Job design

About: Job design is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9218 publications have been published within this topic receiving 426180 citations.

Dual processes at work in a call centre: An application of the job demands – resources model

Abstract: This study among 477 employees working in the call centre of a Dutch telecom company (response 88%) examined the predictive validity of the job demands – resources (JD – R) model for self-reported absenteeism and turnover intentions. The central hypothesis was that job demands would be the most important predictors of absenteeism, through their relationship with health problems (i.e., exhaustion and Repetitive Strain Injury—RSI), whereas job resources would be the most important predictors of turnover intentions, through their relationship with involvement (i.e., organizational commitment and dedication). Results of a series of SEM analyses largely supported these dual processes. In the first energy-driven process, job demands (i.e., work pressure, computer problems, emotional demands, and changes in tasks) were the most important predictors of health problems, which, in turn, were related to sickness absence (duration and long-term absence). In the second motivation-driven process, job resources (i.e., s...

Job satisfaction: are all the parts there?

Abstract: Empirical data indicate that global measures of job satisfaction are not equivalent to the sum of the facet satisfactions. The purposes of this study were to explore the usefulness of single-item global measures of job satisfaction for job satisfaction research and also to explore whether global assessments of job satisfaction include consideration of variables typically not measured by job satisfaction instruments. Subjects are 185 employees working within two research and development units of two multinational corporations. The short-form Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire was used to obtain the sum of the facet satisfactions. Two single-item global questions of overall satisfaction were also used. One required a yes-no response and the second, a 1–5 rating response. Information about perceived determinants of job satisfaction, overall satisfaction with the job, satisfaction with occupational choice, career progress, and overall satisfaction with non-job related events was obtained through semi-structured interviews. Results indicate that defining overall job satisfaction as the sum of the evaluations of the discrete elements of which the job is composed, may lead to neglect of major determinants of job satisfaction. The “whole” appears to be more complex than the sum of the presently measured parts. Results also suggest that the 1–5 global rating of overall job satisfaction may be a more inclusive measure of overall job satisfaction than summation of many facet responses.

An examination of need-satisfaction models of job attitudes.

Abstract: September 1977, volume 22 A need-satisfaction theoretical model has been ubiquitous in studies and writings on job attitudes and, by extension, motivation, job design, and other organizational performance improvement issues. An examination of such need models indicates that they are frequently formulated so as to be almost impossible to refute, and the research testing them has been beset with consistency and priming artifacts. Furthermore, available empirical data fails to support many of the crucial elements of need-satisfaction theories. An examination of the components of need-satisfaction models needs, job characteristics, and job attitudes indicates that all three have been incompletely considered. Need models may have persisted in part because of perceptual biases, their consistency with other theories of rational choice behavior, and because of what they seem to imply about human behavior. The models appear to deny, however, that people have the capacity to provide their own satisfactions by cognitively reconstructing situations.

Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction

Abstract: Economists have long speculated that individuals care about both their absolute income and their income relative to others. We use a simple theoretical framework and a randomized manipulation of access to information on peers' wages to provide new evidence on the effects of relative pay on individual utility. A randomly chosen subset of employees of the University of California was informed about a new website listing the pay of all University employees. All employees were then surveyed about their job satisfaction and job search intentions. Our information treatment doubles the fraction of employees using the website, with the vast majority of new users accessing data on the pay of colleagues in their own department. We find an asymmetric response to the information treatment: workers with salaries below the median for their pay unit and occupation report lower pay and job satisfaction, while those earning above the median report no higher satisfaction. Likewise, below-median earners report a significant increase in the likelihood of looking for a new job, while above-median earners are unaffected. Our findings indicate that utility depends directly on relative pay comparisons, and that this relationship is non-linear.

The future of crowd work

Abstract: Paid crowd work offers remarkable opportunities for improving productivity, social mobility, and the global economy by engaging a geographically distributed workforce to complete complex tasks on demand and at scale. But it is also possible that crowd work will fail to achieve its potential, focusing on assembly-line piecework. Can we foresee a future crowd workplace in which we would want our children to participate? This paper frames the major challenges that stand in the way of this goal. Drawing on theory from organizational behavior and distributed computing, as well as direct feedback from workers, we outline a framework that will enable crowd work that is complex, collaborative, and sustainable. The framework lays out research challenges in twelve major areas: workflow, task assignment, hierarchy, real-time response, synchronous collaboration, quality control, crowds guiding AIs, AIs guiding crowds, platforms, job design, reputation, and motivation.