How to increase job satisfaction and organisational commitment in the ICT sector through job design

Abstract

The paper investigates the relationship between job design and workrelated attitudes (job satisfaction and organisational commitment) in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. We use data collected via an online questionnaire (using the Google Forms platform) from 97 employees working in the ICT sector in Serbia. The data was collected between February and June 2019. The analysis shows that job design is a predictor of both job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Of the five investigated job dimensions (Skill variety, Task identity, Task significance, Autonomy, Feedback from job), 'Autonomy' was the most positively associated with job satisfaction (r=0.629) but was only moderately associated with organisational commitment (r=0.4). The other job dimensions were found to be weakly correlated with the investigated work attitudes, although the relationships were positive. Furthermore, the results indicate that work engagement mediates both investigated relationships, providing a deeper insight into how job design is translated into positive work-related attitudes. We discuss the possible managerial implications of the 'Autonomy' dimension and the interventions in work engagement required to positively influence work-related attitude formation and management in the ICT sector, and we distinguish between 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' interventions.