Relationships Between Organizational Structure and Employee Reactions: Comparing Alternative Frameworks

March 1981,volume26 This research examines the relative power of the attraction-selection framework and the job-modification framework in explaining the relationship between several properties of organizational structure (i.e., size, number of hierarchical levels, formalization, centralization) and employee reactions to the work and the work context. The attraction-selection framework suggests that organizations with certain structural properties attract and/or select employees with particular personal attributes. These attributes, in turn, are associated with employee reactions. The job-modification framework posits that structural properties affect the characteristics of employees' jobs. These job characteristics, in turn, are associated with employee reactions. Data were collected from 2,960 employees working on 428 jobs in 36 organizations. Results show that the job-modification framework better explains the relationship between organizational structure and employee reactions than does the attraction-selection framework. Most effective, however, is a framework that combines the attractionselection and job-modification frameworks.