L5 - Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design PDF

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Professor Ken Eason...

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Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design The Leavit Diamond

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Task: primary task  leads to smaller tasks Structure: so resources are all directed to the task

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‘Organisations have to live in their turbulent environments’  have to adapt to ever-changing circumstances  continually trying to optimise  be ready to change organisational design

The Assumption of Division of Labour and Command and Control 

Primary tasks gets split from top to bottom into simpler, easier tasks

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A lot of organisations are set up this way

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Higher jobs co-ordinate & control tasks

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E.g., Ford: making cars is complicated, so split tasks into smaller, simpler tasks

Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design Production Technology and Organisation Woodward (1965)

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Study looked at organisational structure and found not all successful companies in 1960’s fragmented overall task and created a hierarchy to co-ordinate the activity Unit production: E.g. furniture making  Craftsmen told by managers what was needed and got on with it Mass production: E.g. factory work  Lots of people & production so required co-ordination, control, hierarchy & rules Process production: E.g. electricity generation  Front-line jobs in control rooms with few specialised staf  Tall hierarchy but with not many people at each level

Concluded: need to look at technology to determine type of work, number of employees, and therefore organisational structure Contingency theory If there is no one best way to structure an organisation:  

What are the alternative structures, and What factors determine when to use them?

Possible factors: 1. The technology (Woodward, 1965) 2. The environment (Burns & Stalker, 1961) - Stable – mechanistic structures - Variable – organic structures 3. The organisational task (Thompson, 1965) The Dutch approach: Integral Organisational Renewal (IOR) De Sitter et al. (1997) From: complex organisations with simple jobs To: simple organisations with complex jobs

Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design Technology and Organisation: The Assumption of Technological Determinism 

Technology has inevitable efects on the work people do, and the structure - E.g., if you have to transport people by bus, you need bus drivers

Ahmedabad Textile Mills Rice (1958) 

Symptoms: - New semi-automatic looms But - Low quality and output

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Organisational Analysis: 1. Task Specialisation – 12 separate jobs 2. Reporting – all to Supervisor 3. Task Performance – complex interaction 4. No identification with completed task

Text mill before change -

Communication problems as every person is in demand a lot of the time

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Led to low quality & low output

Text mill after change -

Small group of 7 workers who between them could do everything required to keep a group of looms running

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No need to call for help outside of team

Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design Results 

First seven months: - Worked well, decline in performance for technical and mechanical reasons - Experiment adjusted

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Subsequently:  Efficiency increased from 80 to 90%  Damage reduced from 32 to 20%  Wages increased, costs cut

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Theoretical conclusions: - Interdependence of technical and social systems - There is no ‘technical determinism’ - There is ‘organisational choice’ - Semi-autonomous working groups for interdependent tasks

Socio-Technical Systems Theory Rice, Trist & Emery (1950-1970)    

Inputs (e.g. wool etc.) are processed to create outputs (e.g. clothes) Social: workers etc. Tech: machinery etc. Have to work out what works best

Semi-Autonomous Work Groups (SAWGs) A group at work of (optimum) 6 - 8 members: -

Given collective responsibility for a large independent task With autonomy over their methods, allocations of duties etc. With multi-skilled group members enabling flexible allocation And some element of reward based on group performance

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Example: assembly cells in Volvo and Saab car assembly plants

Designing a Socio-Technical System: Task Interdependence and Structure

Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design Thompson (1967)

Pooled:  diferent people could do own work without direct efect upon one another  but still utilise same pool of resources Sequential:  one person’s work passed onto one another and another. E.g. assembly line Reciprocal:  getting job done means other people have to work together Organisational structures need to reflect task interdependencies Task Interdependencies and Work Roles 

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Some parts of an org may have sequential interdependencies, parallel interdependencies and some relatively interdependent work Socio-Technical system reflects this Semi-Autonomous Work Groups (SAWG)

Organisational Design Issues for the Bus Company  

Task Interdependencies – routes: ‘all the buses come at once’ – team work and communication Division of Labour – might be assumed to be ‘given’ i.e. rigid distinctions between drivers, maintenance staf, ‘back office’ staf, supervisors etc

Week 5 – Organisational Tasks and Organisational Design  

Flexibility – need all your resources for the rush hour: flexible allocation of resources Technology – manning buses, communications, scheduling etc, all have implications for workforce deployment....