Can High-Quality Jobs Help Workers Learn New Tricks? A Multidisciplinary Review of Work Design for Cognition

Abstract

Understanding whether and how work design affects human cognition is important because: (1) cognition is necessary for job performance, (2) digital technologies increase the need for cognition, and (3) it is vital to maintain cognitive functioning in the mature workforce. We synthesize research from work design, human factors, learning, occupational health, and lifespan perspectives. Defining cognition in terms of both knowledge and cognitive processes/fluid abilities, we show that five types of work characteristics (job complexity, job autonomy, relational work design, job feedback, and psychosocial demands) affect employees' cognition via multiple pathways. In the short-tomedium term, we identify three cognitively-enriching pathways (opportunity for use of cognition, accelerated knowledge acquisition, motivated exploratory learning) and two cognitively-harmful pathways (strain-impaired cognition, depleted cognitive capacity). We also identify three longerterm pathways: cognitive preservation, accumulated knowledge, and ill-health impairment). Based on the emerging evidence for the role of work design in promoting cognition, we propose an integrative model suggesting that short-to-medium term processes between work design and cognition accumulate to affect longer-term cognitive outcomes, such as the prevention of cognitive decline as one ages. We also identify further directions for research and methodological improvements.

Unpacking the Role of Feedback in Virtual Team Effectiveness

“…As a result, subjective feedback increases the salience of the feedback giver and may thus actually inhibit learning processes because recipients focus on receiving praise (or averting discouragement) or because they rely too strongly on guidance. Conversely, objective feedback could help recipients direct their attention toward the actual task and thereby enable learning through discovery (see also Parker et al, 2021).…”

“…Accordingly, individuals may use subjective feedback to form impressions of the other team members, which is likely to be helpful at the beginning of virtual collaboration but which may shift the focus away from the focal task at crucial stages of task execution. Particularly when receiving output feedback, team members may thus be more likely to make judgments about the feedback giver, rather than exploring which strategies could contribute most toward improving team performance (see also Parker et al, 2021).…”

Getting Ready for the Future, Is It Worth It? A Dual Pathway Model of Age and Technology Acceptance at Work

“…We focus on perceived processing speed difficulties and organization difficulties because previous research has shown how important these components are for successful aging at work (Cheung et al, 2019;G. G. Fisher et al, 2017;Parker et al, 2021)…”

Designing innovative jobs: a fuzzy-set configurational analysis of job characteristics

“…, 2007). Moreover, the execution of complex tasks facilitates the application of new knowledge, skills and abilities that are important for both the generation and implementation of new ideas (Amabile, 2012; Parker et al , 2021).…”

“…Job design represents the content and structure of work tasks, activities, relationships and responsibilities and it's an important device for human resource management to strategically shape working practices (Parker, 2014). Job design specifically can be utilized to create a supportive and stimulating work environment that enhances IWBs (Parker et al , 2021). Numerous studies have pointed out that specific job designs can have either direct or indirect effects on individual innovation and related constructs (e.g.…”