Job Design And Work Outcomes In Universities: A Comparative Study Between China And Pakistan

Existing literature indicates that job design is very important for effective organizationalfunctioning. Although Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristic model (JCM) and itsrelationships with job satisfaction have been widely studied in various settings, includingeducation sector, the likely effect of job crafting on the preceding relationships are yet to beexamined. Previous research on job design made limited contribution to the literature, since itignored two important concepts, time and job crafting. With respect of that, another area whichhas totally ignored while designing a job is ‘work attitude’ i.e. job, career and calling. Thepresent study attempted to test a new integrative model of the relationships among jobcharacteristics, job crafting, career stage, career advancement, and work outcomes and therelationship between work attitudes (job, career and calling) and work attitudes. This study alsoattempts to empirically examine the mediator role of job crafting on the JCM-work outcomesrelationships among university teachers.The novelty of this research is to make a comparison between two agricultural universitiesfrom two agricultural countries. Survey questionnaires were distributed to300faculty members(lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, professors and assistant teachers) fromalmost all the departments, institutes and colleges of Northwest A&F University and AgriculturalUniversity, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Multiple modes of communication such as email, post and in-person contact were used in order to get the maximum response rate from the study participants.Out of300distributed questionnaires, the overall usable response rate was about50%(175samples). Multiple modes of communication such as email, post and in-person were used in orderto get maximum response rate from the study participants.Several reliable, valid instruments were used to test the variables. Two sample t-testanalyses were used to compare the data from China and Pakistani Universities. In this study noneof the moderating variable proposed by Fried.Y. and Grant A.M (2007) could moderate the model relationships. Data were analyze through Pearson correlation, multiple regression andstepwise multiple regression analyses.This study has mainly two parts. In first part, a modified Hackman and Oldham’s JobCharacteristics Model was tested in an educational setting by incorporating career dynamicsproposed by Fried.Y. and Grant A.M (2007). Analysis results revealed that the stimulating jobcharacteristics, career stage and career advancement has a positive impact on job crafting whichin turn can achieve positive work outcomes. In the second part, this study explores the under-examined relationship between work attitudes (job, career and calling) and work outcomes (worksatisfaction and internal work motivation) among teachers of Northwest A&F University, Chinaand Agricultural University, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Although some theory suggests that callingsmay be strongly correlated to work satisfaction, this study predicts that a career attitude is morepositively associated with work satisfaction. The correlation analysis revealed a significant andpositive relationship between career, calling and work outcomes while a significant and negativerelationship between job and work outcomes. The multiple regression analysis indicated thesignificant impact of career and calling on work satisfaction but only calling has significantimpact on internal work motivation.This study compares the level of stimulating job characteristics, job crafting and level ofwork outcomes between Pakistani and Chinese university teachers. How teachers’ feel aboutstimulating job characteristics, how much they want to practice job crafting,what is the level oftheir internal work motivation, satisfaction and performance and what is their motivatingpotential score (refers to the degree which the job characteristics of the job will prompt highinternal work motivation). In both of countries’ educational sectors, lack of autonomy is worthnoted, teaching faculty felt that autonomy is not given to them by management which is one ofthe most important factor which can lead to employee’s satisfaction. If a job has a high MPS, thejob characteristics model predicts that motivation, performance and job satisfaction will bepositively affected and the likelihood of negative outcomes, such as absenteeism and turnover,will be reduced. MPS of teaching faculty of both of the countries is also very low; it meansteachers are not internally motivated, which can lead to the negative outcomes.A number of management implications can be drawn from the results. It is important tounderstand what kind of job design is more likely to motivate teaching faculty. When theimplications for practice are considered, the findings from the current study suggest that themore the jobs possess need of variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback, the more the faculty members wants to craft the jobs to fulfill the desire of stimulating jobs and in turn aresatisfied and committed with the job. More the employees are satisfied and internally motivated,the more they perform well that lead to organizational effectiveness. Higher levels of jobperformance and productivity are associated with increased satisfaction and internal workmotivation. The contribution of job design into the workplace should be taken into considerationfrom the point of view of educational setting since it fosters the exhibition of personal and workoutcomes which are important for organizational survival.