The selection and consequences of job comparisons

This study focused on two related research problems: first, the extent to which employees compare and contrast the complexity of their jobs to the job complexity of referents; and second, the consequences of this comparison for employees' job satisfaction, motivation, and performance effectiveness. Results showed that more than 75% of the employees who participated in the research used referents for job comparison purposes, and that more than 60% of these individuals selected referent jobs that were more complex than their own. Employees who compared their jobs to referent jobs that contained similar amounts of challenge and complexity tended to be more highly internally motivated than employees who used referent jobs that were either more or less complex than their own. Finally, the most productive employees in the study compared their jobs to the jobs of self- (or internal) referents rather than to the jobs of other individuals. Implications of the findings for the practice of work redesign are discussed.