Job Characteristics Model

Background

Early twentieth-century scientific management (Taylor, 1911) held that breaking work into small, simplified, standardized tasks raises efficiency. Monotonous work, however, bred boredom, absenteeism and turnover. Building on his two-factor theory, Frederick Herzberg (1968) proposed enriching jobs to provide responsibility and achievement, and Turner and Lawrence (1965) studied how requisite task attributes such as variety and autonomy relate to worker responses. Hackman and Oldham integrated these strands into a measurable, testable model.

Structure of the model

Hackman and Oldham (1976) identified five core job characteristics. Skill variety is the range of skills a job uses; task identity is the degree to which the job involves completing a whole piece of work; task significance is the job's impact on other people; autonomy is discretion over scheduling and methods; and feedback is the information about performance that comes from the work itself. The first three produce experienced meaningfulness, autonomy produces experienced responsibility for outcomes, and feedback produces knowledge of results; these three states lead to high intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, high-quality performance and low absenteeism and turnover. The motivating potential score (MPS) summarizes them as (skill variety + task identity + task significance) ÷ 3 × autonomy × feedback. The multiplicative form implies that without autonomy or feedback, motivation stays low however high the other characteristics are. The model also posits moderation: effects are stronger for people high in growth need strength. The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) was developed to measure it (Hackman and Oldham, 1975).

Evidence, critiques and extensions

Fried and Ferris's (1987) meta-analysis found that job characteristics relate strongly to satisfaction and intrinsic motivation and more weakly to performance. A large meta-analysis by Humphrey, Nahrgang and Morgeson (2007) extended the picture, showing that social characteristics such as social support and interdependence, not only motivational ones, explain substantial variance, and Morgeson and Humphrey (2006) developed the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) to measure them. By contrast, Salancik and Pfeffer's (1978) social information processing theory argued that how people perceive their jobs depends on social cues such as coworkers' comments, so self-reported job characteristics may not reflect objective features. Evidence that the multiplicative MPS outperforms a simple sum is also weak. Recent work has moved toward relational job design, which lets workers see their impact on others (Grant, 2007); job crafting, in which employees reshape their own tasks and relationships (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001); and work design for health and learning (Parker, 2014). The model connects closely to self-determination theory, with its emphasis on autonomy and competence.

FAQ

What is the job characteristics model in simple terms?

The more varied, whole, significant and self-directed a job is, and the more directly it shows you how you are doing, the more meaning and responsibility people feel and the more motivated they become.

How is the motivating potential score calculated?

Average skill variety, task identity and task significance, then multiply by autonomy and feedback. Because it is multiplicative, very low autonomy or feedback pulls the whole score down sharply.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

1. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16(2), 250–279.
2. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60(2), 159–170.
3. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work Redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
4. Turner, A. N., & Lawrence, P. R. (1965). Industrial Jobs and the Worker. Boston: Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
5. Herzberg, F. (1968). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 46(1), 53–62.
6. Taylor, F. W. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper & Brothers.
7. Fried, Y., & Ferris, G. R. (1987). The validity of the job characteristics model: A review and meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 40(2), 287–322.
8. Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1332–1356.
9. Morgeson, F. P., & Humphrey, S. E. (2006). The Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ): Developing and validating a comprehensive measure for assessing job design and the nature of work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(6), 1321–1339.
10. Grant, A. M. (2007). Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 393–417.
11. Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 179–201.
12. Parker, S. K. (2014). Beyond motivation: Job and work design for development, health, ambidexterity, and more. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 661–691.
13. Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1978). A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23(2), 224–253.