Suchergebnisse

A naturally occurring field experiment of job change was conducted over a one-year period in three applied research and development organizations. The experimental group (n = 42) were those employees who had been promoted or assigned to a different job. Employees who had maintained the same job made up the nonequivalent control group (n = 166). Standardized change score analysis showed the job change group to have greater increases in performance, innovativeness, and job satisfaction, as well as a greater reduction in role ambiguity when compared to the nonequivalent control group. In addition, the job change group reported greater increases in the job characteristics of variety and task autonomy, as well as in the role requirements of integration and boundary-spanning activities. The importance of the results and the role of field experimentation are discussed.

Boundary-spanning activity was studied in a large manufacturing company through a sample of 192 managers, engineers, and supervisors. Contrary to prior theory and research, this study found boundary-spanning activity unrelated to role conflict or ambiguity and positively related to job satisfac-tion for the total sample. Boundary-spanning activity was also positively related to a number of job characteristics for the total sample. Marked dif-ferences in boundary-spanning activity and its relationships with other variables, however, were found across occupational levels. While managers and engineers generally had boundary-spanning activity related to high levels of job satisfaction and job characteristics, first-level supervisors had boundary-spanning activity related to higher role conflict and lower job satisfaction with opportunities for promotion.