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Job characteristics theory is a theory of
work design Work design (also referred to as job design or task design) is an area of research and practice within industrial and organizational psychology, and is concerned with the "content and organization of one's work tasks, activities, relationships, an ...
. It provides “a set of implementing principles for enriching jobs in organizational settings”. The original version of job characteristics theory proposed a
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of five “core” job characteristics (i.e. skill variety, task identity, task significance,
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
, and
feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled c ...
) that affect five work-related outcomes (i.e. motivation, satisfaction, performance, and absenteeism and turnover) through three psychological states (i.e. experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results).Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the job diagnostic survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60(2), 159–170.


History

Work redesign first got its start in the 1960s. Up until then, the prevailing
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was that jobs should be simplified in order to maximize
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...
, however it was found that when subjected to highly routinized and repetitive tasks, the benefits of simplification sometimes disappeared due to worker dissatisfaction. It was proposed that jobs should be enriched in ways that boosted motivation, instead of just simplified to a string of repetitive tasks.Oldham, G. R., & Hackman, J. R. (2010) Not what it was and not what it will be: The future of job design research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 463–479. It is from this viewpoint that Job Characteristics Theory emerged. In 1975, Greg R. Oldham and J. Richard Hackman constructed the original version of the Job Characteristics Theory (JCT), which is based on earlier work by Turner and LawrenceTurner, A. N., & Lawrence, P. R. (1965). Industrial jobs and the worker. Boston: Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. and Hackman and Lawler.Hackman, J. R., & Lawler, E. E. (1971). Employee reactions to job characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology Monograph, 55(3), 259–286. Turner and Lawrence, provided a foundation of objective characteristics of jobs in work design. Further, Hackman and Lawler indicated the direct effect of job characteristics on employee's work related attitudes and behaviors and, more importantly, the individual differences in need for development, which is called Growth Need Strength in Job Characteristics Theory. In 1980, Hackman and Oldham presented the final form of the Job Characteristics Theory in their book ''Work Redesign''. The main changes included the addition of two more moderators- ''Knowledge and Skill'' and ''Context Satisfaction'', removal of the work outcomes of absenteeism and turnover, and increased focus on ''Internal
Work Motivation Work motivation "is a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual's being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration."Pinder, C. C.(2008). Work motivati ...
''. Several of the outcome variables were removed or renamed as well. Concentration was shifted to the affective outcomes following results from empirical studies that showed weak support for the relationship between the psychological states and behavioral outcomes. In addition to the theory, Oldham and Hackman also created two instruments, the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) and the Job Rating Form (JRF), for assessing constructs of the theory.Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign,(Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA). The JDS directly measures jobholders' perceptions of the five core job characteristics, their experienced psychological states, their Growth Need Strength, and outcomes. The JRF was designed to obtain the
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s from external observers, such as supervisors or
researcher Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
s, of the core job characteristics.


Important variables

According to the final version of the theory, five core job characteristics should prompt three critical psychological states, which lead to many favorable personal and work outcomes. The moderators Growth Need Strength, Knowledge and Skill, and Context Satisfaction should moderate the links between the job characteristics and the psychological states, and the psychological states and the outcomes.


Core job characteristics

* ''Skill Variety'': The degree to which a job requires various activities, requiring the worker to develop a variety of skills and talents. Jobholders can experience more meaningfulness in jobs that require several different skills and abilities than when the jobs are elementary and routine. * ''Task Identity'': The degree to which the job requires the jobholders to identify and complete a workpiece with a visible outcome. Workers experience more meaningfulness in a job when they are involved in the entire process rather than just being responsible for a part of the work. * ''Task Significance'': The degree to which the job affects other people's lives. The influence can be either in the immediate organization or in the external environment. Employees feel more meaningfulness in a job that substantially improves either psychological or physical well-being of others than a job that has limited effect on anyone else. * ''Autonomy'': The degree to which the job provides the employee with significant freedom, independence, and discretion to plan out the work and determine the procedures in the job. For jobs with a high level of autonomy, the outcomes of the work depend on the workers’ own efforts, initiatives, and decisions; rather than on the instructions from a manager or a manual of job procedures. In such cases, the jobholders experience greater personal responsibility for their own successes and failures at work. * ''Feedback'': The degree to which the worker has knowledge of results. This is clear, specific, detailed, ''
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'' information about the effectiveness of his or her job performance. When workers receive clear, actionable information about their work performance, they have better overall knowledge of the effect of their work activities, and what specific actions they need to take (if any) to improve their productivity.


Critical psychological states

* ''Experienced Meaningfulness of the Work'': The degree to which the jobholder experiences the work as intrinsically meaningful and can present his or her value to other people and/or the external environment. * ''Experienced Responsibility for Outcome of the Work'': The degree to which the worker feels he or she is accountable and responsible for the results of the work. * ''Knowledge of Results of the Work Activities'': The degree to which the jobholder knows how well he or she is performing.


Outcomes

Adopted from earlier work the personal and work outcomes of the initial theory were: ''Internal Work Motivation'', ''Job Satisfaction'', ''Absenteeism and Turnover'', and ''Performance Quality''. However, the 1980 revisions to the original model included removing absenteeism and turnover, and breaking performance into ''Quality of Work'' and ''Quantity of Work''.


Moderators

* ''Growth Need Strength (GNS)'': GNS is the strength of a person's need for personal
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