Pp.

632 - 637

Technology Interventions
- It is focused in the time-and-motion industrial engineering concepts of job
design.
- In the OD tradition, job design concepts have been modified for the social
needs of the people who operate the system.
- It tries to maximize the match between the technological requirements and
human needs.

Tom Cunnings said that these designs are characterized by:

Relatively whole task

Variety of skills relevent to the group task

Worker discretion over such decisions of methods of work

Task schedules

Assignments of members

Compensation and feedback

- Self-regulating work groups are used in technological situations requiring

technical independece across the tasks.
- Self-regulating work groups perform functions assigned to the first-line
supervisors
- Supervisors perform two important tasks: Developing group members and
assisting the group in managing its exchanges with the larger organizational
setting.

In order to develop the group members, you have to:

Build up their technical expertise

Help them function more effectively impersonally

Impart problem solving and decision making skills

In order to help the groups function effectively in large context, you have to:

Assure that the group has the raw materials it needs

Negotiate schedules for finished products

Develop relationships with other groups so you can share resources

Physical setting interventions

- Planned change technology is quite limited in both scope and quality.
- It influences individual behavior in a manner that is either consistent or
inconsistent with other organizational factors such as structure, job design,
and culture.
- Managers should configure all organizational characteristics in order to
create more effective employees
Steele said that people receive four different types of inputs from the physical
setting they work in:

The setting affects the way tasks are performed (instrumental effect of
space)

The setting may communicate information about its user (reflecting

the symbolic nature of space)

Space may bring pleasure by being comfortable and attractive

(pleasure effect of space)

It facilitate learning and growth to its users (growth function of space)

Physical setting should be designed to allow for a high degree of "spatial

research" that is, learning about the effects of space by creating a rather fluid
or unfixed physical structure so that it can be changed easily.
The best way to design the physical setting is to be determined by the
organizational members and the particular organizational situation.