Autonomy and Employee Motivators

CRITICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE LITERATURE

The findings of the existing research generally support the notion that moderate levels of job/employee autonomy increase several employee motivators and behaviors including those of: organizational commitment, adaptation to organizational change, job performance, job satisfaction, self-esteem, use of key personality traits, and positive work attitudes. Moderate levels of employee autonomy also appear to reduce organizational costs accruing from absenteeism and turnover. However, what the research does not explain, in any comprehensive way, is why job autonomy exerts these diverse and widespread effects on employees.

In reading the job autonomy literature, the lack of a clear model explaining the diverse consequences and correlates of job autonomy was obvious. It seems reasonable, therefore, to suggest that what is needed is a comprehensive model to provide context to what are essentially discrete empirical facts about the positive effects of job/employee autonomy.

One model which, in the opinion of this researcher, seems to best fit the facts is job characteristics theory developed by Hackman and Oldham (1977). This theory attempts to explain how various job dimensions affect worker behavior.

According to the model, a number of work outcomes such as desire to perform well (that is, high internal work motivation) and job satisfaction, are influenced by the experience of three critical psychological states--the meaningfulness

Related Essays

Employee Perceptions at a Nursing Home EMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS AT THE MAYS MEMORIAL NURSING .... Autonomy in work, participation in decisions, interpersonal .... some factors (identified as motivators) would not .... (1535 6 )

Motivation Theories .... Support for autonomy and relatedness increases extrinsic motivation .... job well done, the employee will expect .... promote job satisfaction and are strong motivators. .... (1891 8 )

Employee Job Satisfaction .... job classification level, and (5) employee longevity with the .... linked to the degree of autonomy employees feel .... of lower order needs as motivators, yet contended .... (3906 16 )

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS .... employees can be given greater autonomy to perform .... and wages to find other motivators that can help improve productivity and employee retention rates. .... (1284 5 )

Application of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs .... employees can be given greater autonomy to perform .... and wages to find other motivators that can help improve productivity and employee retention rates. .... (1284 5 )

ling of responsibility operate to increase the diverse elements listed above? While the existing research does not provide an answer to this question, the creativity research may surprisingly provide some insight as to how responsibility may operate to increase worker performance. In order to understand the responsibility-employee autonomy-creativity relationship, it needs to be noted first noted that an interesting point about responsibility and how it can operate to enhance performance at both the worker and managerial level has been made by Kouzes and Posner (1987). The authors investigated increasing responsibility levels (through employee autonomy) of a small research group working at Ohaus Scale Corporation. They noted that the increase in responsibility greatly enhanced team performance and concluded that the enhancement was due to the fact that greater freedom maximized the group's opportunities to be creative. If this finding is examined in terms of Amabile's (1983) definition of creativity as the ability to think in novel and fluid ways, it seems reasonable to suggest that there may be a connection between employee autonomy and creativity such that work performance is enhanced because workers are given more opportun

Category: Business - A