Page 98 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

developing the research agenda and a proposed model 77
researchers attributed these system improvements to an increase in operator knowledge
and felt production responsibility, rather than intrinsic motivation, which did not change
throughout the study period. Most recently, Leach, Wall, and Jackson (2000) demon-
strated in the same empowerment intervention context that increases in self-efficacy and
job knowledge occurred to a greater extent among novices than among expert employees.
A similar pattern of results is found in the broader psychological empowerment lit-
erature. Recent research suggests that certain elements of psychological empowerment
such as competence (Spreitzer, Kizilos, & Nason, 1997), self-efficacy (Stajkovic &
Luthans, 1998), and impact (Spreitzer et al., 1997) are positively associated with higher
performance. However, the relationship between job content, psychological empower-
ment, and performance is less clear cut. Although Liden et al. (2000) also found that
competence was related to higher individual performance, their hypothesis that the job
characteristics–performance relationship was mediated by empowerment did not hold.
Rather, they found that high-quality relationships between coworkers complemented the
role of competence as a determinant of enhanced individual performance. From a work
design and performance perspective, results like this indicate that joint consideration of
the social and technical dimensions of work is needed before considering the extent to
which work design alone contributes to performance.
In summary, there is evidence to suggest that work design can result in enhanced
job performance, although the picture remains far from clear. Interestingly, the clearest
results come from the more rigorous studies outlined above, which suggest that method-
ological inadequacies of recent study might contribute to this confusion. The inconsistent
findings probably also reflect the fact that the link between work design and performance
is both indirect and contingent, as findings from the recent psychological empowerment
literature suggest. We expand these latter arguments below.

DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH AGENDA AND A PROPOSED MODEL

We propose that there are three important ways of helping to unscramble the relationship
between work design and individual job performance: identifying why work design
affects performance outcomes (i.e., considering mechanisms); investigating individual
andorganizationalcontingenciesthatmitigateorstrengthenthelinkbetweenworkdesign
and performance (i.e., considering moderators); and expanding the criterion of individual
work performance. We address each of these in turn, and then make methodological
suggestions to help to progress research along these avenues.

MECHANISMS BY WHICH WORK DESIGN AFFECTS PERFORMANCE

Work design is proposed to affect performance via particular mechanisms, and it is es-
sential to specify and test these mechanisms if we are to better our understanding on
this topic. As Kelly (1992, p. 154) claimed: “any evaluation of a job re-design theory
must ... seek to establish whether any observed improvements have actually been pro-
duced by these mechanisms, rather than by other factors not specified by theory.”
To date, various mechanisms by which work design might affect performance have
been proposed. However, as we have pointed out, little effort has been made to link
these mechanisms systematically to the known determinants of job performance, such