The Impact of Sociotechnical Task Demands on Use of Worker Discretion and Functional Skill

Abstract

This research applies theoretical propositions from macro-organizational research to the level of task-based work as performed by individual workers. A model, theoretical propositions, and testable hypotheses are developed which relate sociotechnical demand to decisional discretion and worker skill at the task level. Measures of sociotechnical demand are developed for the purpose of this research and the remaining measures of decisional discretion and worker skill are taken from the Functional Job Analysis system. An archival set of 100 tasks from a wide variety of jobs was rated by trained raters on measures of sociotechnical demand, decisional discretion, and worker skill. Analysis of these ratings provided generally good support for our theoretical predictions, with decisional discretion mediating the impact of both technological and social demands on cognitive skill. Complexity of social skill increased exponentially as a function of greater social demand, suggesting some important implications for labor economic theory and analysis. The results provided a strong empirical validation of the Functional Job Analysis model. Implications of the findings for social scientists, human resource planners, government policy makers, and human resource specialists are discuss