Which core job characteristics affect experienced responsibility for work outcomes?

Core Characteristics

The Job Characteristics Theory (JCT), also referred to as Core Characteristics Model and developed by Hackman and Oldham, is widely used as a framework to study how particular job characteristics impact job outcomes, including job satisfaction. The theory states that there are five core job characteristics:

  1. Skill variety
  2. Task identity
  3. Task significance
  4. Autonomy
  5. Feedback

Each job has these characteristics to a greater or lesser extent. No one combination of characteristics makes for the ideal job; rather, it is the purpose of job design to adjust the levels of each characteristic to attune the overall job with the worker performing it. This alignment is important because the worker brings psychological states to bear upon the job that affect job outcomes when combined with the core characteristics.

Which core job characteristics affect experienced responsibility for work outcomes?

Motivating potential score

The Job Characteristics Theory uses this equation to estimate the overall motivation inherent in a job design based upon the five core characteristics.

Psychological States

The core characteristics affect three critical psychological states of the workers doing the job:

  1. Experienced meaningfulness
  2. Experienced responsibility for outcomes
  3. Knowledge of the actual results

The job characteristics directly derive the three states. Indeed, the first three characteristics (skill variety, task variety and task significance) pertain to the meaningfulness of the work. Autonomy directly correlates to responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of the actual results relates to feedback. Pictured as a process flow, the characteristics and psychological states operate in continuous feedback loop that allows employees to continue to be motivated by thoroughly owning and understanding the work in which they are involved.

Work Outcomes

The combination of core characteristics with psychological states influences work outcomes such as:

  • Job satisfaction
  • Absenteeism
  • Work motivation

Therefore, the goal should be to design the job in such a way that the core characteristics complement the psychological states of the worker and lead to positive outcomes. The five core job characteristics can be combined to form a motivating potential score for a job that can be used as an index of how likely a job is to affect an employee's attitudes and behaviors. Analyses of studies of the model provide some support for the validity of the Job Characteristics Theory.

  • Entry
  • Reader's guide
  • Entries A-Z
  • Subject index

Job Characteristics Theory

Job characteristics theory (JCT) attempts to explain how characteristics of the jobs people perform affect their work behavior and attitudes. In addition, the theory identifies the conditions under which these effects are likely to be strongest. The theory’s central management insight is that employee effectiveness can be enhanced by designing jobs with high levels of key characteristics and ensuring that employees with appropriate personal qualities are assigned to these jobs. In this entry, I present the basic elements of JCT and discuss its impact on management research, education, and practice.

Fundamentals

JCT posits that five characteristics of the work affect several outcomes via their effects on three psychological states of employees. In addition, the theory argues that these job characteristics have their strongest effects when employees score ...

locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Sign in

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Which core job characteristics affect experienced responsibility for work outcomes?

    Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life

  • Read modern, diverse business cases

  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

sign up today!

82.Which core job characteristic(s) affect(s) experienced responsibility forwork outcomes?A. Feedback from job and skillvarietyB. AutonomyC. Skill variety, task identity and tasksignificanceD. TaskidentityE. Tasksignificance

83._____ is the degree to which employees can tell how well they are doingon the basis of direct sensory information from the job itself.

Get answer to your question and much more

84.Which of the following directly contributes to a feeling of experiencedresponsibility among employees?

Get answer to your question and much more

85.Which of the following minimizes health risks from repetitive strain andheavy lifting because employees use different muscles and physicalpositions in the various jobs?

Get answer to your question and much more

86.Employees at CyberTech perform repetitive jobs that have resulted inboredom as well as repetitive strain injury. Technology makes it difficultto combine existing jobs, but the company wants to make employeesmore multiskilled. Which of the following would best help CyberTech toimprove this situation?A. Encourage employees to engage in mentalimagery.B. Introduce jobspecialization.C. Introduce a gainsharing plan for all productionemployees.D. Introduce jobrotation.E. Introduce job enrichment by having each employee produce theentire product rather than a small part of it.

87.Which of these job design actions is a form of job enlargement?

Get answer to your question and much more

88.Which of the following is the primary aspect of job enlargement?

Get answer to your question and much more

89.A video journalist's job consists of operating the camera, reporting thestory, and often editing the work, whereas these three tasks aretraditionally performed by three people. Video journalism is an exampleof:

Get answer to your question and much more

Upload your study docs or become a

Course Hero member to access this document

Upload your study docs or become a

Course Hero member to access this document

End of preview. Want to read all 123 pages?

Upload your study docs or become a

Course Hero member to access this document

Tags

Organizational studies and human resource management, Self leadership

What are the 5 core job characteristics?

The five core characteristics of job design are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. Including these characteristics in your jobs affects the following work-related outcomes — motivation, satisfaction, performance, absenteeism, and turnover.

Which of the following core job characteristics gives employees knowledge of the actual results of their work activities?

The correct option is b) feedback In the job characteristic model, the feedback helps to know the exact results of the work activities. The feedback helps to get a clear understanding of the information and ascertain the effectiveness of the performance of all the workers.

Which of the following core job characteristics contribute to the job meaningfulness?

The first three core job characteristics – skill variety, task identity and task significance – have a direct impact on the individual worker's experienced meaningfulness of work.

What are the 5 core job dimensions?

The five core job dimensions identified are autonomy, feedback, skill variety, task identity, and task significance. It is important to recognize the job characteristics and how they affect the employees' job satisfaction in an organization.