HOW JOBS MOTIVATE
| Pages | 4-12 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055227 |
| Date | 01 February 1973 |
| Published date | 01 February 1973 |
| Author | Robert Cooper |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Introduction
Like all social institutions, work undergoes periodic re-
definition. The definitive features of early industrial con-
ceptions of work were
(a) that it had no outcomes other than economic, and
(b) that its rationalized emasculation was the best or only
way of achieving
goals
of high output and low cost.
This view of course must be understood as a product of its
time.
Current views of work are more inclusive. We have, in the
first place, a developing body of theoretical knowledge on
man at work produced by behavioural science as well as a
more informed approach to the general problem of
managing organizations. In addition, wider social changes
are significantly modifying the ways in which we define
work. Economic affluence has led to a diminished concern
with satisfying basic needs, while improvements in the
extent and quality of education along with the erosion of
traditional authority are leading people to think increasingly
in terms of satisfying their higher-order needs, particularly
those of self-actualization and self-determination [1]. As a
result, we are beginning to ask much more from our
organizations; instead of us simply serving them, we want
to know how they can contribute to the quality of our
work experience and personal development. All these
movements have resulted in a shift of emphasis from the
extrinsic rewards of work to its intrinsic rewards.
ROBERT COOPER
Robert Cooper is Senior
Research
Fellow in
Organizational
Behaviour in the School of
Business
Studies, Liverpool
University.
He graduated in psychology at
Reading
University
and
later
obtained
a PhD
in Social and Industrial
Psychology from Liverpool University.
His current
research
is concerned with
organizational
development and he is studying the stimuli which aid the
creation
of 'vital systems' in
organizations:
that
is
work
systems which
can
react to the
pressures
of their
environment in a positive way, constantly
learning
and
developing as
a result of their
experiences.
He is
also
studying the
characteristics
of organizations and is
particularly interested in
intra-organizational boundaries
-
the discontinuities which
separate
one function from
another. He
is
applying the results of his
researches
to the
problems of a
large local
authority.
The contents of this
article are
developed in a new book:
Job Motivation and Job Design, shortly to be published by
the Institute of
Personnel
Management.
Overall, these changes have compelled us to look at jobs
from the viewpoint of the employee as well as that of the
organization. While earlier approaches to job design implied
a technology-determined view of human behaviour at work,
current views state that behaviour is a joint effect of
technology and human factors. From this it follows that
job behaviour can only be understood in terms of the
integration of the technological and the human aspects of
the job. The interdependent nature of the person-
technology relationship is brought out more clearly in the
definition of job design as the 'specification of the
contents, the methods and the relationships of jobs to
satisfy the requirements of the technology and organization
as well as the social and personal requirements of the job
holder' [2]. This definition also brings out the fact that
individual jobs are integral parts of the wider organization,
relating individual job holders to other roles in a patterned
structure of work flow and social communication. It also
implies that, in addition to performance, another important
individual outcome of work is satisfaction.
Job design, then, covers two distinct but related aspects of
work:
(a) Job Content, the activities which relate the individual
employee to the object or raw material undergoing trans-
formation, and
(b) Job Relationships, the pattern of activities (eg, inter-
dependence and cooperation) which connect individual jobs
to each other.
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