An official website of the United States government
United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information,
make sure you're on a federal government site.
The site is secure.
The
https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any
information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Office of Survey Methods Research
SHARE ON:
More Information
Published Year: 2006
Survey/Program(s): Office of Production and Technology
Catalog: Economic Working Paper
WP Number: WP-389
Publication Status / Disposition: Available in the Office of Production and Technology (January 2006).
Download PDF
Is Job Enrichment Really Enriching?
Abstract
This study uses a survey of Canadian workers with rich, matched data on job characteristics to examine whether "enriched" job design, with features like quality circles, feedback, suggestion programs, and task teams, affects job satisfaction. We identify two competing hypotheses on the relationship between enriched jobs and job satisfaction. The "motivation hypothesis," implies that enrichment will generally increase satisfaction and the "intensification hypothesis," implies that enrichment may decrease satisfaction by increasing the intensity and scope of work. Our results show that several forms of enrichment, specifically suggestion programs, information sharing, task teams, quality circles and training, raise satisfaction. Therefore we argue that the data support the motivation hypothesis. Partitioning the data by education level or union membership further supports this conclusion, while a direct test of the intensification hypothesis does not support the competing hypothesis.