The Job Characteristics Model: An Extension to Entrepreneurial Motivation

This article is designed to enhance understanding about how job characteristics motivate entrepreneurs. This is an important area of research because entrepreneurs invest so much time and money into the creation and development of their business ventures and it is important to understand how the work they do relates to their motivation. We applied the organizational behavior concepts of the Job Characteristics Model developed by Hackman and Oldham (1975) to entrepreneurship in order to better understand the work of entrepreneurs and raise awareness of this important gap in the literature. Our hope is that the proposed research agenda will spark interest in and contribute to the legitimacy of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Entrepreneurship continues to be a popular research area with a number of academicians studying the differences between entrepreneurs and traditional business managers (e.g., Blanchflower, 2004; Hamilton, 2000; Schjoedt, 2009). As reflected in the opening quote from The Body Shop Founder, Anita Roddick, entrepreneurs often appear to be motivated by some of the same job characteristics as business managers, such as task significance and autonomy. This study examines entrepreneurs and their work using a job characteristics, or “work itself” (Hackman & Oldham, 1980, p. 4), perspective of entrepreneurship. Hackman and Oldham (1975) developed the job characteristics view as an alternative to job design for conceptualizing traditional jobs as well as the utility of certain aspects of work in achieving positive outcomes, such as motivation and satisfaction. We extend this work to the realm of entrepreneurship, specifically to the work performed by the entrepreneur him or herself. We propose that the characteristics of entrepreneurial work are unique as compared to that of others performing similar duties within traditional organizations (business managers). Further, we propose that although the work of entrepreneurs is unique, the conceptual framework of the Job Characteristics Model, originally designed for traditional workers, still applies in an entrepreneurial setting. Finally we argue that the work performed by the entrepreneur has the potential to influence their feelings and behaviors to a greater extent than that of business managers. Previous findings on job characteristics, with samples of those employed by others, show that certain job characteristics can lead to desirable outcomes such as high levels of motivation, performance, and satisfaction (Fried & Ferris, 1987). Research within the field of entrepreneurship has shown that the promise of more desirable job characteristics can motivate those currently employed by others to start their own ventures (Cromie, 1987). Further, Schjoedt (2009) was the first to test whether the job characteristic findings of previous studies concerning managers were generalizable to entrepreneurs. His findings were that while the job characteristics of entrepreneurs and business managers were significantly different from one another, they still were significant predictors of job satisfaction for entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory that builds and extends upon previous findings regarding the unique job characteristics of entrepreneurs. First, we recommend that researchers verify previous findings showing that certain job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, autonomy, and feedback) are significantly different for those working for others than those engaging in entrepreneurial activities. Second, we explore how these characteristics may predict entrepreneurial internal work motivation, and finally, we suggest that entrepreneurs may experience higher levels of internal work motivation than business managers. The conceptual model is shown in Figure 1. A list of JCM milestones relevant to the current study is found in Table 1. Propositions are offered to guide research, and implications for research and practice are discussed.