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The Job Content Questionnaire 2.0: A Tool for Measurement of the Psychosocial Work Environment and Sustainable Work Globally

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Behavioral and Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2025) | Viewed by 2840

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Physical Therapy, Health & Human Enrichment Cluster, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH 03264, USA
Interests: psychosocial work environment; implications of multi-level causal complexity on understanding human health from integrative economic; organizational; occupational and physiological perspectives

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ1) has been a tool for the measurement of the psychosocial work environment based on the demand/control (D/C) model for over 35 years. However, it is a paradigm in need of a major update to fit a changed world beset by destructive-scale economic resource imbalances and a critical need for a climate-friendly (material resource-light) sustainable future. The psychosocially focused, multi-level JCQ2.0 measures scales which are consistent with such a major revision of the JCQ1 and its traditional theory to encompass, task level, organization level, and relevant external-to-work level working conditions. JCQ2 scales also allow tracking of major societal change toward a climate-friendly, non-physical-material base economy focused on skill and wellbeing in an internationally comparable manner. This Special Issue aims to provide a coherent set of selected contributions on the theoretical, explanatory, and analytic frameworks for the JCQ2, along with several empirical international studies that develop scales and test the D/C/S structure across task, organization, and external-to-work levels, and test hypotheses relating to associations with health and wellbeing outcomes at the task and organization levels.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

  • Multi-level demand–control–support (D/C/S);
  • Associationalist demand control model theory;
  • Psychometric assessments of measurement of the psychosocial work environment and sustainable work;
  • JCQ2 scales at task, organization, and external levels;
  • Empirical tests of the JCQ2 scales and model structure to measure the psychosocial work environment;
  • Empirical tests of the JCQ2 scales and model structure to measure sustainable work;
  • Empirical tests of the associations between the psychosocial work environment with health and wellbeing outcomes;
  • Possible approaches to use the JCQ2 to support sustainable societal evolution assessment.

Prof. Dr. Sean Collins
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • psychosocial work environment
  • sustainable work
  • job content questionnaire
  • demand/control model
  • demand control/association model
  • conducive behavior/economy

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 959 KiB  
Article
International Empirical Validation and Value Added of the Multilevel Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) 2.0
by Maren Formazin, Maureen F. Dollard, BongKyoo Choi, Jian Li, Wilfred Agbenyikey, Sung-il Cho, Irene Houtman and Robert Karasek
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2025, 22(4), 492; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22040492 - 25 Mar 2025
Viewed by 327
Abstract
This paper investigates whether the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) 2.0 composite scales for demand, control, and stability-support at the task and organizational level are related to health and work-related outcomes as hypothesized in the job demand–control and Associationalist Demand–Control models. Further, the relative [...] Read more.
This paper investigates whether the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) 2.0 composite scales for demand, control, and stability-support at the task and organizational level are related to health and work-related outcomes as hypothesized in the job demand–control and Associationalist Demand–Control models. Further, the relative improvement of the JCQ 2.0 instrument over the JCQ 1 scales in the prediction of health and work-related outcomes is tested. The JCQ 2.0 was applied among workers in Australia and Germany. Analyses of variance and Kruskal–Wallis tests were applied for mean score comparison. In addition, path modeling as well as regression analyses were used. JCQ 2.0 task and organizational level demand, control, and stability-support as well as job strain and organizational-level active work are related to health and work-related outcomes as expected. Associations with active work at the task level are limited. A multilevel framework whereby organizational demands relate to task demands and, in turn, depression and burnout, is found in both German and Australian data. A similar organization to task process is found for control and support in German data, but for Australia, there is only a direct organizational effect on both outcomes. The task- and organizational-level composites—demand, control, and stability-support—explain unique variances in health and work-related outcomes. The JCQ 2.0 composites explain substantially more variance in all outcomes than the classic JCQ 1 DC and DCS scales. The results underline the utility of the JCQ 2.0 to assess multilevel aspects of the psychosocial work environment with broad practical value as a psychosocial risk assessment tool. Full article
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18 pages, 629 KiB  
Article
The Cross-Sectional Association of Scales from the Job Content Questionnaire 2 (JCQ 2.0) with Burnout and Affective Commitment Among German Employees
by Maren Formazin, Peter Martus, Hermann Burr, Anne Pohrt, BongKyoo Choi and Robert Karasek
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2025, 22(3), 386; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22030386 - 6 Mar 2025
Viewed by 580
Abstract
The Job Content Questionnaire JCQ 2.0 (JCQ 2.0) thoroughly revises the well-known JCQ 1, based on an expanded Demand/Control theory-consistent platform with new scales, the Associationalist Demand Control (ADC) theory. This study tests the JCQ 2.0 in an urban population in Germany ( [...] Read more.
The Job Content Questionnaire JCQ 2.0 (JCQ 2.0) thoroughly revises the well-known JCQ 1, based on an expanded Demand/Control theory-consistent platform with new scales, the Associationalist Demand Control (ADC) theory. This study tests the JCQ 2.0 in an urban population in Germany (N = 2326) for concurrent validity of each specific task and organizational-level scale and the relative importance of the task and organizational-level scales, using burnout and commitment as outcome measures. Cross-sectional regression analyses in the test and validation samples were run after multiple imputation. Five JCQ 2.0 task-level scales explain 44% of burnout variance; three JCQ 2.0 task-level scales explain 25% of commitment variance. Adding organizational-level scales, organizational disorder and rewards, increases the explained variance for burnout by five percentage points; consideration of workers’ interests and reward add four percentage points of variance for commitment. Organizational-level scales alone explain 33% and 28% of the variance in burnout and commitment, respectively, due to three and five organizational-level scales for both outcomes. Thus, the JCQ 2.0 task and organizational-level scales show substantial relations to work- and health-related outcomes, with task level more relevant for burnout and organizational level more relevant for commitment. The most strongly related JCQ 2.0 scales have evolved from new ADC theory, confirming its utility. Full article
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