Critical Factors in the User Environment: An Experimental Study of Users, Organizations and Tasks

This study investigates the characteristics of end users within the context of their environments. End users are defined as those persons who interact with a computer as part of their job but are not programmers or analysts. The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) developed by Greg Oldham and J. Richard Hackman, is applied to 84 end users in 15 companies to discern 1) if there is a need for work redesign in the user environment; and 2) if there are problems specific to any part of the user environment. The results are compared with established norms for various categories of workers and show that end users generally perceive their jobs to be more highly motivating than do most workers. However, managers who utilize computers are not finding their jobs to be much more significant or meaningful than an average manager. Additionally, people utilizing the computer on a regular basis are experiencing boredom from a lack of interpersonal relationships. Solutions must be sought through work redesign.