Examining the Influence of Perceived Job Characteristics on Employees' Process Orientation

A lot of companies struggle by shifting the focus from function orientation to process orientation, especially due to missing process-oriented thinking and behavior of their employees. While, enhancing employees' knowledge about processes by training and empowerment has been considered as the sole adjusting screw to influence process orientation, the characteristics of the jobs, in which the employees work, were not considered in the same extent. As the daily job and its related characteristics represent the core of individuals' working life, we examine in our paper how these perceived job characteristics influence employees' process orientation. Therefore, we develop a research model on the influence of five job characteristics - autonomy, feedback, skill variety, task identity, task significance - on employees' process orientation and evaluate the model by using data from a field survey with 191 employees of a global service company of the aviation industry. The results depict that autonomy, feedback and task significance are all significant predictors for individuals' process orientation. By considering job characteristics, organizations can successfully shift from function orientation towards process orientation