Chapter 14: Work Designs Flashcards

Question

Organization Support systems

Answer 1

This is the extent to which the larger organization is designed to support self-managed work teams The success of such teams clearly depends on support systems that are quite different from traditional methods of managing. 34 For example, a bureaucratic, mechanistic organization is not highly conducive to self-managed teams

Answer 2

Recruitment and selection: selecting team leaders with a balanced mixture of technical and social skills Training Evaluation and reward systems: Attempts have been made to tie team leader rewards to achievements in team development. Performance appraisals of leaders are conducted within a group format, with feedback supplied by team members, peers, and higher-level management Leadership: Leaders of self-managed work teams have been encouraged to develop peer support groups. Team leaders can meet off-site to share experiences and to address issues of personal and general concern Use of freed-up time: With a good team, team leaders would have more time that they can devote to other areas- higher-level planning and budgeting, companywide T&D and individual career development

Answer 3

Sanctioning design effort: workers receive the necessary sanction and support to diagnose their work system and to create an appropriate work design Diagnosing work system: This step includes analyzing the work system to discover how it is operating. Diagnostic model can assess how well technical and social work together. Task environment facing the system also analysed to see how well it meets external demands- like customer quality requirements Generating appropriate designs: based on the diagnosis. Criteria- compatibility(work design process must fit values ad objectives underlying the approach. Minimal critical specification- designers should only specify critical features needed to implement the work design. Specifying support systems: organizational support systems may have to be changed to support new work designs. When self-managed teams are designed, for example, the basis for pay and measurement systems may need to change from individual to team performance to facilitate necessary task interaction among workers. Implementing and evaluating work designs: making necessary changes to implement the work design and evaluating the results Continue change and improvement: STS designing never is complete but rather continues as new things are learned and new conditions are encountered. Thus, the ability to design and redesign work continually needs to be built into existing work designs.

Answer 4

measures of job satisfaction and other attitudes also improved. Perhaps most importantly, these improvements were sustained over time. Note: productivity improvements may not be attributed solely to the self-managed teams but might also be the result of the technological changes

Answer 5

Technical Interdependence: degree of TI determines whether work should be designed for individual jobs or for work groups Low-like call centers- work be designed for individual jobs High like surgery: group Technical uncertainty: determines whether work should be designed for external forms of control, such as supervision, scheduling, and standardization, or for worker self-control. When technical uncertainty is low and little information has to be processed by employees during task performance, work can be designed for external control, such as might be found on assembly lines and in other forms of repetitive work. On the other hand, when technical uncertainty is high and people must process more information and make decisions, work should be designed for high levels of employee self-control, such as might be found in professional work and hospital emergency rooms.

Answer 6

Social Needs: social needs, or the desire for significant social relationships; Degree of SN determines wheteher work should be designed for individual jobs or groups. People with low needs for social relationships are more likely to be satisfied working on individualized jobs than in interacting groups. Conversely, people with high social needs are more likely to be attracted to group forms of work than to individualized forms Growth Needs: determines whether work designs should be routine and repetitive or complex and challenging People with low growth needs generally are not attracted to jobs offering complexity and challenge (that is, enriched jobs) but are more satisfied performing routine forms of work that do not require high levels of decision making. On the other hand, people with high growth needs are satisfied with work offering high levels of discretion, skill variety, and meaningful feedback. Performing enriched jobs allows them to experience personal accomplishment and development

Answer 7

Chage tech or people to bring them more into line with each other Leave buth unchanged and create compromise work designs that only partially fulfil the demands of either component