Employed fresh graduates: modelling job design and redesign

Abstract

A successful organisation needs an effective job design strategy to increase productivity and business performance, especially focusing on the special group of employees who are fresh graduates. An integrated framework is hereby proposed to identify the practices and conditions under which employed fresh graduates will experience high levels of internal work motivation, satisfaction, effectiveness and commitment (personal/work outcomes). The framework is an extension of Hackman and Oldham Job Characteristics Model and investigates the relationship among three groups of variables: (a) core job dimensions (b) fresh graduates’ experienced psychological states and (c) personal/work outcomes. The framework was tested on a sample of 630 employed fresh graduates. Interesting results were obtained regarding the interrelations of the three groups of variables and the determinants of employed fresh graduates’ job design and redesign strategy.