4. Making work better

Question 1

Campion - Ob #1 work design influences multiple outcomes

Answer 1

Mechanistic, motivational, perceptual, biological

Question 2

Campion - Ob #2 trade-offs between different work-design approaches

Answer 2

compromise approach, level-separation approach, sequential approach, synthesis approach & team approach, socio-technical systems approach.

Question 3

Campion - Ob #3 difficulty in choosing an appropriate unit of analysis

Answer 3

job level of analysis, duty level of analysis, task level or task cluster level

Question 4

Campion - Ob #4 difficult to predict the nature of a job before it exists

Answer 4

why knowledge of individual components may prove insufficient for predicting the new job as a whole

Question 5

Campion - Ob #5 individual differences complicate job redesign

Answer 5

early moderator research, growth need strength, other moderators

Question 6

Campion - Ob #6 job enlargement can occur without job enrichment

Answer 6

job enrichment, job enlargement, horizontal enlargement and job engorgement

Question 7

Campion - Ob #7 new jobs need to be created as part of growth or downsizing

Answer 7

growth, uncoupling, unstacking, segmenting, emergent jobs, opportunistic hiring + contracttion

Question 8

Campion - Ob #8 long-term effects may differ from short-term effects

Answer 8

short-term and long-terms effects for several reasons

Question 9

Kompier - Job characteristics model

Question 10

Kompier - michigan orga stress model

Question 11

Kompier - job demands control model

Question 12

Kompier - sociotechnical approach

Question 13

Kompier - action-theoretical approach

Question 14

Kompier - effort-reward imbalance model

Question 15

Kompier - vitamin model

Question 16

Fullagar - flow

Answer 16

the experience of working at full capacity, with intense engagement and effortless action, where personal skills match required challenges. it is regarded as an ‘optimal experience’ to such an extent that the two terms are often used interchangeably.

Question 17

Fullagar - skill variety

Answer 17

the degree to which the job required different activities and skills to carry out the task

Question 18

Fullagar - task identity

Answer 18

the extent to which the job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.

Question 19

Fullagar - task significance

Answer 19

indicates the degree to which the job has a meaningful impact on other people

Question 20

Fullagar - hedonic approaches

Answer 20

pleasure-based and define well-being in terms of the presence of pleasure and absence of pain

Question 21

Fullagar - eudaemonic approaches

Answer 21

emphasize optimal functioning and personal expressiveness

Question 22

Fullagar - study purpose

Answer 22

examination of the relationship between flow, task characteristics and hedonic well-being.

Question 23

Fullagar - results H1

Answer 23

• The results suggest that flow varies considerably from situation to situation and that it behaves predominantly like a state construct.
• The lagged flow was found to be a significant predictor of momentary flow, but mood was serially independent of its lagged effect.

Question 24

Fullagar - results H2

Answer 24

• These tests indicated that both skill variety and autonomy were significant predictors of between-group variance in flow after controlling for serial dependence effects.
• Neither feedback, task significance nor task identity were significant predictors.

Question 25

Fullagar - results H3

Answer 25

• Results tended to support the hypothesis that momentary flow was associated with momentary positive mood. The causal direction of the relationship between flow and mood was measured using lagged measures of mood and flow, respectively.
• Results suggested that lagged flow was predictive of mood, and that lagged mood was not associated with later flow.

Question 26

Fullagar - discussion

Answer 26

The results suggested that both within-individual and between-individual variance comprised flow with the former accounting for 74% of the total variance.
- Thus, flow has both state and trait components with the former predominating.
- Skill variety and autonomy are the two job characteristics that make unique independent
contributions to the predictions of flow
- Experience of flow preceded changes in mood

Question 27

Fullagar - implications

Answer 27

1. In the particular context of the workplace, the results suggests that tasks can be designed to
   enhance the likelihood of experiencing flow.
2. Organizations wishing to enhance employees’ experience of, or likelihood of experiencing
   flow, are well-advised to design tasks that incorporate these elements of skill variety and autonomy. The current findings suggest that engaging in tasks that require complex skills, resolving challenging problems and expressing creativity leads to the experience of flow.
3. Providing work that is high in autonomy and skill variety is more likely to induce flow which is likely to have beneficial consequences for the organization. Flow has been found to be positively associated with optimal functioning, specifically with both in-role and extra-role performance.

Question 28

Fullagar - conclusion

Answer 28

Flow is construct that is at the center of the positive psychology movement
- POB (positive orga behavior) = the study an application of positively oriented human
resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement.
Flow has the potential to be a meaning positive psychological construct that mediates the
relationship between certain core characteristics of work and well-being.

Question 29

VDL -

Question 30

Sonnentag - results

Answer 30

o Taken together, perceived prosocial impact predicted activated and deactivated positive affect at bedtime; the association between perceived prosocial impact and activated affect at bedtime was mediated by positive work reflection during after- work hours; and the association between perceived prosocial impact and deactivated affect at bedtime was mediated by perceived competence.

Question 31

Sonnentag - discussion

Answer 31

• First, the day-level study demonstrates that the experience of prosocial impact at work is associated with positive work reflection, as well as higher perceived competence, and predicts positive affect at home.
• Second, the research begins to illuminate the timing and mediating mechanisms for the spill- over of perceived prosocial impact to affect at home. Interestingly, the study found that perceived prosocial impact predicted positive affect at bedtime but not at the end of the working day.
• Third, this study extends beyond research showing that mentally detaching from work is associated with improved affective states at home.
• Finally, the authors moved research on prosocial impact forward by adopting a day-level, within-person perspective.
  Mediators: Whereas positive work reflection predicted activated positive affect, perceived competence predicted deactivated positive affect.
• This finding suggests that positively reflecting about the past day at work has an energizing component, perhaps because it draws employees’ attention to what they like about their jobs. Perceived competence, however, was related to deactivated positive affect in this sample.
  o One explanation for this finding is that perceived competence alleviates anxiety, thereby enabling employees to feel greater calm and serenity.

Question 32

Sonnentag - implications

Answer 32

• Supervisors may wish to emphasize employees’ prosocial impact by acknowledging their contributions to other people’s lives and well-being and providing them with direct access to feedback. Particularly after stressful
• days, supervisors may wish to talk briefly to their employees to make them aware of their contributions during the specific day.
• Similarly, supervisors may want to encourage team members to support each other by appreciating their day-specific acts of benefiting others.
• Moreover, organizational training and coaching programs may want to emphasize the importance of perceived prosocial impact.
o For instance, training programs could teach employees how to build daily routines of deliberately thinking about how they made a difference during the past working day.
In addition, organizations may work toward building cultures in which daily acts of benefiting others are appreciated and rewarded as small wins.

Question 33

Tonin - warm glow altruism

Answer 33

the worker derives direct not money related benefits from the act of contributing to a cause she cares about

Question 34

Tonin - pure altruism

Answer 34

the workers is concerned about the actual impact of her actions on the well-being of others

Question 35

Tonin - results

Answer 35

The first thing to notice is that in all treatments it appears that there is an increase in average productivity between the first and the second session.
Despite a relatively simple task some learning is taking place: in the second session students are more familiar with the environment and the requirements of the job.
This underlines the importance of having a baseline treatment to control for all factors affecting productivity changes between the two sessions other than nonpecuniary compensation.
- The results suggests that warm glow is motivating female subjects to work harder, while the study found no evidence of pure altruism having any impact on productivity.
- For men the study did not find evidence of a significant effect.

Question 36

Tonin - conclusions

Answer 36

The results underline the importance of warm glow motivation in the workplace, as it accounts for an increase in effort provision that is both statistically and economically significant.
- On the other hand, the study did not not find any evidence of purely altruistic motivation.
o In particular, in the current sample, pro-social behaviour is displayed by women, but
not by men.

Question 37

Herzberg - negative physical KITa

Answer 37

This is a literal application of the term and was frequently used in the past. It has, however, three major drawbacks: 1) It is inelegant; 2) it contradicts the precious image of benevolence that most organizations cherish; and 3) since it is a physical attack, it directly stimulates the autonomic nervous system, and this often results in negative feedback-the employee may just kick you in return

Question 38

Herzberg - negative psychological KITA

Answer 38

Now, what does negative KITA accomplish? If I kick you in the rear (physically or psychologically), who is motivated? I am motivated; you move! Negative KITA does not lead to motivation, but to movement. Therefore, positive KITA should be used.

Question 39

Herzberg - positive KITA

Answer 39

When the industry wishes to use such positive KITAs (rewarding its employees like rewarding a dog with a biscuit), it has available an incredible number and variety of dog biscuits (jelly beans for humans) to wave in front of employees to get them to jump.