The effects of new dimensions of psychological job demands and job control on active learning and occupational health
Research report
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2690333Utgivelsesdato
2002Metadata
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Sammendrag
The changes in the job content in the 1990’s may have led to changes in job demands and general job control. The aim of this paper is to show how new dimensions of psychological job demands are related to two sets of outcome variables, employee health and active learning, and to show how these relationships are modified or interact with social support and types of job control. The study was part of the project:
”Restructuring the electric energy industry: Work design, productivity and health” funded by the Norwegian Research Council as part of the ”Health in Working Life” program. The study was carried out as a survey in 1999 in 13 electric energy companies in Norway with totally 3335 employees. Extended versions of measurement instruments of the demands-control model were used in the questionnaire. Lisrel analysis was used to assess the fit of the proposed models. The findings confirm that different dimensions of demands are differentially related to the outcome variables. Skill discretion uniformly reduced the effect of the demands: for groups low in skill discretion there was a stronger relationship between demands and outcomes than for groups high in skill discretion. The interaction pattern for the remaining control- and support variables is however more complicated and warrants further studies as to the exact nature and form of the interactions. The practical implications of this study are that employers should carefully consider the quality of work. Special attention should be given to the quantitative demands of the jobs, since there seems to be few moderators for the relationship between those demands and job stress and subjective health complaints.