Only the smartest? Motivating job characteristics for all ability levels and their impact on job satisfaction

Using Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data, we explore the relation between cognitive ability, proxied by an explicit test of individual numeracy level and the reported satisfaction of individuals with their job. The paper identifies a relation of individual cognitive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBulletin of economic research Vol. 75; no. 3; pp. 742 - 775
Main Authors Dopeso‐Fernández, Roberto, Giusti, Giovanni, Kucel, Aleksander
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2023
Subjects
Cognitive ability
Employment
Job autonomy
Job characteristics
Job satisfaction
Numeracy
Profits
Workplaces
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Summary:Using Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data, we explore the relation between cognitive ability, proxied by an explicit test of individual numeracy level and the reported satisfaction of individuals with their job. The paper identifies a relation of individual cognitive ability on job satisfaction interacting with some characteristics of the job related to job complexity, namely job autonomy and learning opportunity in the workplace. We found that individuals with different levels of cognitive ability exhibit different levels of job satisfaction depending on how much learning and job autonomy allows their employment. Individuals with low level of cognitive ability enjoy more their job autonomy than individuals in the top of the ability distribution. The learning effect brings the most profits to the utility of workers from the middle quartiles. Finally, planning is most enjoyed at the top of the distribution. We discuss the implication of these findings from a practical perspective.
ISSN:0307-3378
1467-8586
DOI:10.1111/boer.12379