The impact of core job characteristics and critical psychological state on job satisfaction of the academic staff members in the SLIATE

Abstract

The qualified workers are interested to do more challenging jobs. Dull and repetitive work is more frustrating. This kind of frustration can lead to the increase of less quality outputs. Therefore, it is important to fit the job to the employee in order to have both qualified and satisfied workforce. This study investigated the impact of job design on job satisfaction of the lecturers in Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education. The research conducted using job characteristic model developed by Hackman and Oldham and five hypotheses were developed. The data were analyzed through the path analysis in structural equation modeling (SEM). The outcome of the results concluded that the certain core job characteristics of ―skill variety‖ and ―task significance‖ were not able to predict the critical psychological state of ―experience meaningfulness‖, and these critical psychological states in turn were able to predict job satisfaction. Core job characteristics- ―feedback‖ and ―skill Varity‖ have the highest impact on job satisfaction. ―Experience meaningfulness‖ was determined by the core job characteristic of ―task identity‖ and ―experience responsibility‖ was determined by the core job characteristics of ―Autonomy‖ and ―feedback‖.