The central question that subsequent research attempted to answer may be posed along the following lines: ‘’How is one able to manage the levels of intrinsic motivation to increase the job satisfaction of its employees and thereby improve firm performance?’’ Consequently, differing authors from various disciplines have provided multiple perspectives to shed light on this strategic issue. In other words: financial rewards, for example, must be satisfactory and meet certain benchmarks, but do not play a key role in long-term job satisfaction.

Conversely, the so-called hygiene factors, such as financial rewards and pension plans, only act as means in which to prevent dissatisfaction. The latter author has developed the motivation-hygiene theory, stating that intrinsic motivation is ultimately what raises job satisfaction levels. In addition, prior studies have shown that higher job satisfaction in general increases firm performance (e.g., Kessler et al., 2020).Ĭonsequently, research on work redesign – alternatively known as job enrichment – as a strategy to improve job satisfaction as an intermediate step to increased levels of firm performance dates back to the 1960s (e.g., Herzberg, 1966). Due to the scarcity of data professionals, it is essential that firms manage job satisfaction levels to ensure that they are well-positioned to live up to their potential. To this end, the cumulative human capital of data professionals and data-minded employees play a key role in the enablement of data-driven decision-making. In our first blog, we made reference to the likely causal relationship between data-driven decision-making and the positive effects this has on firm performance (Brynjolfsson, Hitt & Kim, 2011).

Job characteristics model