Showing papers on "Job design published in 2001"

Relationship of core self-evaluations traits--self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability--with job satisfaction and job performance: a meta-analysis.

Abstract: Recently, Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) proposed a higher order construct they termed core self-evaluations or, more simply, positive self-concept. According to Judge et al. (1997), this construct is a broad dispositional trait that is indicated by four more specific traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability (low neuroticism). The core selfevaluations construct was originally proposed as a potential explanatory variable in the dispositional source of job satisfaction. Subsequently, Judge and colleagues also have argued that the construct should be related to work motivation and, ultimately, to job performance (Judge, Erez, & Bono, 1998). Investigations of a link between core self-evaluations and job performance, however, are lacking. Despite a lack of studies linking the core self-evaluations factor to job satisfaction and, especially, to job performance, three of the core traits (self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional stability) appear to be the most widely studied personality traits in personality and applied psychology.1 Yet, with the exception of emotional stability and job performance, we have found no metaanalyses of the relationship between any of these traits with either job satisfaction or job performance.2 Thus, the purpose of the present study is to provide a quantitative review of the literature that examines the relationship of the four core self-evaluation traits with job satisfaction and job performance. This study determines whether general relationships exist and, if so, what the magnitudes of these relationships are. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the four traits and discuss the possible relationship of these traits with both job satisfaction and job performance.

Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work

Abstract: We propose that employees craft their jobs by changing cognitive, task, and/or relational boundaries to shape interactions and relationships with others at work. These altered task and relational configurations change the design and social environment of the job, which, in turn, alters work meanings and work identity. We offer a model of job crafting that specifies (1) the individual motivations that spark this activity, (2) how opportunities to job craft and how individual work orientations determine the forms job crafting takes, and (3) its likely individual and organizational effects.

Burnout and engagement at work as a function of demands and control.

Abstract: Objectives The present study was designed to test the demand-control model using indicators of both health impairment and active learning or motivation. Methods A total of 381 insurance company employees participated in the study. Discriminant analysis was used to examine the relationship between job demands and job control on one hand and health impairment and active learning on the other. Results The amount of demands and control could be predicted on the basis of employees' perceived health impairment (exhaustion and health complaints) and active learning (engagement and commitment). Each of the four combinations of demand and control differentially affected the perception of strain or active learning. Job demands were the most clearly related to health impairment, whereas job control was the most clearly associated with active learning. Conclusions These findings partly contradict the demand-control model, especially with respect to the validity of the interaction between demand and control. Job demands and job control seem to initiate two essentially independent processes, and this occurrence is consistent with the recently proposed job demands-resources model.

Fairness perceptions as a moderator in the curvilinear relationships between job demands, and job performance and job satisfaction

Abstract: Activation theory suggests that intermediate rather than low or high levels of quantitative job demands benefit job performance and job satisfaction among managers. Using an equity theory framework...

The impact of job satisfaction on turnover intent: a test of a structural measurement model using a national sample of workers

Abstract: For the past century, worker turnover has been of keen interest for both managers and researchers. Based upon the literature, a structural measurement model incorporating four core antecedents of t...

Future work design research and practice: Towards an elaborated model of work design

Abstract: Developments in work design theory have not kept pace with the changes occurring in the organizational landscape. We propose a theoretical framework that specifies five categories of work design variables that span individual, group and organizational levels of analysis. Specifically, we propose an elaborated model of work design that includes: systematic consideration of antecedents of work characteristics; expansion of the traditional range of work characteristics to include aspects salient to the modern context; extension of the range of outcome variables beyond the existing narrow focus on affective reactions; analysis of the mechanisms, or processes, that explain why work characteristics lead to particular outcomes; and consideration of contingencies that moderate the effects of work characteristics. We argue that the particular choice of work design variables should be guided by theory and an analysis of the organizational context.

Job satisfaction: a meta-analysis of stabilities

Abstract: Evidence suggesting that job satisfaction is caused by individual dispositions is reviewed, and stability coefficients for job satisfaction in previous studies are analysed with a meta-analytic procedure. Previous longitudinal studies analysing job changer samples imply an upper limit estimate of 0.51 for direct dispositional influences on job satisfaction. A study of job changers considering the stability of working conditions suggests that this estimate has to be considerably corrected downwards. At present, it is concluded that it is more likely that dispositions indirectly affect job satisfaction via selection and self-selection processes. Implications for job satisfaction as a tool for organizational assessment are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Working in Special Education: Factors that Enhance Special Educators' Intent to Stay:

Abstract: This article presents findings from a study of factors that lead to special education teacher attrition and retention involving 887 special educators in three large urban school districts. We focus on a path analysis of the relationship between intent to stay in the field and factors such as job satisfaction, commitment to special education teaching, and various aspects of job design. Findings suggest several critical factors to consider in order to increase retention and commitment. A leading negative factor was stress due to job design. Perceived support by principals or other teachers in the school helped alleviate this stress. Another key factor was the sense that special educators were learning on the job, either formally or informally, through collegial networks.

The effects of job insecurity on employee safety outcomes: cross-sectional and longitudinal explorations.

Abstract: Job insecurity research has focused primarily on attitudinal (e.g., job satisfaction), behavioral (e.g., employee turnover), and health outcomes. Moreover, research in the area of workplace safety has largely focused on ergonomic factors and personnel selection and training as primary antecedents of safety. Two cross-sectional structural equational modeling analyses and 1 longitudinal regression analysis of 237 food-processing plant employees unite these 2 disparate areas of research by exploring the relatively uncharted relationship between job insecurity and safety outcomes. Results indicate that employees who report high perceptions of job insecurity exhibit decreased safety motivation and compliance, which in turn are related to higher levels of workplace injuries and accidents. The specter of losing one's job as a result of corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, or organizational downsizing looms in the foreground for many of today's employees. Fortune 500 companies alone have reduced their total workforce from an aggregate 14.1 million employees to 11.6 million between 1983 and 1993, with approximately 500,000 U.S. employees facing job loss each year as a result of these transitions (Simons, 1998). These are impressive numbers; however, they do not even begin to capture the number of employees who might be concerned about losing their own jobs or the effect job

Designing a safer workplace: importance of job autonomy, communication quality, and supportive supervisors.

Abstract: The direct and indirect effects of work characteristics on self-reported safe working were investigated in a longitudinal study of frontline manufacturing employees (N = 161). The work characteristics included job autonomy, role overload, role conflict, supportive supervision, training adequacy, job security, and communication quality. Job autonomy and communication quality were positively associated with safe working after prior levels of these variables were controlled for, and supportive supervision had a lagged positive effect on safe working 18 months later. Additional analyses showed that organizational commitment fully mediated the effect of job autonomy on safe working and partially mediated the effect of communication quality on safe working. The study suggests that work characteristics are important antecedents of safe working.

Job satisfaction and teamwork: The role of supervisor support

Abstract: The link between teamwork and job satisfaction was investigated in a sample of 48 manufacturing companies comprising 4708 employees. Two separate research questions were addressed. First, it was proposed that supervisor support would be a weaker source of job satisfaction in companies with higher levels of teamworking. Multilevel analysis indicated that the extent of teamwork at the company level of analysis moderated the relationship between individual perceptions of supervisor support and job satisfaction. Second, it was proposed that the extent of teamwork would be positively related to perceptions of job autonomy but negatively related to perceptions of supervisor support. Further, it was proposed that the link between teamwork and job autonomy would be explained by job enrichment practices associated with teamwork. Analyses of aggregated company data supported these propositions and provided evidence for a complex mediational path between teamwork and job satisfaction. Implications for implementing teamwork in organizations are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, and Effort in the Service Environment

Abstract: Investigations of the causal relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction have yielded contradictory findings. Little empirical research has looked at this complex relationship in the context of work effort. The purpose of this study was to determine how these variables interact in the service environment. Using a sample of 425 employees in two service organizations, the author tested two structural equation models. The hypothesized model with organizational commitment as a moderator between job satisfaction and service effort fit better than a model with job satisfaction as moderator did. Conceptual implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.

Work outcomes and job design for contract versus permanent information systems professionals on software development teams

Abstract: Organizations have significantly increased their use of contracting in information systems (IS), hiring contractors to work with permanent professionals. Based on theories of social exchange and social comparison, we hypothesize differences in work attitudes, behaviors, and performance across the two groups, and evaluate our hypotheses with a sequential mixed-methods design. Our first study surveys contract and permanent professionals on software development teams in a large transportation company. Our second study involves in-depth interviews with contract and permanent IS professionals in three organizations. We find support for many of our hypotheses but also some surprising results. Contrary to our predictions, contractors perceive a more favorable work environment than permanent professionals but exhibit lower in-role and extra-role behaviors than their permanent counterparts. Supervisors perceive their contract subordinates as lower-performing and less loyal, obedient, and trustworthy. In-depth interviews help to explain these findings. Job design emerges as an important factor influencing contractors' work attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Supervisors restrict the scope of contractors' jobs, limiting their job behaviors and performance. To compensate, permanent professionals are assigned considerably enlarged job scopes, leading to their lower perceptions of the work environment. We propose a theoretical model that embraces job design in explaining differences in work outcomes for contract versus permanent professionals on software development teams. The results from our study imply that organizations should carefully design and balance the jobs of their contractors and permanent employees to improve attitudes, behaviors, and workplace performance.

Delivering customer-oriented behaviour through empowerment: An empirical test of HRM assumptions

Abstract: Organizational initiatives to strengthen customer orientation among front-line service workers abound, and have led many commentators to speak of the reconstitution of service work. These interventions rest on managers’ assumptions about what engenders the desired customer-oriented behaviours among employees. We evaluate those assumptions in the context of a major change initiative in a supermarket firm. The logic of the programme mirrors key precepts in the contemporary management literature. These are that management behaviour, job design and values-based training can produce a sense of empowerment among employees, and that empowerment will generate prosocial customer-oriented behaviour. Using data from a large scale employee survey, we test the validity of those assumptions. Employees who perceived management behaviour in a positive light and who had participated in values-based training were more likely to feel empowered (i.e. to have internalized prosocial service values and to feel a sense of competence and autonomy on the job). Psychological empowerment was, in turn, positively related to the customer-oriented behaviour of workers. This study, therefore, provides support for key assumptions underlying HRM theory and practice in services.

Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism

Abstract: This article analyzes the costs and benefits of job rotation as a mechanism with which the firm can learn about the employees' productivities and the profitability of different jobs or activities. I compare job rotation to an assignment policy where employees specialize in one job along their career. The gains from adopting a job rotation policy are larger when there is more prior uncertainty about employees and activities. I argue that this firm learning theory fits the existing evidence on rotation better than alternative explanations based on employee motivation and employee learning.

Job Desirability of the High School Principalship: A Job Choice Theory Perspective

Abstract: Many have raised concerns regarding the shortage of qualified candidates for high school principal positions. Using job choice theory as a conceptual framework, this article examines factors that influence potential candidates’ job perceptions and job intentions regarding the high school principalship. Middle school and assistant high school principals (N = 170) in one western state were surveyed regarding the influence job attributes have on their attraction to the high school principalship, their likelihood of seeking a high school principalship, and their likelihood of accepting a position if offered, resulting in an overall index of job desirability. After controlling for candidates’ expectations about being offered the position, results indicate that potential candidates’ perceptions of the high school principalship’s job desirability are significantly related to the desire to achieve and improve education (subjective factor), the additional time demands of the job (a work factor), and the salary and...

State-Trait Boredom: Relationship to Absenteeism, Tenure, and Job Satisfaction

Abstract: The relationship between job outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, absenteeism, and tenure) and measures of state (Job Boredom Scale) and trait (Boredom Proneness Scale) boredom was investigated. Data collected from 292 workers in a manufacturing plant in the southeast United States indicated that individuals scoring high on both types of boredom were significantly more dissatisfied with the work itself, pay, promotion, supervisor, and coworkers as assessed by the Job Descriptive Index. Those high in job boredom possessed significantly greater absenteeism and longer organizational tenure. Implications for job design and personnel selection are discussed.

The competing values framework: Understanding the impact of organizational culture on the quality of work life

Abstract: This study uses the competing values framework as a tool to investigate the relationships between organizational culture and several important job related variables. The findings indicate that group cultural values are positively related to organizational commitment, job involvement, empowerment and job satisfaction, and negatively related to intent to turnover. While hierarchical cultural values are negatively related to organizational commitment, job involvement, empowerment and job satisfaction, and positively related to intent to turnover.

Explaining employees' health care costs: a prospective examination of stressful job demands, personal control, and physiological reactivity.

Abstract: The authors tested the ability of stressful demands and personal control in the workplace to predict employees' subsequent health care costs in a sample of 105 full-time nurses. Both subjective and objective measures of workload demands interacted with personal control perceptions in predicting the cumulative health care costs over the ensuing 5-year period. Tonic elevations in salivary cortisol, moreover, mediated the effects of demands and control on health care costs. Neither the job demands variables nor physiological reactivity measures, however, explained subsequent mental health. The results support findings from the epidemiological literature that demonstrate an important role for employees' control in explaining occupational inequalities in coronary heart disease and mortality. The authors argue that the results also encourage control-enhancing job design interventions by suggesting that their outcomes can benefit both organizations and their members.

Personality and cognitive ability as predictors of job search among employed managers

Abstract: Research on employee job search and separation traditionally focuses on situationally specific variables. Such variables may change with particular employment situations (e.g., job tenure, salary, perceived organizational success), they may be differentially relevant to work situations over time (e.g., education), or may reflect individual reactions to particular work situations (e.g., job satisfaction). More enduring individual characteristics, particularly personality and cognitive ability, may affect job search in consistent ways across different situations, but to date we have little empirical research on those effects. The present study extends traditional job search investigations by incorporating these two enduring individual characteristics–personality and cognitive ability. The value of these two enduring individual characteristics, in predicting job search, is then tested on a sample of U.S. executives. Cognitive ability as well as the personality dimensions of Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience related positively to job search. These effects remained even in the presence of an array of situational factors previously shown to affect search. The relationship between Extroversion and job search became significant and positive in the presence of situational factors, particularly job satisfaction. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The role of personal work goals in newcomers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment: a longitudinal analysis.

Abstract: This study examined the importance of 3 characteristics of personal work goals (i.e., commitment, attainability, and progress) in accounting for changes in newcomers' affective job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) during the 1st months of employment. Twenty weeks after organizational entry, 81 newcomers provided a list of their personal work goals. Goal attributes and job attitudes were assessed at 3 testing periods covering 8 months. Goal commitment was found to moderate the extent to which differences in the attainability of personal goals at the workplace accounted for changes in job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Goal progress mediated the interactive effect of goal commitment and attainability on newcomers' job attitudes. Findings are discussed with respect to their relevance for proactive approaches to organizational socialization.

Role Stress, the Type A Behavior Pattern, and External Auditor Job Satisfaction and Performance

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between elements of role stress and two important external auditor job outcome variables: job satisfaction and performance. The study extends prior research by examining the moderating influence of the Type A behavior pattern on these relationships. The need to re‐examine the linkages between the elements of role stress and both job satisfaction and job performance using theoretically based moderators, such as the Type A behavior pattern, has been highlighted in the role‐stress literature. Analysis of survey data confirmed that both role conflict and role ambiguity are significantly negatively associated with auditor job performance and job satisfaction. However, the expected moderating role of the Type A behavior pattern on the relationships between the components of role stress and job satisfaction and auditor job performance was not found. Interestingly, however, a direct positive relationship between the Type A behavior pattern and both job outcome variables was ap...

The relationship between empowerment, job satisfaction and reported stress levels: some Australian evidence

Abstract: The role of empowerment of subordinates has been an ongoing argument since the 1950s and 1960s following the work of social scientists like Likert and Herzberg. It is argued that empowerment can improve the productivity of the organization. The catch cry of the 1900s and 2000s has been that organizations must be more productive: this could be partly achieved by reducing the workforce and empowering the survivors to make decisions affecting them. The data for this study were collected by the federal government from workplaces across Australia and released in late 1997. It seems that having influence on decisions affecting a person and type and speed of work seems to alter the perceived level of job satisfaction rather than the level of job stress. This study investigates these findings further and discusses the influence of some demographic variables on job satisfaction. The final area of the study will look at how all these variables will impact on the perceived productivity of the organization.

Individual differences in utilizing control to cope with job demands: effects on susceptibility to infectious disease.

Abstract: This study examined the interactive effects of job demands, control, and individual characteristics on upper respiratory illnesses and immune function. Having high job control appeared to lessen the linkage between job demands and poor health among individuals with high self-efficacy and those who perceived that they were not often responsible for negative job outcomes. Conversely, having high job control exacerbated the association between job demands and poor health among inefficacious individuals. Implications for promoting more healthful work environments and facilitating employee coping are discussed.

Supported employment, job preferences, job tenure and satisfaction

Abstract: The relationships between job preferences, job satisfaction and job tenure were examined in a sample of 204 unemployed clients with severe mental illness randomly assigned to one of three vocational rehabilitation programs and followed for 2 years. These were the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment, a psychiatric rehabilitation program (PSR) and standard services (Standard). For clients in the IPS program, those who obtained jobs that matched their preemployment preferences for type of work desired reported higher levels of job satisfaction and had longer job tenures than clients who obtained jobs that did not match their preferences. For clients in the PSR or Standard programs, job preferences were not related to job tenure or satisfaction. The findings replicate previous research in this area, and suggest that helping clients obtain work that matches their job preferences is an important ingredient of success in supported employment programs.