Organizational (re)design and job satisfaction: Evidence from the Italian hospital departments

Change is of quintessential importance for the survival and growth of organizations. Although quite promising, often organizational structures do not change in a manner that is consistent with expectations. In this paper we theorize that the nature of the organizational redesign strongly predicts workers' perception of their effectiveness and their overall satisfaction. The occasion to bring this theoretical issue to bear on the analysis of job satisfaction is provided by changes in structural design and behavioral data that we have collected on 397 physicians staffed in eighteen clinical directorates in the Italian National Health Service. Findings indicate that organizational design affect levels of job satisfaction. We conclude our paper by discussing the main implications of our findings for administrators and policy makers.