Including the “I” in Virtuality and Modern Job Design: Extending the Job Characteristics Model to Include the Moderating Effect of Individual Experiences of Electronic Dependence and Copresence

This paper extends the job characteristics model (JCM) to address virtual work design. We argue that the effects of critical job characteristics (task significance, autonomy, and feedback) on psychological states (experienced meaningfulness, responsibility, and knowledge of results) differ depending on two important elements of virtuality and their interactions with important social mechanisms: individual experiences of electronic dependence and its interaction with intimacy and the interaction of copresence with identification. Findings across 177 workers from a variety of settings varying in industry, size, and structure supported several moderating effects of virtuality and three-way interactions that included intimacy and identification, suggesting important modifications of the JCM. In addition, effects were not uniformly parallel for both elements of virtuality, emphasizing the need to differentiate between the effects of electronic dependence and copresence. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.