Job design of patternmakers in apparel manufacturing

The job structure of apparel patternmakers in North Carolina manufacturing units producing women's and children's apparel in 1989 was examined. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by patternmakers and managers during visits to the companies by the researcher. The response rate of 83% represented 50 companies employing 79 female and 40 male patternmakers. The independent variables were: Fashion Change Frequency, a scaled measure of the need to create new patterns due to fashion changes in the product, and Organizational Strategy, a classification of the company as Defender, Analyzer, Prospector, or Reactor. The dependent job structure variables were: Task Differentiation and the core job dimensions of the Job Diagnostic Survey: Skill Variety, Task Identity, Task Significance, Autonomy, and Feedback. Regression analysis revealed multicollinearity, which made it impossible to assess the joint contribution of the independent variables. This necessitated interpreting the contribution of individual variables by the use of means, standard deviations, and Pearson product moment correlations. The relationship between Fashion Change Frequency and Task Differentiation was significant at the p<.01 level. Relationships significant at the p<.05 level were between Strategy and Task Differentiation and between Strategy and both Job Feedback and Agent Feedback