Chapter 5

Question 1

What do quantitative demands relate to?

Answer 1

The amount and pace of work

Question 2

What do qualitative demands relate to?

Answer 2

Pertain to the type of skills and/or effort needed in order to perform work tasks (e.g., cognitive, emotional, or physical skills)

Question 3

Why are long working hours and overtime considered as possible indicators of quantitative job demands, but not as defining characteristics?

Answer 3

For some workers, long hours and overtime are not stressful -> workers of passive jobs

Question 4

Explain the concept of failing job control.

Answer 4

Most workers don’t like work pressure and overload and will try to avoid these components by executing job control. However, they might fail in this.

Question 5

Definition of quantitative job demands.

Answer 5

Constitute those elements of the work environment that concern the amount and speed of work to be performed, and require physical and/or psychological efforts.

Question 6

Two important groups of factors influence the quantitative job demands, what are these groups?

Answer 6

• External organizational factors

- Internal organizational factors

Question 7

What are the 4 external organizational factors that influence quantitative job demands?

Answer 7

• The degree of uncertainty in the environment of the organization (e.g., competition between firms)
• The legal and political institutions (e.g., the number of working hours per week considered acceptable)
• The labour market (shortages on e.g., knowledge and skills influence the job demands)
• Technological innovations (work-life barrier is less clear)

Question 8

What are the 3 internal organizational factors that influence quantitative job demands?

Answer 8

• Management style
• Managerial practices and innovations (e.g., JIT management may require a lot from employees)
• HRM department -> type of payment and reward system, training and development + recruitment and selection, performance appraisal and feedback

Question 9

Research by Wiezer, Smulders & Neleman found a lot of factors contributing to a high level of quantitative job demands, which factor was according to them the most important predictor?

Answer 9

Unattractive working conditions

Question 10

How is the level of quantitative job demands in an organization determined?

Answer 10

The way in which the external and internal organizational factors are combined in the work system.

Question 11

What are high performance work systems?

Answer 11

The combination of internal and external organizational factors may lead to high performance work systems. These are systems that have organizations implement a series of organizational and HRM practices in such a way that they are expected to lead to work intensification.

Question 12

Explain the Yerkes-Dodson Law

Answer 12

There is a U-shaped relationship between the level of activation generated by the demands in the task and the quality of performance by the worker. Below the optimal level of activation, workers will feel bored. Above the optimal level of activation, people are highly activated and their main problem is to manage their tension levels.

Question 13

Employees can come into a fatigue-like state, explain this state.

Answer 13

If employees are under-stimulated, symptoms such as reduced vigilance, low concentration, and boredom can occur. These workers look fatigued when they are actually not. When a new stimulus is offered, the symptoms disappear immediately.

Question 14

What are the long-term effects of high quantitative job demands?

Answer 14

The body is experiencing more strain and there is a carry-over from the activation during task performance to the hours after work. This sustained activation over longer periods of time in combination with insufficient recovery leads to the accumulation of fatigue-based symptoms.

Question 15

Individual characteristics may act as moderators for high job demands, what are these 3 different characteristics?

Answer 15

• The workers’ abilities -> if the workers’ abilities are too low to meet the job demands, till will lead to strain
• Psychological capital -> how well can a person deal with the quantitative job demands
• Private life circumstances -> carry-over from private life to work life could limit a worker’s capability of dealing with the quantitative job demands

Question 16

How can we measure quantitative job demands?

Answer 16

• Objective measurement

- Subjective measurement

Question 17

Explain the objective measurement approach which is used to measure quantitative job demands

Answer 17

Measuring the amount and speed of work that are completely independent from any personal standards on behalf of the workers that perform the task. E.g., the amount of people served per time unit and the number of transactions made per time unit.

Question 18

What are the limitations in using objective measures to measure quantitative job demands?

Answer 18

• It is hard to eliminate the personal element completely
• It is not always easy to define objective demands
• Objective job demands are strongly context dependent

Question 19

Explain the subjective measurement approach which is used to measure quantitative job demands

Answer 19

The focus is on how workers themselves or other raters perceive and evaluate the level of quantitative demands in a job. This can be done via self-rated measures (employee interview/survey) and other-rater systems.

Question 20

Why do people’s perceptions of subjective job demands differ from each other?

Answer 20

• Performance cues may influence perceptions of the amount of job demands
• People are susceptive to the social information they get from their immediate colleagues etc. about their demand levels
• Individual differences in how you perceive the world
• Attitude and mood during job performance play a role in the assessment of a specific work characteristic

Question 21

When looking at quantitative job demands in practice, we can focus on two routes, which routes are there?

Answer 21

• Focus on the person

- Focus on work

Question 22

Looking at the quantitative job demands in practice, how does focusing on the person work?

Answer 22

Fitting the person to his/her job. Focuses on selection, training and performance.

Question 23

Looking at the quantitative job demands in practice, how does focusing on work work?

Answer 23

Fitting the job to the person, focuses on job and workplace (re)design and improving psychosocial working conditions in the general workplace. For instance: improving ergonomics, jobs with variety, control and feedback, avoid extremely high effort levels in jobs, etc.