At the origin of network centrality: How to design jobs to make employees central
研究五种工作特征如何影响员工在组织网络中的中心性,发现任务自主性、多样性和重要性有正向作用,而任务同一性和反馈有负向作用,网络中心性进而影响绩效。
Network centrality is vital for employees to attain superior performance or desired outcomes and yet we still know little of what makes employees develop central positions. A major challenge is that employees feel discomfort forming networks for opportunistic purposes that benefit them directly. This challenge can be overcome once we focus on the requirements raised by jobs. This paper posits that employees will be motivated to form networks in order to acquire the information capacity needed to satisfy the information requirements raised by the characteristics of their jobs. The study explores how the five enriching job characteristics influence the central position an employee occupies in the organizational network. Interestingly, not all job characteristics benefit networks. Evidence shows that task autonomy, task variety and task significance exercise a positive effect on network centrality but task identity and feedback from the job exercise a negative effect. Network centrality then mediates the relationship between job characteristics and performance. While dispositional determinants explain only between 3% and 5% of variance in network centrality, the model presented explains up to 32% of variance, thereby offering a solid answer to the core question of what determines network centrality.