Organizational Design, Diagnosis, and Development

1
Organizational Design, Diagnosis, and Development

• Session 21
• Techno-structural Interventions, IV
• Work Design

2
Objectives

• To review the application of Socio-technical
  systems to job design
• To review the Demand -Control model of job strain
• To review Action Theory approach to job design
• To understand the implications of the demands of
  modern manufacturing for job design
• To understand the implications of information
  technologies teleworking on job design

3
Sociotechnical System Model
Environmental Forces
Social Organizational Culture Leadership
styles Motivational practices Communication
Technical Production process Work
setting Technology dimensions
Moderators Work roles Goals Skills Abilities
4
Socio-technical Principles

• Innovativeness
• Human resource development
• Environmental agility
• Cooperation
• Commitment/energy
• Joint optimization

5
Self-Managed Work Groups

• Team task design
• Task differentiation Responsibility for product
  or service
• Task control Control of task behaviors
• Boundary control Decision latitude
• Group process
• Organizational support

6
Demand -Control Model of Job Strain

• Decision latitude and psychological demands
• Job strain level and activity level
• Interaction of demands and decision making
• Social support

7
Decision Latitude and Psychological Demands

• Decision latitudes - Combination of decision
  making authority and opportunity to use and
  develop skills on the job
• Psychological demands - The mental workload or
  intellectual requirements of the job

8
Job Strain Level and Activity Level

• Job strain level - level of stress derived from
  the workplace. Job strain relates positively to
  feelings of passivity and helplessness on the job
• Activity level - Level of job demands in relation
  to decision latitude.
• High activity - lawyers, engineers, teachers,
  nurses
• Low activity - clerks, janitors

9
Interaction of Demands Decision Making
Interaction of Demands Decision Making
Job demands
High
Low
Active learning, etc.
High
Active
Low Strain
Job Decision Latitude
High Strain
Passive
Risk of psychological strain illness
Low
10
Social Support

• Buffering effect of social support
• Social isolation carries risks
• Social isolation combined with high strain
  carries higher risk factors for ill health

11
The Action Process
Decision
Plan generation
Goal Development
Execution monitoring
Feedback
12
Goal Development

• Goal is most important concept in action theory
• Goal attributes
• difficulty
• specificity
• hierarchy
• time range
• valence

13
Plan Generation

• Detailedness
• Inclusiveness

14
Execution Monitoring

• Flexibility
• Speed
• Monitoring

15
Feedback

• Concurrent vs terminal
• Extrinsic vs intrinsic
• Immediate vs delayed
• Verbal vs non-verbal

16
Levels of Action Regulation

• Sensori-motor
• Flexible action plans
• Intellectual level
• Heuristic level

17
Implications for Work Design

• Employees should choose own strategy
• Work should have complete actions
• Minimize obstacles
• Design for activity
• Design for control complexity
• Emphasis on selection
• Design for feedback
• Design for job expansion

18
Advanced Manufacturing Technology

• CAD - Computer aided design uses computers to aid
  in the design of a product
• CAM - Computer aided manufacturing links
  computers to manufacturing equipment so that the
  equipment is controlled via computer
• CAPR - Computer aided production management is
  the planning control of production resources
• CIM - Computer integrated manufacturing uses the
  computer as the spine for all aspects of design,
  manufacturing, assembly and inspection

19
Cellular Manufacturing

• Traditional factories - all machines of one type
  grouped together, e.g. all drills, all borers,
  etc.
• Cell technology - groups all machines required
  for producing a product into a cell
• Advantage is simpler flow of work
• Group people and machinery around the product,
  may include engineering, purchasing, etc

20
Just - In - Time Production

• JIT is an inventory control process which
  minimizes stockpiling parts and finished products
• Inventories typically a control system to handle
  fluctuations in demand and unexpected problems -
  Just- In- Case
• Lower inventories require coordination between
  suppliers and producers

21
Work Content

• AMT leads to deskilling -
• concern stems from machines taking over decision
  process and skills to concern with statistical
  numerical control
• JIT takes buffers out of the system
• TQM pressures workers
• AMT leads to enrichment and enhanced skills

22
Contingency Approach

• Contingency approach says, It depends.
• Management commitment to initiative
• Environmental uncertainty
• Cognitive demands and the non-routine
• Interdependence or collaboration needed
• Production responsibility and error cost
• Performance visibility
• Workload

23
Supporting Job Designs

• Uncertainty in production
• High uncertainty - enriched job designs
  autonomy
• Low uncertainty - standard job design and level
  of autonomy
• Uncertainty and needs for performance-related
  knowledge

24
Office Technologies

• Word processing
• Presentation packages
• Data bases
• Spreadsheets
• Information storage and retrieval
• Internet capability (information search
  strategies)

25
CommunicationTechnologies

• E-mail
• Audio teleconferencing
• Video conferencing
• Electronic conferencing
• Asynchronous
• Anytime
• Anywhere

26
Design Implications

• Job design
• Initially some de-skilling
• Ability to develop multiple skills in
  applications
• Task lines blur between skill areas
• Flexible job descriptions
• Organizational design
• Flatter
• Decentralized

27
Teleworking

• A definition Trips to work are substituted with
  a home-based or telecenter based work-site.
• Benefits Productivity,Reduction of absenteeism,
  Retention, Employee safety, Disaster Mitigation,
  Environmental benefits
• Costs Isolation, Reduced corporate culture,
  loyalty, Added effort, Perceived inequitable
  treatment

28
Implications for Design

• Goal setting
• Complete tasks
• Minimize obstacles
• Feedback
• Emphasis on selection

29
Backwards Forwards

• Summing up Todays session covered work design
  from the perspective of socio-technical theory,
  demand-control model, and action theory.
  Implications of advanced manufacturing and
  information technologies were explored for work
  design.
• Looking ahead Next time we examine human
  resource interventions, particularly performance
  management