How Job Characteristics Theory Happened

Abstract

Abstract One afternoon in 1971, Greg Oldham, then a doctoral student at Yale, walked into Richard Hackman’s faculty once and announced that we had a relationship problem. Richard was taken aback because he thought the relationship was excellent. In his view, Greg was well-launched on his own research trajectory, having recently completed a Wne pre-dissertation project on leadership and goal setting. It was just the kind of mentoring relationship Richard most valued: Greg autonomously had developed a research question about a phenomenon that interested him and, with only modest coaching, had designed, executed, and written up an excellent empirical study. Richard thought that Greg was now well positioned to develop a dissertation proposal that would significantly advance understanding of his phenomenon.

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