WORK ORGANIZATION AND
JOB DESIGN
Summary Articles
Quirine Rodenberg
,Article – Morgeson: The Work Design Questionnaire
- Morgeson and Humphrey reviewed all existing measures of work design and concluded that
these had;
o A lack of comprehensiveness
Important work characteristics were not covered
Thing were to specific and too general
o Leads to measurements problems
o Poor psychometric quality and poor construct validity
Poor reliability and does not measure what it is supposed to measure
o Theorizing in the area of work design has slowed dramatically
o Hard response scale with negatively worded items
- Research
o Students analysed the job of a family member
Paper-and-pencil version of WDQ
Interview about the job
To find out more information about the job such as key tasks and
duties of the job
Use all the gained information to compare it with the job codes
Used the detailed information to find the correct job code
o Used several options for WDQ
4,18,19,20,21-factor WDQ
19 split interdependence
20 split autonomy
- Morgeson and Humprey developed and validated a comprehensive work design
questionnaire WDQ
o Measures 21 work characteristics grouped into four higher-order categories;
Task characteristics
Task variety
Task significance
o Degree to which a job influences the lives or work of inside
and outside others
Task identity
o Degree to which a job involves a whole piece of work
Autonomy
o Work scheduling autonomy
o Decision making autonomy
o Work methods autonomy
Feedback from job
Knowledge characteristics
Job complexity
Information processing
Problem solving
Skill variety
Specialization
Social characteristics
Social support
o Job provides opportunities for advice and assistance from
others
, Such as a=supervisor and coworker social support
Interdependence
o Initiated interdependence
Refers to work flowing from one job to other jobs
o Received interdependence
Refers to work being affected by work from others
Interaction outside the organization
Feedback from others
Contextual characteristics
Ergonomics
Physical demands
Work conditions
Equipment use
- Conclusions on WDQ
o WDQ is a comprehensive instrument for the analysis and redesign of jobs and
workplaces to optimize jobs, tasks and workplaces according to organizational
behaviour criteria
High internal consistency reliability of the WDQ scales
Related meaningful to job-based databases
o Good work design can reduce burnout, diminish stress, foster health, improve
motivation and lead to enhanced satisfaction and performance
o The WDQ is not based on a specific work design theory but rather developed as an
attempt to summarize the work characteristics existing in literature so far
o The WDQ was developed;
To provide practitioners with a larger range of options for diagnosing and
(re)designing jobs
To foster research by providing researchers with a larger pool of potentially
relevant variables to include in their models
- Implications WDQ
o One of the challenges is the variety of changes that can be made to a job and exactly
what to change to achieve different redesign goals
o An issue concerns whether organizations actually use measures such as WDQ when
redesigning work
o One of the challenged associated with designing work is potential individual
differences in job incumbent attitudes and values and their responses to their
working environment
JOB DESIGN
Summary Articles
Quirine Rodenberg
,Article – Morgeson: The Work Design Questionnaire
- Morgeson and Humphrey reviewed all existing measures of work design and concluded that
these had;
o A lack of comprehensiveness
Important work characteristics were not covered
Thing were to specific and too general
o Leads to measurements problems
o Poor psychometric quality and poor construct validity
Poor reliability and does not measure what it is supposed to measure
o Theorizing in the area of work design has slowed dramatically
o Hard response scale with negatively worded items
- Research
o Students analysed the job of a family member
Paper-and-pencil version of WDQ
Interview about the job
To find out more information about the job such as key tasks and
duties of the job
Use all the gained information to compare it with the job codes
Used the detailed information to find the correct job code
o Used several options for WDQ
4,18,19,20,21-factor WDQ
19 split interdependence
20 split autonomy
- Morgeson and Humprey developed and validated a comprehensive work design
questionnaire WDQ
o Measures 21 work characteristics grouped into four higher-order categories;
Task characteristics
Task variety
Task significance
o Degree to which a job influences the lives or work of inside
and outside others
Task identity
o Degree to which a job involves a whole piece of work
Autonomy
o Work scheduling autonomy
o Decision making autonomy
o Work methods autonomy
Feedback from job
Knowledge characteristics
Job complexity
Information processing
Problem solving
Skill variety
Specialization
Social characteristics
Social support
o Job provides opportunities for advice and assistance from
others
, Such as a=supervisor and coworker social support
Interdependence
o Initiated interdependence
Refers to work flowing from one job to other jobs
o Received interdependence
Refers to work being affected by work from others
Interaction outside the organization
Feedback from others
Contextual characteristics
Ergonomics
Physical demands
Work conditions
Equipment use
- Conclusions on WDQ
o WDQ is a comprehensive instrument for the analysis and redesign of jobs and
workplaces to optimize jobs, tasks and workplaces according to organizational
behaviour criteria
High internal consistency reliability of the WDQ scales
Related meaningful to job-based databases
o Good work design can reduce burnout, diminish stress, foster health, improve
motivation and lead to enhanced satisfaction and performance
o The WDQ is not based on a specific work design theory but rather developed as an
attempt to summarize the work characteristics existing in literature so far
o The WDQ was developed;
To provide practitioners with a larger range of options for diagnosing and
(re)designing jobs
To foster research by providing researchers with a larger pool of potentially
relevant variables to include in their models
- Implications WDQ
o One of the challenges is the variety of changes that can be made to a job and exactly
what to change to achieve different redesign goals
o An issue concerns whether organizations actually use measures such as WDQ when
redesigning work
o One of the challenged associated with designing work is potential individual
differences in job incumbent attitudes and values and their responses to their
working environment
