Individual positions

6 important questions on Individual positions

  • Describe vertical job specialization:

  • Vertical job specialization separates the performance of the work from the administration of it.


Organizations specialize jobs in the vertical dimension in the belief that a different perspective is required to determine how the work should be done.

  • What is described here:


Increases repetition -> Facilitates standardization; Facilitates learning; Individual to be matched to the task. Parallel activities; To increase productivity. Problem: coordination.

  • Horizontal job specialization.

  • Describe the process of horizontal job enlargement:

  • Wide variety of tasks associated with producing products and services.

Increases intrinsic motivation.


He/She may either do more tasks in sequences, or do them one at a time, as before, but interchange tasks with his/her colleagues periodically so that his work becomes more varied.
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  • What is described here?


Job enrichment. Gains control over the tasks. Quality of working life increases.

  • Vertical job enlargement.

As Herbert Simon (1969) has pointed out, the essence of the man-made sciences - whether engineering, medicine, or management - is design.

  • Explain why design is the essence of the man-made sciences:

  • Because, design assumes discretion, an ability to alter a system.


In the case of organizational structure, design means turning those knobs that influence the division of labour and the coordinating mechanisms, thereby affecting how the organization functions.

Organizations divide their labour - specialize their jobs - to increase productivity.

In one pin factory, 10 men specialized in their work were each able to turn out about 4.800 pins per day.

  • What are according to Adam Smith the reasons for such productivity increase?
 

  1. The improved dexterity of the workman from specializing in one task.

  2. The saving in time lost in switching tasks.

  3. The development of new methods and machines that come from specialization.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

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