Work role centrality of industrial workers as related to organizational conditions, task autonomy, managerial orientations and personal characteristics

Abstract The study shows that, for a sample of 818 industrial workers, work role centrality (WRC) is positively related to task autonomy and to organizational conditions of sector of ownership, unit‐type of production system, and production stability; it is also weakly related to the orientations of production managers concerning the sharing of information, general supervision and granting autonomy. The task autonomy ‐ work role centrality relationship is maintained beyond other organizational conditions, but the effects of managerial orientations are attenuated by task autonomy and by organizational conditions. Situational conditions such as production system and stability, managerial orientations and task autonomy add to the variance of WRC explained by personal attributes of gender, education and job training, and by the outcome of job satisfaction, and a combined model of both types of variables is the most efficient. Generally, work role centrality is found to be a fairly sensitive response to the work situation, but it is suggested that perceptual and attitudinal data be added to the explanatory model.