Competitiveness and Spontaneous Changes in Jobs Revisited

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Earlier research on the topic of competitive behavior as a driver of employee efforts to surreptitiously initiate changes in their jobs to satisfy their needs for competitiveness as well as some other needs was incomplete and exploratory in nature. Sample sizes were small, definitions were underdeveloped, and conclusions were thus limited (Lyons, 2005). This study seeks to address some of the shortcomings of that earlier and, as well, augment the small but growing body of research regarding what is known about individuals at work, at virtually any level in an organization, who make unsupervised, self-initiated changes in jobs to satisfy their own needs and not necessarily the needs of the organization. Keywords: Competitiveness, Job Changes, Needs, Motivation INTRODUCTION Job shaping, as presented in this study, represents and job design that is largely hidden from management and does not include management in decision making. In essence, employees are engaging in a kind of shadow job re-design that may or may not run counter to what management desires. The important questions or issues this study addresses are: (1) what are the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of job shaping activity in a sample of outside salespersons; (2) what is the relationship of needs of competitiveness, self-esteem, control, and belonging (connectedness) to job shaping behavior; and, (3) how do the results of this study complement extant research on the concept of job shaping. The research of Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) is the most recent, thorough, and descriptive regarding the concept of self-initiated changes in jobs. They provide a model to help explain the motivations and environmental conditions that attend the behavior. In their they define (p. 179) job Grafting as, ... .the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work There is the aspect of modifying the cognitive, relationship doing part of a job purely for affecting performance and results. There is also the component that relates to one's identity with the job, that is, the relationship of one's self with the job. Part of a person's social identity is shaped by work. JOB CRAFTING AND JOB SHAPING Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) used the term job crofting as the label for the behavior under consideration. In this study, the term job shaping is used in place of job crafting as the defining, operational term although the terms could be used interchangeably. We believe that the term, job crafting, may suggest that a job is being radically or substantially changed, or re-invented. The term job shaping offers the meanings that people may have some opportunity to alter or modify parts of the job and changes that result may be on a relatively small scale, are likely infrequent, and are subject to further modification. In their analysis of research that describes such changes, Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) conclude that three needs probably supply the motivation for such changes. First, is the basic need for control or mastery. The idea is that some people desire to make part of their their own. Second, some people desire to create a positive self-image in their work. In terms of social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), people want positive images of in their own eyes and in the eyes of others, hence they make changes in the that make it more attractive. Finally, changes in jobs are made to establish linkages or connections with others to address needs of belonging or connectedness. Different connections with others especially through communication may change the meaning of work. We have deliberately selected for this study a environment that should, intuitively and practically, allow for or even encourage self-initiated changes in jobs. As explained later in this paper, we have selected for study the attribute of competitiveness as a primary driver or motivator of job shaping behavior, in addition to the three motives (self-esteem, control, and belonging) that Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) established in their work. …