Developing operational problem solvers: the role of job design decisions

To pursue continuous improvement, organisations must overcome numerous operational problems. To avoid these problems recurring, employees adopt a problem-solving orientation (PSO) behaviour to search for the underlying causes of problems and find the most adequate solution. Despite the importance of PSO in generating continuous improvement, past research has scarcely investigated the drivers of PSO. The purpose of this paper is to identify whether and how job design decisions related to task routinisation, job complexity, and job autonomy affect PSO. Drawing on data from 238 front-line employees of 23 manufacturing plants, multilevel regression models are used to test the research question. Results show that task routinisation and job complexity are positively associated with PSO whereas job autonomy is negatively associated with PSO. Moreover, job autonomy positively moderates the relationship between task routinisation and PSO whereas job complexity negatively moderates the relationship between task routinisation and PSO. In terms of managerial contributions, findings suggest that managers might develop PSO behaviours by involving employees in stable, standardised, and repetitive tasks (that generate high task routinisation) and making them perform complex tasks.