Job characteristics for work engagement: : autonomy, feedback, skill variety, task identity, and task significance

Pfajfar Cotič, Lea (author), Man, Mandy Mok Kim (author), Richmond Soga, Lebene (author), Konstantopoulou, Anastasia (author), Lodorfos, George (author)

This paper investigates the factors influencing employees’ work engagement with focus on the experiences of employees in Slovenian and Malaysian organizations. Previous research has shown that the closer an employee's engagement is with an organization, the higher the employee's performance. To explore job characteristics that deliver employees’ work engagement, this study employs Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model, focusing on the core elements of task identity, task significance, skill variety, feedback, and autonomy as a lens to investigate this phenomenon in two different countries. Data from organizations in Slovenia and Malaysia were gathered and analyzed using quantitative methodology. The findings highlight the fact that employees’ work engagement is not necessarily employee engagement; whereas the former examines engagement at the psychological level with an individual employee, the latter takes a broader approach in looking at factors that are also organizational. We find that work engagement is affected by job characteristics—task identity, task significance, skill variety, feedback, and autonomy—but these differ according to context, which we have shown can be in relation to the cultural setting of the organization. While in Slovenia, employees’ work engagement is influenced by skill variety and feedback (structure), in Malaysia, work engagement is affected by employees’ task identity and autonomy. These findings speak to a culture of direct communication in Slovenia as opposed to high-power distance that is often argued in Malaysian organizations. In practice, context must be considered when designing jobs and policies for managing human resources as employees find meaning in work through different job characteristics.

• Language: English
• Keywords: job, autonomy, engagement, employee engagement, job characteristics, Malaysia, skill variety, Slovenia, task significance, work engagement
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: In print
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-177404
• UDC: 331.108
• ISSN on article: 1932-2062
• DOI: 10.1002/joe.22295
• COBISS.SI-ID: 235072003
• Publication date in RUL: 22.12.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Global business and organizational excellence
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• ISSN: 1932-2062
• COBISS.SI-ID: 517722137

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: delovno mesto, avtonomija, zavzetost