ME2 Management and Business for Engineers

LECTURE 3: JOB DESIGN

LECTURE OBJECTIVES
• To identify the prevailing forms of organisational structure and to assess
their impact on managerial efficiency.
• To examine the ways in which work is structured in organisations.

1. Introduction
Henry Mintzberg has claimed that, ‘ours has become, for better or worse, a society
of organisations. We are born in organisations and are educated in organisations.
At the same time, organisations supply us, they govern us and harass us
(sometimes concurrently). Finally, we are buried by organisations’ (Mintzberg,
1989). He could have added that most of us will spend our lives working for
organisations, earn our livings from organisations and, in career terms, be made
or broken by them. Self-evidently organisations are significant and worthy of
study.
Although complex organisations existed in earlier, and even ancient, times it was
the coming of the railways in the nineteenth century that prompted the
establishment of recognisably modern organisational structures. Industrial
concentration (particularly in engineering and transport) and growth in the scale
of operation gradually eroded the centrality of the individual
entrepreneur/manager. Even if the individual continued to lead the organisation,
more and more work was delegated to professional managers. Such managers
derived their authority not from ownership or family connection but from a
combination of expertise and status in the organisational hierarchy. By the time
of the first world war (1914-18) industrial countries such as the UK, France,
Germany, Japan and the USA already possessed large complex organisations. In
Germany the pace of industrialisation and industrial concentration was
particularly rapid in the years following unification in the 1870s. It was there that
the sociologist Max Weber developed a theory of organisational structure that
has remained influential to the present day. This was the theory of bureaucracy.

2. Weber and bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is associated with large-scale organisation and can be defined as a
form of organisation characterised by specialisation of labour, a specific authority
hierarchy, a formal set of rules, and rigid promotion and selection criteria. The
main characteristics of bureaucracy are as follows:-
• The tasks of the organisation are allocated as official duties among the
various positions.

JSS 19 November 2012

Page 2 Job design

• There is a clear-cut division of labour and a high level of specialisation.

• A hierarchical authority structure applies to the organisation of jobs.
• There are clear reporting structures underpinned by rules, regulations and
authority. An impersonal orientation is expected from officials in their
dealings with clients and other officials.
• Employment in the organisation is based on technical qualifications and
professional expertise.
Bureaucracy should provide the advantage of certainty of performance,
rationality, transparency, fairness and consistency. Authority derives from the job
or appointment rather than the individual and this gives authority its legitimacy.
Weber believed that in modern organisations legitimacy most often derives from
legal authority and a system of abstract rules to which all members of the
organisation are subject. As has been noted above, in a bureaucracy, authority is
not inherent to the person holding it but derives from the impersonal order that
appointed him or her to the job. Work should be organized on a continuous,
regulated basis and divided into distinct professional spheres. Jobs will be
arranged hierarchically with a clear line of reporting or command (on a quasi-
military pattern). Finally, administration will be based on written documents
embodying agreed procedures, thus tending to make the office (or bureau) the
hub of the modern organisation. Interestingly, information technology has not
eroded bureaucracy but enhanced it!
Bureaucracy, put crudely, is the administrative equivalent of scientific
management, placing maximum emphasis on control and allowing minimal
scope for individual autonomy. Bureaucracy has many benefits in terms of
providing certainty of performance and reducing the arbitrary actions of
individuals. However, like scientific management, it has a number of drawbacks
which Mullins has summarised as follows:-
• ‘The over emphasis on rules and procedures, record keeping and paperwork
may become more important in its own right than as a means to an end.
• Officials may develop a dependence on bureaucratic status, symbols and
rules.
• Initiative may be stifled and when a situation is not covered by a complete
set of rules or procedures there may be a lack of flexibility or adaptation to
changing circumstances.
• Position and responsibilities in the organisation can lead to officious
bureaucratic behaviour. There may also be a tendency to conceal
administrative procedures from outsiders.
• Impersonal relations can lead to stereotyped behaviour and a lack of
responsiveness to individual incidents or problems’ (Mullins, 1999, 55).

JSS 19 November 2012

 Job design Page 3

In spite of every criticism, however, the bureaucratic form of organisation retains

its significance. Henry Mintzberg, in his book Structures in Fives: Designing
Effective Organisations, identifies the defining characteristic of bureaucratic
organisational structure as standardisation. Large operating units, extensive
division of labour, and above all, the need to maintain management control, all
tend to what Mintzberg describes as Machine Bureaucracy characterised by
‘highly specialised, routine operating tasks, very formalised procedures… a
proliferation of rules, regulations, and formalised communication throughout the
organisation; large-scale units at the operating level; reliance on the functional
basis for grouping tasks; relatively centralised power for decision making, and an
elaborate administrative structure with a sharp distinction between line and staff’
(Mintzberg, 1983).

3. The challenge of the human relations school

It was noted in Lecture 2 that scientific management tends to divide the
production process into small, discrete elements. Control of the method of work,
its organisation and the optimum time for its completion all become, at least in
theory, matters for management. Workers are expected to undertake the tasks
allocated to them and in return earn incentive payments. Similarly,
office/clerical/administrative work organized on a bureaucratic basis is structured
hierarchically, leaving the individual worker with little autonomy. In both cases
management attempts to maximise control over the labour process and, broadly
speaking, the workers are not expected to ‘think’, they are merely expected to ‘do’.
Scientific management, bureaucracy and mass production techniques all remain
in use at the present day. They have, however, tended to mellow with age and
the axiomatic low trust organisations of the past now exist side by side with high
trust organisations where the creativity of workers is nurtured rather than
suppressed. Of course, this shift has been driven by advances in technology and
the nature of work itself. However, it has also been influenced by changes in
management thinking on the issue of job design stimulated by insights derived
from the so-called ‘human relations school’.
This shift in thinking has its origins in the writings of Elton Mayo, an academic
working at the Harvard Business School, and his particular interpretation of the
Hawthorne Experiments carried out at the Western Electric plant in Chicago
during the late 1920s. The Hawthorne Experiments began as illumination studies
examining the effect of various levels of lighting on productivity. In the hands of
Mayo, however, they evolved into a full scale study of the role of work and the
workplace in industrial society. Applying insights derived from the French
sociologist Emile Durkheim, Mayo argued that the development of urban,
industrial society created a situation in which the bulk of the population suffered
from anomie. Mayo described this as the ‘the planlessness in living which is

JSS 19 November 2012

Page 4 Job design

becoming characteristic both of individual lives and of communities… individuals

increasingly lapsing into restless movement, planless self-development — a
method of living which defeats itself because achievement has no longer any
criterion of value; happiness always lies beyond any present achievement’ (Mayo,
1933). Mayo’s remedy for the problems he identified was to establish the
workplace as the crucial focus of community. Workers were to be encouraged to
see the factory or office as, in the words of Charles Handy, their ‘day time homes’.
Mayo proposed a management approach which did not abandon the insights of
F. W. Taylor but tempered them with a ‘softer’ approach based on the insights of
industrial sociology.
Mayo’s work stimulated a greater concern among enlightened employers for the
mental wellbeing of workers and pointed to the processes of job enrichment and
job enlargement that will be examined in Lecture 4. Further, whereas the scientific
managers took a negative view of work groups, seeing them as merely the means
to restrict output, Mayo and his Harvard colleague George Homans were far more
positive about their role. Mayo sought to align the informal work group with
enlightened management to the mutual benefit of all. As will be seen there was
much in this that anticipated the Japanese management techniques examined in
section 5 of this lecture.

4. The significance of groups and teams

Following Mayo industrial sociologists and anthropologists tended to emphasise
the centrality of the group in human relations. From the 1930s through to the
1960s numerous studies appeared illustrating the significance of the human
group in situations ranging from hunter-gatherer societies to street-corner gangs
and from scientific communities to garbage collectors. Broadly speaking the
claim was being made that groups are the primary unit of human association and
their existence should therefore be acknowledged and nurtured. A key
contribution to the study of groups was made by Kurt Lewin who pioneered the
study of group dynamics. He investigated the impact of leadership on group
behaviour and also the ways in which groups resist or accept change. In general
he found that change was more likely to be accepted through group participation
and involvement in decision making — what might now be called ‘buy-in’.
Following Lewin’s work a significant contribution to the study of groups was
made by Bruce Tuckman who identified four main stages of group development
and relationships as follows:
• Stage 1 — forming. This is the initial formation of the group, the bringing
together of a number of individuals who tentatively identify the goals of the
group. There is likely to be anxiety as members seek to create an
impression, struggle for dominance or for a particular role.

JSS 19 November 2012

 Job design Page 5

• Stage 2 — storming. As group members become better acquainted, they

put forward their opinions more openly and perhaps more forcefully.
Conflicts may occur and disagreements result in hostility. Storming can be
valuable because the clash of opinions may lead to a reform of the group’s
purposes and means of operation.

• Stage 3 — norming. Conflict and hostility diminish as members of the

group establish guidelines and standards of behaviour — that is, generate
norms of acceptable conduct. Of course, in the industrial case these norms
can become anti-management and committed to restricting productivity.

• Stage 4 — performing. Having passed through the first three stages

successfully the group can now work effectively as a team. As Mullins puts
it, ‘at this stage the group can concentrate on the attainment of its purpose
and performance of the common tasks likely to be at its most effective’
(Mullins, 1999, 466).

5. Job design and the challenge of Japanese management

In 1974, Johnson and Ouchi, in their article ‘Made in America — Under Japanese
Management’, highlighted the growing productivity gap between Japanese and
American companies. They argued that Japanese companies were superior to
their American counterparts in terms of both output and quality and claimed to
have identified five key areas where the approach to the management of staff
differed from the techniques prevailing in the West. Although Japanese managers
were well aware of the techniques of scientific management, and had certainly
perfected them to as great an extent as their Western counterparts, they placed
far greater confidence in their workers. They also had far higher expectations.
Further, rather than taking the work group/team to be the likely means of
restricting output, it was seen as a crucial source of mutual support. The work
group was obliged to participate in the process of continuous improvement of an
activity to create more value (kaizen) and the reduction of waste (muda). In the
light of Japanese experience, many assumptions concerning job design in the
West were radically rethought and emphasis placed on the value of multi-skilling,
team working and job re-engineering.
In the early days of Western exposure to Japanese management techniques
commentators tended to emphasised the social rather than technical
achievements of the system. In recent times, however, the emphasis has shifted
to the technical aspects, particularly the techniques of total quality management
and lean production. Not least Japanese management assumes a close,
continuous and developing relationship with internal staff and external suppliers
and places a high premium on mutuality and trust. Having said all of this there is

JSS 19 November 2012

Page 6 Job design

now plenty of evidence that the ‘edge’ Japanese companies once enjoyed has
been substantially reduced — see for example problems with quality control
experienced by Toyota.

6. Concluding remarks
The emergence of the human relations school changed management attitudes to
the treatment of people in work situations. Although many managers continue
to use the methods of scientific management and organisations continue to be
run on bureaucratic lines, alternative ways have been adopted. As will be seen in
Lecture 4, the recognition that people needed more from work than just money
provided managers with alternative means to motivate workers. The success of
Japanese management methods increased the interest in work groups and
teams.

Sample examination questions

1. Compare and contrast, using relevant examples, the characteristics of high
and low trust organisations.
2. Using relevant examples, critically examine the contemporary applications
of bureaucratic management.
3. In what ways did the Hawthorne experiments demonstrate the significance
of groups at work?

References and background literature

Gillespie, R Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the Hawthorne Experiments,
Cambridge University Press, 1991
Mintzberg, H Mintzberg on Management: Inside the Strange World of Organisations,
The Free Press, 1989
Mintzberg, H Structures in Fives: Designing Effective Organisations, The Free Press,
1983
Womack, P and Jones, D Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your
Corporation Touchstone Books, 1996.

Notes

JSS 19 November 2012