Motivational Job Characteristics Research Articles

When does cognitive crafting matter more in enhancing employee thriving at work? The moderating role of skill variety and job autonomy.

The job crafting literature has not devoted much attention to the effects of specific forms of job crafting, particularly cognitive crafting. The present study builds on Conservation of Resources theory to explain how cognitive crafting might influence work meaningfulness for employees, and in turn, increase their experienced thriving at work. Moreover, we hypothesise that the impact of cognitive crafting on these outcomes is influenced by two motivational job characteristics: skill variety and job autonomy. To test our hypotheses, we collected three-wave survey data from 223 employees employed in a variety of occupations and industries in China. Results indicate that engaging in cognitive crafting enhances employees' work meaningfulness, resulting in thriving at work. Furthermore, skill variety and job autonomy are crucial moderators of these relationships. Specifically, when employees perceived low levels of skill variety or job autonomy, engaging in cognitive crafting was more likely to lead to enhanced work meaningfulness, which in turn resulted in higher levels of thriving at work. Implications for research, theory and practice are discussed.

How Job Characteristics Influence Healthcare Workers’ Happiness: A Serial Mediation Path Based on Autonomous Motivation and Adaptive Performance

Self-determination theory suggests that motivation is multidimensional; as such, there are various dimensions ranging from autonomous (i.e., intrinsic) to more controlled forms (extrinsic) of motivation. While intrinsic motivation appears to be positively related to an individual’s optimal functioning (e.g., happiness and performance), extrinsic motivation appears to be less beneficial. Furthermore, motivation is strongly determined by the context (e.g., job characteristics, such as autonomy). Although the relationship between job characteristics and workers’ motivation has been demonstrated, how it impacts performance and happiness is still to be unpacked. Moreover, it is relevant to analyze such models within healthcare workers; their work is emotionally and psychologically demanding, hence, understanding what drives their intrinsic motivation is of crucial importance. Thereby, the aim of the study was to analyze the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and adaptive performance on the relationship between job characteristics and happiness. Based on the job characteristics model, we proposed a serial path from motivating job characteristics (autonomy, feedback, variety, meaning, and task identity) to healthcare workers’ happiness via intrinsic motivation and adaptive performance, which was justified using the self-determination theory. We also argue that this path would not be significant for extrinsic motivation. We gathered data from 290 healthcare workers from a nursing home. The data were collected at three time points. The results support our hypotheses by demonstrating that all job motivating characteristics (autonomy, feedback, variety, meaning, and task identity) predicted healthcare workers’ happiness by enhancing their intrinsic motivation and leading to better adaptive performances. The results are not significant for extrinsic motivation; that is, the serial mediating path was not significant when extrinsic motivation was analyzed. The findings highlight the need for managers to focus on work design, in a way to promote certain job motivating characteristics (e.g., autonomy), to improve healthcare workers’ motivation, which leads them to achieve greater performances and, consequently, be happier. The study highlights that when healthcare workers have a job that provides them autonomy and regular feedback, with meaningful and varied tasks to which they feel a sense of identification, they tend to feel intrinsically motivated in their work, promoting higher adaptability to daily challenges, and, as a result, leaves them happier. The role of motivation and performance in the happiness of employees in a healthcare setting.

Only the smartest? Motivating job characteristics for all ability levels and their impact on job satisfaction

AbstractUsing Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data, we explore the relation between cognitive ability, proxied by an explicit test of individual numeracy level and the reported satisfaction of individuals with their job. The paper identifies a relation of individual cognitive ability on job satisfaction interacting with some characteristics of the job related to job complexity, namely job autonomy and learning opportunity in the workplace. We found that individuals with different levels of cognitive ability exhibit different levels of job satisfaction depending on how much learning and job autonomy allows their employment. Individuals with low level of cognitive ability enjoy more their job autonomy than individuals in the top of the ability distribution. The learning effect brings the most profits to the utility of workers from the middle quartiles. Finally, planning is most enjoyed at the top of the distribution. We discuss the implication of these findings from a practical perspective.

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment: A Higher Educational Institutions Perspective

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) in India are plagued by many problems, one of the most noticeable being the high rate of attrition and turnover. While several factors account for turnover, one of the most prominent reasons for most employees is the lack of identification and belongingness with their institutions. The affection, however, does not evolve in a day and requires perennial nurturing from transformational leaders. Transformational leaders pervade a feeling of belongingness among employees for their organization through transcendence of employees’ interests for organizational interests. The relationship between transformational leaders and organizational commitment, though well documented, is not linear or direct. The mechanisms and boundary condition that explains these effects have remained a holy grail in Indian HEIs. The present study proposed that organizational commitment can be increased by transformational leadership associated with motivational job characteristics. It further proposed that the perceived organizational support strengthens the relation between transformational leadership and job characteristics as well as between job characteristics and organizational commitment. The study employed a survey method using a proportionate stratified random sampling method to collect data from 320 employees from 32 institutions. Results of our study support a structural model whereby indirect effects supplement the direct effects of transformational leadership on organizational commitment through the mechanisms of job characteristics. Further, it found that the relationships were significantly stronger for followers who perceived more organizational support. The findings of this study will help institutions to get a dedicated and committed workforce to render their service for long and reduce the cost of recruitment, selection, training and switching.

Organisational commitment in higher educational institutions: role of leadership and job characteristics

In recent times, the need for institutions of higher education (HEI) has increased manifold in developing nations like India. The need, demand, and importance saw a mushrooming of HEIs in India in the first decade of this century. However, the survival of many of such institutions is at stake owing to lack of a committed workforce. The situation is graver in the hill states of India where the climate is ardent, infrastructure is poor and opportunities for growth and development are less. Many employees in these places leave their organisations in search of greener pasture in cosy developed metropolitan cities of plains. There is a dearth of employees having voluntary commitment in such places. HEIs in Uttrakhand (a hilly state in the North India) too are coping with the same menace. There is a dearth of committed employees. Commitment however cannot be developed overnight and requires transformational leadership and motivational job characteristics. In this study, the roles of transformational leadership (TL) and job characteristics (JC) in fostering organisational commitment (OC) in HEIs of Uttarakhand, India have been examined.

E‐learning? Never again! On the unintended consequences of COVID‐19 forced e‐learning on academic teacher motivational job characteristics

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, universities worldwide are going into ‘emergency mode’—radically transforming education by switching to online and e‐learning education. In the face of these emergent changes, many academic teachers who are unwilling to use e‐learning or who lack the appropriate competences are suddenly being forced to teach via electronic devices and the Internet. But how will this COVID‐19 forced e‐learning influence academic teachers' motivation and performance? In this conceptual paper, drawing from Job Characteristics Theory—a model of human work motivation, we would like to discuss the possible changes in six motivational job characteristics of the academic teacher's job (task identity, task significance, skill variety, feedback, autonomy, social dimensions of the work) caused by COVID‐19 forced e‐learning. Our concise conceptual elaboration might spark a debate on the possible unintended consequences of COVID‐19 forced e‐learning.

Thriving at work: A mentoring-moderated process linking task identity and autonomy to job satisfaction

Building on two studies, this research explored thriving at work by considering task identity and autonomy as its antecedents and job satisfaction as its outcome, with a focus on the moderating role of mentoring. Through a three-wave survey conducted among 140 Chinese university students with volunteer work, Study 1 found that task identity and autonomy positively predicted thriving, which in turn was positively related to job satisfaction. This mediation effect of thriving was verified in Study 2 with a sample of 522 Australian student nurses undertaking a clinical placement job. Supporting the moderating role of mentoring, Study 2 also found that the effect of task identity on thriving as well as its indirect effect on job satisfaction via thriving became weaker when the quality of mentoring increased. These results not only offer important theoretical insights by confirming relatively new antecedents of thriving and their boundary condition (i.e., mentoring), but also generate practical implications regarding how to use motivating job characteristics and relational resources to foster positive individuals with enhanced well-being at work.

Associations of Organizational Justice and Job Characteristics with Work Engagement Among Nurses in Hospitals in China.

Work engagement of nurses has a great effect on their productivity, patient outcomes, and organizational performance. It is important to explore what can be done to facilitate nurse engagement. In this study, we surveyed a total of 1,065 nurses chosen from seven hospitals in China by random cluster sampling to explore the state of nurse engagement and its associations with organizational justice and job characteristics. The mean score for nurse engagement was 3.5 (SD = 1.5) on a 0-6 scale, and in hierarchical multiple regression analyses we found that nurse engagement had statistically significant relationships with the two organizational justice dimensions of distributive justice (β = 0.13, p < .01) and informational justice (β = 0.17, p < .05); and the three job characteristic dimensions of task significance (β = 0.15, p < .01), job feedback (β = 0.10, p < .01), and skill variety (β = .08, p < .05). Hence, work engagement of nurses was not at a high level, and nursing leaders should consider enhancing their engagement through creating motivational job characteristics and improving nurses' perception of organizational justice.

Motivating job characteristics and happiness at work: A multilevel perspective.

Employees may react differently to the perceived availability of motivating job characteristics during work activities, depending on the degree to which such motivating job characteristics are also present at the job level and individual differences. This study expands Job Characteristics Theory (JCT) by using a multilevel approach to predict how variations in motivating job characteristics relate to employee happiness during daily work activities. Based on adaptation level theory and the affective-reactivity hypothesis, we predicted that the positive relationship between perceived motivating job characteristics and happiness during work activities is moderated by motivating job characteristics at the job level and individual differences in trait positive affect. A sample of 68 employees filled out a general survey and reported on their job characteristics and happiness during 741 work activities using a day reconstruction method across five working days. In line with adaptation level theory, multilevel results confirmed that the perceived availability of motivating job characteristics during work activities relates positively to happiness during that same work activity, but only when similar motivating job characteristics at the job level are low. In addition, trait positive affect further moderated this cross-level interaction. In line with the affective-reactivity hypothesis, the 3-way interaction effect showed that for employees who are high in positive affect, the perceived availability of motivating job characteristics related positively to happiness during specific work activities, regardless of whether similar motivating job characteristics at the job level were high or low. We discuss how these findings add important temporal dynamics to JCT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Work engagement and its predictors in registered nurses: A cross-sectional design.

Nurses are key staff members of health-care organizations. Nurse engagement directly influences quality of care and organizational performance. The purpose of the present study was to understand the state of work engagement and explore its predictors among registered nurses in China by using a descriptive, cross-sectional survey design (n = 1065). Work engagement was measured with the Chinese version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. The results showed that the average work engagement of Chinese nurses was 3.54 (standard deviation = 1.49), and that nurses' age (β = .16, t = 5.32), job characteristics (β = .33, t = 9.43), and practice environment (β = .23, t = 6.59) were significant predictors of work engagement. Thus, nurse leaders should be encouraged to shape motivational job characteristics and create supportive practice environment so as to increase nurses' work engagement.

Relationships between job characteristics, work engagement, conscientiousness and managers’ turnover intentions

PurposeIntegrating the job demands-resources theory and the conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a moderated-mediation model examining the relationships between motivating job characteristics, work engagement, conscientiousness and managers’ turnover intentions.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using a survey questionnaire from 1,302 managers working in eight Indian private sector organizations. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis were used to test the hypothesized relationships between the study variables.FindingsThe study found evidence of the mediating role of work engagement for the relationship between motivating job characteristics and managers’ turnover intentions. Conscientiousness moderated the relationship between work engagement and turnover intention. The total and indirect effects of motivating job characteristics on turnover intention were moderated by conscientiousness.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was cross-sectional, so inferences about causality are limited.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study reaffirm the crucial role of job characteristics in influencing work engagement and turnover intention. By examining work engagement as a mediator for the job characteristics-turnover intention relationship, this study explores the process through which job characteristics are associated with turnover intention. The findings of the moderating influence of contentiousness on the relationship of direct and indirect effects of job characteristics suggests that individual personality can influence social exchanges as well as managerial attitudes and behaviors in multiple ways.Originality/valueThe study provides an insight into the underlying process through which job characteristics are related to managers’ turnover intentions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, such a study is the first of its kind.

Uncovering curvilinearity in the organizational tenure-job performance relationship

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to posit a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and various facets of job performance. So far, theoretical explanations of such curvilinearity have been inconclusive and ambiguous. The current study draws from literature on organizational commitment to present an additional psychoeconomic explanation for curvilinearity. Further, it brings together job design, job stage, and conservation resource models to investigate moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on the organizational tenure-job performance relationship.Design/methodology/approachIt is a longitudinal field study at two time periods using a sample of employees (n=679) in 19 job profiles from 13 different public sector organizations.FindingsThe current study found a mediated curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance from continuance commitment. The data show moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on the mediated curvilinear organizational tenure-job performance relationship.Originality/valuePrior research based on industrial and business organizations provides substantial evidence to expect a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance. That is, after an employee has spent a considerable amount of time in an organization and learned virtually all aspects of the job, further organizational tenure may cease to produce additional job performance improvements. However, scholars predicting curvilinear relationship have focused predominately on empirical verification with inconclusive and ambiguous theoretical explications. Therefore, the aim of the present study is twofold. First, it attempts to describe the ambiguous relationship between organizational tenure and job performance by examining the mechanism behind curvilinearity. Second, it examines motivational job characteristics as possible moderators that may affect the relationship.

Curvilinear effects of job characteristics on ill-being in the nursing profession: a cross-sectional study.

To investigate the curvilinear associations between two job characteristics (i.e. task identity and information processing) and negative outcomes (i.e. nurse need for recovery and negative affect). Research has historically demonstrated the beneficial effects of motivational job characteristics on several individual and organizational consequences. These job characteristics were indeed found to be positively and linearly related to positive outcomes such as job satisfaction. However, another stream of research contends that job characteristics may have curvilinear effects on employee well-being. A cross-sectional correlational design was used. Data were collected during June 2014, using a questionnaire survey. A convenience sample of French nurses and assistant nurses was recruited (n=269). All participants were working in centres specialized in providing care to people with disabilities. This study demonstrated statistically significant curvilinear effects of job characteristics on nurses' ill-being, while controlling for their linear effects. These findings support that nurses' job characteristics are associated with their ill-being in complex ways and provide organizational and managerial applications for healthcare centres.

Strategies used by individuals to prevent burnout.

Burnout represents a syndrome that is related to demanding job characteristics combined with the absence of resources or motivational job characteristics. The aim of this position study was to present strategies that individuals use to minimize burnout and its unfavourable effects. The study focuses explicitly on strategies that individuals use to (i) deal with diminished resources that come with burnout, (ii) change their job characteristics such that the job becomes less demanding and more motivating and (iii) manage the interplay between the work and nonwork domains. Individuals seem to use coping, recovery and compensation strategies to reduce the impact of work stressors by changing the stressor or their responses to the stressor. Moreover, they use job crafting to alter the characteristics of the job such that it becomes less hindering and more motivating. Finally, individuals create boundaries between their work and nonwork domains to experience less work-family and family-work conflicts by actively detaching from work. Finding bottom-up strategies that individuals use to minimize burnout or its unfavourable effects may be essential to complement the top-down interventions initiated by organizations.

The influence of job characteristics on IT and non-IT job professional’s turnover intentions

Purpose– Information technology (IT) professionals and their intentions to leave an organization have been studied by researchers; however, these studies do not compare the turnover intentions of IT professionals with non-IT professionals from the same institution. The purpose of this paper is to examine how IT and non-IT job professionals relate to motivational and social job characteristics and their impact on job satisfaction, job performance and turnover intentions.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from IT-shared services employees through a survey and quantitative analyses were performed.Findings– Among the motivational job characteristics, IT professionals experienced greater task significance than the non-IT job holders. With social job characteristics, IT professionals had greater outside interaction than the non-IT professionals. However, the non-IT professionals had greater intentions to leave the IT organization than the IT professionals. Additionally, the study examined the differences of the job characteristics and job outcomes among transactional, transformational, and professional advisory work groups. The professionals and advisory group differed from the other groups in terms of feedback from the job, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.Research limitations/implications– The findings are based on a small sample. However, it highlights some unique differences in how IT and non-IT job occupants perceive job characteristics and job outcomes.Originality/value– This study compares job characteristics and job outcomes of IT and non-IT job occupations in the same IT work environment.

Organizational Tenure &amp; Job Performance: Role of Motivational Job Characteristics

The extant research posits a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and various facets of job performance. So far, theoretical explanations about curvilinearity have been inconclusive and ambiguous. The study draws from literature on organizational commitment to present an additional psychoeconomic explanation for curvilinearity. Further, it brings together work design and conservation resource models to investigate moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on organizational tenure -job performance relationship. Based on a longitudinal field study at two time periods using a sample (T1: n=721; T2: n=679) of employees in 19 job profiles from 13 different public sector organizations, the present study found a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and contextual performance. Interestingly data did not reveal curvilinearity in organizational tenure -task performance relationship. However, the data supported moderation effects of motivational job characteristics on...

The Moderating Effects of Motivating Job Characteristics on the Relationship between Burnout and Turnover Intention

The aim of this paper is to examine the moderating role played by three motivating job characteristics (autonomy, feedback, skill variety) in the relationship between burnout and turnover intention in a sample of 161 respondents. Data obtained from questionnaires will be analyzed through the SPSS statistical packet program. The Sobel test is used to measure the significance of moderating effects of motivating job characteristics. The findings revealed that employees who reported that they were more exhausted, more cynical, feel less professional efficacy had more intention to leave their organization. However, the findings also indicate that there is no significant moderation effect relationship between motivating job characteristics and turnover intention.

Effets du soutien organisationnel perçu et des caractéristiques de l’emploi sur l’anxiété au travail et l’épuisement professionnel : le rôle médiateur de la satisfaction des besoins psychologiques

Based on organizational support theory, job characteristics model, and self-determination theory, we examined the mechanisms that underlie the relations between organizational factors and ill-being. Specifically, the main purpose of the present study was to demonstrate the mediating role of the psychological needs for autonomy (i.e., the need for individuals to feel volitional and responsible for their own behavior), competence (i.e., the need for individuals to interact effectively with their environment), and relatedness (i.e., the need for individuals to feel connected and accepted by others), in the relationships of perceived organizational support (i.e., the degree to which employees believe that their organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being) and three motivational job characteristics (i.e., task identity, task significance, and work scheduling autonomy) to job anxiety and burnout. This is the first research, to the best of our knowledge, to test for the joint effects of perceived organizational support and motivational job characteristics on job anxiety and burnout through psychological need satisfaction. Four hundred and fifty-seven employees (216 men and 241 women) from different sectors (i.e., industry, trade, crafts) took part in the study. Fifty-seven participants worked in companies with less than 10 employees, 105 in companies with 11–49 employees, 138 in companies with 50–249 employees, 33 in companies with 250–499 employees, and 124 in companies with more than 500 employees. The hypothesized model was tested with structural equation modeling analyses. Results provided support for our hypotheses and revealed that all hypothesized paths were significant. Specifically, our results showed that perceived organizational support and job characteristics were positively related to psychological need satisfaction. In addition, satisfaction of these psychological needs was negatively associated with job anxiety and burnout. Therefore, feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness play a central role in the development or reduction of well- and ill-being at work. These results are consistent with previous research in the work context, which has shown that social factors (e.g., autonomy-supportive behaviors) have significant effects on workplace mental health through their influence on psychological need satisfaction. Practical and research implications as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.

Teachers’ Well-being and Effectiveness: The Role of the Interplay between Job Demands and Job Resources

Recently the literature has started to examine how the combination of stressful and motivating job characteristics influences teachers’ well-being. In particular, the aim of the present study was to investigate the interplay between job demands and job resources, by using the framework of the Job Demands-Resources Model. A questionnaire was administered to 439 Italian teachers working in secondary schools. The cluster analysis showed three groups of teachers, named as Resourceful, Stressed and Wealthy, who differ significantly in all considered work outcomes. Our results confirm the value of job resources as a core aspect that stimulates personal growth and allows teachers to achieve work goals regardless of the level of job demands.

How retirees work: predictors of different types of bridge employment

AbstractEmployment after retirement, known as bridge employment, is expected to occur more frequently because the baby boom generation will increase the number of retirees. Little is known about which employees will obtain which type of bridge employment when they retire, even though it has important implications. The present study examined work‐related attitudes, job characteristics, and work‐related accomplishments of 171 retirees in order to predict whether they would fully retire or take one of two types of bridge jobs after retirement: Career‐consistent bridge jobs or bridge jobs in fields different from their original career. Continuity theory of retirement helped predict post‐retirement employment type. Retirees who had skills specifically related to their career job were more likely to work in a career‐related bridge job than either to fully retire or to take a bridge job that was not related to their careers; retirees who formerly held career jobs with intrinsically motivating job characteristics were more likely to take a career‐related bridge job than to retire fully, and retirees who had experienced work strain in their career job were more likely to take a bridge job not related to their former career than to take a career bridge job. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.