Job Design Research Research Articles

The Effects of Job Categorization on Judgments of the Motivating Potential of Jobs

This research is part of a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I would like to express my appreciation to my committee, Greg Oldham (chair), Joe Porac, and Thom Srull. I thank Maureen Ambrose, Linda Argote, Alison Davis-Blake, Mark Fichman, Jerry Salancik, Scott Tindale, and three anonymous ASQ reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. Recent research has distinguished between categorybased and piecemeal processing of evaluative judgments. Traditional job design research has implicitly assumed that judgments of motivating potential are made piecemeal. The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to test the possibility that such judgments result from a categorization process. A series of pilot studies identified commonly held prototypes associated with four jobcategory pairs. The main study then examined how the source and saliency of categorization cues would influence the judgment process. Results indicated that judgments of a job's motivating potential depend on the job categorizations made by respondents, particularly when categorization cues are very salient.-

The Moderating Role of Work Context in Job Design Research: A Test of Competing Models

The Moderating Role of Work Context in Job Design Research: A Test of Competing Models

Job Design Task Attributes: An Evaluation of Prior Manipulations Based on a Retranslation Technique

A systematic understanding of responses to dimensions necessitates that the dimensions be defined and operationalized consistently. This paper's results indicate that task attribute manipulations have not consistently/represented the theoretical conceptualizations of the task characteristics. The implications of these results for job design research are discussed.

APPLICATIONS OF MODERATED REGRESSION IN JOB DESIGN RESEARCH

Applications of moderated regression analysis in five areas of job design research are described and fully illustrated with actual survey data. The five areas of research have received some attention in the literature over the past 10 years. Arguments for the selection of moderated regression over the more common subgroups analysis are presented. We conclude that moderated regression analysis is superior to a subgroups analysis for the research questions being asked by investigators interested in job design research.

An Information-Processing Approach To the Study of Job Design

Confusion in recent job design research may stem from a lack of attention being paid to perceptual and judgmental processes involved in employees' reactions to their jobs. In this paper I investigate the implications of an information-processing approach to job design and suggest a possible model for the study of these processes.

The measurements of autonomy and technology for task svstems design

Numerous experiments in job enlargement, direct worker participation and autonomous workgroups have been reported. However, little cumulative knowledge has been gained through a lack of conceptual and theoretical bases. Moreover, worker autonomy and technology, the major variables in those experiments either were measured by questioning workers and supervisors and are consequently modified by their perception, or were measured in a very broad fashion. In the present work more objective and specific measures for technology and autonomy, which can link job design research and experiments with job design practice, were developed and validated. Automony and technology are of course multidimensional concepts. Relevant aspects for job design are derived from a model for task related decision making which shows that the degree of worker autonomy is contingent on task technology and worker characteristics. Technology is measured by cycle time, task repetitiveness, task skill level, disturbance level of a task and...

Relationships between Growth need Strength and selected individual differences measures employed in job design research

The present study examines the degree to which the Growth Need Strength scales (Job Choice and Would Like formats) of the Job Diagnostic Survey ( Hackman & Oldham, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1975 , 60, 159–170) correlate with (a) other measures of needs and values employed in research as moderators of the job scope-job satisfaction relationship and (b) a measure of social desirability. Results showed (a) only moderate correlations between the Growth Need Strength scales and the other measures of needs and values and (b) a relatively high degree of correlation between social desirability and the Would Like measure of Growth Need Strength. Implications of these findings for job design research are considered.

Technological differences in job characteristics, employee satisfaction, and motivation: A synthesis of job design research and sociotechnical systems theory

A review of job design research and sociotechnical systems theory suggests that both of these approaches to organizational change converge in their emphasis on a common set of job characteristics as important to employee satisfaction and motivation. Job characteristics suggested by sociotechnical systems theory and job design research were examined in a survey of employees in 19 production units. These organizational units were classified into three technological categories. Significant differences were found between the job characteristics, employee satisfaction, and motivation across technology. In addition, there were substantial positive relations between the job characteristics, satisfaction, and motivation. The job characteristics Variety and Task Significance were found to be particularly important to employee satisfaction and motivation.

JOB DESIGN

Industrial sociologists and psychologists have often paid little more than scant attention to the actual work of the people they have been studying. The literature is full of brief comments about the work situation which lack both data and an analytical framework. This deficiency is surprising. Work content has been shown to have a significant impact on behaviour, morale, and productivity in the workplace. The purpose of job design research is to seek to understand this relationship more clearly and then to use research‐based insights to create jobs which are more satisfying to perform, and more efficient in performance. As such this body of knowledge should be a subject of particular relevance for personnel specialists since job content considerations should affect recruitment, training, placement and effort‐reward policies. However, although job content has very wide repercussions for the personnel area, job design is frequently left by default to the technical and engineering specialists, who seek to make their work system function effectively in production rather than human terms.