Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Bryan Walter Booker

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Title: Development of a Task Assignment Tool to Customize Job Descriptions and Close Person-Job Fit Gaps

Committee:
Dr. Larry Mallak, Chair
Dr. David Lyth
Dr. Joshua Naranjo
Dr. Betsy Aller
Dr. Tycho Fredericks

Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, D-202

Abstract:
This study assesses the value of both customizing a knowledge worker’s job design to better fit their knowledge, skills, abilities and characteristics and documenting their customized jobs with a position description. Task assignment priority indexes were developed to measure the expected level of task performance for knowledge worker person-task assignment. The indexes were incorporated into a task assignment tool designed to guide the knowledge worker manager through the task assignment decision making process.
The first objective was to assess the expected value of the customization of a knowledge worker’s job design to improve person-job fit and the job outcome criteria measures of job satisfaction, task performance and intent to quit. The data provides evidence that the new job customization measure is valid, reliable, and useful for evaluating the hypotheses. The customization of a job design to better fit a job incumbent’s knowledge, skills, abilities and characteristics is positively correlated to improvements in person-job fit, job satisfaction and negatively correlated with the intent to quit.
The second objective was to assess the value of a knowledge worker’s job description. The research provides support for the decision to document job designs as a position description for each position holder rather than a generic job description for each job type.
The third objective assesses the differences among knowledge workers who have preferred behavior types characterized as either: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness or Conscientiousness. The person’s preferred behavior style affects both the level of job design customization and their perceived person-job fit.
The fourth objective is the development of a task assignment tool to aid a manager through an effective knowledge worker task assignment process. Twenty-five person-task fit factors were identified in literature and reduced to ten significant task performance predictors. A task assignment tool was designed to generate an assignment priority index to aid decision makers with the task assignment process. A simple two-person one-task assignment tool was evaluated to test the application. Tool reviewers reported significantly positive: satisfaction with overall tool application, confidence with the solution, willingness to recommend use, insight regarding the task assignment decision, and preference for the tool’s task assignment process as opposed to their existing process.