Structural Relationships, Job Characteristics, and Worker Satisfaction and Performance

This research is based in part on a Ph.D. dissertation completed by the author while a student at the University of Illinois. The author wishes to express his deep appreciation to his committee, Greg Oldham (Chairman), Michael Moch, and Charles Hulin. Hank Sims and Denise Rousseau also provided helpful comments on an earlier draft. This research investigates the role of job characteristics as possible mediating variables in the relationships between the organization's structural context and the attitudes and behaviors of individual employees. The organization is conceptualized as a network of task positions interrelated on the basis of workflow transactions. Three structural relationships of task positions are investigated: (1) the centrality of a task position; (2) the degree to which a task position is critical to the workflow; and (3) the transaction alternatives availableto a task position. The results indicate significant relationships between these three relational measures and job characteristics. Further, the findings support the hypothesis that job characteristics mediate the relationship between structure and individual responses.