Job control is a person's ability to
influence
Influence or influencer may refer to:
*Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships
**Minority influence, when the minority affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority
*Influencer marketing, through individu ...
what happens in their work environment, in particular to influence matters that are relevant to their personal goals. Job control may include control over work tasks, control over the work pace and physical movement, control over the social and technical environment, and freedom from supervision.
Workplace autonomy has been seen as a specialized form of the more general concept of control. Workplace autonomy is the freedom of a person to determine what he or she does at work, and how.
Association with other factors
For
Georges Friedmann
Georges Philippe Friedmann (; 13 May 1902 – 15 November 1977), was a French sociologist and philosopher, known for his influential work on the effects of industrial labor on individuals and his criticisms of the uncontrolled embrace of techno ...
, the quality of work depends on the employees'
skills
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
and on their capacity to control
decision-making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
at work.
Robert Blauner
Robert "Bob" Blauner (May 18, 1929 – October 20, 2016) was an American sociologist, college professor and author. He introduced the theory of internal colonialism.
Biography
He was born in Chicago, Illinois.
Bob spent his high school years at ...
found that job control is closely linked with
occupational prestige Sociologists use the concept of occupational prestige (also known as job prestige) to measure the relative social-class positions people may achieve by practicing a given occupation. Occupational prestige results from the consensual rating of a ...
and
job satisfaction
Job satisfaction, employee satisfaction or work satisfaction is a measure of workers' contentedness with their job, whether they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work or supervision. Job satisfaction can be ...
.
Job satisfaction and job control tend to be higher for
managerial
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities ...
and
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
workers than for unskilled workers.
A meta-analysis of 1986 found an association of high levels of perceived control with "high levels of job satisfaction
€¦ commitment, involvement,
performance
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
and
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
, and low levels of physical symptoms, emotional distress, role stress,
absenteeism
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implici ...
, intent to turnover, and
turnover". Similarly, within the
job demands–resources model it is assumed that
resource
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...
s such as job control counterbalance job strain and to contribute to motivation. In support of this approach, results of a 2003 study suggest that "as job demands increase, high job control is needed to limit fatigue, whereas either high job control or high job social support is needed to enhance
intrinsic work motivation".
Increasing job control is an intervention shown to help counteract
exhaustion
Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...
and
cynicism
Cynic or Cynicism may refer to:
Modes of thought
* Cynicism (philosophy), a school of ancient Greek philosophy
* Cynicism (contemporary), modern use of the word for distrust of others' motives
Books
* ''The Cynic'', James Gordon Stuart Grant 1 ...
in the workplace, which are two symptoms of
occupational burnout
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s ...
.
Job control has also been linked to the ''meaningfulness'' and the ''manageability'' components of
salutogenesis
Salutogenesis is the study of the origins of health and focuses on factors that support human health and well-being, rather than on factors that cause disease (pathogenesis). More specifically, the "salutogenic model" was originally concerned wi ...
.
See also
*
Profession#Status and prestige
*
Empowerment#In workplace management
*
Balanced job complex
A balanced job complex is a way of organizing a workplace or group that is both directly democratic and also creates relative equal empowerment among all people involved.
Specifically a balanced job complex is a collection of tasks within a given ...
*
Employee engagement
Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who i ...
*
Employee monitoring
Employee monitoring is the (often automated) surveillance of workers' activity. Organizations engage in employee monitoring for different reasons such as to track performance, to avoid legal liability, to protect trade secrets, and to address other ...
*
Equality of autonomy Equality of autonomy is a political philosophy concept of Amartya Sen that argues "that the ability and means to choose our life course should be spread as equally as possible across society"—i.e., an equal chance at autonomy or empowerment. Equal ...
*
Flexibility (personality)#Work environment
*
Occupational health psychology#Demand-control-support model
*
Occupational stress#Status
*
Quality of working life#Measurement
*
Responsible autonomy
Responsible Autonomy ( it, Autonomia Responsabile, AR) is a centrist to centre-right political party active in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
The party was launched as a "civic list" in support of Renzo Tondo, incumbent President of The People of ...
*
Workers' control
Workers' control is participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, communists, social democrats, distributists and Christian ...
*
Workers' self-management
Workers' self-management, also referred to as labor management and organizational self-management, is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a def ...
*
Workplace democracy
Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms (examples include voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal) to the workplace. It can be implemented in a variety of ...
References
{{Aspects of jobs
Control (social and political)
Social influence
Workplace
Employment