Page 105 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

84 work design and individual work performance
are to be successful in utilizing control to enhance performance, they are likely to need
a great deal of support and coaching in the early stages of the redesign. It is important
to investigate the effect of the implementation stage of the work redesign on the link
between work design, uncertainty, and performance.
In addition to interdependence and uncertainty, there are other organizational factors
that are likely to affect whether job redesign leads to enhanced performance. Some of
these factors pertain to the process of introducing work redesign, such as the extent to
which employees participate in the work redesign, the consideration given to various
stakeholders (e.g., supervisors, unions, middle managers), and the degree of leader sup-
port for the change initiative. For example, if there is insufficient support from senior
management for the work redesign, the so-called work redesign will have little or no
impact on job content and therefore will not affect outcomes (such as in the case of
‘pseudo-empowerment’). Although there is not a great deal of research investigating the
process of work design, one of the clearest messages to emerge on this topic is the impor-
tance of involving people who will be affected by the work redesign in its planning and
implementation (Davis & Wacker, 1987; Parker & Wall, 1998). A participative change
process can lead to greater acceptance and ownership of the work redesign and a higher
quality end solution (e.g., the work redesign is carried through for a reasonable trial
period). It is also consistent with the sociotechnical principle of compatibility; that is,
if the objectives of work redesign are to create a system capable of adapting to change
and using the creative capacities of people, then the design process should reflect this
(Cherns, 1976). There is some, albeit not much, evidence of the importance of partici-
pation in work redesign (Seeborg, 1978; Parker, Myers, & Wall, 1995). Generally, while
there is a vast literature on organizational change and how it should be managed, the
attention given to work redesign processes has been rather limited and researchers have
urged greater attention to this issue (e.g., Oldham, 1996).
Work redesign is typically considered a multi-system intervention in which changes to
multiple systems (control, human resources, technological, information systems) need to
be made in parallel with changes to work organization for it to be effective (e.g., Oldham
& Hackman, 1980; Parker & Wall, 1998). The delicacy with which parts of a system
interrelate is an organizational reality that is often conveniently ignored by work design
research reports. As such, a set of contingency factors vital to getting a more complete un-
derstanding of work redesign is the extent to which supporting changes are made, such as
providing employees with adequate training, designing appropriate reward systems, en-
suring necessary performance feedback systems, and providing adequate staffing levels.
If these wider systemic changes do not occur, this can inhibit the extent of real change
in job content or affect the degree to which enriched job content leads to performance
outcomes. As an example of the latter, if employees are given greater autonomy to make
decisions but they are not given adequate training to make informed decisions, then
the work redesign is likely to be ineffective and could even have detrimental conse-
quences for performance. Furthermore, if multiple elements of the larger system interfere
with one another (e.g., providing training for staff in the absence of sufficient staff to
cover employees attending that training), then the redesign becomes counter-productive
and employee resistance to further changes might result. Although the potential moder-
ating influence of these factors on the work design–performance link is highly plausible,
they have rarely been categorized or systematically investigated in the work design
literature.