Samenvattingen van artikelen voor het vak organisatieontwerp (jaar 3 Bedrijfskunde):
- Human centered work design and its roots
- Lean thinking: what it is and what it is'nt
- Lowlands Sociotechnical Design Theory and Lean Production
- Organizing Innovation (Lekkerkerk)
- Buurtzorg Nederland
Article: Lauche – Human centered work design
and its roots
Purpose to provide a concise introduction to the ideas of human centered job design and their
background.
Different approaches in human centered job design:
Normative approach
A normative approach: human-centered work design sees human wellbeing at work as an
indispensable value and treats it as the moral responsibility of employers to look after the wellbeing
of their employees. It provides guidelines for standards of what kind of work should be acceptable.
Work is not just a source of income, it provides a time structure and social contact, physical and
mental activity, the experience of competence and mastery and a sense of personal identity.
At the core of sociotechnical systems approaches is the believe that it is desirable, necessary and
indeed possible to combine efficient organizing with taking care of the quality of work. Very often the
same principles that make organizations more complex and more efficient, can also be applied to
improve the quality of work (interesting, diverse, less stressful, etc.)
De Sitter lists quality of work as one of his three criteria or the design of organizations. Cherns (1976)
expressed this normative aspect of human centered work design in this 9 th principle of sociotechnical
design: the objective is to provide a high quality of work.
Beyond instrumental benefits (reducing down time and quality problems, improving response time,
addressing negative health impact and absenteeism), human centered wok design also is a normative
approach. Its proponents see it as an ethical responsibility of organizations towards their employees
and wider society to provide work that does not simply exploit them but enables them to grown and
learn. Calls for life-long learning and sustainable employability show that this is ever more relevant
today. If we are expecting people to work longer and to be flexible to adapt to changes in the job
market, we better provide them with jobs that actually enable such learning.
Theoretical approach
A theoretical approach: the concepts behind human centered work design are based on theories
about goal-directed behavior, namely Action Regulation Theory. The rather simplistic ideas of human
behavior from the 1960s, namely behaviorism, were found not be very useful in explaining what
people do at work where they collectively engage in an activity aimed at a sometimes far away goal.
Hacker diagnosed work psychology as applied discipline without sufficient theoretical foundation. He
argued that simply transferring the concepts used in psychology would not be appropriate, as these
concepts did not capture the meaning of goal directed work processes. Hacker termed his new
theoretical approach Action Regulation Theory. This theory aims to overcome behaviorism and
conceptualize human action as driven by intention. Unlike Taylor’s Scientific Management, the ideal
was seen as a connection between thinking and doing.
Hacker (1986) proposed action as the core concept of his theory. Actions are driven by a conscious
goal, representing the actor’s intention and the mental anticipation of the outcome. People have an
idea of what the result of their work will look like as they work towards it, and they use this mental
model as the internal criterion against which they check if the outcome is satisfactory.
,Action Regulation theory builds on two sources:
1. Models from cognitive psychology conceptualized action as a mental comparison of what one
perceives against a set criterion, which triggers an operation until the criterion is fulfilled.
2. Activity Theory provided a broader idea of how individual actions are embedded in a societal
context and how people learn through the interaction with others and the material world.
Hacker (1986) combined both sources and proposed a model of the psychological process of action
regulation: people set themselves a goal, they perceive and analyze the current situation to then
decide what needs to be done to achieve the goals, they execute their plans and seek feedback on
whether or not their actions have been successful in attaining the goal.
At the sensorimotor level, action regulation is unconscious and mainly directed at movement
patterns. Feedback is mainly available through kinesthetic and proprioceptive signals from our own
bodies (cycling, e.g.).
At the flexible action pattern level, people enact well-known actions they have done many times.
They may have access to the schemata they enact if prompted to explain them and can adjust them
to the situation if needed.
At the intellectual level, complex mental representation is necessary, and incoming information has
to be analyzed and new information about what to do has to be synthesized. You will be operating at
this level when you are studying and working on assignments.
At the heuristic level, you are trying to solve a problem but do not yet know what to do. Existing
knowledge is nog sufficient and you cannot draw on schemata for developing suitable goals and
action patterns. People draw on metacognition and search for logical inconsistencies.
Tasks are considered complete if they allow the jobholder to complete the circle of action regulation.
A task is hierarchically complete if it involves mental regulation, that is knowledge-based and
intellectual control, and is not limited to automated processes. A task is sequentially complete if it
involves not only execution but also preparation in terms of goal setting and deciding on measures to
be taken.
An important theoretical as well as practical conclusion from Action Regulation Theory is that work
shapes the opportunities for action regulation and through socialization and habit can have an impact
on people’s personality. Rather than seeing personality as an independent variable, personality can
also be a dependent variable: working conditions that require people to be proactive, are likely to
make them more goal oriented and more successful in the future.
Practical approach
A practical approach: to assess the impact of existing and intended condition of carrying out work.
Based on the ideas of human centered wok design and action regulation theory, numerous methods
and tools have been developed that enable experts to diagnose the developmental potential of a
given job as well as its potentially detrimental effects on health and psychological wellbeing.
The aim of these methods is to provide an objective assessment of the regulative potential and
disturbances of a work place irrespective of the capabilities of the current jobholder. If there is a
misfit between the person and the job, it can be dealt with through additional training or selecting a
, more suitable person. If the job as such is problematic in terms of its regulatory potential, these
problems will persist even if a different person carries out the task.
The researcher should first observe the employee in action, analyze what kind of regulation is
necessary and possible, identify and record disturbances and their impact, and only the complement
this with questions that reach beyond the immediately observable.
The redefinition (interpret and making sense of a task) of the task guides the motivation of
employees and that influences their experience of the work. The subjective experience is a
dependent variable, influenced by the objective conditions of the work but also by the characteristics
of the jobholder.
The VERA method is one of the structured approaches that have been developed to conduct an
objective analysis. VERA stands for: procedure for assessing the regulatory requirements of a job. It
proposes five levels of action regulation.
Level 1. The work requires the jobholder to apply rules and to engage in sensumotor
regulation. Carrying out this work consists of manual tasks that only require regulation of
bodily movements, but no planning. The work can be done on auto pilot, no decisions are
necessary. No differences, no variations;
Level 2. The work requires action planning. The goal is clear, but the jobholder first needs to
go through the sequence of steps and plan them ahead. Cooking;
Level 3. Jobholders make decisions about sub-goals. There is a rough overall planning, but
each activity requires its own detailed planning. Jobs at this level can be fairly intellectually
complex as long as they can be dealt with an individual on their own (bachelor thesis);
Level 4. Refers to the co-ordination of several subtasks. The jobholder must interact with
other people to coordinate several interdependent parts of the work process and plan these
jointly (event organization);
Level 5. Refers to developing new tasks. It is not known at the start what needs to be done.
Jobholders first need to analyze the situation and then develop new activities that meet de
demand. These activities then need to be coordinated and material conditions for conducting
the work have to be planned. Developmental, innovative work.
The logic of VERA implies that more autonomy to make decisions in generally positive for the
developmental potential of a job. However, the requirements need to be seen in the light of the
regulation hindrances that jobholders might be exposed to. These are:
1. Hindrances. Missing or inaccurate information, restricted movement, wrong tools, unreliable
systems;
2. Disruptions. Through people, systems, delays, risk taking and stress;
3. Monotonous work. Requires constant attention such as watching a monitor;
4. Time pressure. Implies that the jobholder cannot stop and take a rest, as they would not be
able to catch up.
5. Environmental conditions. Impair the ability to regulate action such as noise, heat, cold,
emissions, vibration.
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