Mediating and Moderating Effects in Job Design

Johns, Gary; Xie, Jia Lin; Fang, Yanping

doi:10.1177/014920639201800404

Cited by 156 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Whereas Oldham (1975, 1980) suggested that the critical psychological states would each independently act as mediators, later work suggested that the true mediation model is different (Johns et al, 1992;Oldham, 1996 Hypothesis 3: Experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results will mediate the relationships between (a) autonomy, (b) skill variety, (c) task identity, (d) task significance, and (e) feedback from the job and the behavioral and attitudinal outcomes.…”

Section: Testing the Job Characteristics Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fried and Ferris (1987, p. 305) examined only corrected correlations between the motivational work characteristics, the critical psychological states, and outcomes and explicitly noted that "bivariate correlational analysis cannot provide a specific test of the mediating hypothesis and is less appropriate than other more sophisticated statistical tests." Using more sophisticated techniques, we performed the first metaanalytic test of these mediational predictions.Whereas Oldham (1975, 1980) suggested that the critical psychological states would each independently act as mediators, later work suggested that the true mediation model is different (Johns et al, 1992;Oldham, 1996 Hypothesis 3: Experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results will mediate the relationships between (a) autonomy, (b) skill variety, (c) task identity, (d) task significance, and (e) feedback from the job and the behavioral and attitudinal outcomes. …”

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confidence: 99%

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Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature.

Humphrey¹,

Nahrgang²,

Morgeson³

2007

Journal of Applied Psychology

1,733

1,732

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The authors developed and meta-analytically examined hypotheses designed to test and extend work design theory by integrating motivational, social, and work context characteristics. Results from a summary of 259 studies and 219,625 participants showed that 14 work characteristics explained, on average, 43% of the variance in the 19 worker attitudes and behaviors examined. For example, motivational characteristics explained 25% of the variance in subjective performance, 2% in turnover perceptions, 34% in job satisfaction, 24% in organizational commitment, and 26% in role perception outcomes. Beyond motivational characteristics, social characteristics explained incremental variances of 9% of the variance in subjective performance, 24% in turnover intentions, 17% in job satisfaction, 40% in organizational commitment, and 18% in role perception outcomes. Finally, beyond both motivational and social characteristics, work context characteristics explained incremental variances of 4% in job satisfaction and 16% in stress. The results of this study suggest numerous opportunities for the continued development of work design theory and practice.Keywords: work design, job design, satisfaction, performance, social support Interest in work design has a long history. Early writings focused on how the division of labor could increase worker efficiency and productivity (Babbage, 1835;Smith, 1776). The first systematic treatment of the topic was conducted in the early part of the 20th century by Gilbreth (1911) and Taylor (1911), who focused on specialization and simplification in an attempt to maximize worker efficiency. Yet, one of the problems of designing work to maximize efficiency was that it tended to result in decreased employee satisfaction, increased turnover and absenteeism, and difficulties in managing employees in simplified jobs (Hackman & Lawler, 1971).Reacting to this, researchers developed theories focusing on the motivating features of work (Hackman & Lawler, 1971;Hackman & Oldham, 1975;Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 1959;Turner & Lawrence, 1965). The motivational approach forwarded by these scholars has been influential over the past 30 years (Morgeson & Campion, 2003). For example, the key articles summarizing Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model and measures have been cited nearly 2,000 times by researchers (ISI Web of Knowledge, 2006). Although the model is more than 30 years old and there are several criticisms of its key propositions and measures (Johns, Xie, & Fang, 1992;Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006;Roberts & Glick, 1981;Taber & Taylor, 1990), it retains a central place in work design theory today. Yet the success of the motivational approach has had two curious effects on work design research over the past 30 years.First, it has focused research attention on a limited set of motivational work features (e.g., skill variety, autonomy). Although these are important work characteristics, other important aspects of work (such as the social environment and work context) have been neglected. As a conseq...

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Section: Testing the Job Characteristics Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature.

Humphrey¹,

Nahrgang²,

Morgeson³

2007

Journal of Applied Psychology

1,733

1,732

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In line with the theodzing of Bono and Judge (2003) and Shamir et al (1993), we hypothesize that employees of tratisformadonal leaders find their jobs more meaningful and, thus, become immersed iti their jobs, that is, they achieve a state of flow (Johns, Xie, & Fang, 1992 Work-related flow is defined as a short-term peak experience at work (Bakker, 2005(Bakker, , 2008 and is characterized by a high amount of enjoyment, total concentration, and a condnuous interest in one's work. In line with recent attention on positive organizational behavior research (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008), we attempted to test a mediadon model wherein both posidve individual work experiences, such as work-related flow, and posidve career outcomes (i.e., employability enhancement) were included.…”

Section: Learning Value Of the Jnh And Kmployahilitymentioning

confidence: 91%

Toward a Mediation Model of Employability Enhancement: A Study of Employee‐Supervisor Pairs in the Building Sector

Heijden

Bakker

2011

The Career Development Quart

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This study examines whether jobs that enable competence development and a constructive leadership st)'le enhance workers' empioyabiiity or career potential through their assumed positive relationship with work-related flow (absorption, work enjoyment, and intrinsic work motivation). The authors conducted an explorative study with 303 pairs of employees and their direct supervisors working in a Dutch building company. Results indicate that self-ratings of learning value of the current job and transformational leadership have an indirect relationship with supervisor ratings of empioyabiiity through work-related flow.Being an expert and maintaining one's experdse are by no means easy tasks. However, the potendal of a working organizadon to perform optimally in global markets depends on employees' capability to develop, culdvate, and maintain ñjndamental qualifications. Nowadays, job qualificadons are changing condnuously. Moreover, the dme has passed when careers consisted of upward moves within a framework of long-term employment reladons (Arthur, 2008;Sullivan, 1999). Empioyabiiity (or career potendal) management consists of a new mutual psychological contract (Coyle-Shapiro & Neuman, 2004;Rousseau, 2001) and is a joint responsibility of employers and employees. In the present study, we propose an empioyabiiity enhancement model to examine how learning value of the current job and a transformadonal leadership style are related to empioyabiiity. We argue that these predictors have an indirect relationship with empioyabiiity through work-related flow and build upon the "happy-producdve worker thesis" (see Cropanzano & Wright, 2001, for a thorough review) and the "broaden-and-build theory of posidve emodons" (Fredrickson, 2001).Although several studies have reported relationships between career or managerial practices and positive work outcomes, tests of mediating Beatrice I. J. M. van

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“…While Hackman andOldham (1975, 1976) originally proposed that these three critical psychological states were independent mediators that must all be present for desired work outcomes to be produced, more recent research has suggested that experienced meaningfulness was the best mediator between the motivational characteristics and work outcomes (Johns, Xie, & Fang, 1992). This proposition was further supported by Humphrey et al (2007) in the first meta-analytic test of the mediational role of psychological states between job characteristics and job outcomes.…”

Section: Motivational Approach To Work Designmentioning

confidence: 98%

Work Design Characteristics as Moderators of the Relationship between Proactive Personality and Engagement

Drown

2000

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This study examines which and how trait relevant work design characteristics moderate the relationship between proactive personality and engagement. Proactive personality is defined as an individual's tendency to intentionally and directly affect change in their environment (Bateman & Crant, 1993;Crant, 2000). Previous research has been primarily focused on the positive aspects of proactive personality; to fill this gap, I used trait activation theory (Tett & Burnett, 2003) to identify which work characteristics will activate proactive personality to affect engagement and developed specific hypotheses about which work characteristics will attenuate the proactive personality engagement relationship. In the study I identified five work characteristics (autonomy, feedback from job, problem solving, social support, and feedback from others) that may be moderators of the proactive personality-engagement relationship. Data were collected from 258 participants who worked in organizations located in north and northeast Italy. Data were collected at two time points. At time 1, proactive personality and work design characteristics were collected. Work engagement was collected at time 2. Although main effects for proactive personality and the job characteristics on engagement were found, the data did not support most of the hypotheses in this study. However, supplemental analyses found interesting interactions with regards to the impact of decision making autonomy and feedback from others on the relation between proactive personality and work engagement. The supplemental results suggest that proactive personality may act as a personal resource when work design characteristics are lacking.However, when decision making autonomy or feedback from others is high there is a negative relationship between proactive personality and engagement. Proactive Personality iiThe results of this study have several implications for management theory and practice. On the theoretical side there are at least three contributions. First, while the majority of research on PAP has focused on main effects, few studies have identified moderators (Crant, 2000). Second, this study adds to research by extending trait activation theory to apply to how proactive workers view work characteristics. Third, while all work design characteristics coexist simultaneously within a work environment, they are usually discussed individually, not simultaneously. Additionally, the results of this study have implications for practice. The results of this study suggest that organizations should consider the work design characteristics and their impact on proactive workers prior to selecting proactive workers. Also organizations who are interested in employing proactive workers can use the results of this study to optimize the success of both high-and low-proactivity workers. By having a more in depth understanding of how work design characteristics impact proactive people organizations will be better able to meet an employee's needs, and the theoretical understan...

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Mediating and Moderating Effects in Job Design

Cited by 156 publications

References 32 publications

Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature.

Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature.

Toward a Mediation Model of Employability Enhancement: A Study of Employee‐Supervisor Pairs in the Building Sector

Work Design Characteristics as Moderators of the Relationship between Proactive Personality and Engagement

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