Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

5-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Charles Scherbaum

Subject Categories

Psychology

Keywords

culture; job characteristics model; job type; multilevel modeling; work design

Abstract

There has been a great deal of research regarding how job characteristics affect workers' perceptions, yet there are very few studies examining how job type (white-, pink-, or blue-collar) and culture impact these relationships. Through the use of data from over 11,000 employees in 24 countries, this project remedies the lack of multilevel study designs to determine how job type and culture each play independent roles in relationships between job characteristics (autonomy, task significance, and skill variety) and the worker outcomes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and perceptions of the job as stressful and exhausting, as well as how they interact. Job type moderated these relationships, such that white- and pink-collar jobs had stronger relationships between skill variety and satisfaction as well as between task significance and perceptions of the job as stressful than did blue-collar jobs. Opposite to predictions, blue-collar jobs had stronger relationships between autonomy and organizational commitment, skill variety and turnover intentions, as well as between task significance and organizational commitment. Additionally, culture moderated job characteristic-worker outcome relationships, such that for institutional collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance (both practices and values aspects of the dimensions), many of these relationships were weaker for cultures higher compared to those lower on these dimensions as expected. However, findings regarding culture as a moderator were complicated by the fact that some job characteristic-worker outcome relationships were stronger for cultures higher on these dimensions, which is contrary to the study's predictions. Lastly, at times, job type did have a stronger effect in certain cultures more than others, indicating the importance of examining job type and culture in conjunction within work design research. This implies it may not be appropriate for multinational companies to utilize a single job design strategy and moving forward, work design theories should incorporate contextual macro-level variables such as job type and culture in order to be able to more thoroughly explain and accurately predict job characteristic-worker outcome relationships.

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