhai) full‐time, line‐level, ethnic Chinese employees in the two regions. Results revealed the Zhuhai employees to be much more enthusiastic at work. The Zhuhai employees also evaluated Training, Understanding, and Future Prospects more highly than did the Macau employees (no differences were found for Coworker Support). Regression analyses revealed Future Prospects to be the strongest predictor of work enthusiasm in Zhuhai, while education and years on the job explained most of the variance for work enthusiasm in Macau. The results of the comparisons are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in the cultures and economic development of the regions.