Page 102 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

developing the research agenda and a proposed model 81
Opportunity
In relation to individual performance, Blumberg and Pringle (1982) argued that mo-
tivation, knowledge, and skills are insufficient on their own, and that individuals also
need an opportunity to apply their knowledge, skill, and motivation. Opportunity can
be constrained by demarcations, tight supervision, technology, electronic performance
monitoring (which is essentially a combination of technology and tight supervision), and
other such features of the work environment and culture. Work enrichment can reduce or
remove these constraints, as suggested by the ‘quick response’ mechanism (Wall et al.,
1992). This term describes the situation in which employees have the opportunity, via
enhanced autonomy, to solve problems more quickly using their pre-existing knowledge
rather than having to wait for a supervisor or specialist. The more variances and uncer-
tainties there are to deal with, such as where there is advanced manufacturing technology,
the more important the quick response mechanism is likely to be (Walton & Susman,
1987).
We propose work design can also affect opportunity in another longer-term way: role
expansion. The idea is that work design can result in employees’ expanding their jobs—or
stretching the boundary of their jobs to include additional tasks and responsibilities—
thereby continually developing opportunity for applying their knowledge, skill, and
motivation. Other terms that have been used to express the concept of role expansion
include emergent roles (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1991), task revision (Staw & Boettger,
1990), job crafting (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), and role innovation (Van Maanen &
Schein, 1979). One possibility is that the process of role expansion might occur through
the mediating processes of knowledge, skill, and motivation. For example, enriched work
could lead to increased proactive motivation, such as greater role breadth self-efficacy,
which in turn leads individuals to take on more emergent task elements and craft a
broader role.

MODERATORS OF THE WORK DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP

The inconsistencies in research findings regarding the link between work design and
performance could be because work designs promote performance for some individuals,
or in some situations, but not in all cases. We now turn to explore this idea of individual
and organizational contingencies affecting work design–performance links.

Individual contingencies
The primary individual factor considered in relation to work design is growth need
strength (GNS). Meta-analytic reviews by Fried and Ferris (1987) and Spector (1985)
concluded that GNS moderated the relationship between work characteristics and
performance. However, Loher, Noe, Moeller, & Fitzgerald (1985) in their meta-analysis
found that GNS did not moderate the relationship between work characteristics and
performance. Since then, Oldham (1996) speculated that this inconsistency might have
arisen because the different reviews relied on different interpretations of GNS (e.g.,
Spector, 1985, included need for achievement and need for autonomy as proxies for
GNS). A further explanation of the inconsistencies is that GNS is important in some cir-
cumstances but not necessarily in others. For example, if work enrichment is expected to