The construct validity of the job diagnostic survey within the South African context

Abstract

In many studies it was found that although loyal and trustworthy employees are the backbone of a company, often workers feel bored and underutilised. In fact very few people really feel energised by and interested in their jobs. There is thus a need for managers to understand the conditions under which workers tend to display motivation, satisfaction and productivity. The Job Design Survey (JDS) is a questionnaire that was designed to measure how jobs could be enriched to create these conditions in the workplace. The Job Characteristic Model (JCM) and the accompanying JDS questionnaire to measure and thus improve job motivation and satisfaction were designed by Hackman and Oldman (1975) and revised by Idaszak and Drasgow in 1987. The JDS was standardised in the international context but also in the South African context on a certain population. The South African context and culture, however, is very unique and diverse and there was a need to standardise this measure further in order to apply it with greater surety in different settings in the South African context. The main purpose of this study was to validate the Revised JDS within the South African context by using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) following the Structured Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. A proper literature review was conducted on the JCM focusing on the theories from which the JCM were derived and expanding on the JCM itself. The background regarding the construct validity of the JDS as well as Revised JDS was studied. The construct validity study of the Revised JDS was conducted on a new sample. Evidence was found that the Revised JDS reliability is acceptable and that the model does fit the data to a reasonable or acceptable degree. It could therefore be concluded that the Revised JDS can be used by managers in SA with greater confidence as an instrument to redesign work.