The Multi-level Job Content Questionnaire 2.0 (JCQ 2.0) and the Associationalist Demand–Control (ADC) Theory for a Sustainable Global Economy

This paper introduces the multi-level Job Content Questionnaire: JCQ 2.0 (JCQ2) to promote health and wellbeing at the workplace in the context of a new generation of psychosocial work environment challenges arising in the global economy. The paper provides the theoretical basis for the new instrument and defines the questionnaire instrument’s new scales at task, organization, and external-to-work levels. This paper highlights the JCQ2’s potential as a diagnostic and proactive intervention tool for promoting worker health and well-being, providing actionable insights for both workers and company management. The paper first reviews Demand/Control (D/C) model and the JCQ. It then outlines an intellectual bridging strategy to support multi-level hypothesis testing with the JCQ2 - based on a much-extended Associationalist Demand/Con¬trol (ADC), which utilizes linkages to both system theory and several social science literatures. Conducive behavior supplies the individual level motivational platform. A new mid-level construct - Platforms of Dynamic Stability - is introduced to facilitate cross-level analyses and postulate multi-level processes for participatory workplace redesign which are based on balance between worker wellbeing and company economic market adaptive pressures. Thereafter, generalized versions of the Demands, Control and Stability-Support constructs are defined, and then further articulated in short scales at multiple workplace levels. Finally, each JCQ2 scale is defined in terms of both the generalized scale concepts and relevant research literatures. The paper provides a discussion of multi-level work redesign actions and reviews the JCQ2’s practical health promotion implications.