143
From the work design literature, it can be expected that job characteristics influence the level of workgroup innovation (Axtell, et al., 2000).
In this study, it was hypothesized that:
The more favourable the Task Design, the higher the Group Climate for Innovation.
Results from the hypothesized model (Figure 6.1, Table 6.2) confirmed the hypothesis (β =0.09,p<.05). They are consistent with previous findings (e.g. Lantz and Brav, 2007) and are in agreement with those found at the individual and organizational levels of analysis (e.g. Tan and Peng, 1997, Axtell et al., 2000; Dorenbosch et al., 2005; Hackman and Oldham, 1980; West and Farr, 1990). Modifications to the model in the respecified model did not change the confirmed hypothesized relationship much (β =0.84,p<.05).
Task Design was also significantly related to Market Orientation (r=0.41), GCB (r=0.33), and Group Self-efficacy (r=0.24).
Out of the three approaches to job or work design outlined in Chapter 3: Action theory, Sociotechnical theory, and Task design, Task design, based on the Job Characteristics Model (JCM) provide the most explanatory power in explaining the influence of Task design on Group Climate for innovation.
The JCM suggests that task design is critical for employee motivation, satisfaction and performance (Hackman and Oldham, 1976). Specifically, Hackman and Oldham outlined three classes of variables and their interaction: (1) the psychological states of employees that must be present for internally motivated work behaviour to develop; (2) the characteristics of jobs that can create these psychological states; and, (3) the attitudes of individuals that determine how positively a person will respond to a complex and challenging job. It appears that work characteristics (e.g. variety, identity, significance, participation, and self-management) cumulatively combine to produce the three psychological states of experienced meaningfulness of the work, experienced responsibility for the outcomes of the work, and knowledge of the actual results of the work. In turn, these psychological states would combine to increase an individual’s
144
internal motivation, work performance, work satisfaction, and decrease their rate of absenteeism and turnover. To the extent that group climate for innovation, like job satisfaction, is a reliable indicator of mood at work, and that the psychological states culminate into psychological empowerment, the task characteristics can logically be said to influence, not only a workgroup’s climate for innovation, but also prosocial behaviours, or altruistic citizenship behaviours, self-efficacy, and customer (market) orientation. Perception of favourable work characteristics has a positive effect on the climate for service innovativeness.
The psychological states of empowerment can also arise from influences over and above work characteristics, such as peer helping and supportive customer relationships (Corsun and Enz, 1999). Psychological empowerment of task design also appears to emanate from the interdependence of workgroup members. Group members rely on each other to ensure that the customer receives a complete and satisfactory service. Even those members who work independently at their jobs, such as housekeepers, sometimes require others to provide information and supplies (e.g. at shift change over) to do their work.
Both survey results and interview data from this study suggest that, on average, jobs in the hotel service industry have a sufficient degree of variety, identity, and significance and provide enough allowance for participation and self-management at the workgroup level to foster a climate for innovation. In practice, this means that workgroup members share responsibility, have the autonomy to make decisions, and feel they complete a whole and identifiable task. Group task variety makes the work more interesting and motivates group members to be innovative and generally effective by allowing them to learn and utilise various skills, thereby reducing boredom and monotony (Hackman, 1987), and builds flexibility by permitting group members to substitute for one another (Susman, 1976).
It may be hard to imagine hotel service industry jobs to possess task variety, but it is also true that the average hotel job revolves around customer service, and, since every customer is different from the next one, handling them requires different approaches
145
and skills. Greater flexibility is required to provide increasingly powerful and demanding customers with seamless service.
A comment from D, an interviewee from Hotel W illustrates this point:
….I’m constantly reminding them (his team) that if it is Asian customers, especially tourists, walking in, better meet them half way, welcome them, ask where they would prefer to be seated, and then ask them whether they would like tea or coffee’.
If the customer is local (Australian), they will most likely head straight and hang around the counter for a drink, before wanting, if at all, to want a Table for a meal……you therefore cannot approach all the customers same way, at least not all the time…..
Market Orientation, GCB, and Group Self-efficacy can also be viewed as being determined by Task Design, under the JCM model.
Self-management is the group analogy to task autonomy in the JCM. It can be speculated that a workgroup that enjoys self-management is likely to be self-efficacious and customer (market) oriented if it is to stay effective. Such a workgroup is more likely to experience a feeling of ownership and a sense of responsibility, driving the workgroup to give it their best shot and therefore motivated to be innovative and effective in their performance (Miles et al., 2000; Spreitzer et al., 1999). It also allows workgroup members to effectively deal with customer demands by making decisions (instead of referring them to top management) in the process of doing the work.
Participation has a similar effect to self-management. It enhances group effectiveness, creates a climate for innovation, and eventually leads to workgroup innovativeness by increasing members’ sense of responsibility and ownership of the work (McGrath, 1984; Porter, Lawler, and Hackman, 1987). Indeed, Miles et al. (2000, p. 305) have suggested that self-management is the ‘first design principle’ for an innovative and collaborative organization.
For GCB, work at the individual level of analysis (OCB) provides further support for its link to task design. Farh et al., (1990), argued for a direct relationship between task
146
design and OCB, given the concomitant effects task variables have on psychological states such as ‘meaningful of the work’ and ‘sense of responsibility. For example, a worker with job tasks that intrinsically motivate and produce a strong sense of enhanced meaning would be expected to operate in the best interest of the organization at large (OCB compliance) and be considerate of fellow workgroup members who also share in the welfare of the organization (OCB altruism). As hypothesized, they found task variables, measured as task scope, to directly affect OCB in the form of compliance and altruism. Other researchers have arrived at similar results (e.g. Todd and Kent, 2006; Wegge, et al., 2006; Podsakoff et al., 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1993).
Task design was the only independent variable not directly linked to Workgroup Service Innovativeness. A plausible explanation can be found in one of the JCMs tenets, that jobs high on task design create psychological states for internally motivated behaviours. A climate for innovation may be construed as one of such psychological states.
The implication for organizational management is rather tricky because in the area of task design, we are, to some extent, not dealing with job design, but perceptions. The focus is not on the objective features of the job but on whether an individual perceives themselves as empowered. Perceptions of task design do not necessarily reflect job design. Yet, they can influence how workgroup members respond to that job specifications. The least management can do is to try and understand better how their workgroups view their roles and their jobs with the view to moulding those task perceptions into positive ones in order to cultivate group citizenship behaviours, market orientation, self-efficacy and a climate for innovation, all of which should encourage group innovation processes such as group activities designed to invent and implement new and better ways of customer service.
Secondly management should hand over more and more responsibility to workgroups. Experienced responsibility plays an important role in motivating workgroups to be innovative. Also, to function effectively as a workgroup, members must feel responsible not only for their own work but for the work of their fellow group members as well (Vegt et al., 1998).
147