The Influence of Employee Participation in Job Redesign

Seeborg, Irmtraud Streker

doi:10.1177/002188637801400110

Cited by 29 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Jackson's (1983) change was determined by her and involved "requiring [italics added] unit heads to hold scheduled staff meetings at least twice per month" (p. 7), as opposed to the previous practice of once per month or less. Many researchers (e.g., Cahill, Landsbergis, & Schnall, 1995;Parker, Myers, & Wall, 1995;Parker & Wall, 1998;Seeborg, 1978) note that the process of change is as, if not more, crucial than the change itself, and both should be consistent with each other. …”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction.

Bond¹,

Bunce²

2001

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

269

202

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This longitudinal, quasi-experiment tested whether or not a work reorganization intervention can improve stress-related outcomes by increasing people's job control. To this end, the authors used a participative action research (PAR) intervention that had the goal of reorganizing work, so as to increase the extent to which people had discretion and choice in their work. Results indicated that the PAR intervention significantly improved people's mental health, sickness absence rates, and self-rated performance at a 1-year follow-up. Consistent with occupational health psychology theories, increase in job control served as the mechanism, or mediator, by which these improvements occurred. Discussion focuses on the need to understand the mechanisms by which work reorganization interventions affect change. Job control 3Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction For years, occupational health psychologists have advocated modifying aspects of the work environment that are associated with mental ill-health (e.g., Bunce & West, 1996;Ivancevich, Matteson, Freedman, & Phillips, 1990;Newman & Beehr, 1979;Murphy, 1984;Quick, Quick, Nelson, & Hurrell, 1997). These environmental risk factors arise from (unhelpful) ways in which work is organized. Work organization refers to the scheduling of work, job structure and design, interpersonal aspects of work, and management style (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH], 1996). In the context of occupational health psychology, work reorganization denotes interventions that change work organization variables, in an effort to alleviate stress-related outcomes, such as mental ill-health, job dissatisfaction, sickness absence, and poor work performance. Largely, the wide-ranging call for the use of work reorganization to improve these outcomes has gone unanswered or the responses have been incomplete (e.g., NIOSH, 1996). In particular, there is a lack of methodologically sound, empirical research that has investigated this strategy for reducing and preventing mental illhealth. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which these interventions improve stress-related outcomes have not been investigated, using commonly recommended, rigorous, procedures (see Barnett, Gareis, & Brennan, 1999;Baron & Kenny, 1986;Kenny, 1998).Occupational health psychology theories posit a number of work characteristics by which work reorganization interventions may improve stress-related outcomes (see Parker & Wall, 1998). The one that is identified most ubiquitously appears to be job control, or the extent to which people have discretion and choice in their work. The primary goal of the 12-month, longitudinal, quasi-experiment described here was to determine in a rigorous manner whether a work reorganization intervention can actually improve stress-related outcomes by increasing Job control 4 people's job control. We sought to do this within the context of our second objective, which was to examine the effectiveness of this type of intervention...

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mentioning

confidence: 97%

Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction.

Bond¹,

Bunce²

2001

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

269

202

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…don't have as much access to a fundamental change) will have less positive feelings about it. Similarly, the participation literature has found that those who have not participated in change have worse strain compared to those who have been involved (Parker, Wall, & Myers, 1995;Seeborg, 1978). As actual experience of change provides much more direct and detailed information about its nature, it is likely to help to create realistic expectations and, assuming the particular change is not too threatening, address the recipients' anxieties about such change (Mohrman & Mohrman, 1993;Venkatesh, Morris, & Ackerman, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Familiarity breeds content: The impact of exposure to change on employee openness and well‐being

Axtell

Wall

Stride

et al. 2002

J Occupat & Organ Psyc

117

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This article describes a longitudinal study of how openness to change, job satisfaction, anxiety and depression are affected by exposure to a change situation-in this case, the implementation of new technology and work practices. Measures were taken before the change was fully implemented and again several months later. Employees fell into two groups: those with high exposure to the change and those with low exposure. Longitudinal analysis revealed that greater exposure was directly related to subsequent improvements in openness to change for operational employees, but not for managers and engineers. Exposure was associated with improvements in job satisfaction and depression, irrespective of job type. The effect on job satisfaction, however, could be accounted for by the increased job complexity experienced on the new technology rather than exposure to change per se. Although the impact of exposure on depression became non-signi cant after controlling for job complexity, the result was marginal. Implications of the role of exposure in the management of change are discussed.To remain competitive, organizations need to respond to the challenges and opportunities afforded by new technologies and ways of working. It is commonly argued that the rate of such change is increasing (e.g. Conner, 1992;Wanberg & Banas, 2000). Certainly, it is clear that organizations have been taking on board a wide range of initiatives and that they plan to do so even more in the future (Clegg et al., in press;Waterson et al., 1999), even though success is often only modest. However, research also reveals that organizations are more likely to undertake changes of the kind they have experienced before (Kelly & Amburgey, 1991), possibly because earlier experience promotes openness to future changes. If this assumption is correct, it has considerable implications for change management strategy. For this reason, the current study examined the impact of exposure to a particular change on employee openness to changes of the same nature, as well as how exposure affects related well-being outcomes.

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“…Seeborg (1978) found that employee satisfaction was greater when workers participated in the redesign of their jobs than when they did not. Griffeth (1985), in contrast, found that participating in job redesign added little to the effects of the redesigned jobs on job satisfaction.…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 98%

Employee Involvement and Organizational Citizenship: Implications for Labor Law Reform and “Lean Production#x201D;

Cappelli¹,

Rogovsky²

1998

ILR Review

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Using data from surveys of employees and their supervisors in eight companies in 1992, the authors examine how each of two forms of employee involvement affected an important dimension of individual performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), defined as individual discretionary behavior that promotes the organization and is not explicitly rewarded. Involvement in work organization increased OCB both indirectly, by changing the job characteristics of individual tasks, and directly, independent of such changes. In contrast, involvement in decisions governing employment practices had only small indirect effects on OCB and no direct effect. These results inform the contemporary debate in labor law concerning the appropriate scope for employee involvement plans as well as the debate about the mechanism through which new production systems affect employee performance.

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The Influence of Employee Participation in Job Redesign

Cited by 29 publications

References 8 publications

Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction.

Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction.

Familiarity breeds content: The impact of exposure to change on employee openness and well‐being

Employee Involvement and Organizational Citizenship: Implications for Labor Law Reform and “Lean Production#x201D;

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