Showing papers on "Job design published in 1970"

Relationship of job characteristics to job involvement, satisfaction, and intrinsic motivation

Abstract: Administered questionnaires to 291 scientists working in research and development laboratories. Results of a factor analysis indicate that job-involvement attitudes, higher order need-satisfaction attitudes, and intrinsic-motivation attitudes should be thought of as separate and distinct kinds of attitudes toward a job. These 3 types of attitudes related differentially to job design factors and to job behavior. Satisfaction proved to be related to such job characteristics as the amount of control the job allowed the holder and the degree to which it is seen to be relevant to the holder's valued abilities. Satisfaction was not related to either self-rated effort or performance. Job involvement, like satisfaction, bore a significant relationship to certain job characteristics; unlike satisfaction, however, involvement was positively related to self-rated effort. Intrinsic motivation was less strongly related to the job characterisitcs measured, but was more strongly related to both effort and performance than was either satisfaction or involvement. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Job Characteristics and Pressures and the Organizational Integration of Professionals.

Abstract: Job characteristics and three job pressures were examined in 22 research and development laboratories as possible correlates of organizational effectiveness and the need satisfactions and job involvement of researchers in the laboratories. Job challenge and responsibility for dealing with customers were related to quality pressure and to financial responsibility pressure. Job challenge was also related to need satisfaction. Quality pressure, a professional concern, and financial responsibility pressure, an organizational concern, were both related to organizational performance. Quality pressure was also related to job involvement, so that this pressure was functional for both the individual and the organization. Financial responsibility pressure was seen as the professional's adaptation to organizational values.

Job attitudes and employee motivation: theory, research, and practice

Abstract: Industrial psychologists have been seriously concerned with the measurement, interpretation and implications of job attitudes ever since the Western Electric Studies (Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939). When Herzberg et al. (1957) reviewed the literature as of 1955, they pointed out that there were severed thousand studies in the psychological literature that were concerned with job attitudes. At the present time there must be at least five thousand studies in the literature. Most of these job attitude studies have had as their major focus job satisfaction.

Functional Specialization, Alienation, and Job Satisfaction:

Abstract: Provides information on factors affecting the social and psychological conditions of workers. Discussion of functional specialization; Assessment of work attitudes and job satisfaction; Effect of labor mobility on working environment. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

The Impact of Role Diversity, Job Level, and Organizational Size on Managerial Satisfaction.

Abstract: Role diversity-operationalized by the number of relevant role senders-job level, subunit size, and company size are examined in this paper as determinants of perceived managerial satisfaction. Perceived need satisfaction, need fulfillment deficiency, need importance, and possibility of need fulfillment serve as the dependent variables. Role diversity and job level are found to be more significantly related to need satisfaction and possibility of need fulfillment than subunit or company size. Results are interpreted in the context of role theory and previous research by Porter. Administrative implications are suggested in the areas of reward system design and managerial motivation.

The multivariate nature of professional job satisfaction

Abstract: The unidimensional versus the multidimensional nature of professional job satisfaction with specific reference to Herzberg's two-factor theory of satisfiers and dissatisfiers are discussed. An overall job satisfaction index and 34 questionnaire items were evaluated by a national sample of over 3,000 engineering graduates; each engineer evaluated the personal importance of each item and the degree to which each characterized his current professional position. Factor analysis suggests that job satisfaction is multidimensional. A general job characteristic factor and a specific factor, Professional Challenge, tend to be most related to overall job satisfaction. Five other factors were also identified: Status, Autonomy, Professional Recognition, Interpersonal Relations and Supervisory Relations. Using item data on overall satisfaction, the two challenges, \"no ready-made solutions\" and \"keeping abreast of latest developments\" in addition to \"time for family\" were examined using function, field, degree level, year of B.S. graduation, and industrial classification of employer to illustrate the complex nature of job values and perceptions. The curvilinear nature of job values are examined and alternative techniques of multivariate analysis are suggested. *Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Indiana Manpower Research Association, 1-burs-day, November 30, 1967. THE MULTIVARIATE NATURE OF PROFESSIONAL JOB SATISFACTION By Donald A. Wood and William K. LeBold Purdue University Two major developments tend to emphasize the importance for examining professional work attitudes. (1) the increasing demand for professional services in the U.S. labor force (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 1966-67) and (2) the impact of technological change on skills and knowledge required of professionals. With these developments have come changes in the professional salary structure and increased professional involvement in large organizational complexes (Hansen, 1963). The impact of these and other modifications on the professional can often best be evaluated by determining how he feels toward his job and the context in which it is found. Fully understanding the complexities of these reactions and attitudes assumes great consequence if efforts to avoid professional alienation and dissatisfaction in times of technological and economic change are to be successful. Traditionally, job satisfaction has been interpreted as a unidimensional concept. This viewpoint assumes that any positive job-related or environmentally-related element offering satisfaction to a worker would create dissatisfaction in its absence. As a result, the unidimensional theory requires only an overall job satisfaction measure. Herzberg's (1959) two-factor job satisfaction theory was the first significant step toward a multidimensional description of job attitudes at the professional level. Herzberg concluded from his study of engineers and accountants that only intrinsic work elements called satisfiers (recognition, achievement, accomplishment, responsibility, and advancement) could generate

Investigating the Correlates and Predictors of Job Satisfaction among Malaysian Academic Librarians

Abstract: This study employs a global measure for job satisfaction on the following ten work and worker related variables: affective commitment, continuance commitment, job involvement, job autonomy, job feedback, role clarity, role conflict, age, organizational tenure and job tenure. A survey was conducted to investigate how much of the variance in job satisfaction can collectively be explained by these variables in a Malaysian academic library setting. The survey was administered on 279 academic librarians from eight university libraries in West Malaysia. Findings were based on the responses from 139 usable questionnaires. The findings revealed that only six of the ten work and worker related variables were significantly correlated with job satisfaction: affective commitment, job autonomy, job performance feedback, role conflict, role clarity and organizational tenure. Findings also revealed that of these six correlates, only two have predictive relationship with job satisfaction: affective commitment and organizational tenure. Collectively these two predictors explain about 26% of the variance in job satisfaction. Although this study did not examine all the possible correlates and predictors of job satisfaction that have been identified in the organizational behavior/psychology and management literature, it nevertheless provides an empirical glimpse of the job satisfaction phenomenon among Malaysian academic librarians.

Herzberg's two-factor theory of job attitudes: a critical evaluation and some fresh evidence

Abstract: This evaluation of Herzberg's theory of motivation discusses its ambiguities and the influence of the tendency for people to give “socially desirable” answers. Evidence from the authors' experiments suggests that the theory is untenable as a description of the structure of job attitudes and the determinants of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The authors acknowledge that a policy of job enrichment derived from the application of the theory would be likely to promote satisfaction and allay dissatisfaction. A concise summary of their analysis and conclusions is given at the end of the article.

The behavioral styles of computer programmers

Abstract: This paper describes a part of the research conducted for a doctoral dissertation. The purpose of the research was to test an approach to job analysis, specifically focusing on the utility of a certain set of constructs, those underlying the scales of the principal instrument used in the study, for job analysis purposes. Because a rather substantial part of the study and the background for the study would not be of interest to any but a few of the people assembled here, much explanatory material has been omitted. What will hopefully be of more general interest will be the manner in which the job analysis was conducted, the outcomes of various phases of the job analysis, and the implications of these outcomes. This is because the occupation at which the job analysis is directed is the computer programming group (business programmer type), the reason for this choice being that the author has spent a much larger portion of his career as a computer programmer than he has as a job analyst.

Perceived clarity of individual job objectives and of group mission as correlates of organizational morale.

Abstract: Based on experiments showing reactions to induced frustration, it was assumed that lack of clarity on the part of an employee regarding his own job or the overall mission of his location will have significant negative consequences. It was thus hypothesized that: (1) lack of clarity of individual job objectives would be negatively related to job satisfaction and overall satisfaction, and (2) that lack of clarity of location of mission would be negatively related to job satisfaction, overall satisfaction and perceptions of organizational cohesiveness (both intra- and inter-departmental). All six predicted relationships were obtained. Implications of these results, including those for organizational communication and personnel administration, are discussed.

A Computer-Assisted Manual Work-Design Model

Abstract: This article describes the development of computerized human simulation models to assist in designing or analyzing manual jobs. The philosophy of computer assisted job design is discussed. Two existing models from The University of Michigan are then presented. One model predicts the normal time to perform a manual task, and the second model predicts the reach capability and preferred body position of the working population when reaching to specific locations in the work-place. Other models that are being developed to predict learning rates, human force capabilities, and physical fatigue rates are briefly described.

Service Encounter Mismatches: A Conceptual Framework Integrating It and Job Design

Abstract: As the services sector becomes a larger component of our national economy, it becomes increasingly critical that the management of service operations is addressed systematically One concern is the interaction of service employees and the technology making up the job design Effectively matching job design and technology leads to effective service encounters, while mismatches cause short-run or long run problems for the organization Organizational mismatches between job design and supporting infrastructure, specifically the information technology (IT) selected, can give rise to the use and exercise of judgment and discretion by service encounter employees that from the viewpoint of the organization or the customer is extraordinary, conflicted, or perverse Perverse judgments debilitate the organization and degrade the quality of the service encounter Conflicted and extraordinary, judgments ultimately debilitate the organization and may degrade the quality of the service encounter if some customers should perceive others as having received preferential treatment This paper explores dynamics in managing operations, technology, and human resources that give rise to the exercise of such judgments with the intent to construct a conceptual framework that will explain such judgments and the behaviors that issue from them Introduction The importance of the service encounter to a service organization is well documented in the operations management and marketing literature This encounter is often the only point of contact the customer has with the organization It is the context in which the organization provides the customer with what is presumably of value The customer assesses the value of what the service organization provides on the basis of how adequately it provides explicit and implicit benefits that meet customer needs and expectations It is thus incumbent upon a service organization to insure that its customer contact personnel are sufficiently supported through appropriate job design, training, and supporting infrastructure that can include an appropriate information technology (IT) This better insures that the organization's customer contact personnel represent it in the best possible way to its customers Job design defines the extent to which customer contact personnel must exercise judgment in meeting customer needs Ideally, the organization's infrastructure is sufficient to support the conformance of job design to customer needs This paper will explore dynamics in managing operations, technology, and human resources that give rise to the exercise of problematic judgments with the intent to construct a conceptual framework that will explain such judgments and the behaviors that issue from them The authors have identified three types of problematic judgments that they label perverse, conflicted, and extraordinary judgments Perverse judgments debilitate the organization and degrade the quality of the service encounter Conflicted and extraordinary judgments ultimately debilitate the organization and may degrade the quality of the service encounter if some customers should perceive others as having received preferential treatment A conceptual framework that provides an adequate understanding of the dynamics that prompt such judgments being made permits more effective planning of the service encounter, the discovery and analysis of the nature of service quality gaps, and suggests actions that can be taken to close those gaps In cases where these judgments occur, remedial actions can be taken that have both operational and strategic implications Such a framework can benefit both the organization and the customers it serves This paper is divided into five parts Part One is a literature review This review provides the motivation for critiquing the quality of service encounters as a technology management and subsequent organizational design issue …

Effects of Wage Equity and Inequity on Job Performance and Job Satisfaction.

Abstract: : Research was conducted which was aimed at testing and clarifying several aspects of equity theory. An experiment was arranged wherein 253 male college students were hired and worked for seven consecutive half-days. For them, the job was real job, and they were not aware that their performance and job satisfaction were being studied systematically in relation to different conditions of equity and inequity. The experimental design allowed tests of equity theory deductions under conditions of both experimentally induced and naturally induced feelings of inequity. The naturally-occurring induction was produced by changing the pay system half way through the week's work. As a result of the change in pay system, some of the employees, with no change in effort, experienced either more or less net pay--thereby generating feelings of over and under reward. (Author)

Over-commitment to the job and the organisation: implications of excessive job involvement and organisational attachment

Abstract: Research and managerial practice have both put emphasis on the development of high levels of job involvement and organisational attachment, stemming from the assumption that employee commitment benefits the organisation and the individual. However, there are indications that over-commitment may have negative consequences for employees and employers. This paper discusses potentially detrimental outcomes of excessive commitment to the job and the organisation and examines the implications of over-commitment for individuals, organisations and values within society. Future research and human resource management should be based upon a more balanced view of the interaction between job demands and the person's off-the-job interests, commitments and responsibilities.