Scenarios for system development: Matching context and strategy

A comparison of seventeen contingency models for system development (SD) led to the conclusion that no model supports all requested activities: diagnosing the contest, describing alternative approaches, matching context and approach, looking at social organizational issues, and supporting a dynamic fit between contest and approach. This study paid special attention to the social and organizational aspects of system development. Our contingency model specifies five possible types of risk (functional uncertainty, conflict potential, technical uncertainty and resistance potential) in system development that should be controlled. For each type, a corresponding proposition about its control was derived from this model and analysed in seven system development processes. We succeeded in explaining the outcome of the development process through the fit between context and situation, thereby gaining some preliminary support for the model. Still, the limitations of such a contingency model are to be taken seriously

Job satisfaction and job content in Dutch dental hygienists

Objectives: This study compares the scope of practice of Dutch dental hygienists (DHs) educated through a 2- or 3-year curriculum ('old-style DHs') with that of hygienists educated through a new extended 4-year curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree ('new-style DHs'), with the aim to investigate whether an extended scope of practice positively affects perceived skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. Methods: The questionnaires were obtained from old-and new-style DHs (n = 413, response 38%; n = 219, response 59%, respectively), in which respondents had recorded their dental tasks, perceived skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. T-tests were used to analyse differences between old-and new-style DHs, and regression analyses were performed to assess the relation between scope of practice and skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. Results: New-style DHs have a more extended scope of practice compared with old-style DHs. Despite their more complex jobs, which are theoretically related to higher job satisfaction, new-style DHs perceive lower autonomy and job satisfaction (P < 0.05). Skill variety is the strongest predictor for DHs' job satisfaction (beta = 0.462), followed by autonomy (beta = 0.202) and caries decisive tasks, the last affecting job satisfaction negatively (beta = -0.149). Self-employment is the strongest significant predictor for autonomy (beta = 0.272). Conclusions: The core business of DHs remains the prevention and periodontology services. New-style DHs combine these tasks with extended tasks in the caries field, which can lead to comparatively less job satisfaction, because of a lower experienced autonomy in performing these extended tasks