REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2352560?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
The Journal of Business
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
William E. Gallagher, Jr., and
Hillel J. Einhorn*
t This research was supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. We would
like to thank Kenneth Friend and L. Richard Hoffman for their comments on this
manuscript.
1. Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co., 1960).
358
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
359 Motivation Theory and Job Design
JOB DESIGNS
Job design has been defined as the "specification of the contents, methods,
and relationship of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational
requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job
holder."4 Design by job specialization (the general thrust of U.S. work-
management theory through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries)
concentiated exclusively on the "technological and organizational require-
ments" of employment. In their neglect of workers' social and ego-related
needs (needs that have been strongly related to work performance beginning
with the Hawthorne studies of Elton Mayo), proponents of specialization
have been accused of fostering negative effect toward work.
Two broad categories of job design have evolved that are aimed at
engaging the motivational forces of workers' egoistic needs through the
2. Chris Argyris, Integrating the Individual and the Organization (New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1964); Frederick Herzberg, Work and the Nature of Man (Cleveland: World
Publishing Co., 1966), Rensis Likert, The Human Organization: Its Management and Value
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967); R. Hackman and E. Lawler, "Conditions
under Which Jobs Facilitate Internal Motivation," in Design of Jobs, ed. L. E. Davis and
J. C. Taylor (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972); Edward Lawler, "Job Design and Em-
ployee Motivation," in Management and Motivation, ed. V. Vroom and E. Deci (Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1973).
3. "Disassembling the Line," Time (January 17, 1972), p. 58.
4. Harold F. M. Rush, Job Design for Motivation (New York: The Conference
Board, 1971), p. 5.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
360 The Journal of Business
MOTIVATION-THEORY BACKGROUND
Job design has been a topic of concern for many years. The early efforts of
scientific management (making use of time and motion studies) to redesign
jobs are the most obvious example. However, current efforts at job design
have moved from the concern for time and motion to a consideration of the
methods that make more efficient use of worker motivation. It must be
pointed out that attempts to redesign jobs to enlist greater motivation did
not proceed in an orderly fashion from theory to practice. Practitioners have
tried various methods for increasing productivity through motivation with-
out full awareness of the motivational principles underlying their methods.
Nevertheless, implicit assumptions about motivation were (and are) being
made. These assumptions need to be explicitly considered so that they can
be examined critically and their links to practical applications examined.
5. Ibid., p. 12
6. Fredrick Herzberg, "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?" in
Davis and Taylor, p. 118.
7. P. Schoderbek and W. Rief, Job Enlargement (Ann Arbor: University of Michi-
gan Press, 1969), p. 8.
8. Rush, p. 13.
9. Ibid.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
361 Motivation Theory and Job Design
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
362 The Journal of Business
With the inclusion of this fifth need level, Maslow sets out a distinc-
tion crucial for new employment-motivation theories. The lower-order
deficit needs cease to be motivators upon the attainment of a sufficient level
of satisfaction (not explicitly defined in the theory); motive strength is
directly related to insufficiently fulfilled needs. But the attainment of the
self-actualization level introduces a new form of incentive, since actualiza-
tion needs grow, rather than encounter gratification by tension reduction.
Maslow's postulation of a hierarchical need structure is appealing in
its simplicity and apparent completeness. But his theory has been subject
to criticism due to unclear conceptual issues and lack of empirical evidence.
Questions concerning the rigidity of his hierarchy and the prepotence
of lower-level needs are raised when instances are cited of persons display-
ing the ability to attend to higher-level needs when lower deficits are clearly
not being met (as in the case of obsessive creativity, a growth-related activ-
ity, being pursued at the expense of sleep, eating, and other daily mainte-
nance needs). Maslow's failure to detail the basic processes through which
growth and deficiency needs differ serves as another foundation for skepti-
cism. He attributes to deficit needs a relief mechanism whereby satiation is
followed by a relaxation which suspends further motivating pressure; to
growth needs he assigns the quality of developing a need drive, with the
motivated behavior itself constituting the goal and an ecstasy or serenity
state accompanying the full function of one's powers. But his interesting
dichotomy does not explain the underlying mechanism differentiating the
two types of needs.
To these examples of conceptual criticism only limited empirical sup-
port for the Maslow hierarchy may be added. The prepotence of the lower
two need levels is fairly well supported by human and animal experimenta-
tion." However, conclusive evidence on prepotence is lacking for the higher
need levels. A direct test of the operation of the Maslow theory conducted
by Hall and Nougaim found a low correlation between lower-level need
satisfaction and higher-level need strength,'2 thus failing to support the posi-
tion that greater lower-level gratification should be associated with increased
need strength at the higher stage. The Maslow theory does gain some sup-
port in work by Alderfer,'3 who condensed the five hierarchy levels into three
need stages-existence, relatedness, and growth. He established a link
between the satisfaction of existence needs and the strength of relatedness
needs, but his data did not support a hypothesized relationship between the
potency of growth needs and gratification at the lower levels. Alderfer did,
however, find results supportive of the position that growth needs tend to
increase in strength upon fulfillment, while the lower (deficit) needs lose
potency by gratification.
11. C. N. Cofer and M. H. Appley, Motivation: Theory and Research (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1967), pp. 681-90.
12. D. Hall and K. Nougaim, "An Examination of Maslow's Need Hierarchy in an
Organizational Setting," Organizational Behavior and Human Performances 3 (1968): 12-35.
13. Clayton Alderfer, "An Empirical Test of a New Theory of Human Needs,"
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 4 (1969): 142-75.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
363 Motivation Theory and Job Design
ROLE OF REWARD
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
364 The Journal of Business
mance theory of Porter and Lawler."5 Deci's efforts concern the matter of how
rewards from different sources interact-whether one causes a complemen-
tary or derogatory influence on the other in motivating behavior. His labora-
tory work discerns two such interactions: extrinsic rewards of money and
threats of punishment (a negative reinforcement) decrease intrinsic motiva-
tion, while verbal praise and similar positive external reinforcement increase
intrinsic reward. Deci attempts to account for these findings by distinguish-
ing between controlling and feedback rewards. Money and threats are con-
trolling in the sense that they become the reason for behavior, their presence
shifts the locus of causality from within the agent to the source of the
external reward. A feedback factor such as verbal praise is considered to
augment an internal-motivation orientation by reinforcing the competence
and self-determination reactions that arise upon task completion. In his
analysis, Deci proposes that intrinsic motivators are the more advantageous
in that (1) they are operative without any external maintenance and (2),
along with those extrinsic reward contingencies that feed back into them,
they help to continue a sense of self-esteem and personal worth. He further
cites Maslow's argument that internal-reward processes result in less anxiety,
thus being more conducive to mental health than external-reward systems.
Porter and Lawler attend to the relative strength of intrinsic/extrinsic
reward in their attempt to delineate the factors determining performance in
a job. Their model, a combination of the subjective expected utility orienta-
tion (much drawn from Vroom)'6 with need-gratification theory, combines a
worker's utility of job rewards with a perceived reward/effort conditional
probability to determine the amount of effort devoted to a task. (This
reward/effort conditional probability is recognized to consist of two dis-
tinguishable components: a performance/effort conditional probability, fol-
lowed by a reward/performance conditional probability.) This effort is then
combined with the worker's individual task abilities and role perceptions to
establish a level of job performance. The model further stipulates that the
reception of rewards after task completion (1) feeds back to modify the per-
ceived reward/effort conditional probability, and (2) determines, when com-
pared with the worker's judgment of an equitable reward for his efforts, the
degree of satisfaction derived from his performance. (This satisfaction, or
discontent, then feeds back to influence the utility of reward.) In order to
positively affect employee motivation, Porter and Lawler feel that modifica-
tions of job characteristics must improve either an employee's evaluation of
rewards and/or his perceived probability that rewards are determined by
high levels of effort.
Porter and Lawler focus upon the latter relationship, asserting that
particular changes in job content can have a positive effect on job motiva-
tion by influencing the perceived probability that good performance will
15. Edward Deci, "Work-Who Does Not Like It and Why," Psychology Today 2
(August 1972): 57; L. Porter and E. Lawler, Managerial Attitudes and Performance (Home-
wood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1968).
16. Victor Vroom, Work and Motivation (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964).
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
365 Motivation Theory and Job Design
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
366 The Journal of Business
20. F. Mann and L. R. Hoffman, Automation and the Worker (New York: Henry
Holt & Co., 1960), chap. 3.
21. William E. Scott, Jr., "Activation Theory and Task Design," Organizational
Behavior and Human Performance 1 (1966): 3-30.
22. D. Hall and E. Lawler, "Job Design and Job Pressures as Facilitators of Pro-
fessional-Organization Administration," Administrative Science Quarterly 15 (1970): 271-
81.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
367 Motivation Theory and Job Design
EVIDENCE
23. See also A. H. Brayfield and W. H. Crocket, "Employee Attitudes and Em-
ployee Performance," Psychological Bulletin 52 (1955): 396-424.
24. Vroom, pp. 181-86.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
368 The Journal of Business
JOB ENLARGEMENT
A recent review by Lawler concludes that, while job enlargement has tended
to increase job satisfaction, none of the studies served to show that enlarge-
ment tends to increase either productivity or work quality.25 This tends to
reinforce Herzberg's statement that ". . . this activity merely enlarges the
meaninglessness of the job."26 However, the concept of job enlargement is
not without support on the output dimension. The PPG Industries initiated
an enlargement program during 1969 in a fiberglass manufacturing plant,
focusing the redesign effort on a yarn-producing operation that had been
experiencing losses in operating efficiency.27 Enlargement alterations com-
bined the production and machine-maintenance tasks, eliminating an occu-
pational category. The company expressed satisfaction with the new system,
reporting a 12 percent increase in productivity and evidence of increased
worker job satisfaction.
Further support comes from the work of Schoderbek and Rief.28 They
begin by citing two early attempts at horizontal loading that proved satis-
factory for the innovative companies-an IBM plant (1944)29 and an experi-
ment in the Detroit Edison Company in the 1950s.30 The IBM experience
involved broadening the highly specialized function of the company machin-
ists to include tool refurbishing and machine set-up with the core job of
machine operation. While the enlarged jobs were found to entail increased
costs (wages and equipment), IBM found these expenses more than offset
by benefits of higher-quality production, less idle time, increased job satis-
faction, and elimination of subsequently unnecessary positions. The Detroit
case concerned the enlargement of clerk and maintenance operations (addi-
tional design changes in supervisory positions were more related to enrich-
ment programs), again involving an increase in the variety of tasks per-
formed by individuals to reduce the current job specialization. In both
efforts the firm claimed the benefits of reduced operating costs, fewer ab-
sences, and increased productivity plus the elimination of duplicated opera-
tions and of wasted time.
Schoderbek and Rief proceed to detail their own survey of the use of
enlargement in industry, taking a sample of 210 companies (industrial, insur-
ance, transportation, and utility) for analysis. Initially they found that 169
of their sample did not employ job-enlargement designs, 150 of these never
having considered the adoption of such a program (only six of these com-
panies indicated experiencing detrimental effects from the inauguration of
horizontal loading systems, leading to termination of the attempts). In
analyzing the responses of the 41 companies operating enlargement pro-
grams, the authors point out the major advantages claimed for the designs
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
369 Motivation Theory and Job Design
by the firms: increased job satisfaction, reduced costs, increased quality and
quantity of output, and decreased monotony; overcoming worker resistance
to change, and the incapability of some individuals to grow with the job
were cited as the main problems with enlargement. In determining the
amount of success realized in using enlargement plans, four criteria were
specified-contribution to profit, improved employee attitude, output qual-
ity, output quantity (profit was most often ranked first in importance by
the firms). Considering these indices, none of the 41 firms rated their enlarge-
ment experience as "unsatisfactory"; 10 did not respond here, while 12 found
the design to produce satisfactory returns, 15 reported moderately success-
ful, and four very successful results. Schoderbek and Rief propose that these
satisfaction differences would be a function of individual-firm differences in
such factors as comprehension in planning, initial application of new work
techniques, the capabilities of those involved in renovating the job design,
and worker resistance to change. But they contend that the evidence of firm
satisfaction discovered in their survey would indicate job enlargement to be
a valuable tool in positively affecting worker motivation.
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
370 The Journal of Business
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
371 Motivation Theory and Job Design
holding pay constant for all, contributed to this curvilinear effect). In order
to solidify the importance of the enriching technique, Maher in a subsequent
study tested the removal of discretion and content from experimental tasks
(job shrinkage); he found that those workers who lost on these dimensions
ultimately performed significantly worse than did those who remained in
enriched positions throughout the investigation.
The studies reported above demonstrate the mixed nature of the results
encountered by enrichment and enlargement plans in various field trials.
Recognizing that these designs have achieved at least partial success, it
would seem most fruitful at this point to highlight important conceptual
issues to a job-redesign decision: What points should a manager be aware of
when he contemplates the implementation of enlargement or enrichment
changes in the jobs he supervises?
A major factor bearing on the success of any proposed job design con-
cerns the definition of success-whether the emphasis is on quantity pro-
duced or on quality. Performance increments seem more strongly related to
job redesign when a quality index is used. A summary of evidence on this
has been presented by Lawler,3" encompassing 10 studies (1950-66) which
involved the manipulation of job content along both the horizontal and
vertical dimensions. Each of the 10 studies discovered that enrichment re-
sulted in higher-quality work, while only four of the same investigations
registered gains in output quantity.
Lawler attempted to account for the more significant link between job
design and quality of production with two explanations: (1) High quality in
output would be an indispensable condition allowing the realization of suc-
cess to generate such intrinsic rewards as feelings of accomplishment and
self-actualization. But the necessity of greater quantity here is less clear;
Lawler considers it unlikely that an individual must produce greater mea-
sures of 'a product or service in order to feel he has done well. (2) Enrichment
(and enlargement) designs most often require workers to put forth more
effort to produce in amounts equal to preenrichment levels. Despite design
factors inducing greater work effort, due to the acceptance of more tasks and
control functions this increased effort may fall short of earlier standards, at
least in the short-run adjustment period (demonstrated by several job-
design studies). Lawler feels this problem to be less likely in the quality area,
as enriched effort devoted to quality would not be attenuated by the intro-
duction of more tasks or deeper job responsibility.
While Lawler presented no empirical work relating to his two pro-
posals, a job-design investigation conducted by Hackman and Lawler pro-
vides some confirmation.36 On page 284 they state, "The data suggest,
moreover. that 'doing well' is internreted in the iob context as having much
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
372 The Journal of Business
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
373 Motivation Theory and Job Design
C O N C L U S I O N
What is one to conclude from our discussion of job design? We feel tha
enlargement and enrichment can be useful tools for management. However,
the important question that remains is not whether these programs work,
but rather, under what conditions will they be most effective. We have tried
to partially answer this in the previous section. More research is needed to
provide a more complete answer.
Finally, we feel that before one attempts to institute any job-design
program, a careful look at the basic motivational assumptions involved is
called for. We have tried to make clear what these implicit assumptions are.
Further theoretical work is extremely important for understanding concepts
related to growth versus deficit needs, the interaction of intrinsic and extrin-
sic rewards, etc. If applications can be based on sound theory they will ulti-
mately prove more useful. Therefore, improving our theoretical understand-
ing is not simply an academic exercise. As Kurt Lewin is reported to have
said, "There is nothing as practical as a good theory."
This content downloaded from 193.226.62.221 on Sat, 24 Jun 2017 10:17:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms