| Abstract: | The deployment of statistical process control (SPC) in manufacturing environments is a prominent global phenomenon. Managers have frequently justified investments in SPC by citing and/or demonstrating the improvements in quality and costs from the effective implementation and practice of SPC. This paper complements this rationalization by presenting conceptual arguments and empirical evidence to further our understanding of the motivational effects that result from the deployment of SPC within production environments. Several hypotheses derived from relating the deployment of SPC to process operators’ jobs and their affective reactions to work are tested using data provided by 100 process operators. The empirical results, generated from applying path analysis, suggest that the effective implementation and practice of SPC, in fact, would create more enriched jobs for process operators that lead to higher levels of work motivation and job satisfaction. |
