Summary of all the material for the exam, including notes of the video lecture's, the extra lecture's, a summary of the articles and a summary of the reader. No book was used in this course.
,Video lectures – Week 1 – Work Design from an OB perspective
Video 1A - Introduction
- Organizational Behaviour → OB
o The study of human behaviour in organizational settings
- Work
o An activity in which a person exerts physical and or mental effort to accomplish tasks
or perform duties
▪ Task
• An activity related to the completion of a person’s work
▪ Duty
• An action or task required by a person’s job
o Job
▪ An aggregation of tasks assigned to a worker
▪ Role
• Expected patterns of work behaviours that arise from a job
- Job design
o Refers to the content and organization of work tasks
▪ Individuals at work do not perform assigned job tasks in static and fixed ways
• Self-initiated work design activities
o Work design would be a better term
- Work design
o Describes how jobs, tasks, and roles are structured, enacted, and modified
▪ As well as the impact of these structures, enactments and modifications on
individual, group and organizational outcomes
- Importance of work design
o Coordinates and optimized work processes to maximize performance and create
value
o Creates good work that motivates, satisfies, commits and retains employees
- A historical overview of Work Design
o Craft production
▪ From medieval times
o Scientific management
▪ From 1910s
▪ Industrial revolution
▪ Enabled mass production
▪ Caused moral, satisfaction and motivation problems
• Alternative work design approaches are emerged
o Job characteristics theories
▪ From 1940s
o Sociotechnical systems and autonomous work groups
▪ From 1950s
o Role and job demand theories
▪ From 1960ss
- Integrative and Contemporary Perspectives
, o Work design questionnaire
▪ 2006
o Expanded work design model
▪ 2007
o Theory of purposeful work behaviour
▪ 2013
o Antecedents of work design
▪ 2017
Video 1B – Craft production and scientific management
- Craft production
o Medieval times
o People made products by hand or with a few well-chosen tools
o Production in low volumes with high variety
▪ To meet unique demands of their customers
o Craft workers
▪ Highly skilled and self-managed their work
• High control over work methods and techniques
▪ Used an apprenticeship system to learn craftmanship
▪ Usually worked at home or in small workgroups
▪ Organized themselves into guilds and correctively regulated occupational
entry
o Nowadays
▪ Small firms that cater to niches
• Jewellery, clockmaking etc.
▪ Works for small-scale production with low levels of competition
- Scientific management
o First attempt to apply science to the design of work and management of workers
o Main goal is to improve economic efficiency
▪ Especially labour productivity
o During industrial revolution
▪ Transition form manually-made to machine-made products
▪ Industry 1.0
• From 1760s
• Steam was used to mechanize production
▪ Industry 2.0
• From 1870s
• Electricity enabled mass production of goods with assembly lines
• Products in high volumes and low variety
- Mass production
o Three innovations;
▪ System of standardized and interchangeable parts
▪ Scientific management as a mechanistic model of work design by Taylor
• Vertical division of work
o One best way to perform tasks
• Horizontal division of work
o Breaking complex tasks down into a series of small, simple
and routine tasks
▪ Development of assembly line by Henry Ford
, - Frederick Winslow Taylor
o An American mechanical engineer
o 1856-1915
o Engineer’s viewpoint
▪ Applied engineering principles to work design
o First management consultant
▪ Looked at work and productivity scientifically
▪ Assumed that there are universal laws with govern efficiency
o Goal was to find one best way of doing things as efficiently as possible
- Five scientific management principles
o Science, not rules of thumb
▪ Use of scientific method to determine one best way to perform specific tasks
o Scientifically select and train employees
▪ Assess and select which ones are most capable of each job and train them to
work at peak efficiency
o Ensure that most efficient ways of working are used
▪ Monitor and cooperate with workers
• To guarantee the are using best ways of working
o Divide work between managers and workers
▪ Managers should design work an train workers, allowing the workers to
perform their tasks efficiently
o Pay is based on performance, money motivates workers
- Evaluation Scientific Management
o Impressive productivity effects
▪ Cheaper
▪ Constant output
▪ Mass production
o Simplified jobs had detrimental psychological effects
▪ Morale
▪ Absenteeism
▪ Strikes
▪ Turnover
o Dehumanizing
▪ Workers do not think for themselves bur are seen as an extension of
machinery
- Further influence of Scientific Management
o Influenced quality assurance and quality control, operations management, Toyota
Production System, Lean and TQM
o TPS/LP/TQM aim to eliminate waste and achieve the pest possible efficiency and
quality by;
▪ Quickly identifying and correcting issues that could lead to faulty production
▪ Refining and coordinating each production process so that it only produces
what is required by the next process in sequence
• Just-in-time
o Unlike scientific management, TPS/LP/TQM involve and rely on workers to identify
and solve waste and quality issue
o Scientific management is still in use today
▪ Labour-intensive industries
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