Assignments Lecture 3 on Personnel Economics 2016-2017
Cijfer/Grade = 7
Assignment about Individual Job Design
a. How can Job Design increase the meaning of work according to Cassar and Meier.
Refer to Deci and Ryan. How does that relate to a modern approach of job design
(Lazear and Gibbs)?
According to Deci & Ryan (1985) workers highly value certain nonmonetary job dimensions
rooted in the three human psychological needs at the basis of self-determination theory: the
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These three factors can make it possible to
increase the meaning of work and are therefore according to Deci & Ryan (1985) influenced
by job design. The autonomy of an employee in decision-making is an important determinant
of job satisfaction, which in turn results in the increase of work meaning. A feeling of
competence arises when workers are able to apply their talents, skills, and/or knowledge to
achieve a certain goal, because engaging in an activity that one is good at is generally
pleasant (Loewenstein 1999). Cassar & Meier (2018) refers that personal and social
recognition can play a substantial role in fostering a feeling of competence and in turn of
doing meaningful work. So, it can be concluded that creating meaning and purpose for
employees can be achieved with help of job design.
A modern approach of job design consists of job enrichment where employees have more
task diversity, responsibilities and more authority. In contrast to specialized jobs where
employees can be bored and eventually leading to low motivation. So, job enrichment
increases the motivation of employees. And designing the jobs effectively can increase the
intrinsic motivation of employees. So, when firms adopt a coherent design involving job
enrichment and incentives based on quality and learning new skills, it will cause the largest
effects in terms of increasement of productivity and quality (Lazear & Gibbs, 2015).
1
, Assignments Lecture 3 on Personnel Economics 2016-2017
b. What is the relation between a meaningful job and wages according to Cassar and
Meier?
If we consider the idea of Lazear & Gibbs monetary incentives are effective in many cases
and employees find it important to have good financial compensation because it will lead to
an increase of effort. But if we consider the statement of Cassar & Meier (2018): “job
meaning could be either a substitute or a complement to monetary compensation, which in
turn will influence whether people accept lower pay for a meaningful job, or whether job
meaning and pay tend to rise together”. The extent to which people accept a lower pay is
being influenced by the meaningfulness of a job. For instance, if job meaning and financial
compensation were substitutes, and informational asymmetries make it hard to learn about
the meaningfulness of the job, then a low wage would also function as a signal about the job
being meaningful (Cassar & Meier, 2018).
c. Is it always possible or necessary to make workers as happy as possible? Think about
when you should use Tayloristic techniques vs. continuous improvement techniques
(Lazear and Gibbs).
To see whether it is necessary and possible to always make employees happy, we look at two
different types of firm strategy. Looking at a more Tayloristic technique it is more difficult
to make the employees happy, because employees are doing simplistic and repetitive tasks
with less autonomy and responsibility. As Lazear & Gibbs (2015) also state that boredom is
largely the result of the worker performing repetitive tasks that do not require any thinking.
But looking at a more continuous improvement technique employees have job enrichment,
more autonomy and more task diversity. Therefore, in such organizations it’s less difficult to
make workers happy, because employees are encouraged and get the opportunity to do new
tasks or develop skills. This will result in more motivated and happy employees. If we look at
the necessity, it is much more necessary to make employees happy in a continuous
improvement organization, because the tasks are more complex and high involvement is
needed, therefore keeping the employees motivated and satisfied is crucial. This is the
opposite with the Tayloristic technique where the tasks are simple and there are many people
who can perform these tasks. Therefore, keeping the employees happy and satisfied is not
crucial.
d. How is this affected by technological development? (Lazear and Gibbs)
Nowadays technological development is increasing more and organizations are dealing with
much more turbulent environments, resulting in more innovative strategies to be able to gain
competitive advantage. Especially for technological industries it is very important to be
flexible within the organization to be able to stay ahead with the developments in the
environment. Lazear & Gibbs (2015) also mentioned that workers in firms that operate in
more complex, dynamic, and unpredictable environments will possess more specific
2
Cijfer/Grade = 7
Assignment about Individual Job Design
a. How can Job Design increase the meaning of work according to Cassar and Meier.
Refer to Deci and Ryan. How does that relate to a modern approach of job design
(Lazear and Gibbs)?
According to Deci & Ryan (1985) workers highly value certain nonmonetary job dimensions
rooted in the three human psychological needs at the basis of self-determination theory: the
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These three factors can make it possible to
increase the meaning of work and are therefore according to Deci & Ryan (1985) influenced
by job design. The autonomy of an employee in decision-making is an important determinant
of job satisfaction, which in turn results in the increase of work meaning. A feeling of
competence arises when workers are able to apply their talents, skills, and/or knowledge to
achieve a certain goal, because engaging in an activity that one is good at is generally
pleasant (Loewenstein 1999). Cassar & Meier (2018) refers that personal and social
recognition can play a substantial role in fostering a feeling of competence and in turn of
doing meaningful work. So, it can be concluded that creating meaning and purpose for
employees can be achieved with help of job design.
A modern approach of job design consists of job enrichment where employees have more
task diversity, responsibilities and more authority. In contrast to specialized jobs where
employees can be bored and eventually leading to low motivation. So, job enrichment
increases the motivation of employees. And designing the jobs effectively can increase the
intrinsic motivation of employees. So, when firms adopt a coherent design involving job
enrichment and incentives based on quality and learning new skills, it will cause the largest
effects in terms of increasement of productivity and quality (Lazear & Gibbs, 2015).
1
, Assignments Lecture 3 on Personnel Economics 2016-2017
b. What is the relation between a meaningful job and wages according to Cassar and
Meier?
If we consider the idea of Lazear & Gibbs monetary incentives are effective in many cases
and employees find it important to have good financial compensation because it will lead to
an increase of effort. But if we consider the statement of Cassar & Meier (2018): “job
meaning could be either a substitute or a complement to monetary compensation, which in
turn will influence whether people accept lower pay for a meaningful job, or whether job
meaning and pay tend to rise together”. The extent to which people accept a lower pay is
being influenced by the meaningfulness of a job. For instance, if job meaning and financial
compensation were substitutes, and informational asymmetries make it hard to learn about
the meaningfulness of the job, then a low wage would also function as a signal about the job
being meaningful (Cassar & Meier, 2018).
c. Is it always possible or necessary to make workers as happy as possible? Think about
when you should use Tayloristic techniques vs. continuous improvement techniques
(Lazear and Gibbs).
To see whether it is necessary and possible to always make employees happy, we look at two
different types of firm strategy. Looking at a more Tayloristic technique it is more difficult
to make the employees happy, because employees are doing simplistic and repetitive tasks
with less autonomy and responsibility. As Lazear & Gibbs (2015) also state that boredom is
largely the result of the worker performing repetitive tasks that do not require any thinking.
But looking at a more continuous improvement technique employees have job enrichment,
more autonomy and more task diversity. Therefore, in such organizations it’s less difficult to
make workers happy, because employees are encouraged and get the opportunity to do new
tasks or develop skills. This will result in more motivated and happy employees. If we look at
the necessity, it is much more necessary to make employees happy in a continuous
improvement organization, because the tasks are more complex and high involvement is
needed, therefore keeping the employees motivated and satisfied is crucial. This is the
opposite with the Tayloristic technique where the tasks are simple and there are many people
who can perform these tasks. Therefore, keeping the employees happy and satisfied is not
crucial.
d. How is this affected by technological development? (Lazear and Gibbs)
Nowadays technological development is increasing more and organizations are dealing with
much more turbulent environments, resulting in more innovative strategies to be able to gain
competitive advantage. Especially for technological industries it is very important to be
flexible within the organization to be able to stay ahead with the developments in the
environment. Lazear & Gibbs (2015) also mentioned that workers in firms that operate in
more complex, dynamic, and unpredictable environments will possess more specific
2
