IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v67y2020i1p31-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does job design make workers happy?

Author

Listed:
  • Petri Böckerman
  • Alex Bryson
  • Antti Kauhanen
  • Mari Kangasniemi

Abstract

Using linked employer‐employee data for Finland we examine associations between job design, employee well‐being and job‐related stress. Three key findings stand out. First, in accordance with the theory of Karasek and Karasek and Theorell, job control and supervisory support are positively correlated with employee well‐being and negatively correlated with job‐related stress. Second, as predicted by theory, job demands are positively correlated with job‐related stress. Third, there is no association between job demands and employee well‐being and, contrary to expectations, neither job control nor supervisory support alleviate the negative relationship between job demands and job‐related stress. Our results confirm the importance of job design for employee well‐being.

Suggested Citation

  • Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Antti Kauhanen & Mari Kangasniemi, 2020. "Does job design make workers happy?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(1), pages 31-52, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:67:y:2020:i:1:p:31-52
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12211
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjpe.12211?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew E. Clark & Ed Diener & Yannis Georgellis & Richard E. Lucas, 2008. "Lags And Leads in Life Satisfaction: a Test of the Baseline Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(529), pages 222-243, June.
    2. Böckerman, Petri & Bryson, Alex & Ilmakunnas, Pekka, 2012. "Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 660-680.
    3. Alex Bryson & George MacKerron, 2017. "Are You Happy While You Work?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(599), pages 106-125, February.
    4. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    5. Cottini, Elena & Kato, Takao & Westergaard-Nielsen, Niels, 2011. "Adverse workplace conditions, high-involvement work practices and labor turnover: Evidence from Danish linked employer–employee data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 872-880.
    6. Johnson, J.V. & Hall, E.M., 1988. "Job strain, work place social support, and cardiovascular disease: A cross-sectional study of random sample of the Swedish Working Population," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 78(10), pages 1336-1342.
    7. Clark, Andrew E & Georgellis, Yannis & Sanfey, Peter, 2001. "Scarring: The Psychological Impact of Past Unemployment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(270), pages 221-241, May.
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "The Power of Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 410-414, May.
    9. Burt S. Barnow & Jeffrey Smith, 2015. "Employment and Training Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 127-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Benjamin M. Artz & Amanda H. Goodall & Andrew J. Oswald, 2017. "Boss Competence and Worker Well-Being," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(2), pages 419-450, March.
    11. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    12. Erik Plug & Dinand Webbink & Nick Martin, 2014. "Sexual Orientation, Prejudice, and Segregation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 123-159.
    13. Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Pekka Ilmakunnas, 2013. "Does high involvement management lead to higher pay?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(4), pages 861-885, October.
    14. Smith, Adam, 1776. "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number smith1776.
    15. Thomas Amossé & Alex Bryson & John Forth & Héloïse Petit (ed.), 2016. "Comparative Workplace Employment Relations," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-57419-0, September.
    16. Andrew Clark & Yannis Georgellis & Peter Sanfey, 2001. "Scarring: The Psychological Impact of Past Unemployment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(270), pages 221-241, May.
    17. Alex Bryson & George MacKerron, 2017. "Are You Happy While You Work?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(599), pages 106-125, February.
    18. John Godard, 2004. "A Critical Assessment of the High‐Performance Paradigm," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 349-378, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mehrzad B. Baktash & John S. Heywood & Uwe Jirjahn, 2022. "Performance pay and alcohol use in Germany," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 353-383, October.
    2. Petri, Böckerman & Pekka, Ilmakunnas, 2020. "Työhyvinvointi kannattaa. Työolot, työtyytyväisyys ja tuottavuus [Working conditions, job satisfaction and productivity]," MPRA Paper 103484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Nuria Ceular-Villamandos & Virginia Navajas-Romero & Lorena Caridad y Lopez Rio & Maria Jesus Vazquez-Garcia, 2024. "The determinants of mental well-being of healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Antti Kauhanen & Mari Kangasniemi, 2016. "Does Job Support Make Workers Happy?," DoQSS Working Papers 16-16, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    2. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & George Ward, 2017. "Happiness at work," CEP Discussion Papers dp1474, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Ludivine Martin, 2020. "How to retain motivated employees in their jobs?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 41(4), pages 910-953, November.
    4. Thi Truong An Hoang & Andreas Knabe, 2021. "Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2525-2548, August.
    5. Alex Bryson & Lucy Stokes & David Wilkinson, 2023. "Is pupil attainment higher in well-managed schools?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 129-144, January.
    6. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    7. Fırat Yaman & Patricia Cubí-Mollá & Sergiu Ungureanu, 2023. "Which Decision Theory Describes Life Satisfaction Best? Evidence from Annual Panel Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 893-916, March.
    8. White, Michael & Bryson, Alex, 2018. "HPWS in the Public Sector: Are There Mutual Gains?," IZA Discussion Papers 11965, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Barry, Michael & Bryson, Alex & Gomez, Rafael & Kaufman, Bruce E. & Lomas, Guenther & Wilkinson, Adrian, 2018. "The," IZA Discussion Papers 11860, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Rong Zhu, 2021. "Living in the Shadow of the Past: Financial Profiles and Well‐Being," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 910-939, July.
    11. Leonardo Becchetti & Alessandra Pelloni, 2013. "What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 113-155, June.
    12. Bäker, Agnes & Goodall, Amanda H., 2020. "Feline followers and “umbrella carriers”: Department Chairs’ influence on faculty job satisfaction and quit intentions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(4).
    13. Suppa, Nicolai, 2021. "Unemployment and subjective well-being," GLO Discussion Paper Series 760, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Olivier Godechot & Zinaida Salibekyan, 2019. "Should We Clash or Should I Go? The Impact of Low Wage and Poor Working Conditions on the Exit‐Voice Trade‐Off," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 33(4), pages 425-449, December.
    15. Yannis Georgellis & Nicholas Tsitsianis & Ya Yin, 2009. "Personal Values as Mitigating Factors in the Link Between Income and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from the European Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 91(3), pages 329-344, May.
    16. Wunder, Christoph & Zeydanli, Tugba, 2021. "The early costs of plant closures: Evidence on lead effects on workers’ subjective and objective outcomes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 489-505.
    17. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    18. Rainer Winkelmann, 2009. "Unemployment, Social Capital, and Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 421-430, August.
    19. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2005. "Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(287), pages 531-547, August.
    20. Nils Lerch, 2018. "The Causal Analysis of the Development of the Unemployment Effect on Life Satisfaction," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 991, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:67:y:2020:i:1:p:31-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.