The Review of Business Information Systems Volume 6, Number 3 29 Can Computers Motivate? The Association Between End User Computing Levels, Job Motivation, And Job Core Characteristics: A Field Study Robert M. Barker, (E-mail: rmbarker@louisville.edu), University of Louisville Andrew L. Wright, University of Louisville Abstract While end user computing (EUC) has been studied from the standpoint of classification and management, less attention has been placed on how the utilization of the technology impacts on users jobs. This study proposes that differing levels of EUC activity will be associated with differing levels of job characteristics and computer related job outcomes. The study focused on the jobs of 121 middle managers and professional workers enrolled in an MBA program at a southeastern university. The study finds that with successive levels of com- plexity in EUC utilization, there are corresponding increases in the levels of users' experiencing of job core characteristics. I. Introduction nowledge workers, those workers whose contribution to their organizations is primarily intellectual (Mcleod, 1993), in today’s business organizations face a vastly different work life than existed as little as five years ago. Information technology has penetrated almost all aspects of these workers environ- ments, from the routine utilization of electronic mail and Internet browsers, to reliance on personal productivity software and laptop personal computers for data analysis and report generation. The greatest difference in these workers jobs has been the increased reliance on end user computing (EUC), which, in most organizations, has become a customary part of many office worker’s jobs (Van Kirk, 1995). EUC has been defined as the application of computing resources for the purpose of producing information, by the consumer of that information (Barker, 1993). The pervasiveness of EUC can be attributed to many forces: the steep decline in the cost of microcomputing hardware, the rise in the computing literacy of users, and the wide expansion in the availability of easy to use software products. Organizations have begun to give users increasing latitude in accessing organizational data stores and greater discretion in computing choices. Combined, these two trends have enabled users to attack information insufficiencies in ways that could not have been envisioned in the past. This proliferation of EUC will result in a workplace where knowledge workers can expect to interact with the technology on a daily, if not hourly, basis. With the introduction and increased use of new object-driven and browser- based software technologies, this trend will only intensify for the foreseeable future. Research into this phenomenon has typically centered in two areas: subject centered studies examining EUC use; or EUC management issues, examined from the perspective of information technology professionals. Examples of subject centered topics would include such areas as end user productivity (Palvia, 1991; Ngwenyama, 1993), facilitating utilization in user groups (Cheney et al., 1986; Gerrity and Rockart, 1986; Brown and Bostrom, 1989; Hackathorn, ____________________ Readers with comments or questions are encouraged to contact the authors via email. K