CH 08

Organizational
Behavior, 8e
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 2

Chapter 8
High Performance Job Designs
 Study questions.
1. What are the alternative job design
approaches?
2. What are the keys to designing motivating
jobs?
3. How does technology influence job design?
4. How can goal setting improve performance?
5. What alternative work arrangements are used
today?
What are the alternative
job design approaches?
 Job design.
– The process by which managers plan and
specify job tasks and the work arrangements
through which they are accomplished.
– The best job design is the one that:
• Meets organizational requirements for high
performance.
• Offers a good fit with individual skills and needs.
• Provides opportunities for job satisfaction.

 Scientific management.
– Sought to improve work efficiency by creating
small, repetitive tasks and training workers to
do these tasks well.
– Job simplification.
• Standardizes work procedures and employs people
in clearly defined and highly specialized tasks.
• Intent is to increase efficiency, but it may in fact be
decreased due to the motivational impact of
unappealing jobs.
 Job enlargement and job rotation.
– Job enlargement.
• Increases task variety by combining into one job
two or more tasks that were previously assigned to
separate workers.
– Job rotation.
• Increases task variety by periodically shifting
workers among jobs involving different tasks.
– Enlargement and rotation use horizontal
loading to increase job breadth.
 Job enrichment.
– Frederick Herzberg’s view of job enrichment
is based on the two-factor theory of
motivation.
– The practice of enhancing job content by
building motivating factors such as
responsibility, achievement, recognition, and
personal growth into the job.

 Job enrichment — cont.
– Adds planning and evaluating duties to the job
content. These duties would otherwise be
reserved for management.
– Uses vertical loading to increase job depth.
– Enriched jobs help satisfy higher order needs.

 Job enrichment — cont.
– Cautionary questions regarding job
enrichment.
• Is job enrichment expensive?
• Will workers demand higher pay when moving
into enriched jobs?

What are the keys to designing
motivating jobs?
 Job characteristics model.
– Five core job characteristics are particularly
important to job design.
• Skill variety.
• Task identity.
• Task significance.
• Autonomy.
• Job feedback.

motivating jobs?
 Job characteristics model — cont.
– Combined together, the core job
characteristics create a motivating potential
score (MPS).
– MPS indicates the degree to which the job is
capable of motivating people.
– A job’s MPS can be raised by enriching the
core characteristics.

motivating jobs?
– When the core characteristics are highly
enriched, three critical psychological states
are positively influenced.
• Experienced meaningfulness of work.
• Experienced responsibility for work outcomes.
• Knowledge of actual results of work activities.
– Positive psychological states create positive
work outcomes.

motivating jobs?
– Enriched core job characteristics will create
positive psychological states, which in turn
will create positive work outcomes only when:
• Employee growth-need strength is high.
• The employee has the requisite knowledge and
skill.
• Employee context satisfaction exists.

motivating jobs?
– Research results.
• The model and its diagnostic approach are useful
guides to job design.
• Job characteristics affect satisfaction more than
performance.
• Growth-need strength is an important moderator.
• The job incumbent’s perceptions of the core
characteristics are the key to whether or not work
is motivating.

motivating jobs?
 Social information processing theory.
– Social information in organizations influences
the way people perceive their jobs and respond
to them.
– Research evidence shows that both social
information and the core characteristics are
important determinants of how people
perceive their jobs.

motivating jobs?
 Managerial and global implications.

– Not everyone’s job should be enriched.
– Job enrichment can apply to groups.
– Culture has a substantial impact on job

enrichment.

How does technology
influence job design?
 Sociotechnical systems.
– Reflects the importance of integrating people
and technology to create high performance
work systems.
– Essential for new developments in job design,
given the impact of computers and information
technology in the modern workplace.
How does technology
 Automation and robotics.
– Highly simplified jobs can be problematic
since they lack intrinsic motivation.
– Automation is one approach for dealing with
highly simplified jobs.
• A machine is used to do the work previously
accomplished by a human.
• Increasingly involves the use of robots.

How does technology
 Flexible manufacturing systems.
– Adaptive computer-based technologies and
integrated job designs that are used to shift
work easily and quickly among alternative
products.
– Workers develop expertise across a wide
range of functions and the jobs offer a wealth
of potential for enriched core job
characteristics.
How does technology
 Electronic offices.
– Developments in electronic offices offer job
enrichment possibilities for workers equipped
to handle the technology.
– These developments can be stressful and
difficult for workers lacking the necessary
skills.
How does technology
 Work-flow and process reengineering.

– Process reengineering is the analysis,
streamlining, and reconfiguration of actions
and tasks required to reach a work goal.
– This approach for improving work-flows and
job designs is drive by one question:
• What is necessary and what else can be
eliminated?
How can goal setting
improve performance?
 Goals are important aspects of any job
design.
 Goals are needed to give proper direction
to workers.
 Goal setting is the process of developing,
negotiating, and formalizing the targets or
objectives that a person is responsible for
accomplishing.

 Goal setting guidelines derived from the
Locke and Latham goal-setting model and
related research.
– Difficult goals are more likely to lead to
higher performance than are less difficult
ones.
– Specific goals are more likely to lead to higher
performance than are no goals or vague or
general ones.

 Goal setting guidelines — cont.
– Task feedback, or knowledge of results, is
likely to motivate people toward higher
performance by encouraging the setting of
higher performance goals.
– Goals are most likely to lead to higher
performance when the people have the
abilities and the feeling of self-efficacy
required to accomplish them.

 Goal setting guidelines — cont.
– Goals are most likely to motivate people
toward higher performance when they are
accepted and there is commitment to them.

 Goal setting and MBO.
– Management by objectives (MBO) is a process
of joint goal setting between a supervisor and
a subordinate.
– MBO is consistent with the goal setting
guidelines derived from the Locke and Latham
model.
– While MBO has much to offer, it is not easy to
start and keep going.

 The MBO process.
– Goal setting.
• Subordinate actively participates in developing performance
goals.
– Action to achieve goals.
• Subordinate performs tasks while supervisor coaches and
provides support.
– Evaluation of goal achievement.
• Subordinate actively participates in performance review.

What alternative work arrangements
are used today?
 Alternative work arrangements.

– Are becoming increasingly common in the
workplace.
– Designed to:
• Influence employee satisfaction.
• Help employees balance the demands of their work
and nonwork lives.

are used today?
 Compressed work weeks.

– Any scheduling of work that allows a full-time
job to be completed in fewer than the standard
five days.
– “4/40” is most common form.

are used today?
 Compressed work weeks — cont.
– Advantages.
• For workers: added time off and lower commuting costs.
• For organizations: lower absenteeism and improved
recruiting of new employees.
– Disadvantages.
• For workers: increased fatigue and family adjustment
problems.
• For organizations: work scheduling problems, customer
complaints, and possible union opposition.

are used today?
 Flexible working hours.
– Also known as flextime.
– Gives individuals a daily choice in the timing
of their work commitments.
– Becoming increasingly popular.
– A valuable alternative for structuring work to
accommodate individual interests and needs.

are used today?
 Flexible working hours — cont.

– Advantages.
• For workers: shorter commuting time, more leisure
time, more job satisfaction, and greater sense of
responsibility.
• For organizations: less absenteeism, tardiness, and
turnover; more commitment; and higher
performance.
are used today?
 Job sharing.
– One full-time job is assigned to two or more
persons who divide the work according to
agreed-upon hours.
– Can be done on a daily, weekly, or monthly
basis.
– Practiced by a relatively small percentage of
employers.

are used today?
 Job sharing — cont.

– Advantages.
• For workers: less burnout, and higher energy level.
• For organizations; attracting talented people who
who would otherwise be unable to work.

are used today?
 Work sharing.
– Different from job sharing.
– Occurs when workers agree to cut back on the

number of hours they work in order to protect
against layoffs.

are used today?
 Work at home and the virtual office.
– Telecommuting.
• Work done at home or in a remote location via use
of computers and advanced communication
linkages with a central office or other employment
locations.
– Variants of telecommuting.
• Flexiplace.
• Hoteling.

are used today?
 Work at home and the virtual office —
cont.
– Virtual office.
• The individual works “from the road” and while
traveling from place-to-place or customer-to-
customer by car or airplane.
• The worker remains linked electronically to the
home office.

are used today?
 Work at home and the virtual office — cont.
– Advantages.
• For workers: flexibility, the comforts of home, and choice of
work locations consistent with one’s lifestyle.
• For organizations: costs savings, efficiency, and improved
employee satisfaction.
– Disadvantages.
• For workers: isolation from co-workers, decreased
identification with work team, and technical difficulties with
computer linkages.

are used today?
 Part-time work.
– Temporary part-time work.
• An employee is classified as temporary and works
less than the standard 40-hour work week.
– Permanent part-time work.
• An employee is classified as a permanent member
of the workforce and works less than the standard
40-hour work week.

are used today?
 Part-time work — cont.
– Advantages.
• For workers: appeals to people who want to
supplement other jobs or do not want full-time
work.
• For organizations: lower labor costs, ability to
better accommodate peaks and valleys of business
cycle, and better management of retention quality.

are used today?
 Part-time work — cont.
– Disadvantages.
• For workers: added stress and potentially
diminished performance if holding two jobs,
failure to qualify for benefits, and lower pay rates
than full-time counterparts.

CH 08

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Organizational

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 2

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 4

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 7

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 8

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 9

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 10

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 11

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 12

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 13

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 14

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 15

 Managerial and global implications.

– Job enrichment can apply to groups.

– Culture has a substantial impact on job

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 16

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 18

 Work-flow and process reengineering.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 22

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 23

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 24

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 25

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 26

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 27

 Alternative work arrangements.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 28

 Compressed work weeks.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 29

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 30

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 31

 Flexible working hours — cont.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 33

 Job sharing — cont.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 34

– Occurs when workers agree to cut back on the

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 35

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 36

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 37

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 38

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 39

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 40

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 8 41

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