Variability in baseline job duty measures as a component of worker control

Abstract

Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen's (1980) theory of motivation stresses the importance of worker control on productivity. Greater control over specific job duties is hypothesized to increase motivation to do those job duties. Motivation to perform job duties should result in actions taken to increase productivity on those job duties. There is currently a paucity of research regarding how to assess the amount of control workers have over the job duties on which they are being measured. The first study addressed this deficiency by theorizing that job duty control can be partially operationalized as variability in measures of job duties over time. This study found that on average such variability is correlated r=-.447 with productivity improvement following a motivational intervention. The second study attempted to link perceptions of control to baseline variability and productivity improvement, but yielded inconclusive results, possibly due to a small sample size and an insufficiently long measurement period. Implications of these results are discussed.