Page 116 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

96 organizational design and organizational development
INTRODUCTION

Globalization, intensification of competition, and technological advancements—to men-
tion just a few of the current challenges to businesses—demand that companies develop
innovative organizational design forms that in particular foster a high degree of utiliza-
tion and development of employee qualifications (see Pfeffer, 1998). A look at the recent
literature on management and change concepts that seek to provide optimal solutions to
these challenges reveals an enormous body of new vocabulary and terms. The extent to
which the new terminology and catchwords accentuate—or ignore—human aspects and
human needs varies widely.
The chapter presents and discusses design concepts grounded in work and organiza-
tional psychology that are conceived to provide both humane and economic business
design and development. Practical applications of the concepts are reported in detail
within the framework of two case studies. These practical implications are derived from
a sociotechnical systems approach and the action regulation theory.

INTEGRAL DESIGN CONCEPTS

Various findings show that the effectiveness and efficiency of an enterprise, as well
as the quality of job design and resulting job performance at the individual level, are
determined by the degree of sociotechnical optimization of work tasks, work systems,
and work structures (see Emery, 1959; Trist, 1981; Ulich, 1989). Sociotechnical opti-
mization aims toward the joint optimization of the utilization and development of the
employees’ qualifications, the implementation of advanced technology, and the design
of the work organization (people–technology–organization-approach; see Figure 5.1).
Sociotechnically optimized enterprises are characterized by decentralization at the level
of the enterprise, functional integration at the level of organizational units, work in self-
regulated groups, and qualified work at the level of individual work tasks. Therefore, it
is necessary to have well-founded design criteria on the level of order processing, work
systems, work groups, and individual work tasks.
Criteria for the design of order processing, work systems, work groups, and individ-
ual work tasks that are in line with the sociotechnical systems approach (see Strohm &
Ulich, 1998) and action regulation theory (see Volpert, 1989; Hacker, 1994) are shown in
Figure 5.2. Box 5.1 illustrates the definition of the criteria in detail. For the effective de-
sign on the group level and on the individual level, criteria can be derived from the action
regulation theory. The design has to aim toward the creation of complete tasks, which
means that they require processes of goal-setting, planning, performing, controlling and
feedback.
This also means that a sociotechnically optimized design of work systems is a neces-
sary prerequisite for the design of tasks that are complete and challenging both in content
and socially—as crucial aspects of a humane job design—at the group as well as the
individual level.
The implementation and use of IT solutions, as significant determining factors in
technical–organizational convergence, have a major impact upon the degree of autonomy
to fulfill tasks and upon the degree of flexibility, both with regard to time and place, in
performing work. In this connection, concepts such as telecommuting and non-territorial
office structures are of great interest.