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Work Design: Creating Jobs and Roles That Promote Individual Effectiveness

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WORK DESIGN: CREATING JOBS AND ROLES THAT PROMOTE INDIVIDUAL

EFFECTIVENESS

John Cordery

UWA Business School

University of Western Australia

email: John.Cordery@uwa.edu.au

and

Sharon K. Parker

Institute of Work Psychology

University of Sheffield

email: s.parker@sheffield.ac.uk

Cordery, J.L. & Parker, S.K. (2012). Job and role design. In S. Kozlowski (Ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 9.
 WORK DESIGN 2

INTRODUCTION

“… if one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, … all one would have to do

would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and

meaning.” (Dostoyevsky, 1985; p. 43).

“If you don’t let people grow and develop and make more decisions, it’s a waste of

human life – a waste of human potential. If you don’t use your knowledge and skill, it’s a

waste of life” (Process worker, quoted in Zuboff, 1989, p. 414)

Work is the activity that occupies most of the waking lives of billions of people around

the world, providing the means to many significant material, social and psychological ends. It

has been described as “a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as

well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short for a sort of life rather than a

Monday to Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality too is part of the quest.” (Terkel, 1972,

p. xi). On a social level, the collective act of working is what creates and sustains whole

communities, and shapes cultures; it is hardly surprising that statistics on the availability of

employment are one of the universal yardsticks by which we assess the viability of

individuals and societies.

Activities engaged in at work thus exert a powerful influence on how people think, feel,

behave, and relate to one another - both in the moment of their enactment and beyond. For

some, work activities are a source of positive, energising, and fulfilling experiences:

“The project I’m working on includes the restoration of a historical building,

reconstruction of a demolished historic room, and an addition of a new building to an old

one. That’s a lot of complexity, and difficult as far as projects go. It’s also the one that gets

me excited about coming into the office.” (Architectural draftsperson, quoted in Kahn, 1990,

p. 704).
 WORK DESIGN 3

“I tried everything that I knew to do .|.|. in order to compound the resin and nothing

worked. Then I tried something that had not been done before, to my knowledge, and it is

working wonderfully at this moment. Ain’t science wonderful?.|.|. God, I love it when a plan

comes together.” (Chemical company employee, quoted in Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, &

Staw, 2005, p. 387).

For others, the work they do is experienced as negative, enervating and stressful:

“I suffer from mental fatigue; your brain gets overloaded. Although taking enquiries is

not necessarily a difficult job, it is when you get all these culminating factors coming through,

mostly the repetitiveness, call after call, and you get annoyed about something and you just

think ‘no’!.... As a home insurance advisor I use the same script, so you do the same thing

every day, repeating the same things, asking the same questions, getting the same answers

back” (Call centre operator, quoted in Taylor & Bain, 1999, p, 109).

“... he coughed and was irritated by the tube (the interviewee was extubating a 10-year-

old boy after incision of a peritonsillar abscess)...I misjudged the situation, I thought he was

in a lighter state...so I extubated him. And the airway was completely obstructed. He

developed laryngospasm; I had pulled the tube out at the wrong moment. It was impossible to

ventilate. His pulse rate increased and so did mine. His pulse rate slowed down, mine went on

increasing. Then I felt as if someone was sitting on my back with claws penetrating my skin, I

was losing control...and finally, in this darkness of blood and cyanosis, I managed to get a

tube down...it was awful, it was traumatic...” (Anaesthetist, cited in Larson, Rosenqvist, &

Holmström, 2007).

After a rather lean period of research and theorising, at the end of which some

commentators suggested that we probably now knew all we needed to know about the topic

(Ambrose & Kulik, 1999), interest in psychological aspects of work design has revived

considerably in recent times (Fried, Levi & Laurence, 2008; Grant, Fried & Juillerat, 2009;
 WORK DESIGN 4

Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007; Morgeson & Campion, 2003; Morgeson &

Humphrey, 2008; Parker & Ohly, 2008; Parker, Wall & Cordery, 2001). The reasons for this

resurgence lie in the fact that the landscape of work, jobs and roles has undergone dramatic

change over recent decades.

Several key features have come to characterise this dynamic landscape (National

Academy of Sciences, 1999; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). In the first place, rapid

advances in digital technology continue to result in the emergence of whole new forms and

patterns of work (and the disappearance of others), transforming the characteristic content of

tasks, jobs and roles performed by workers in all industries. Many people now work in

production and service environments where performance is almost entirely mediated via

digital technology, as in call centres and virtual teams (Kirkman, Gibson & Kim, In press;

Majcharak, Malhotra, Stamps & Lipnack, 2004; Holman, 2005). Across all industries, the

types of tasks and activities that make up jobs and occupations continue to evolve as a

function of technological advances. In industries traditionally characterised by manual and

mechanical forms of work, for example, simple manual, mechanical tasks are continually

supplanted by more cognitively complex activities, incorporating analytical, problem-solving

and decision-making tasks. This in turn has blurred traditional distinctions between

managerial and non-managerial work. In addition, digital technologies have also enabled

work activities to transcend barriers of time and location, and further eroded the boundaries

between work and non-work activity (Ashforth, Kreiner & Fugate, 2000; Bailey & Kurland,

2002; Olson-Buchanan & Boswell, 2006)

Second, increasing global competition has also affected transformations in the type of

work that people perform. Many forms of low and semi-skilled manufacturing and services

work continue to be relocated to developing economies in order to reduce labor costs. Nearly

three quarters of the world’s three billion workers are now located in developing economies

(Ghose, Majid & Ernst, 2008). In the United Kingdom and United States, for example, more
 WORK DESIGN 5

than 75% of the civilian labor force is now employed in the services sector, while this sector

employs only 50% of all workers in China and the Philippines and less than one third in

countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (International Labor Organization, 2008).

The shift towards service and knowledge work within developed economies has meant that,

amongst other things, interpersonal interactions have become an increasing part of jobs and

work roles, reflecting increasing teamwork and customer interactions. Within developed

economies in particular, competitive pressures have also encouraged firms to energetically

pursue goals of greater efficiencies in the use of physical, human and financial resources,

through both technological automation, work redesign and organizational restructuring.

Organizational restructuring (interacting with the changes to demographics, markets and

technologies) has resulted in leaner, flatter organizations, increased use of teams and other

collaborative structures (e.g. organizational communities of practice; Wenger, McDermott &

Snyder, 2002), and changes to the nature and flexibility of employment contracts, such as

through portfolio work (Cohen & Mallon, 1999; Fraser & Gold, 2001) and individually

negotiated employment arrangements (i-deals ; Rousseau, 2005; Rousseau, Hornung, &

Kim, 2009).

Third, and often omitted in discussions of work design, there have been noticeable

changes in the demographic characteristics of the workforce within many industries and

national economies. Generational changes in workforce characteristics are leading people to

question traditional notions of what makes workers thrive in work contexts and requiring

commensurate shifts in how work is structured and organized (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006;

Egri, 2004; Hewlett, Sherbin, & Sumberg, 2009). Commentators have noted that workplaces

these days are likely to be more diverse with respect to the experience and backgrounds of

people performing the work, and that:

“Jobs are shaped by the interactive effect of (1) managerial and engineering choices

with respect to work design and technology and (2) the knowledge, skills, abilities and
 WORK DESIGN 6

outlooks that individuals bring to the job. The increased variation in demographics that we

are witnessing within any one occupation suggests the prospect of broader variation in job

content” (National Academy of Sciences, 1999; p. 266).

Changes to the nature of work brought about by these three sets of forces over recent

decades have raised concerns regarding how work and jobs impact on people, highlighting

gaps in our understanding of such effects, and requiring academics and practitioners to

investigate novel approaches to the design of work. In this context, fresh theorising about the

psychological salience of work-related activities has begun to emerge, and it is this that is the

focus of this review.

JOB, ROLE, AND WORK DESIGN

Historically, the term ‘job design’ within I/O psychology has been used to denote

research and practice relating to the content, structure and organization of tasks and activities

that are performed by an individual on a day-to-day basis in order to generate work products

(Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson, 2007; Grant, Fried & Juillerat, 2009; Morgeson &

Humphrey, 2008). As the field has developed, however, it has broadened its focus to

incorporate the design of both jobs and associated roles, the latter being sets of recurrent

behaviours expected of a person occupying a particular position (Polzner, 2005). As

Morgeson & Humphrey (2008) point out, this expanded focus on both job and role design has

become necessary in order to adequately describe and assess the impact of the sorts of

changes to technology, work and patterns of working described earlier, and offers at least

three advantages. First, it recognises that the characteristic content and pattern of work, as it

affects workers, emerges not solely from the immediate somewhat-fixed demands of the task

environment, but also from the dynamic physical, social and organizational context within

which work is performed. For example, a worker may experience variety in their work that

arises both as a consequence of the discrete activities he or she has to perform while creating

or transforming work products on a day-to-day basis, but may also experience variety by
 WORK DESIGN 7

virtue of normative position rotation practices or as a consequence of positional

interdependencies that exist within the team to which she or he belongs. Second, it

acknowledges the fact that most jobs can be seen as comprising both prescribed and

predetermined tasks and activities, typically those things that need to be done in order to

create or transform work products, and discretionary and/or emergent components (Ilgen &

Hollenbeck, 1991). Incorporating the notion of role injects a flexible, dynamic element, such

that the design of work can be seen as something that emerges and evolves over time and

which may result in situation- or individual-specific outcomes. Finally, it recognises that, in

most work settings, matching a person to a job is a decision that involves considering not just

their capacity to perform particular tasks, but also to occupy particular roles.

Thus, for the purposes of this review, we adopt ‘work design’ as an overarching term to

describe the content, structure, and organization of tasks, activities and roles that are

performed by individuals and groups in work settings. In the next section, we explore the

historical development of work design theory and practices as they impact on individual

functioning in work settings.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON WORK DESIGN AND INDIVIDUAL

EFFECTIVENESS

In pre-industrialised societies, work activity was typically indistinguishable, in terms of

its timing and location, from the ordinary everyday activities of individuals and communities

(Barley & Kunda, 2001). Following the industrial revolution, however, work became

increasingly carried out as a separate, more distal, production activity - performed at fixed

times during the week, in designated locations such as factories and offices, and under the

direction of people who were socially disconnected from the worker. As this occurred, so

principles for the effective organisation of these segregated work activities began to be

developed. Amongst the earliest work design principle to find favour was that of the

‘division of labor’, referring to process of dividing a complex work process into sets of
 WORK DESIGN 8

simpler subtasks and requiring individual workers to specialize in the performance of one of

those sets of activities. The 18th century economist Adam Smith was one of the first to

describe the potential productivity advantages associated with the division of labour, though

he also acknowledged that the high level of repetition that this might involve could have

deleterious psychological effects on workers:

“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the

effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his

understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties

which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally

becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor

of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational

conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of

forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.

(Smith, 1776).

In the early part of the 20th century, industrial engineers such as Frank Gilbreth and

Frederick Taylor (Gilbreth, 1911; Taylor, 1911; Locke, 1982) gave further impetus to the

development of what was fast becoming the dominant paradigm for work design in industrial

settings – job specialization and simplification. In a treatise entitled “The Principles of

Scientific Management”, Taylor (1911) argued the benefits of further job specialisation, into

those involving the execution of simple, specialized physical tasks (to performed by workers)

and those involving more complex ‘scientific’ tasks, such as planning, scheduling, and the

exercise of initiative (to be carried by professional managers).

“Thus all of the planning which under the old system was done by the workman, as a

result of his personal experience, must of necessity under the new system be done by the

management in accordance with the laws of the science (Taylor, 1947; quoted in Vroom and

Deci 1978: 297, 300).

 WORK DESIGN 9

The overwhelming efficiency benefits to derived from designing work as sets of highly

specialised, simplified and standardised tasks and activities have proven to be such that this

approach to work design remains a dominant approach to this day, both in manufacturing and

service settings (Morgeson & Campion, 2002; Campion, Mumford, Morgeson & Nahrgang,

2005; Cordery & Parker, 2005). The benefits derived from this approach arise from factors

such as the reduced time spent switching between tasks, increased potential for automation of

subtasks, greater ease in selecting and training employees, the development of concentrated

expertise, and increased quantity of output.

When Taylor’s ‘scientific management’ approach to work design was first introduced in

the Midvale Steel plant in the late 1880s, however, it was notable that workers reportedly

resorted to sabotaging the operation of their machines in an attempt to reduce the strain that

the new system was placing them under – until fined heavily for doing so (Taylor, 1911).

Subsequently, evidence slowly began to accumulate of heightened mental and physical

fatigue, boredom, dissatisfaction, and absenteeism arising in a range of industrial settings

where work was designed in this manner (Fraser, 1947; Walker & Guest, 1952). Researchers

also observed that these attitudes and behaviours were not solely influenced by the design of

the tasks per se, but also seemed to be powerfully affected by the opportunity for, and nature

of, social interactions embedded in different work designs (Mayo, 1946; Roethlisberger &

Dickson, 1939).

“Man’s desire to be continuously associated in work with his fellows is a strong, if not

the strongest, human characteristic. Any disregard of it by management or any ill-advised

attempt to defeat this human impulse leads instantly to some form of defeat for management

itself” (Mayo, 1946, p. 99)

Reflecting growing concerns regarding the human impact of traditional mechanistic work

designs, the latter half of the 20th century saw the development of several influential streams

of theorising in respect of the social and psychological consequences of work design. The
 WORK DESIGN 10

first of these developed from the work of human relations researchers based at the Tavistock

Institute in the United Kingdom, and has come to be known as socio-technical systems theory

(STS; Pasmore, 1988). STS developed as a set of broad principles for designing effective

organizations (e.g. Cherns, 1976; Clegg, 2000), where effectiveness is defined as the extent to

which the functioning of both human and technological subsystems are mutually reinforcing –

a process referred to as ‘joint optimisation’ (Trist, 1981). Early work by STS researchers

demonstrated that technological systems whose operation required high levels of task

specialisation were frequently disruptive of important and necessary social relationships, both

within and outside work, as well as denying workers the opportunity to engage in activities

they found meaningful and satisfying (e.g. Trist & Bamforth, 1951; Rice, 1958). Importantly,

they also demonstrated, though practical interventions, how industrial work might be

effectively designed around groups or teams of workers in order to achieve balance between

the socio-psychological needs of workers on the one hand, and requirements for effective and

efficient operation of technology and equipment on the other.

The signature approach to work design pioneered by STS researchers involved the use of

autonomous work groups to control and execute work tasks. Sometimes called semi-

autonomous work groups (and, more recently, self-managing work teams), these were work

groups whose task boundary encompasses the production of a relatively whole unit of work,

and whose members are able exercise considerable collective discretion with respect to how

and when tasks are performed. This approach to work design differed from the dominant

‘mechanistic’ paradigm in several key ways. First, though it still allowed for a degree of

individual job specialisation, it also afforded members the possibility of learning a range of

related jobs within the group and rotating between them (thereby avoiding some of the

problems associated with boredom and repetition under more traditional work designs).

Second, it ‘de-specialized’ some of the planning and decision-making tasks and roles that

traditional ‘mechanistic’ work designs assign to administrative and managerial personnel, re-
 WORK DESIGN 11

integrating them into workers’ jobs as a shared role responsibility, distributed across all

members of the group. Autonomous work group members were thus provided with increased

opportunities to participate directly in decisions that directly affected their work and

themselves, an aspect lacking in traditional work designs. Third, the autonomous work group

provided increased opportunities for social contract and interaction, both between members as

they assumed responsibility for coordinating and controlling work activities within the group

and also with people outside the boundaries of the group (e.g. suppliers, managers, members

of other work units, customers).

From a productivity point of view, autonomous work groups were seen as offsetting any

losses in productive efficiency arising as a result of losses in job specialisation and

simplification by virtue of improved control over key variances (any significant deviation

from the ideal operating state of a production system), through increased motivation and

satisfaction, through the more flexible allocation of labour, as well as through workers (a)

developing greater knowledge of overall system functioning, and (b) having the license to

take rapid action in order to control key variances (Cordery, 1996). The empirical evidence

on the effectiveness of autonomous work groups is equivocal, however. On the one hand, in

many situations their introduction appears to redress many of the problems of low morale and

negative work attitudes that arise within more traditional work designs (Cordery, Mueller &

Smith, 1991; Wall, Kemp, Jackson & Clegg, 1986). However, they have also been found to

be associated with higher rates of turnover and absenteeism and coercive, negative employee

behaviours (Barker, 1993; Levy, 2001). This has led to suggestions that their effectiveness

depends on the context in which they are introduced (Cordery, Morrison, Wright & Wall,

2009; Pearce & Ravlin, 1987; Wright & Cordery, 1999), as well as the care with which they

are designed and implemented (Kirkman & Rosen, 2000; Wageman, 1997).

A second major stream of work design research to develop in the latter half of the 20th

century was generated by researchers interested in what motivated individual employees at

 WORK DESIGN 12

work. McGregor (1960) argued that many of the ways work was organised were based on

assumptions regarding human nature that were patently wrong. He called this set of

assumptions ‘Theory X’, which hold that people are inherently lazy, are primarily motivated

by economic rewards, dislike expending effort, prefer to be told what to do, and will avoid

responsibility at all costs. Rather, McGregor argued that most people have the potential to

derive considerable satisfaction from working, and willingly exercise effort, self-control and

self-direction at work in pursuit of goals that matter to them. He termed this perspective

‘Theory Y’, and suggested that it was dangerous to create work systems that did not provide

workers with such opportunities:

“ People, deprived of opportunities to satisfy at work the needs which are now important

to them, behave exactly as we might predict – with indolence, passivity, unwillingness to

accept responsibility, resistance to change, willingness to follow the demagogue,

unreasonable demands for economic benefits” (McGregor, 1960, p. 42.)

The motivator-hygiene theory developed by Herzberg & colleagues (Herzberg, 1966;

Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 1959) was the first to make an explicit link between job

design and employee motivation and satisfaction. This theory proposed that satisfaction at

work is caused by the presence of ‘motivators’, such as recognition, the work itself, and

responsibility, while dissatisfaction is caused by ‘hygiene factors’ such as supervision, work

conditions, salary, status and job security. Herzberg argued that jobs could be ‘enriched’ to

produce higher levels of employee motivation and satisfaction by enhancing the motivational

factors. Central to the notion of enrichment was the practice of vertical job loading (Herzberg,

1968), and strategies for vertical job loading included: removing supervisory controls,

increasing an individual ‘s accountability for their own work, giving a person a complete,

‘natural’ unit of work, granting increased freedom to employees in their jobs, providing

regular performance reports direct to employees, adding new and more complex tasks, and

assigning individuals to specialized ‘expert’ tasks.

 WORK DESIGN 13

Whist motivator-hygiene theory helped to identify the potential for work re-design to

improve work motivation and satisfaction, as a work design theory it suffers from several

limitations. First, it is not clear how some of the motivators (e.g. achievement, recognition),

relate to measurable intrinsic properties of jobs and roles and this makes it difficult to both

use the theory to guide the redesign of existing jobs. Second, the theory assumes, incorrectly,

that all employees react similarly to motivators and to jobs that have been vertically loaded,

(Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Hulin, 1971). Empirically, subsequent research has providing

disconfirming evidence for the two factor theory (e.g. Wall & Stephenson, 1970), showing

that the distinction between motivational and hygiene factors was largely a methodological

artefact.

The next step in the articulation of a ‘motivational’ approach to work design is marked by

the development of the Job Characteristics Model (JCM; Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman

& Oldham, 1975; Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Oldham & Hackman, 2005). Drawing on an

earlier ideas by Turner & Lawrence (1965), the JCM (see Figure 1) identified five ‘core’

properties of individual work content (autonomy, skill variety, task identity, task significance

and feedback) as important for generating the following positive outcomes: internal work

motivation, performance quality, work satisfaction (particularly satisfaction with

opportunities for growth and development), absenteeism and turnover.

[Insert Figure 1 about here]

The mechanisms whereby these five job attributes engender positive outcomes within

individuals were described in terms of three ‘critical psychological states’. Autonomy, the

degree to which an individual is able to choose how and when to carry out the work,

engenders a sense of personal responsibility for outcomes of work. Skill variety was defined

as the extent to which work entails a variety of actions that require the exercise on a number

of different skills and abilities; Task significance is the extent to which the work activities

performed by the individual have a substantial impact on the lives of others, while task
 WORK DESIGN 14

identity refers to the degree to which the job entails completing a ‘whole’ piece of work from

start to finish. Collectively, these three job characteristics are held to contribute to the

experience of psychological meaningfulness – the extent to which a person cares about the

work they are engaged in. Finally, feedback that arises directly from the performance of the

work itself affects the extent to which a person experiences knowledge of results, their

comprehension of how well they are performing the job. According to the JCM, carrying out

work that engenders these three ‘critical psychological states’ results in ‘positive affect’ that

rewards effort expenditure. This potentially creates a situation where performance becomes

its own reward, a virtuous “self-perpetuating cycle of positive work motivation powered by

self-generated rewards, that is predicted to continue until one or more of the three

psychological states is no longer present, or until the individual no longer values the internal

rewards that derive from good performance” (Hackman & Oldham, 1976, p. 256).

Several other aspects of the JCM are worth noting. First, the model suggests that the core

job characteristics have a combined effect on all the predicted outcomes. Hackman and

Oldham (1975) developed the Job Diagnostic Survey to measure the key components of the

model (including employee perceptions of job characteristics) and it was proposed (Hackman

& Oldham, 1976) that the overall motivational potential of a job could be scored as the

multiplicative product of autonomy, feedback, and the average of skill variety, task identity

and task significance (Autonomy X Feedback X [Skill variety + Task Identity + Task

Significance]/3). Thus, while a job could theoretically continue to be motivating with a low

score on one or other of the three ‘meaningfulness’-related dimensions, it could not do so if

scores on either autonomy or feedback approached zero.

Second, the JCM accommodates the notion that the effects of work design (and re-

design), at least as far as the core job dimensions contained in this model are concerned, will

vary across individuals. The idea that some people are more suited to simple, routine and

non-responsible jobs, on grounds of ability, was argued at length by Taylor (1911). However,
 WORK DESIGN 15

it has also frequently been argued that some people simply prefer this type of work (Hulin &

Blood, 1968). The original JCM holds that the relationships between job characteristics,

psychological states and behavioural work outcomes will be stronger for individuals who are

stronger in ‘growth need strength’, a dispositional variable reflecting the strength of desire for

the satisfaction of higher order needs, such as need for achievement, accomplishment and

self-actualization (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Warr, 2007). In later iterations, two further

categories of moderator were added, namely (a) knowledge, skills and abilities and (b)

satisfaction with the work context (Oldham, Hackman & Pearce, 1976).

The JCM offered a number of clear advantages to those seeking to understand (and

redress) some of the psychological disadvantages associated with high levels of work

specialisation and simplification. First, it identified specific guidance for those who wish to

redesign work to achieve improved motivational outcomes. Second, it was able to

accommodate suggestions that enriched jobs are not for all. Finally, the core motivational

premise of the model appeared to hold true. A number of meta-analyses have been conducted

which support the view that core job characteristics generate favourable attitudinal and

behavioural outcomes, mediated by at least some of the three critical psychological states

(Freid, 1991; Humphrey, Nahrgang & Morgeson, 2007; Johns, Xie, & Fang, 1992). The JCM

is not been without its critics, however. In the main, these criticisms have been related to the

quality of empirical research used in developing and testing the model (e.g. Grant, et al.,

2009; Parker & Wall, 1998; Roberts & Glick, 1981) and not the theory itself. However, the

model has also been criticised for its narrow focus, in terms of the job characteristics

identified, the mediating mechanisms, and the behavioural outcomes predicted (Parker &

Wall, 1998).

One attempt to overcome aspects of the ‘breadth’ criticism was the interdisciplinary

perspective on work design developed by Campion and colleagues (Campion, 1988;

Campion, 1989; Campion & Thayer, 1985; Campion & Thayer, 1987; Campion &
 WORK DESIGN 16

McClelland, 1993; Campion, Mumford, Morgeson & Nahrgang, 2005). Campion and

colleagues suggested that 4 different perspectives on work design (mechanistic, motivational,

perceptual-motor, and biological) can be identified, both in practice and in the scholarly

literature. What differentiated the perspectives was that each sought to achieve different

outcomes. The four approaches are summarised in Table 1 below.

[Insert Table 1 about here]

The interdisciplinary model suggests that pursuing one or other of these approaches to

work design involves making trade-offs in terms of the benefits sought. For example,

pursuing work simplification (mechanistic approach) achieves efficiency outcomes that are

typically traded off against lower levels of worker motivation and satisfaction. The

motivational approach can lead to high levels of motivation and job satisfaction, but can also

involve higher training costs and higher levels of mental strain. Until relatively recently, it

was assumed that the two most common work design approaches, mechanistic and

motivational, were mutually exclusive. However, Morgeson & Campion (2002) were able to

demonstrate that this is in fact not the case. Earlier, Wong & Campion (1991) had made the

distinction between task-level characteristics and job-level characteristics (something the

JCM is ambivalent on). Subsequently, Edwards, Scully & Brtek (1999, 2000) had shown that

each of the four approaches to job design is multidimensional, with mechanistic work designs

being high on a work simplification dimension (related to efficiency) and low on a skill use

dimension (related to satisfaction) and the reverse applying for motivational work designs.

Morgeson & Campion (2002) demonstrated that it might be possible to avoid this inherent

trade-off if these different work design approaches were applied to task clusters within the

one job. For example, incorporating a range of similar task clusters within the one job can

narrow the range of tasks performed by that individual, thereby improving efficiency, but it

may also enable the development and exercise of greater depths of skill and expertise, and

also generate enhanced task identity and task significance. At the team level, a similar type of
 WORK DESIGN 17

mutual compatibility can be observed when individuals specialise in some aspects of task

performance, but share overall responsibility for others.

The interdisciplinary approach to work design has been influential in encouraging

researchers and practitioners to consider that the design of work needs to achieve more than

simply just motivation or just efficiency. Different aspects of work design can engage many

different psychological processes and facilitate many different types of psychological

outcomes. Importantly, it has highlighted the need to consider the cost-benefits associated

with different work design approaches, and to explore ways in which the goals of several

different work design paradigms can be achieved.

RECENT PERSPECTIVES

Recent theoretical developments in work design have sought to extend and adapt the

range of job/role characteristics considered in response to the changing nature of work and to

recognise the role of contextual factors in work design. Regarding the former, it has long

been argued that frameworks such as the JCM encompassed too narrow a range of job

characteristics to be able to offer a meaningful analysis of emerging forms of work (Parker &

Wall, 1998). Responding to this, Parker, Wall, & Cordery (2001) offered an elaborated work

design framework, in which an expanded list of work characteristics (and their antecedents),

mediating mechanisms, contingency variables and outcomes was identified as a guide to

frame future research. This framework can be distinguished from those specified by earlier

theorists in several significant ways. First, it draws together disparate ideas regarding

additional psychologically salient work characteristics, over and beyond the five specified

within the JCM. These included factors such as cognitive and emotional demands, social

contact and opportunities for skill acquisition. Second, it recognises that some work

characteristics are experienced at the team, as opposed to individual level. Third, it

acknowledged the fact that work characteristics may interact (for example, task

interdependence and autonomy) in their psychological effects. Fourth, it identified 4 types of

 WORK DESIGN 18

mediating mechanisms whereby work design can affect individual, group and organizational

outcomes: motivation, quick response, learning and development, and social interaction

(discussed later). Finally, this model recognised research showing that work design can have

effects beyond those identified in the JCM, affecting, for example, safety, innovation, and

knowledge transfer.

The role of organizational factors in the emergence and maintenance of different forms of

work design, such as those identified by Campion and colleagues, was addressed by Cordery

& Parker (2005). Drawing on frameworks developed by Harvard-based researchers in the area

of human resource management (e.g. Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills & Walton, 1985;

Walton, 1985) and earlier work highlighting the role of the organizational context in affecting

work design (e.g. Oldham & Hackman, 1980), they proposed a systems approach to work

design, where work characteristics are seen as embedded within an interacting system of work

organisation. They suggested that different work design configurations or archetypes emerge,

and are sustained, as a result of the complex interplay between 4 organizational subsystems.

These are the content of the work (i.e. work characteristics), technology, people, leadership,

and management policies & practices. They identified three common work design

archetypes: mechanistic, motivational, and concertive. The latter has work is designed

around teams, rather than individuals, in order to best manage the variability associated with

the technology, and is supported by practices such as coaching-oriented leadership, team-

based pay, training in self-managing skills, shared feedback systems, and team-level work

descriptions. The apparent popularity of concertive team-based work systems over recent

decades has been well documented (Lawler et al. 1995; Staw and Epstein 2000).

This systems-oriented framework makes a number of contributions. First, it suggests

how changes to work design come about. For example, the degree of autonomy someone

experiences in their job/role may be a function of the variations in the type of leadership

practices that are exerted locally, as well as choices made by different types of people selected
 WORK DESIGN 19

into that role. Second, it recognises that much of work in contemporary organisations is

designed around collectives or teams. Third, it helps explain why work redesign is such a

difficult proposition, since attempts to alter the parameters of one element of the system

inevitably is constrained by the other elements. Fourth, it recognises the role played by

broader economic and social context in determining the sorts of choices that are made

regarding work design. For example, the choice of a mechanistic over a motivational

approach to work design may be made based on strategic goals being pursued by the firm.

Finally, this perspective provides an important link into the strategic human resource

management and high performance work systems literatures, which tend to consider groups of

inter-related factors as important for generating outcomes, rather than focusing on one system

(work design) alone (Snow & Snell, this volume).

Following this, Morgeson & colleagues have recently provided an empirically based,

formulation of an expanded work design theory. They began by developing an instrument,

the Work Design Questionnaire, to measure an expanded list of work design characteristics

(Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006) and to address some of the psychometric deficiencies of the

MJDQ (see Edwards et al., 1999). Using the classification developed by Morgeson &

Campion (2003), they classified work design characteristics as being motivational, social or

contextual and developed items to measure key facets of each. Humphrey, Nahrgang &

Morgeson (2007) further validated this expanded three-category framework using meta-

analysis. Interestingly, they found that including these additional work design features

increased the prediction of a range of outcomes. So, while motivational work design

characteristics were strongly predictive of performance, job satisfaction and organizational

commitment, including social and work context characteristics increased both the range and

extent of prediction. However, though the expanded range of work design features is useful,

the model only specifies the three critical psychological states from the JCM and is silent with
 WORK DESIGN 20

respect to mediating processes/states for social and work context characteristics. The

theoretical extension also doesn’t address the issue of moderators.

Seeking to address the failure of theories of work design to come to terms with the shift

from manufacturing to service work in developed economies, Grant (2007) argued that

existing models of work design had neglected the role of the social environment in shaping

motivational properties of work. He developed the Job Impact Framework, which proposes

that the ‘relational’ architecture of a job has the potential to generate valuable motivational,

cognitive and behavioural outcomes. The two relational work characteristics he identified are

(a) impact on beneficiaries (conceptually similar to task significance) and (b) contact with

beneficiaries. Grant proposes that these two work design characteristics influence a person’s

motivation to make a prosocial difference – “the desire to positively affect the beneficiaries of

one’s work” (p.3) – and that this can lead to an increase in motivated performance, especially

helping behaviors, as well as affecting a person’s sense of identity (sense of competence, self-

determination and social worth). Empirical support for expanding the range of work design

theory to include these two relational work design characteristics exists in the form of a series

of recent studies conducted by Grant and colleagues (Grant et a, 2007; Grant 2008a, Grant,

2008b), and in the results of an earlier study by Parker & Axtell (2001) in which contact with

beneficiaries was demonstrated to improve perspective-taking amongst job incumbents. A

useful recent summary of evidence relating to relational inputs to work design is provided in

Grant & Parker (2009).

In the next section, we seek to summarise all these disparate theoretical frameworks

regarding the impact of work design on individual effectiveness within jobs and roles. We do

so with the assistance of an overarching heuristic framework that describes key categories of

work design inputs, mediating psychological processes, and moderating variables that relate

to an individual’s effectiveness within their job and/or role.

 WORK DESIGN 21

AN OVERARCHING FRAMEWORK FOR WORK DESIGN

In Figure 2 we provide a model that serves as an heuristic to summarise the relationships

that are of primary concern within contemporary work design theory [for other similar

integrative approaches, see Grant, Fried & Juillerat (2009), Morgeson & Humphrey (2008)

and Parker & Ohly (2008)]. The model seeks to summarise work design inputs arising from

tasks, relational and contextual aspects of work that influence individual effectiveness within

a given job or role. It is important to note that our work design framework is specified at the

individual level, as opposed to the group or organisational level. In other words, we are

concerned about describing how an individual’s experience of working (which may be in a

team context) influences their behavior, attitudes, cognitions and well-being. We do this in

order to distinguish it from models of work group effectiveness (e.g. Mathieu et al, 2008), and

from models of human resource management that are specified at the organizational level

(e.g. Beer et al., 1985; Pfeffer, 1998; Youndt, Snell, Dean, & Lepak, 1996), and also to avoid

the conceptual difficulties that inevitably arise when seeking to describe group- and

organizational-level outcomes in terms of individual-level processes (Kozlowski & Klein,

2000).

[Insert Figure 2 about here]

Individual Effectiveness

As indicated above, we are concerned with work design outputs at the individual level, as

they relate to the effectiveness of the individual employee within jobs and roles. Thus, we do

not consider more distal organisational outcomes such as organisational or team performance

(cf. Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). This is not because these relationships do not exist, but

rather, because we see them as either second-order outcomes that flow from work design’s

impact on the capacity of individuals to be effective in work settings, or as outcomes of

processes that arise at either the level of the work unit or the organization. The categorisation

of individual job/role effectiveness outcomes we use is derived from Humphrey et. al’s
 WORK DESIGN 22

(2007) meta-analytic study and classifies potential work design outcomes as (1) behavioural,

(2) attitudinal, (3) cognitive, and (4) health and well-being related.

Behavioral outcomes.

Historically, one of the most important sets of criteria for evaluating the impact of work

design on people has been how they act or behave as a consequence of different work design

configurations. It is, naturally, expected that work design will impact on individual

performance in the job or role, and so the quantity, efficiency and quality of individual work

outputs and the productivity of workers are typically considered as important outcome

variables. Evidence is somewhat mixed. Reviews typically conclude that more consistent

effects of work design have been obtained for attitudinal outcomes such as job satisfaction

than for job performance (e.g., Fried & Ferris, 1987). However, methodological issues

pervade many of the studies covered by these reviews. There are a handful of studies with

rigorous research designs that suggest performance benefits of work redesign (e.g., Griffin,

1991; Jackson & Wall, 1981; Leach, Wall, & Jackson, 2003; Kelly, 1992). Moreover, the

effect of work design on broader performance concepts such as citizenship have rarely been

considered (Parker & Turner, 2002).

Models such as the JCM and the interdisciplinary perspective also predict that work

design influences employee withdrawal behaviours, including absenteeism and voluntary

employee turnover, and the empirical evidence has generally supported such predictions

(Campion, 1988; Freid & Ferris, 1987; Humphrey, et al., 2007; Pousette & Hanse, 2002).

Similarly, aspects of work design have been found to influence intentions to withdraw,

including intention to quit and retirement intentions (Krausz, Sagie, & Bidermann, 2000;

Mitchell, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001; Sibbald, Bojke, & Gravelle, 2003). For example,

jobs that provide greater opportunities to form linkages with other employees and to exert

control over what one does in ones work have been found to lessen the likelihood that an

employee will form an intention to leave her or his current job.

 WORK DESIGN 23

In addition, researchers have recently begun to argue that work design predicts, and can

be used to promote, an extended range of individual behaviors (Parker, et al., 2001). For

example, evidence exists to show that work design affects such outcomes as creativity and

innovation (Axtell, et al., 2000; Harrison, Neff, Schwall, & Zhao, 2006; Ohly, Sonnentag, &

Pluntke, 2006; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004), proactivity (Parker, Williams & Turner,

2006), citizenship (Chiu & Chen, 2005; Pearce & Gregersen, 1991; Piccolo & Colquitt,

2006), adaptivity (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007), voice (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008), and

helping (Grant, 2007; Grant, et al, 2007; Axtell, Parker, Holman & Totterdell, 2007).

Hambrick, Finkelstein & Mooney (2005) have also argued that work design characteristics

(job demands) affect the type of strategic choices made by senior executives. They suggested

that those facing higher demands were more likely to make extreme decisions, to imitate other

firms, and to vacillate in their decisions than those facing low or moderate demands.

As already noted, there are often perceived to be trade-offs in the type of behavioural

outcomes between different work design configurations, for example between productivity

and efficiency outcomes on the one hand and performance quality, creativity, innovation,

safety and citizenship on the other (Campion, Mumford, Morgeson & Nahrgang, 2005;

Cordery & Parker, 2005). However, the degree to which these outcomes must necessarily be

traded off is a matter for debate. For example, it may be argued that providing employees

with increased control, variety and discretion not only motivates greater proactivity and

innovation, but also makes it more likely that employees will be able to identify potentials for

increased efficiencies and be motivated to implement them (viz. Pfeffer, 1998).

Attitudinal outcomes.

A considerable body of evidence exists to support the assertion that the characteristic

content of work design helps shape work attitudes, principally job satisfaction (Loher, Noe,

Moeller, & Fitzgerald, 1985; Dormann & Zapf, 2001), job involvement (Brown, 1996:

Mathieu & Zajac, 1990), affective empathy (Parker & Axtell, 2001; Axtell, Parker, Holman,
 WORK DESIGN 24

& Totterdell, 2007), and organizational commitment (Fedor, Caldwell & Herold, 2006;

Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Task- and social- work design

characteristics appear to be more influential than work context-related work design

characteristics in shaping work attitudes, and satisfaction with growth opportunities and job

involvement appear to be most strongly impacted by motivational work design characteristics

(Humphrey, et al., 2007).

Cognitive outcomes.

Much of the emphasis within work design theory and research has been devoted to

assessing behavioural and attitudinal outcomes. However, research has also demonstrated

that work design influences the way people think: their cognitive performance, the type of

knowledge they possess, and how they perceive themselves and others at work. Echoing the

comments of Adam Smith quoted earlier on some of the risks associated with simple,

repetitive work, there is growing evidence that work design exerts significant long-term

impacts on intellectual functioning (Avolio & Waldman, 1990; Kohn & Schooler, 1987;

Schooler, Mulatu, & Oates, 2004). For example, Potter, Helms & Plassman (2008) recently

found that people who had been in intellectual demanding jobs tended to demonstrate better

cognitive performance during retirement, even when differences in education and intelligence

were controlled.

The type of work performed can also influence the job-related knowledge that people

possess. One of the rationales that is frequently provided for providing work designs that are

high in variety, feedback and autonomy is that they increase the range of situations

encountered by workers who, through processes of active learning (Bell & Kozlowski, 2008),

develop greater understanding of how, say, a production system operates or what clients

typically seek in a service arrangement. In jobs that provide for higher autonomy and

feedback, workers are also able to experience a greater sense of “cause and effect” between

their actions and work outcomes, all of which adds to their knowledge and skill. The
 WORK DESIGN 25

knowledge, both tacit and explicit, that is developed as a consequence of empowered or

motivational work designs (Wall, Cordery & Clegg, 2002; Parker & Axtell, 2001) mediates

effective performance, but can also be seen as an increase in human capital for the employee

– something they can take with them to other jobs. For example, individuals working in team

settings may, over time, develop interpersonal and self-management knowledge and

capabilities as a consequence of the heightened task interdependence and work role autonomy

that the experience in those settings (Morgeson, Reider, & Campion, 2005; Stevens &

Campion, 1994, 1999).

Other cognitive outcomes of work design relate to an individual’s self-definition (Parker,

Wall, & Jackson, 1994), and in particular the various identities that they develop in the

context of the work they do, such as occupational, career, relational (Ashforth, Harrison &

Corley, 2008). Lower-order forms of identification (e.g. work, sub-unit, team) may arise as

proximal outcomes of work design characteristics such as task identity and interdependence,

but ultimately impact on higher order identifications (e.g. career, occupational). For example:

“Because organizations tend to be structured around occupational specialties,

organization members are largely known by their occupations and come to situate themselves

in terms of their occupations (Trice, 1993; Van Maanen & Barley, 1984). Pipefitters for

Exxon likely will have a much different perspective of the workplace and their role within it

than will PR managers, and they likely will be regarded by others in much different ways….

Thus, job titles serve as prominent identity badges” (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999, p. 417).

Other research has suggested that organizational and other forms of identification may be

directly affected by the nature of work design, for example as a consequence of dispersion,

isolation and independence produced by ‘virtual’ work (Conner, 2003; Wegge, Van Dick,

Fisher, Wecking, & Moltzen, 2006; Wiesenfeld, Raghuram, & Garud, 2001) and as a

consequence of working in teams (Van der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005). Grant (2007) has

proposed that the relational architecture of a job (the extent to which a work involves contact
 WORK DESIGN 26

with and has impact on others) also shapes a person’s identity, expressed in terms of a set of

beliefs regarding one’s competence, self-determination, and social worth. In other words, as

the earlier quotation from Terkel suggested, the nature of the work we perform shapes our

sense of who we are, what purpose we serve, and what value we represent to society at large.

Work design can also influence how people perceive those they interact with in the

course of their work. Parker & Axtell (2001) proposed that one of the consequences of

people working in jobs/roles where there was high autonomy and heightened interaction with

end-users of the product of that work (in this case suppliers) was that they were more likely to

develop positive attributions regarding those suppliers. This cognitive outcome arises out of

the process of ‘perspective taking’, an intellectual process that is influenced by the content of

the work, and which also has affective empathy outcomes.

Health & well-being outcomes

A considerable body of evidence has built up over the years to suggest that work design

impacts on the psychological and physiological well-being of workers (Warr, 1987; Parker,

Turner, & Griffin, 2003; Theorell & Karasek, 1996). For example, job autonomy can reduce

anxiety because it allows individuals to better manage the demands they face, and it can lower

depression because individuals experience a sense of self-determination. Indeed, many

countries now have national surveillance systems designed to identify psychosocial risk

factors within the workforce; systems that frequently include survey-based measures of work

design characteristics (Dollard, Skinner, Tuckey, & Bailey, 2007). Well-being outcomes that

have been specifically linked to work design include stress, anxiety and depression

(LaMontagne, Keegel, Vallance, Ostry, & Wolfe, 2008; Leach, Wall, Rogelberg, & Jackson,

2005; Melchior, et al., 2007; Paterniti, Niedhammer, Lang & Consoli, 2002), emotional

fatigue and burnout (Barnes & Van Dyne, 2009; Hakanen, Schaufeli, & Ahola, 2008;

Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Xie & Johns, 1995), suicide risk (Agerbo, et al., 2007;

Reichenberg & MacCabe, 2007), expatriate adjustment (Takeuchi, Shay, & Li, 2008), as well
 WORK DESIGN 27

as a range of somatic health symptoms (Shaw & Gupta, 2004; Schaubroeck, Walumba,

Ganster, & Kepes, 2007; Warren, Carayon, & Hoonaakker, 2008), including weight gain

(Block, et al., 2009), sleep quality (Knudsen, Ducharme, & Roman, 2007) and the risk of

coronary heart disease (Aboa-Eboule, et al., 2007).

There is also evidence that work design characteristics such as job autonomy/control, role

clarity and workload affects individual employee safety (Barling, Kelloway, & Iverson, 2003;

Parker, Axtell, & Turner, 2001; Zacharatos, Barling, & Iverson, 2005). The degree to which

people are able to experience balance between their involvement in work and non-work

activities is also affected by job and role characteristics (Ahuja, et al, 2007; Aryee, Srinivas &

Tan, 2005; Cartwright & Holmes, 2006; Valcour, 2007).

Work Design Inputs

Much of the initial appeal of the JCM as a work design theory to both researchers and

practitioners lay in its identification of a set of objective, manipulable job design parameters

(autonomy, task identity, etc). However, researchers now recognise the need for a broader

specification of the parameters affecting contemporary job and role design, and thus the

characteristic content and organization of work activity can be seen as a function of design

choices relating to three categories of input (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). First, there are

properties of work that arise directly from the characteristics of tasks, activities and duties that

are routinely performed by the individual incumbent in producing work outputs (task

characteristics). Second, work design is shaped by the characteristics of interpersonal

interactions and relationships that are embedded in assigned tasks and roles, particularly in

service settings (Grant, et al., 2009). Though some have termed these as ‘social

characteristics’ (Humphrey et al., 2007; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008), we prefer to describe

these work design characteristics as relational characteristics, reflecting the fact that they are

properties of tasks and roles that emerge out of social interactions (e.g. interdependence,

collective autonomy), rather than being properties of the social context in their own right (e.g
 WORK DESIGN 28

group consensus, team climate). Finally, the characteristic experience of work content is also

determined by properties of the broader organizational environment (contextual

characteristics) within which work is performed. In this category of work design inputs are

included such things as the physical arrangements for working, organizational supports,

managerial and supervisory behavior, and resource availability. Again, these are defined as

variables that directly generate work characteristics, or which exert a cross-level influence on

relational and task characteristics, rather than as variables that moderate the impact of work

design properties on individual effectiveness at work or generate effectiveness outcomes in

their own right.

In the sections that follow, we describe in detail the nature of task, relational and

contextual characteristics that have been identified as affecting the behavioural, attitudinal,

cognitive and health and well-being outcomes identified earlier.

Task characteristics

Task characteristics are those that arise from the task/activity environment, and have

traditionally been the primary focus of psychological research into the effects of work design.

As the nature of work has changed, the types of task characteristics that have been identified

as influencing individual effectiveness at work have also changed. We begin with those

properties of jobs and roles that have been most commonly identified and studied, before

moving on to more recently identified properties of emerging jobs and roles.

Perhaps the most recognised and studied of all task-level work design characteristics,

autonomy is a multifaceted property of a job/role, denoting the amount of discretion or control

a person is afforded (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). Individual autonomy is generally regarded

as one of the most potent work design characteristics when it comes to promoting individual

effectiveness within a job/role. Meta-analytic studies have shown autonomy to be positively

related to most of the effectiveness indicators (Humphrey et al., 2007), and this task attribute

(and its interaction with job demands and support) plays a central role in theories of work
 WORK DESIGN 29

stress and burnout/engagement (Spector, 1986; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) and in theories of

motivated behaviour (e.g. Self-determination Theory; Gagne & Deci, 2005). Three distinct

facets of autonomy have been identified in the literature (Breaugh, 1985; Jackson, Wall,

Martin, & Davids, 1993; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). They are work scheduling

autonomy, work methods autonomy and decision-making autonomy. Each refers to a different

location of autonomy within job/role performance, implying different points of potential

intervention, though these aspects are rarely separated in empirical research.

While increasing individual autonomy is generally held to be a good thing, it has

sometimes been argued that the relationship between autonomy and certain outcomes is non-

linear or that it may depend on the context within which that autonomy is exercised. For

example, Tangirala & Ramanujam (2008) report a U-shaped relationship between employee

perceptions of personal control (of which autonomy is a component) at work and employee

voice behavior (expression of work-related opinions, concerns and ideas). De Jonge &

Schaufeli (1998) found that the relationship between autonomy and emotional exhaustion

followed an inverted U-shape, though they suggest that this may reflect the influence of

“hidden” moderators such as need for autonomy, and a more recent study has in fact

demonstrated that the relationship between autonomy and well-being is generally positive and

linear (Rydstedt, Ferrie, & Head, 2006). There is also very little empirical support for the

view, derived from activation theory, that the relationship between autonomy and

performance follows an inverted U-shape (Edwards, Guppy, & Cockerton, 2007). Langfred

(2004) found that increasing individual autonomy within an MBA team context generally had

negative effects on the performance of the team when trust was also high and hence team

members were reluctant to monitor each other.

Feedback from the job has been defined as “the extent to which a job imparts

information about an individual’s performance” (Humphrey et al., 2007, p. 1333). From a

work design perspective, this refers to feedback that is obtained directly by a worker from the
 WORK DESIGN 30

performance of the job, rather than feedback interventions that arise as a consequence of

performance appraisal mechanisms or goal-setting interventions (Parker & Wall, 1998). Job-

related feedback has been found to correlate strongly with reduced stress and anxiety, lower

role conflict and ambiguity, and more positive work attitudes; however, it appears to be less

strongly related to behavioural outcomes such as absenteeism, turnover and performance.

(Humphrey, et al., 2007; Millette & Gagne, 2008). The latter finding is somewhat surprising,

given the established importance of performance feedback in research into goal setting, self-

regulatory processes and performance (e.g. Ilies & Judge, 2005; Kluger & DiNisi, 1996).

Skill variety has been defined as “the degree to which a job requires a variety of different

activities in carrying out the work, which involve the use of a number of different skills and

talents of the employee” (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, p.161). However, Humphrey et. al.,

(2006) have argued that it is necessary to distinguish between a job’s inherent requirement to

use a variety of skills (skill variety) and engaging in a variety of tasks or activities, which they

term task variety. Task variety is a characteristic of ‘enlarged’ jobs (Herzberg, 1968;

Campion & McClelland, 1991), and serves to lessen the worker’s engagement in repetitive

actions. This in turn, potentially affords the incumbents greater motivation and satisfaction,

and reduces exposure to mechanical strain (Moller, et al., 2004), but at the cost of increasing

the likelihood of work overload (Humphrey et al., 2007). Skill variety has been found to be

associated with positive psychological benefits in terms of increased employee motivation,

engagement and job satisfaction, but has not shown a strong relationship to behavioural

outcomes (Humphrey, et al., 2007). A lack of skill variety has, however, been linked with a

number of well-being outcomes, including burnout and depression (Karasek & Theorell,

1990; Parker, 2003).

Specialization results from “the division of the total production process into a series of

technologically separate operations” (Jones, 1984, p. 685). According to Morgeson &

Humphrey (2008), specialization refers to the depth of knowledge and skill involved in job
 WORK DESIGN 31

tasks, whereas skill and task variety refers to the breadth or range of activities performed and

skills utilised. Specialization, defined thus, has not been studied much by work design

researchers, who have generally treated it as analogous to task variety or autonomy.

However, in research on human development and aging, professional specialization is treated

as a key component in the ‘getting of wisdom’, which in turn is seen as a primary goal of

successful adult and leadership development (Baltes & Smith, 1990; Staudinger, Smith &

Baltes, 1992; Sternberg, 2003). Wisdom is defined as having “expert knowledge of what is

important and how things work” (Helson & Srivastava, 2002, p. 1431). For these reasons,

Morgeson & Humphrey (2008) suggest that professional specialization may be one

mechanism whereby the efficiency/satisfaction trade-off so frequently observed in work

design can be avoided. Specialization by site and stage of work may also help overcome

some of the negative implications of functional specialization (Hoffer Gittell, Weinberg,

Bennett & Miller, 2008).

Task significance refers to the degree to which performing the job or role has a positive

impact on the lives or work of other people, whether inside or outside the organization

(Hackman & Oldham, 1975; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). Grant (2008b) recently

furnished evidence that researchers may have underestimated the importance of this

characteristic, particularly as it impacts upon job performance. In a series of 3 field

experiments, Grant demonstrated that experimental manipulations designed to increase task

significance (other task characteristics remaining constant) resulted in markedly improved

performance for fundraisers and lifeguards.

Task identity is the degree to which a job involves completing a ‘whole’, identifiable

piece of work, such as producing an identifiable product or meeting all the needs of a given

client in a service relationship. Clearly, this is one characteristic that is adversely affected by

some types of specialization and the division of labor. Combining tasks to form a ‘natural

unit of work’ to be performed by a worker is a motivational work redesign strategy that is

 WORK DESIGN 32

advocated within both the job enrichment/job characteristics and sociotechnical systems

perspectives on work design (Herzberg, 1968; Hackman & Oldham, 1980), even though, in

isolation, empirical research indicates that it is only modestly related to attitudinal,

behavioural and well-being work design outcomes (Humphrey, et al., 2007). As we discuss

later, this may be because task identity require the presence of other work design

characteristics in order to activate key psychological processes and states.

Job complexity has often been used, along with job scope and job challenge, to refer to

either additive or multiplicative combinations of job characteristics (e.g. high autonomy, high

skill and task variety; Schaubroeck, Walumba, Ganster, & Kepes, 2007; Xie & Johns, 1995).

However, it is increasingly argued that job complexity should be treated as a design

characteristic in its own right (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006), referring to “the extent to

which a job is multifaceted and difficult to perform” (Humphrey et. al., 2007, p. 1335). Wood

(1986) classifies the elements of complexity associated with tasks as (a) component, (b)

coordinative and (c) dynamic. Component complexity denotes the number of different task

elements that exist; coordinative complexity refers to the interconnectedness

(interdependence) of tasks within the one job; and dynamic complexity arises when tasks and

activities change over time. Interestingly, given that increasing complexity may be seen as

the reverse of what happens in mechanistic approaches to work design, meta-analysis

indicates that it is positively related to performance ratings, in addition to showing more

predictable positive associations with job satisfaction, job involvement and role overload

(Humphrey et. al., 2007). Job complexity has been demonstrated to have a sustained impact

on cognitive performance over time (Potter, Plassman, Helms, Foster, & Edwards, 2006).

Recently, Elsbach & Hargadon (2006) have pointed out that many jobs involve switching

between complex and simple work tasks (see also Madjar & Shalley, 2008). They suggest

that the occasional performance of simple, readily mastered tasks of low cognitive difficulty
 WORK DESIGN 33

(“mindless work”) may in fact have beneficial outcomes, freeing up cognitive processing

capacity and thereby enabling people to think more creatively.

One of the most obvious ways in which work has been altered by technological

developments in the past two decades is in the extent to which core tasks and activities

involve the processing of information, or information processing demands. Reflecting this,

two forms of information processing demand have been of particular interest in the work

design field: Problem solving demands arise the extent to which a job requires incumbents to

generate new ideas, deal with non-routine problems and correct errors, whilst attentional

demands are those which require a person to exercise a high level of vigilance or monitoring

in the course of work (Jackson, Wall, Martin, & Davids, 1993; Wall, Jackson & Mullarkey,

1995). Despite the growth of so-called knowledge work within all industry sectors, and the

fact that the concept of job demands plays a central role in theories of occupational stress and

coping (Janssen, Peeters, de Jonge, Houkes, & Tummers, 2004; Karasek & Theorell, 1990;

Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004), relatively little research has specifically focused specifically on

cognitive demands (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008), as distinct from other types of job

demand (e.g. physical and emotional demands; Hockey, 2000).

Grant, et al., (2009) have suggested that an important property of work design relates to

the time horizon within which work is performed. Cycle time is one of the indicators

traditionally used to assess repetitiveness of task activities (Turner & Lawrence, 1965), and

time pressure is another temporal property of jobs that has been linked (negatively) to

employee creativity, stress and well-being (Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006; Mauno, Kinnunen, &

Ruokolainen, 2007).

Though sometimes treated as a feature of the work context (Humphrey, et al., 2007),

there are physical demands that arise at the task/activity level. These include such things as

the physical actions required for task performance and the degree to which the tasks involve

carrying or manipulating heavy loads (Edwards, et al., 2000). Research has shown that
 WORK DESIGN 34

physically uncomfortable tasks and either lifting/carrying or pushing/pulling heavy loads

increase the likelihood of long-term sickness absence (Lund, Labriola, Christensen,

Bultmann, & Villadsen, 2006).

For some job holders, the consequences of failure or making a mistake in the execution

of a task or role can be severe, and this will inevitably shape their approach and reactions to

their work (Brannick, et al, 2007; Zhao & Olivera, 2006). It has been suggested that high

error consequences will reduce the degree to which a person is willing to accept

accountability and/or exercise autonomy or skill variety in a work role (Morgeson &

Humphrey, 2008). Cost responsibility, or the financial costs associated with errors, has also

been shown to interact with attentional demand to cause strain (Martin & Wall, 1989).

Relational Characteristics

In the research that preceded the development of the Job Characteristics Model,

consideration was given to the inclusion of two aspects of social interactions as determinants

of intrinsic work motivation, work attitudes, and behavior: ‘dealing with others’ and

‘friendship opportunities’ (Hackman & Lawler, 1971). However, it was concluded that that

these “two interpersonal dimensions do not relate very consistently or strongly either to

employee affective responses to the job, or to their actual work performance” (Hackman &

Lawler, 1971, p. 274). One potential explanation for this is lies in the restricted range of 13

jobs that were studied (all from a single telephone company), however, the net effect of this

was that these characteristics were omitted from the JCM, and relational characteristics then

pretty well disappeared from job characteristics-based work design theory and research for

the next 40 years (Grant, et al., 2009). These days, however, the social networks, processes

and relationships that are embedded in tasks and roles are being increasingly recognized as

key parameters of effective work design.

Interdependence can be observed at the within-job level (see job complexity), however it

is most often considered as a work design characteristic that arises at the between-job level.
 WORK DESIGN 35

In this respect, interdependence describes the extent to which the tasks and activities of the

job/role incumbent are dependent on the work outputs of other people (received

interdependence), and the extent to which the work performed by other people is affected by

the work outputs of the job/role incumbent (initiated interdependence) (Kiggundu, 1981,

1983). The degree of interdependence of this type is often classified as pooled (low),

sequential (moderate, unidirectional) or reciprocal (high, multidirectional) (Thompson, 1967).

Meta-analysis suggests that overall interdependence encourages learning and skill

development, is positively correlated with intrinsic work motivation, job satisfaction and

organizational commitment, and negatively correlated with turnover intentions (Humphrey, et

al., 2007). The latter finding may reflect the fact that interdependence may help foster job

embeddedness by forging links to co-workers (Mitchell, et al, 2001).

People working in jobs/roles that are embedded within team structures are generally

required to participate in collective decision-making with other group or team members, as a

consequence of increased opportunities for self-management that is afforded the team

(Campion, et al., 1993; Stewart, 2006). This requirement for participative decision-making

for individuals can arise even within groups whose members have quite low (e.g. pooled) task

interdependence, and it injects a social dimension into the work. Participation in decision-

making, as distinguished from job autonomy, has been found to have modest positive impacts

on individual performance and satisfaction (Batt & Applebaum, 1995; Wagner, 1994).

Feedback from others/agents is “the degree to which the employee receives clear

information about his or her performance from supervisors or from co-workers” (Hackman &

Oldham, 1975, p. 162), as distinguished from feedback that arises from the job itself

(Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). The opportunity afforded by the job to receive feedback

from these sources plays an important part in clarifying role expectations, facilitating self-

regulation, and, depending on the nature of that feedback, can enhance job performance

(Kluger & DiNisi, 1996). This type of feedback has also been found to be positively
 WORK DESIGN 36

associated with job satisfaction, and negatively associated with turnover intentions

(Humphrey, et al., 2007).

Impact on others may be defined as “the degree to which a job provides opportunities for

employees to affect the lives of beneficiaries” (Grant, 2007, p. 397), where beneficiaries may

be people or groups within or outside the organization. These benefits may relate to the

physical, psychological and material well-being of others. Grant (2007) has suggested that

the potency of this work design attribute, as it affects employee motivation and helping

behaviors, depends on not just on the magnitude and frequency the perceived impact of ones

actions on others, but also on the scope and focus of that impact. For example, a human

resource manager responsible for determining remuneration policy within a large organization

has the potential to affect the material well-being of many employees (scope). The focus of

the impact can also vary, from a focus on preventing harm to others (e.g. safety inspector) to

one of promoting positive gains (e.g. training officer). There is also the possibility that the

impact on others may involve tasks that harm some people in the interest of achieving a

greater good (Molinsky & Margolis, 2005). For example, some procedures performed by

health professionals may involve inflicting pain and discomfort in order to deliver long-term

health benefits for people. Policing and prison officer work may involve tasks that are seen as

having a negative impact on the well-being of offenders, but which have a positive benefit for

members of a broader community. Margolis & Molinsky (2008) have found that the

emotional demands created by performing such ‘necessary evils’ can have complex effects on

employees’ psychological engagement/disengagement and the potential for stress and

burnout.

Interpersonal interaction is a further important relational characteristic. Even when

work has the potential to have a major impact on the well-being of others, its performance

may involve relatively little direct contact with beneficiaries. According to Grant (2007),

frequency of contact with the beneficiaries of the work influences the extent to which a
 WORK DESIGN 37

worker is less able to develop accurate knowledge regarding the impact of their actions. This,

in turn, will affect a worker’s motivation, affective commitment and performance in the role.

In the context of service jobs, level of contact with people outside the organization is also

associated with reported job satisfaction (Humphrey, et al., 2007), and also with a greater

need to expend effort in regulating displays of emotion (Morris & Feldman, 1996).

Social support is the “extent to which a job provides opportunities for getting assistance

and advice from either supervisors or coworkers” (Humphrey, et al., 2006, p. 1336). The

availability of such support within one’s work role has been found reduce fatigue and increase

intrinsic work motivation (van Yperen & Hagedoorn, 2003) and is associated with higher job

satisfaction, lower anxiety, less absenteeism, reduced intentions to quit, and less role

ambiguity and conflict (Humphrey, et al., 2007). Though it has been argued that social

support also acts to buffer the negative impact of job demands on psychological well-being,

the empirical evidence for this is not conclusive (Sanne, et al., 2005; Van der Doeff & Mayes,

1999).

Situational accountability refers to the requirement, as a part of one’s job, to justify

and/or explain one’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours to other people (Grant & Ashford,

2008; Lerner & Tetlock, 1999). Research suggests that such increased accountability

increases the likelihood that a person will engage in proactive behaviors and be motivated to

produce higher levels of performance, but that it can also result in higher levels of stress, and

an increased likelihood that the employee will engage in selfish and politically-motivated

behaviors (Hochwarter, Ferris, Gavin, Perrewe, Hall, & Fink 2007).

Emotion display rules are “the standards for the appropriate expression of emotions on

the job” (Diefendorff, Croyle, & Gosserand, 2005). It has been argued that a role that

incorporates the requirement to hide high levels of emotion experienced during work, or to act

contrary to felt emotions, may predispose a person to emotional exhaustion and burnout

though this may depend on the particular display strategy chosen (Grandey, 2003; Wharton,
 WORK DESIGN 38

2009). For example, Brotheridge & Grandey (2002) found that ‘deep acting’ in order to

prevent breach of emotional display rules was associated with positive feelings of personal

accomplishment, while the relationship was negative for ‘surface acting’.

Contextual characteristics

Features of the broader environment within which tasks are performed can also be

seen as manipulable and psychologically salient elements of work design (Grant, et al., 2009;

Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008; Stone & Guetal, 1985).

Physical inputs to work design include the physical work conditions (e.g. lighting, heat, noise,

physical hazards, etc), and physical layout (e.g. space, density). Though these characteristics

have been given relatively less attention by mainstream work design theorists, meta-analytic

results provided by Humphrey et al., (2007) demonstrated that a range of physical job

characteristics accounted for significant additional variance in stress (16%) and satisfaction

(4%) outcomes, even when task and relational characteristics had been controlled for in the

analyses.

The physical design of the workplace as been the factor given most attention by work

design researchers to date, with spatial density emerging as a key variable affecting a person’s

ability to regulate interactions (e.g. interruptions) with others, and affecting a wide range of

cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes, including lateness, satisfaction, creativity, and

goal achievement (see Oldham, Cummings, & Zhou, 1995; Zhou, Oldham, & Cummings,

1998; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; May, Oldham & Rathert, 2005).

Yet another category of important contextual work design inputs arises from the

technical and organizational environment that surrounds the worker and which shapes and

constrains the roles they occupy (Cordery & Parker, 2005; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008;

Parker et al., 2001). As with physical design, the influence of such elements on behavioural,

cognitive, affective and well-being outcomes is sometimes mediated via more proximal task

and role characteristics. For example, close, direct supervision will constrain levels of
 WORK DESIGN 39

autonomy experienced by individuals (Cordery & Wall, 1985; Griffin, 1981; Yeh, 2007),

while higher quality leader-follower relationships can result in followers being provided with

more ‘enriched’ work opportunities (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Lapierre, Hackett, & Taggar,

2006). Transformational leadership has also been found to affect follower perceptions of

their job characteristics (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006). Characteristics of the broader technical

system are also influential in work design. For example, the complexity of technical systems

influences the degree of predictability associated with tasks and activities (uncertainty),

thereby affecting task-level characteristics such as information processing demands and task

interdependence (Wall, Cordery & Clegg, 2002; Wright & Cordery, 1999). Human resource

management policies and practices in respect of selection and training could be expected, via

their influence on worker capabilities and preferences, to influence the extent to which work

roles may be created to accommodate increased autonomy, participation, skill variety and

professional specialization (Judge, Bono, & Locke, 2000; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008),

while widespread information-sharing is certain to influence the availability of job feedback

(Pfeffer & Vega, 2000). Likewise, the introduction of new organizational practices have been

shown to affect behaviours and attitudes through impinging on task characteristics. For

example, evidence shows how task characteristics are affected by lean production (Jackson &

Mullarkey, 2000), just-in-time (Jackson & Martin, 1996), performance monitoring (Carayon,

1994), temporary employment contracts (Parker, Griffin, Wall, & Sprigg, 2001), and team

working (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Sprigg, Jackson & Parker, 2000). Finally, structural

properties of the organization, such as size, formalization and centralization have been found

to influence task-level work design characteristics, such as the degree of control (Briscoe,

2007; Oldham & Hackman, 1981).

Reflecting the trend in the nature of work and working arrangements noted at the

beginning of this chapter, interest has also been growing in virtuality as a contextual influence

on work design. Virtual work is that which is electronically mediated and where those
 WORK DESIGN 40

performing the work are not physically located with interdependent others in a primary

workplace (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). A recent study of telecommuting arrangements

found that this form of virtual working had beneficial effects on the degree of autonomy

experienced by individual workers but negatively affected relationships with co-workers

(Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). Telework has also been found to reduce exhaustion, increase

organizational commitment and weaken turnover intentions (Golden, 2006).

Mediators

One area where work design research and theory has not been particularly strong is

identifying the precise mechanisms whereby work design influences employee outcomes. We

know that work redesign works, but we cannot really be confident in saying precisely why it

works (Mitchell, 1997). In part, this is because such a plethora of different cognitive,

motivational, affective and behavioural mechanisms have been suggested. Broadly speaking,

these mechanisms fall into two categories: Psychological states, which are manifested as

proximal psychological reactions to work design inputs and which influence more distal

effectiveness outcomes, and mediating processes, which are the means whereby work design

inputs get translated into cognitive and behavioral activities that determine effectiveness

within a job or role. 1

Psychological states

The JCM identified three ‘critical psychological states’ as arising from perceptions of

work design, and being associated with positive individual work outcomes. They were

knowledge of results, experienced meaningfulness of the work, and experienced

responsibility for outcomes. Knowledge of results is the “degree to which the employee

knows and understands, on a continuous basis, how effectively he or she is performing the

job” (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, p.162). This is affected by job/role characteristics (e.g. task

1
This distinction between states and processes is similar to that made in recent conceptualizations of the
determinants of team effectiveness (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson,
2008).
 WORK DESIGN 41

significance, task identity), relational characteristics such as task interdependence, interaction

outside the organization, and contact with beneficiaries, and also by work context

characteristics such as virtuality of the work.

Experienced meaningfulness of the work is the “degree to which the employee

experiences the job as one which is generally meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile”

(Hackman & Oldham, 1975, p. 162). Wrzesniewski, Dutton & Debebe (2003) identified two

types of meaning that develop as a consequence of the occupancy of particular jobs & roles –

an understanding of the content (tasks, activities and their characteristics) of the jobs and

roles, and the interpreted value of that content. According to this perspective, tasks, activities

and roles can be viewed differently, depending on employees’ own values and the social

context within which they are executed. According to Wrzesniewski, et al., (2003),

employees also develop a sense of self-meaning as a consequence of performing tasks and

roles, including an understanding of the content of the self (e.g. how expert am I at what I do)

and an evaluation (positive and negative) of the self at work. Self evaluations are

characteristics one imputes to the self while at work, and these may include perceptions of

social worth (Grant et al., 2007), since “it is through interpersonal episodes at work that

employees come to know the content of who they are” (Wrzesniewski, et al., 2003, p. 113).

Experienced responsibility for work outcomes is defined as the “degree to which the

employee feels personally accountable and responsible for the results of the work he or she

does” (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, p. 162). In the JCM this state is principally associated

with the experience of autonomy, though Humphrey et al. (2007) found that this state was the

principal mediator between word design characteristics and outcomes. Recently, Pierce,

Jussila & Cummings (2009) have proposed that experienced responsibility for outcomes is

best viewed as a component of an overall state of psychological ownership “that state where

an individual feels as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is ‘theirs’”

(Pierce, Kostova & Dirks, 2003, p. 86), a state which has both cognitive and affective
 WORK DESIGN 42

components and which is produced in reaction all the core job characteristics in the JCM, not

just autonomy. According to Parker, Williams & Turner (2006), flexible role orientation is a

specific psychological state that derives from an overarching sense of psychological

ownership. It refers to “how an individual defines their work role, such as how broadly they

perceive their role; what types of tasks, goals, and problems they see as relevant to their role;

and how they believe they should approach those tasks, goals, and problems to be effective”

(Parker, 2007; p. 406). Job autonomy has emerged as a primary situational antecedent of

flexible role orientation (Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006), and the behavioural

consequences include proactive work behaviors and overall job performance (Axtell, et al.,

2000; Parker, et al., 2006; Parker, 2007).

Work design is commonly associated with motivation to perform (Mitchell, 1997), and a

number of motivational states have been identified as key mediators of work design effects.

Intrinsic motivation is “the desire to expend effort based on interest in and enjoyment and

enjoyment of the work itself (Grant, 2008a). According to Deci & Ryan (2000), the

propensity for intrinsic motivation is an innate human tendency that may be elicited and

sustained, or suppressed and diminished by situational conditions that provide for self-

determination, autonomy, and the development and expression of competence. Intrinsic

motivation has been found to predict positive outcomes such as performance and

psychological well-being (Burton, Lydon, D’Allessandro, & Koestner, 2006; Deci & Ryan,

1985). A number of different types of intrinsic motivation have been proposed within the

literature, for example the state of ‘flow’, a subjective experience of deep involvement and

absorption in a task activity that is experienced as highly rewarding in and of itself

(Csikzentimihalyi, 2000; Keller & Bless, 2008). Similar to ‘flow’, job engagement has been

identified as “a positive, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication,

and absorption” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 295) that arises when a person experiences

certain job “resources”, such as autonomy and social support (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004).
 WORK DESIGN 43

Engagement has been found to predict absence frequency, health, and turnover intentions

(Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Van Rhenen, 2009).

Closely related to the concept of intrinsic motivation is psychological empowerment,

which has been described as a “motivational state manifested in four cognitions: meaning,

competence, self-determination, and impact” (Spreitzer, 1995, p. 1444). Individual

psychological empowerment has been found to correlate with features of the job and

organizational context, including task characteristics, information sharing, and the use of use

of teams, and to mediate the relationship between these inputs and job satisfaction,

organizational commitment and performance (Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000; Seibert,

Silver, & Randolph, 2004). One of the cognitions that comprise psychological

empowerment, competence, refers to self-efficacy beliefs. Various efficacy beliefs have been

investigated as mediators of work design inputs-outcomes relationships, including role

breadth self-efficacy, or individuals’ confidence in their ability to take on more proactive,

integrative, and interpersonal tasks (Parker, 1998) – and self-management efficacy (Burr &

Cordery, 2001).

Grant (1998a) makes a distinction between intrinsic motivation and prosocial motivation,

the latter being viewed as a type of internalised extrinsic motivation where the decision to

expend effort is driven, not by personal enjoyment of the work itself, but by goals such as

promoting self-esteem and fulfilling personal values (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Grant’s study

suggests that the two motivational states are distinct, but interact in their effect on outcomes.

In studies of fire-fighters and fundraising callers, he found that high levels of intrinsic

motivation were associated with a positive impact of prosocial motivation on performance

and productivity, while low intrinsic motivation resulted in either no impact or a negative

impact of prosocial motivation. He concluded that forcing oneself to complete a task in the

absence of any enjoyment of that task can have deleterious effects, no matter how much one

identifies with the goal (in this case benefitting others).

 WORK DESIGN 44

Parker & Ohly (2008) have proposed that regulatory focus & goal orientations are

perceptual-cognitive motivational states that arise as a result of features of work designs.

Work designs that are characterized by low autonomy will result in workers experiencing a

sense of being external controlled, resulting in the development of a ‘prevention focus’,

whereas employees in autonomous work roles will experience feelings of internal control,

resulting in a ‘promotion focus’. These two regulatory foci have been found to predict

different types of behavioral outcomes at work (Chen, Thomas & Wallace, 2005), with a

promotion focus likely resulting in higher levels of performance and creativity and

prevention focus (Friedman & Foerster, 2005; Myer, Becker, & Vandenenberghe, 2004).

Work design may also shape the sorts of goals that an individual is oriented to pursue.

The three types of goal orientation most commonly identified in the literature are ‘learning’,

‘prove performance’, and ‘avoid performance’ (Payne, Youngcourt & Beaubien, 2007). A

learning orientation reflects a desire to develop knowledge/skills and master a task; a prove

performance orientation reflects a desire to demonstrate competence relative to others; and an

avoid performance orientation reflects a desire to avoid the demonstration of incompetence

relative to others. People with a learning orientation tend to be focused on the development

of personal competence and mastery, will tend to actively engage with situations that are

likely to provide a challenge to their existing proficiency, and are willing to see errors as an

opportunity learn. Research has shown that that a learning orientation promotes a more

positive, adaptive pattern of self-regulation (e.g. self-efficacy, cognitive focus, positive affect)

than either of the performance orientations, leading to better training performance and transfer

(Brett & VandeWalle, 1999; Kozlowski & Bell, 2006; Bell & Kozlowski, 2008; VandeWalle,

Brown, Cron & Slocum, 1999; Payne, Satoris, & Beaubien, 2007). Those with a performance

orientation, on the other hand, are concerned with demonstrating their ability relative to

others, and will tend to engage with situations where they are able to demonstrate what they

are already good at and avoid situations that may highlight areas of performance weakness
 WORK DESIGN 45

(Kozlowski & Bell, 2006; Latham, 2006). The approach performance orientation has positive

and negative elements. It is associated with an external focus which can be maladaptive for

some processes and outcomes (interest, anxiety; Elliot et al., 2005). In general, however,

approach performance orientation is expected to be adaptive because it is associated with

approach-oriented processes (effort, persistence). Recent research at the between-person level

has shown positive links between performance-approach orientation and performance (Urdan,

2004). The avoid performance orientation is viewed as maladaptive, because it is linked with

avoid-oriented processes (withdrawal of effort, distraction; Elliot et al., 2005). Parker & Ohly

(2008) propose that ‘enriched’ jobs can lead to increased self-efficacy beliefs, which in turn

foster learning orientations (Payne, Youngcourt & Beaubien, 2007). Jobs which are high on

accountability, on the other hand, may promote one or other of the performance orientations.

Perceptual states that have been identified as causative in work design’s impact on stress

and well-being include role overload, role ambiguity and role conflict (Humphrey, et al.,

2007). Role conflict is “the experience of contradictory, incompatible, or competing role

expectations” (Riordan, 2005, p.356), whereas role ambiguity arises as “uncertainty about the

expectations, behaviors, and consequences associated with a particular role” (Polzer, 2005, p.

356). Role conflict is a particular feature of jobs that have multiple reporting relationships

(e.g. in matrix structures), where people are members of multiple project teams, or where

interdependence is high (Daniels, 2006). Role ambiguity is a common consequence of work

designs where tasks are performed in a dynamic and uncertain environmental context. Both

role conflict and role ambiguity have been found to be less within work designs characterised

by increased autonomy and feedback from the job, and high social support (Humphrey, et al.,

2007). Role overload occurs when someone experiences too many role demands given the

time available to meet them (Hecht, 2001). Some researchers have argued that role overload

is increasingly a part of the modern work environment, caused by ever-expanding role

expectations on the part of employers (Organ & Ryan, 1995; Bolino & Turnley, 2005),
 WORK DESIGN 46

interdependence and responsibility for others (Dierdorff & Ellington, 2008), and resulting in

increased stress and work-family conflict (Ahuja, et al., 2007; Dierdorff & Ellington, 2008).

Another state-like variable that potentially mediates between social work design

characteristics and individual effectiveness outcomes is interpersonal trust (Dirks & Ferrin,

2001; Langfred, 2007). Trust can also arise as a consequence of task-level work design

characteristics. Perrone, Zaheer & McEvily (2003) found that trust, defined in terms of a

person’s expectations that someone could be depended on to fulfil obligations, behave in a

predictable manner, and act fairly when the possibility existed to do otherwise, varied as a

function of role autonomy. Purchasing managers given autonomy in their role interpreted this

as a sign of others’ trust in themselves and reciprocated by engaging in discretionary

behaviors towards suppliers that signalled their trustworthiness (e.g. being more responsive,

and upholding commitments).

The impact of emotion display rules on attitudinal and well-being outcomes such as job

satisfaction, stress and emotional exhaustion has been attributed to the creation of a state of

emotional dissonance, where a person experiences a discrepancy between the emotions they

feel and those the role requires them to show (Wharton, 2009; Zapf & Holz, 2006).

Finally, Elsbach & Hargadon (2006) have proposed that the periodic performance of

“mindless” work potentially engages beneficial psychological states that are important in

fostering creativity and which don’t necessarily arise when someone is engaged in complex,

intellectually demanding activities. These states are cognitive capacity (the absence of task-

related cognitive load), psychological safety (the feeling that one can be oneself without fear

of negative consequences) and positive affect (enjoyment, positive emotion).

Processes

By far the bulk of research into mediators of work design outcomes is concerned with the

cognitive, attitudinal and motivational states that work design engenders and which intervene

between work design and more distal outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational
 WORK DESIGN 47

commitment, performance and health. Far less attention has been devoted to the way in

which work design influences what people do in order to become more effective in their job

or role; that is, the cognitive, behavioral and social activities that they engage in as a

consequence of the opportunities and constraints afforded them by work design. Broadly

speaking, we classify these mediating processes as involving planning, action, and/or

interaction. Planning processes are those that involve activities such as goal setting,

evaluating progress, and developing performance strategies. Action processes are those that

involve coordinating and executing tasks, and monitoring and adjusting performance, whilst

interactional processes are those that involve coordinating activities with other people. While

not all processes identified by work design researchers fit neatly into one or other of these

categories, it nevertheless is a useful way of thinking about work design’s impact on how

people enact their tasks and roles.

An important set of work design-related processes that span the planning/action

dimensions has been labelled proactivity (Grant & Ashford, 2008; Grant & Parker, 2009),

defined as “the extent to which individuals engage in self-starting, future-oriented behavior to

change their individual work situations, their individual work roles, or themselves” (Griffin,

Neal & Parker, 2007, p. 332). According to Grant & Ashford (2008, p. 9), proactivity is a

“process that can be applied to any set of actions through anticipating, planning, and striving

to have an impact” and it is facilitated by work designs that emphasise autonomy, uncertainty

(ambiguity), and accountability. In practice, proactivity at work may take many different

forms, including actions taken by an individual to modify tasks, roles, relationships, the

context within which work is performed, the job as a whole, and even changes to personal

attributes such as competencies in order to achieve better person-job fit (Grant & Parker,

2009).

Most research into proactivity as a work design-related process has focused on how

individuals respond to the opportunities afforded by work design to modify the content of
 WORK DESIGN 48

their job or role (e.g., Parker et al., 2006). Role innovation, role adjustment, taking charge,

personal initiative, task revision and job crafting are some of the terms that have been used to

describe proactive behaviors that are observed among people working in work designs that

provide requisite levels of autonomy, complexity, and variability (Clegg & Spencer, 2007;

Frese, Garst & Fay, 2007; Sluss, van Dick, & Thompson, 2009). For example, job crafting

(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) can be an attempt to align work content with evaluative

information received from others regarding the value of that work. They provide the example

of a hospital cleaner who experiences positive interactions and evaluative praise for his

contributions from patients, who then would be motivated to go out of his way to increase the

extent to which his daily tasks involve interacting with and cleaning up after patients. By

contrast, cues given to hospital cleaners by doctors and nurses suggesting that the job/role has

little worth, might be expected to affect the degree to which cleaners engaged in similar tasks

in respect of doctors and nurses. Berg, Wrzesniewski, & Dutton (2009) found that higher-

rank employees tended to view job crafting as a response to their own expectations of how

they should spend their time, whereas lower-rank employees used it in response to prescribed

role requirements and others’ expectations of them. Clegg & Spencer (2007) have proposed

that these proactive role innovation/adjustment behaviours potentially form part of a virtuous,

dynamic spiral in which good performance creates trust, which motivates role adjustments

(e.g. increased autonomy), creating more intrinsically motivating work, which in turn

promotes performance improvements.

Adaptive responding. Sociotechnical systems theorists have long argued that increasing

autonomy for people actively involved in transforming work products results in more timely

and effective decisions being made about what to do when deviations from optimal system

functioning are encountered (Cherns, 1976; Clegg, 2000), and this view has received

empirical support within the work design literature. For example, Wall, Jackson, & Davids

(1992) found that the provision of increased operator control over the management of faults
 WORK DESIGN 49

associated with the operation of a robotics line in a manufacturing plant led to an almost

instantaneous improvement in the amount of machine downtime (similar effects have been

observed when autonomy is increased for teams, see Cordery, Morrison, Wright, & Wall,

2009). This improvement was seen as evidence that decisions were being made more rapidly

and that previously under-utilized skills and knowledge were now being applied to solving

problems. Increased autonomy, accountability and complexity in work designs create the

need and opportunity for workers to utilize more fully their existing knowledge and skills and

to make timely decisions about what actions to take when problems arise in the course of their

work (Wall, Cordery, & Clegg, 2002).

Goal generation and goal striving. Work design also plays a role in shaping a range of

psychological processes individuals use as they select, prioritize, and accomplish goals,

processes that are fuelled in part by the proximal motivational states we identified earlier

(Chen & Kanfer, 2006; Parker & Ohly, 2008). Goal generation involves planning processes

(deciding which goal to pursue and how to best to pursue it), whereas goal striving refers to

action processes – the “cognitive and affective activities that support behaviors leading to

goal attainment” (Chen & Kanfer, 2006, p. 229), for example keeping concentration on the

task in hand, monitoring one’s behavior and its consequences, evaluating progress to goal

attainment, and managing self-evaluations (Parker & Ohly, 2008). In addition to (via its

influence on motivational states) influencing the difficulty, temporal horizon, and complexity

of goals selected, work design potentially affects goal generation and goal striving via some

non-motivational pathways. For example, by enhancing available knowledge skills and

abilities, and also by the development of habits and routines (Parker & Ohly, 2008).

Active learning. The design of an individual’s job or role potentially provides an

enabling context for new skills and knowledge to be developed via processes of experiential

learning. Work designs that require people to regularly interact with others (e.g. through their

membership of teams or communities of practice), to gather and process information, to

 WORK DESIGN 50

analyze and solve problems and to act autonomously, engage individual learning

competencies that result in additional skill and knowledge being accumulated (Bell &

Kozlowski, 2008; Edmondson, Dillon & Roloff, 2007; Frese & Zapf, 1994; Sims, 1983).

Work designs that involve simple and predictable tasks may also result in people learning

habitual, automatic ways of responding (Wood & Neal, 2007).

Relational coordination. Work designs that are characterised by relational characteristics

require people to integrate their own activities with interdependent others (Grant & Parker,

2009). In part, social characteristics of the work design such as interdependence generate

such accommodative behaviour, though the degree to which this occurs is influenced by

moderating variables such as the supervisory span of control, coaching and feedback, as well

as the quality of interpersonal relationships (Hoffer Gittell, 2001; Hoffer Gittell, et al., 2008).

It may also be affected by the level and type of task interdependence that exist. Very high

levels of interdependence may make effective communication and coordination with others

difficult (MacDuffie, 2007).

Perspective taking. Contact with others and autonomy have been linked to processes

whereby jobholders empathise with those with whom they interact and develop positive

attributions regarding their behaviour (Parker & Axtell, 2001). Adopting the perspective of

others has been found to facilitate a range cooperative and helping behaviours, including

improved customer service (Axtell, et al., 2007).

Moderators

A number of individual differences have been found to moderate the strength of

relationships between work design inputs and individual effectiveness outcomes (Morgeson

& Humphrey, 2008).

Higher-order needs.

Growth need strength (GNS) is an individual difference variable that reflects the overall

strength of a person’s desire to satisfy higher order needs (growth, development, feelings of
 WORK DESIGN 51

accomplishment; Maslow, 1954, Alderfer, 1969) on the job (Hackman & Lawler, 1971).

People who are high on GNS “want to learn new things, stretch themselves, and strive to do

better in their jobs” (Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009), and therefore find complex, challenging

and ‘enriched’ jobs more satisfying and enjoyable (Bottger & Chew, 1986; Saavedra &

Kwun, 2000; Spector, 1985). Need for achievement (McClelland, 1961, 1987) has also been

studied in the context of work design, and found to moderate the impact of work design on

intrinsic motivation: people with a stronger need for achievement typically demonstrate

greater intrinsic interest in, and react more positively to, work that is more challenging and

skilful than those who have a low need for achievement (Eisenberg, et al., 2005). It has also

been argued that placing people with a high need for achievement in low autonomy, simple,

repetitive work increases the risk that they will suffer stress and emotional exhaustion as a

consequence of continually striving to achieve something in a job that offers few

opportunities to do so (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). Though less studied, it has also been

predicted that need for affiliation (a person’s desire for social contact and feelings of

belonging) will determine how people react to relational work design characteristics, such as

interdependence, and virtual working (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008; Wiesenfeld, et al.,

2001).

Personality.

A number of dispositional variables have been found to affect employee reactions to

work design. For example, high levels of dispositional affect appear to reduce the importance

of work design characteristics as a source of satisfaction (Staw & Cohen-Charash, 2005).

Internal locus of control has been shown to facilitate the development of better strategies for

dealing with stress in demanding and insecure jobs (Parkes, 1994), while an intervention

designed to increase task significance was found to have a stronger impact on performance

when conscientiousness was low (Grant, 2008b). A good deal recent interest has centred on

the influence of proactive personality on behavior in organizations (Fuller & Marler, 2009),
 WORK DESIGN 52

defined as a “disposition towards making anticipatory change” (Morgeson & Humphrey,

2008, p. 57). Proactive individuals have been shown to respond with lower strain to jobs that

are high on job demands and autonomy (Parker & Sprigg, 1999), likely because they engage

in a range of proactive behaviors that, in turn, generate higher levels of performance and

satisfaction (Fuller & Marler, 2009). Finally, propensity to trust others has been linked to

individual preferences for working in contexts characterised by heightened interdependence

(Kiffin-Petersen & Cordery, 2003; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008).

Knowledge, skills and abilities.

To be able to perform well in work that is characterised by complexity, high

interdependence, skill variety and autonomy, it would seem axiomatic that workers possess

the requisite knowledge, skills and abilities. Though a limited amount of research has been

carried out into such moderators, cognitive ability (Morgeson, Delaney-Klinger, &

Hemmingway, 2005), teamwork knowledge and social skills (Morgeson, Reider & Campion,

2005) have been found to be important predictors of the degree to which work design

influences individual performance.

Values and attitudes.

Grant (2008b) found that prosocial values (the degree to which someone regards

protecting and promoting the welfare of others as an important goal in life) had the potential

to enhance the impact of increased task significance on the performance of fundraising

callers. A similar construct, other orientation, has been found to moderate affective reactions

to job attributes such as autonomy (Meglino & Korsgaard, 2007), weakening the impact of

‘enriched’ job attributes on job satisfaction. National cultural values such as power-distance

and individualism have been found to attenuate relationships between work design

characteristics such as autonomy and interdependence and positive work outcomes (Robert,

Probst, Martocchio, Drasgow, & Lawler, 2000; Roe, Zinovieva, Dienes, & Ten Horn, 2000).

An individual’s dissatisfaction with work context (co-workers, supervisors, job security and
 WORK DESIGN 53

pay) has also been identified as a set of attitudes that potentially weakens the impact of work

design on intrinsic motivation (Oldham, Hackman, & Pierce, 1976).

Summary.

In sum, our organizing framework (Figure 2) builds on and expands the five job

characteristics and the relatively narrow set of mediators, moderators, and outcomes proposed

in the dominant job characteristics model. We suggest that good quality work design

influences cognitive, affective, behavioural, and health and well-being outcomes, both in the

short-term, such as individuals’ feelings of enthusiasm, and in the long-term, such as

intellectual development. Building on the recognition that work design is as much about roles

as tasks, the framework identifies not only task attributes as key defining inputs, but also

relational and contextual inputs. This perspective provides a more rounded way of

understanding jobs that better encapsulates the challenges of today’s work places. The

framework then suggests that these work design elements affect outcomes, by influencing

individuals’ psychological states (not only the critical psychological states from the JCM, but

also self-efficacy, prosocial motivation, and others) and/or by influencing planning, action,

and interaction processes (such as goal generation, adaptive responding, or perspective

taking). Finally, in our framework, the moderators depict that the influence of the work design

inputs on individuals outcomes depends to some extent on the individuals themselves – such

as what type of person the individual is, what they value, and what they know or can do. The

key variables and relationships we have identified in our discussion of this framework are

summarized in Table 2.

[Insert Table 2 about here]

Our framework incorporates prior recommendations that have been put forward by

scholars in the field, such as the need for greater specification of mechanisms (Morgeson &

Humphrey, 2006; Parker & Ohly, 2008) and the importance of a stronger relational and
 WORK DESIGN 54

perspective on work design because of the increased interdependence and uncertainty of

work, respectively (Grant & Parker, 2009). There are, of course, many other important ways

forward, and it is these that we turn to in the next section.

CONCLUSIONS: WHERE IS WORK DESIGN HEADED?

Research Priorities

A number of priorities for research have emerged in the course of conducting this

review, and these are identified below.

Expanding on the role of context

One theme consistently identified in reviews of the field is the need to focus more

attention on the broader environmental, social and organizational context within which work

designs exist. In addition to acting as a source of work design characteristics, context has the

potential to restrict the range on the input variables in our model and to affect the base rate on

these variables (Johns, 2006). Context may also influence the relative strength, salience and

direction of meditational mechanisms in our framework. For example, it has suggested that

we do not pay sufficient heed to the manner in which national culture affects how work is

designed, enacted, and experienced; an especially significant issue given globalisation (Grant

et al., 2009). Humphrey et al. (2007) have also pointed out that there is limited knowledge of

the extent to which different types of work performed in different types of industries and

occupations affect the nature of relationships between work design inputs and outcomes. For

example, albeit with some exceptions (e.g., Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006), work design issues

for knowledge workers and professionals have been neglected (Parker & Ohly, 2008). In a

similar vein, scholars have advocated extending the boundary of work design. To some

extent, this has already occurred with greater focus on the home-work interface reflecting the

blurring of boundaries between work and home (Allen, this volume; Rousseau, 1997). But the

boundaries are changing in other ways. For example, Cordery (2006) advocated applying

work design principles to both employee and non-employee roles, for example where
 WORK DESIGN 55

customers are expected to ‘co produce’ work outputs. Likewise, instead of focusing on the

boundary of a specific job, Fried et al. (2007) has proposed looking at work design from the

perspective of a longer term career.

Examining interactional and configurational effects

It is apparent from our guiding framework that the overall design of work may vary on

many dimensions, both within and across the task, relational and contextual categories of

input. Furthermore, it is known that many individual input variables, such as autonomy, task

significance, feedback, interdependence, interpersonal interaction, and physical workplace

features, are themselves multi-dimensional constructs (Grant, 2007; Grant, et al., 2009;

Kluger & DiNisi, 1996; May, et al., 2005; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). However, most

research in the field has tended to ignore the multidimensionality of work design, for example

by studying single input variables and/or by assuming that work design variables exert their

effects independently of each other (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). To date, research into

interactions between work design inputs has been largely confined to examining the

interactive effects of job demands, job control (autonomy) and social support on stress and

well-being (e.g. Bakker & Demerouti, 2006). However, limited research into other input

interactions (e.g. Grant, et al., 2007) suggests that this is likely to be an important area for

future investigation.

Likewise, more research is needed into the nature and impact of different

configurations of work design inputs (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). Historically, a limited

number of ‘pure’ work design configurations have been identified (e.g. Cordery & Parker,

2007; Campion, et al., 2005), though it seems likely that the changing environment for work

(by emphasising different work design characteristics) is raising awareness of other work

design configurations (e.g. relational work designs in service settings; Grant, 1997) that have

different psychological implications. Research is also needed into ‘mixed’ work design
 WORK DESIGN 56

configurations, for example where different design attributes apply at the task, activity and

role levels (e.g. Morgeson & Campion, 2002).

Mapping specific mediational pathways

Our primary intention in this review has been to identify and describe work design

inputs, mediating states/processes, and outcomes. In doing so, we have adopted a largely

taxonomic approach. However, it has certainly not been our intention to imply that every

input influences every mediational state or process that we have described, and hence all

effectiveness criteria. There is considerable scope to refine and extend existing knowledge of

how the various elements in our framework are linked. In future research, it is clearly going

to be important to develop more fine-grained theoretical specifications linking the three levels

of inputs to individual outcomes via specific motivational, cognitive, affective, and

interactional pathways. There is also a need to increase our understanding of how individual

work design inputs influence group processes and outcomes. Parker & Ohly (2008) advocated

considering how job designs affect organizing- oriented outcomes, such as the development

of swift trust, collaboration, group mental models, and group norms. Similarly, Morgeson &

Humphrey (2007) recommended the need for a greater understanding between job and team

design; a point that is pursued in Harrison & Humphrey (in press). At the same time, scholars

have advocated the need to look in more depth at temporal processes, such as investigating

when work characteristics have their effects and how long those effects last. Another

recommendation (Vough and Parker, 2008) for getting underneath the surface of work design

is to look more closely at meaning as a mechanism, with topics like the ‘meaning of work’

and work engagement (e.g. Kahn, 1990) having evolved in parallel with work design theory,

yet with little cross-dialogue. Other researchers have called for additional mediating

mechanisms to be investigated, for example decision-making processes (Grant, et al., 2009).

Finally, though research has sometimes shown relationships between work design inputs and

outcomes to be curvilinear (e.g. Xie & Johns, 1995), little is known about the degree to
 WORK DESIGN 57

which different levels on work design input variables may engage different meditational

processes (Humphrey, et al., 2007) thereby generating non-linear relationships between work

design and psychological outcomes.

Improving research methodologies

One aspect that many reviewers of the field have consistently agreed on over the years

is that there is considerable scope for improvement in the approaches that have been used to

formulate and test work design theory (Roberts & Glick, 1981; Parker & Wall, 1998;

Humphrey, et al., 2007). Recent work on developing and validating more comprehensive

measurement tools for use in work design research (e.g. Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006) has

helped considerably when it comes to providing reliable and valid instruments for testing an

expanded theory of work design such as we have presented here. However, eliminating (or at

least discounting) common-source bias as a source of contamination in studies linking work

design measures to individual effectiveness outcomes remains a particular problem and

priority for research being conducted in this area (Humphrey et al., 2007), and there continues

to be a dearth of longitudinal and quasi-experimental field studies of work design (Grant, et

al., 2009).

Investigating emergent elements of work designs

Over and above these recommendations for future research directions, a recurring

theme has been calls by scholars to adapt work design theory and research in light of the

constantly changing nature of work. Whilst there have been big strides made in addressing

this concern over recent years (viz. Grant, 2007; Parker, Wall & Cordery, 2001), there

continue to be calls for work design theory and research to address new, emergent aspects of

tasks and roles. For example, Grant et al., (2009) have suggested that a fourth category of

work design input variable, temporal characteristics, may need to be added in order to reflect

aspects of the time horizons (e.g. cycle times, time pressure) that increasingly characterise the

performance and enactment of tasks and roles.

 WORK DESIGN 58

Next, we elaborate this theme to consider some of the radical changes occurring in the

world of work, and some illustrative implications for work design theory and practice.

However, somewhat paradoxically, we recognise that many jobs are in fact not changing

much at all. We therefore then shift the focus to how we might influence the practice of work

design. Bringing these ideas together, if we are better able to influence and shape how jobs

are designed, then we as scholars might be better equipped - not just to evaluate and

understand what happens in the world of future work – but to more actively shape it.

Transformation in the work place

Although some commentators dispute the depth and spread of the organizational

transformation occurring in the world of work, there is no doubt that some organizations are

indeed changing, especially those at the leading edge in new technology sectors (Morris,

2004).

A trend that cannot be disputed in Western economies is that work is becoming

increasingly distributed. Facilitated by advances in technology as well as other forces, people

increasingly need to work collaboratively even though they: work in different places (e.g.,

increasing real estate prices, dual careers, and ease of communications mean that employees

will work in cheaper offices away from the main site); work at different times (because of

flexible working, different time zones); work in different legal entities (joint ventures,

alliances, outsourcing, networks, supply-chain partnerships, and other cross-organizational

relationships means people often have same end goal but different legal entities), and work on

different contracts (e.g., ‘staff’ can be self-employed, temporary staff, contractors, customers,

partners). All of these trends give rise to significant work design challenges, some of which

scholars and practitioners have barely considered.

For example, how does supervision and control operate if the employer is not at the

work place, if there is more than one employer present, or if the employee is on loan/

seconded/outsourced to another employer? Consider the case of a city council that outsourced
 WORK DESIGN 59

their operation of housing benefits (Rubery, Earnshaw, Marchington, Lee Cooke, and

Vincent, 2000). For legal reasons, the council was required to authorise payments processed

by the outsourcer. This meant that those employees who now worked for the outsourcer (who

had previously worked for the council) had to have their work checked by council employees.

They were no longer able to authorise their own work, but needed it to be signed off by a

second employer. There was therefore both a need for the employer to control the outsourced

tasks, yet, at the same time, they needed to cultivate employees on both sides co-operating.

This scenario illustrates how control issues in organizations will likely become more

complex, and how trust between the parties and other relational process might significantly

influence the enacted work designs.

As another example, it is projected that individuals will increasingly work on a project

or temporary basis for virtual organizations, calling into question how individual’s social and

collective needs will be met. One possibility is that ‘guilds’ will develop out for professional

societies, alumni associations, temporary agencies with the sole purpose of fostering the well-

being and success of members (Laubacher, Malone, et al., 1997). Guilds might also become

responsible for providing insurance, learning opportunities, a sense of community, and other

services. Thus, the relational elements of jobs that we have discussed in this article, such as

social support and opportunities for growth, as well as other task characteristics (e.g.,

opportunities for learning) might themselves become distributed across organizations. This

echoes our earlier suggestion to consider not just ‘jobs’ but broader ‘work roles’.

On the ‘supply’ side, as we described earlier, work forces are becoming more diverse.

Harrison and Humphrey (in press) identified a range of ways that diversity might influence

team work design. For example, teams might distribute tasks that vary in desirability based on

status and stereotypes, which could deepen fault lines, inhibit skill development, and impair

team performance. Work designs that involve ‘one or two step’ rotation might prevent such

consequences. A further ‘supply’ issue is that there will also be slower labour force growth in
 WORK DESIGN 60

many Western economies. A consequence will be the need to enhance participation in the

labour force from, for example, the elderly, women, and people with disabilities. This gives

rise to intriguing work design questions. For example, because their government anticipates

labour shortages in the future, a project has been initiated in the Netherlands to design

effective jobs for employees with special needs, such as developmental disabilities or mental

health disorders. The work designs need to meet the special needs of individuals as well as the

needs of organizations for competitiveness and flexibility, whilst also taking into account task

interdependencies with regular co-workers. We know little about what types of work designs

are best at meeting this range of criteria, or the best processes for designing them.

The above examples are not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, they illustrate the

varied ways that work and organizations are changing, and therefore how we need to develop

proactively our theories to reflect these changes. Importantly, however, we advocate that

research and theory should also inform and shape these developments; it is to this issue of

applying knowledge that we now turn.

Continuity in the work place

Somewhat paradoxically, as well as recognizing that work is indeed changing, it is

important to recognize that work – at least its quality - is also not changing. Many sociologists

suggest that the grand claims of radical work place transformation are overstated, or at least

limited only to a subset of organizations (e.g. Neumark, 2002). Certainly, evidence from

national surveys of work design practice suggest that, despite decades of research showing the

importance of work enrichment, there are still many impoverished work designs. For

example, the UK’s ESRC’s Future of Work survey (Taylor, 2002 p. 8) conducted in 2000

noted that, in relation to the quality of work life, “the most striking conclusion in assessing

the new data is the degree of continuity as much as any drastic change in today’s

workplaces”. Indeed, one of the key changes they reported is how work is becoming less

satisfying and more stressful. Likewise, in excess of one third of US workers report that their
 WORK DESIGN 61

jobs are ‘often’ or ‘always’ stressful (Murphy & Sauter, 2003). Moreover, poor quality job

designs are dominant in many developing countries. For example, Gamble et al., (2004)

report that mass production and Taylorist job designs are alive and well in the newly

industrializing economies. The bottom line is that there are still many jobs with simplified

work designs that would be well-served by a dose of good ‘old fashioned’ job enrichment.

If there are still many poorly designed jobs, the question that arises is how to influence

this practice. Obviously such a question can be tackled from a broader institutional and policy

perspective. Policies that are relevant to work design include, for example, those concerned

with health and safety (e.g., the UK health and safety guidance for work stress focuses

extensively on work design), with the labour market conditions (e.g., structures for union

representation, flexibility of contracts, etc), and with economic performance and innovation.

Adopting a cross-national, and more sociological, perspective is important in understanding

the role of policy - it is clear that some countries have better quality work designs than others.

For example, in an investigation of different types of market economies, Gallie (2007) cite

clear evidence of higher task autonomy, skill variety, and opportunities for self-development

in Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) relative to countries such as

Germany and the UK. The difference is partly attributable to the Scandinavian countries

having complex and diversified product market strategies (therefore requiring more skilled

employees), but also to other factors, such as the representation systems by which employees

influence work conditions. The superiority of work design in Scandinavian countries relative

to others is thus consistent with the policy importance that these countries attach to quality of

work programs.

But it is not just about influencing what governments do: it is also about influencing

the practices of businesses and other organizations and stakeholders (McIlroy, 2004). For

example, it is possible to influence how managers manage; how unions organize; how chief

executive, consultants and others design or redesign organisations; and how engineers design
 WORK DESIGN 62

technology (e.g., building in more or less latitude for employee control or social interaction).

Unfortunately influencing practice is not easy, as has been frequently lamented in articles on

evidence-based management. In the case of management, for example, we need to take active

steps to encourage managers to make better use of existing evidence, such as changing how

we educate professional managers and establishing collaborative networks amongst

managers, educators, and researchers (Rousseau, 2006).

Endeavours to influence practice and policy will be helped by work design scholars

developing and disseminating understanding about the process of design and redesign. The

latter includes considering how other work systems and structures (e.g., technology, human

resource practices, etc) relate to, and augment or constrain, work design (Cordery & Parker,

2008; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). Exactly how key stakeholders design jobs also needs

more attention (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2008). For example, Campion and Stevens (1991)

showed that management college students’ natural propensity is to design jobs along

Tayloristic principles (e.g., by grouping similar tasks together), although it is also possible to

train them to adopt more motivationally-oriented approaches. The best strategies for work

redesign should also be investigated. It might be, for example, that it is the combination of

top-down style work redesigns (e.g., structural empowerment initiatives), as well as training

individuals to actively change their own jobs from the bottom-up (such as by job crafting, role

innovation, or negotiating i-deals), is the most powerful way of achieving sustained job

redesigns. We need more attention to the ‘how’ of work design and redesign.

In the future, therefore, we recommend that work design scholars not only seek to

understand and assess the effects of new forms of work organization, but that they proactively

seek to influence them. Regarding the quest for understanding, given the current healthy state

of work design research (for example, see Grant, Fried, Parker, & Frese, in press), we are

optimistic many of these avenues will be pursued. Regarding the quest for influence, a more

concerted effort is needed by work design scholars to influence policy and practice, in part by
 WORK DESIGN 63

giving greater attention to the process of work design and redesign, and in part by promoting

evidence-based management. As we have argued, just because research has well established

the positive consequences of work enrichment, this does not mean practitioners have

embraced this thinking. The same will be true of our more advanced insights into new work

design issues if we do not find better ways to influence practice.

 WORK DESIGN 64

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Model Disciplinary Foundations Typical Approach Typical Benefits Possible Trade-offs

Mechanistic Industrial engineering Specialization and Greater efficiency. Lower motivation.
simplification. Ease of staffing. Job dissatisfaction.
Reduced training costs. Increased absence.
Motivational Organizational Psychology Job enrichment and Enhanced motivation. Increased training costs.
empowerment Reduced turnover. Role overload.
Increased satisfaction. Increased errors.
Reduced absence. Higher stress.

Perceptual/Motor Human factors Match demands of job Fewer mistakes. Boredom.

Experimental Psychology to cognitive capabilities Reduced fatigue. Job dissatisfaction.
Lower accident rate.
Less role overload.
Biological Biomechanics Minimising sources of Better physical health. Cost of equipment.
Work Physiology physical strain and Less stress. Lack of stimulation.
environmental stress Fewer injuries.
Table 1. The interdisciplinary approach to work design2

2
Adapted from Campion, Mumford, Morgeson, & Nahrgang (2005, p. 369)
 INPUTS
Task characteristics
Autonomy, Feedback from job, Skill variety,
Task variety, Task significance, Task identity,
Job complexity, Specialization, Information
processing, Temporal horizon, Physical demands,
Error consequences.
Relational characteristics
Interdependence, Participative decision-making,
Feedback from others/agents, Impact on others,
Interpersonal interaction, Social support,
Situational accountability, Emotion display rules.
Contextual characteristics
Physical workplace features, Leadership,
Technological complexity, Ergonomics, Human
resource management policies & practices,
Organization structure & design, Virtuality.
Table 2. Summary of Work Design Inputs, Mediators, Moderators, and Effectiveness Outcomes Identified by Researchers.
MEDIATORS
Psychological states
Knowledge of results, Experienced meaningfulness of
work, Experienced responsibility for work outcomes,
Intrinsic motivation, Job engagement, Psychological
empowerment, Role breadth self-efficacy, Self-
management efficacy, Pro-social motivation,
Regulatory focus, Goal orientation, Role overload,
Role ambiguity, Role conflict, Interpersonal trust,
Emotional dissonance, Cognitive capacity,
Psychological safety, Positive affect.
Psychological processes
Proactivity, Adaptive responding, Goal generation,
Goal striving, Active learning, Relational
coordination, Perspective taking.
MODERATORS
Growth need strength, Need for achievement, Need for
affiliation, Dispositional affect, Locus of control,
Conscientiousness, Proactive personality, Propensity
to trust, Cognitive ability, Teamwork knowledge,
Social skills, Prosocial values, Other orientation,
Cultural values, Context satisfaction.
EFFECTIVENESS OUTCOMES
Behavioural
Performance (quantity, efficiency, quality),
Withdrawal behavior (absenteeism, turnover),
Creativity and innovation, Citizenship
behavior, Proactive behavior, Voice, Helping
behavior, Strategic decision-making.
Attitudinal
Job satisfaction, Job involvement, Affective
empathy, Organizational Commitment.
Cognitive
Cognitive performance, Knowledge & skill,
Self-definition, Positive other-attributions.
Health and well-being
Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Emotional
fatigue, burnout, Suicide risk, Work
adjustment, Somatic health symptoms,
Safety, Work-life balance.
Figure 1. The Job Characteristics Model of Motivation
 WORK DESIGN105

Figure 2. A framework for considering the impact of work design on individual job/role effectiveness

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