Job characteristics, motivators and stress among information technology consultants: A structural equation modeling approach

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Abstract

The aim of the current study was to test a structural model of the relationship between job characteristics (job demand, job control) and perceived stress (e.g. stressed, pressed, tense) with ‘motivators’ (e.g. responsibility, recognition, achievement, possibility of growth) as the mediating variable. In this cross-sectional study a web-based questionnaire survey was conducted among information technology (IT) consultants in Sweden (N=167). The results show that job demand was positively related to perceived stress. The results further indicate that motivators in part mediate the relation between job control and perceived stress, i.e. high job control was significantly related to high appraisals of motivators, and motivators was negatively related to perceived stress.

Relevance to industry

The results point out the importance of motivators (e.g. responsibility, recognition, achievement, possibility of growth) among IT-consultants in the job stress and performance framework.

Introduction

It is generally believed that knowledge firms stand for and symbolize the future of business and working life. According to a report from the European foundation (2000) the number of knowledge workers in the USA between 1990 and 1998 rose by 2.5 million, i.e. over 18% of the net employment gains recorded during that period, and according to a report from the European Foundation (2005) knowledge-intensive business services represent one of the fastest growing areas of the European economy.

According to Alvesson (2003) the concept ‘knowledge-intensive’ can be used in at least three contexts: knowledge-intensive firms, knowledge-intensive work, and knowledge workers. Knowledge-intensive firms claim to produce qualified products and/or services, and also generate new and unique knowledge (Kärreman et al., 2003). Furthermore, according to Kärreman and colleagues, knowledge-intensive firms are typically engaged in complex and difficult tasks that cannot easily be converted into standardised work procedures. Example of knowledge-intensive firms are law and accounting firms, management, engineering, and IT consultancy companies. In knowledge-intensive firms the most work are of an intellectual nature and the major part of the workforce, the knowledge workers, are according Alvesson (2000) well-educated and qualified.

According to Statistics Sweden's forecast (2002) the number of people employed within the private service sector is predicted to increase by 13 per cent from 1999 to 2020, and the increase will mainly occur in consultancy services, chiefly in the business sector. According to Docherty and Huzzard (2003), the service is often produced in co-operation with the customer, who makes demands on the knowledge workers’ social and communication ability.

The information technology (IT) sector has grown considerably during the last decade and will probably expand in the next decade (Ivergård, 2000). IT consultants’ work exhibits many characteristics of knowledge work. IT consultants have to continuously deal with non-standard problems, originating from the customer, try to make sense out of them, and then try to provide satisfactory solutions to them. IT consultants work is surrounded by uncertainty and may therefore be stressful. In general, individual job control is a central concept in the understanding of relationships between stressful experience, behavior and health (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Melin and Lundberg, 1997; Pousette and Johansson Hanse, 2002).

The increased interest in knowledge-intensive firms can probably be explained by their increased growth rate and overall importance for the economy. When researchers study the phenomena knowledge of knowledge management they prefer to study knowledge-intensive firms and one of the reasons is the fast expansion of management and IT consultancy firms (Alvesson, 2003). Even if there is an increasing interest in knowledge-intensive firms, there are relatively few studies that describe the working conditions of IT consultants as regards the psychosocial work environment such as job demand, job control, workload and stress.

Furthermore, if an IT consultancy firms will receive new tasks and survive, the consultants must perform a good job for the clients. As recent research shows that work motivation may predict job performance (e.g. Locke and Latham, 2002; Pritchard and Payne, 2003) it is interesting to include work motivation as a variable in the psychosocial work environment.

Job stress has become a major issue among employees in the advanced industrial societies. Stress often depends on high job demands in relation to the worker's abilities, frustrated aspirations and dissatisfaction regarding valued goals (Kalimo and Mejman, 1987). A basic hypothesis in stress theory is that psychosocial stressors in the work environment, such as quantitative overload, qualitative underload, lack of control and lack of social support, and the interaction of such conditions, may have harmful effects on an individual's health and well-being (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Levi et al., 1986; Melin and Lundberg, 1997).

A physiological approach conceptualises work stress as a negative psychological state which is a result from a dynamic interaction between the person and their work environment (Cox et al., 2000). With this physiological approach it is important to develop methods to describe this state and the most direct method for this is, according to Kjellberg and Wadman (2002), a self-report instrument. An important question is how many and in which dimensions this emotional state shall be measured with. Mackay et al. (1978) developed an adjective checklist to measure the emotional state in two dimensions that they labelled “stress” and “arousal”. A similar instrument, with the dimensions “stress” and “energy” were developed by Kjellberg and Wadman (2002). Their ambition was to develop a mood adjective checklist useful in research of work environment. The stress- and energy-dimensions are, according to Kjellberg and Wadman (2002), partly similar to Karasek's job strain model dimensions (1979).

De Jonge et al. (1999) found that a work situation considered as having both high job demands and job control was related to a high degree of work motivation and job satisfaction. Moreover, Sargent and Terry (2000) found that high levels of job control and job demands had a positive effect on work satisfaction.

One main theory of motivation is Herzberg's two-factor theory (“Motivation-Hygiene Theory”), which also deals with job satisfaction (Herzberg et al., 1959). Herzberg suggests that certain factors motivate (‘motivators’, ‘satisfiers’), whereas others are preventive and will serve to remove the hindrance regarding positive job attitudes (‘hygiene factors’, ‘hygienes’). According to this theory true motivators come from achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and the possibility of personal growth. In general, motivation comes from the desire or need of workers to be and do the very best that is in them.

Despite the fact that work motivation occupies a central role in research and in practical reality, this concept cannot, according to Schou (1991) be quantified or exactly defined. Schou states that work motivation is a hypothetic concept that, among other things serves as an overarching concept for a large part of the research about what drives and maintains job performance.

Robbins (1997) argued that motivation is the willingness to do something and is conditioned by this action's ability to satisfy needs for the individual. According to Sims et al. (1993) motivation refers to forces acting to initiate and direct behaviour. Motivation requires an act that leads to some degree of satisfaction, which can be described as a chain of casual relationships; motivation gives performance that in turn gives satisfaction (Alvesson, 1993).

Generally speaking, the total effects of the work environment on health are underpinned by complex associations between psychosocial stressors by means of direct, indirect and moderation effects (Cox and Ferguson, 1994). According to Le Blanc et al. (2000) there are processes such as cognitive, evaluative and motivational that intervenes between stressful stimuli and the reaction. Our model is a mediational one, in that we propose that job demand and job control impact on perceived stress is indirect rather then direct. In the processes of mediation in the psychosocial work environment and health relation, Cox and Ferguson (1994) express that “A mediator variable is one that is responsible for the transmission of an effect, but does not alter the nature of that effect” (Cox and Ferguson, 1994, p. 101).

Given the lack of studies examining motivation as a mediator in the psychosocial work environment and health relation our model are somewhat exploratory.

The IT sector (e.g. consultants) represents the pioneers regard to new technology within the industrial and public sector (Caplen Jensen et al., 2003), where the whole branch relies on the latest technology and technologically qualified workers (e.g. programmers, systems architects, IT solutions advisors, etc.) (Davies and Mathieu, 2005). IT consultants’ work may be categorised as knowledge intensive work (Alvesson, 2000). The IT sector is interesting to investigate, not only the interrelationship of IT and the organisation, but more specifically in relation to ergonomics (e.g. psychosocial work environment). Previous research indicates some inappropriate working conditions in the psychosocial work environment within the IT sector (e.g. Brown, 2002; Lim and Teo, 1999). This type of work may increase intrinsic motivation and inspire IT consultants to learn and develop the skills they need to meet increasing job demands, but at the same time it raises levels of job strain and other negative health outcomes (e.g. sickness).

To the best of our knowledge, very little research has been published pertaining to work conditions, work motivation and health of IT consultants (Lim and Teo, 1999). However, some previous studies are interesting in this context. In a study among a group of IT-consultants in the United States, Brown (2002) found that a job that provides autonomy, challenge, feedback and ability to use skills was important in promoting job satisfaction and work motivation. However, this study had some limitations due to a small sample size (N=21), and especially a low response rate (49 per cent). Moreover, an intervention study in a Swedish IT-company focused on strategies that the organisation and employer could use to increase health (Söderström et al., 2003). The authors described the psychosocial work environment as a job with high rate of work, high job demands and a high level of customer-oriented activity. Most of the workers reported high levels of stress due to short advance planning. The workers also experienced a negative balance between job demands, job control and social support at work. Söderström concluded that job demands seem to be the most important risk indicator related to strain and burn out. In a qualitative study regarding possible causes of ill-health in an IT workplace (a division in a bank) in Sweden it was pointed out that “impossible deadlines” impaired the employees’ ability to perform a good job (Dahlman, 2004).

The lack of empirical data on IT-consultants’ working situation, and specifically the relationship between job characteristics and ‘work reactions’ gave rise to the following aim: to examine the relationship between job characteristics and perceived stress with motivators as the mediating variable. The hypothesized models were tested using full structural equation modeling (SEM). To the best of our knowledge, a process model has not been used in any previous empirical studies to analyse the associations between job characteristics, motivators and stress among IT-consultants.

The model consists of the independent (exogenous) latent variables job demands and job control, and the dependent (endogenous) latent variable perceived stress. Support for the suggested covariance and path relationships in the structural model is justified by prior research findings. We hypothesise that: job demands is positively associated with perceived stress (p1) (e.g. Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Larsman et al., 2006) and job control (job autonomy) is negatively related to perceived stress (p2) (e.g. Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Melin and Lundberg, 1997).

A full structural model used in the study is presented in Fig. 1. This process model consists of the independent latent variables job demands and job control, motivators which is treated as the mediating (intervening) variable and perceived stress which is considered as a dependent (endogenous) variable. Consistent with the first model, job demands is hypothesized to be positively associated with perceived stress (p1) and job control negatively associated with perceived stress (p2). Moreover, job demand is hypothesized to be negatively related to motivators (p3), job control positively related to motivators (p4), and finally, motivators are hypothesized to be negatively related to perceived stress (p5) (e.g. Levy, 2003; Moorhead and Griffin, 2004).

Section snippets

Sample

In this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire survey was conducted among non-management IT consultants at one company in Sweden. The study included 198 employed IT consultants and the overall response rate was approximately 84 per cent (N=167). Almost all consultants have a university degree of which approximately 80 per cent have a degree in computer science, engineering or business administration.

The IT consultants worked full time, mainly with assignments connected to external customers

A model of job characteristics and perceived stress

Structures for relationships between the latent variables was specified and analysed. The standardised path coefficients for the model are reported in Fig. 2.

The structural model with no mediator (See Fig. 2) showed good fit to the data (Chi-square=143.17; df=98; p<.01; Normed Chi-square=1.46; RMSEA=.053; PCLOSE=.39). All paths (factor loadings) in the measurement models were significant. In the structural part, only the path between job demand and perceived stress was significant in the

Discussion

This study has examined the impact of specific job characteristics and motivators among IT-consultants on perceived stress. This particular group of workers constitutes an interesting population to study within the knowledge intensive sector. The focus in the current study was on IT-consultants who had knowledge-intensive work within a project-oriented work organisation. The results show that job demand was positively related to perceived stress, which confirms earlier studies (e.g. Karasek and

Conclusion

It seems reasonable to conclude that the job characteristics demand and control constitute important factors to illuminate the genesis of perceived stress among IT-consultants. The results also point out the importance of motivators (e.g. responsibility, recognition, achievement, possibility of growth) among IT-consultants in the job stress and performance framework. The results indicate that motivators in part mediate the relation between job control and perceived stress. To strengthen the

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ph.D. Pernilla Larsman at Göteborg University for valuable comments on using the SEM technique. In addition, the authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.

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