Work Systems Designs

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how the design of a work system can be crucial to an organization and how the choice of system depends heavily on the product or service being provided, but also on the attitudes and philosophies of the personnel in the organization. It examines two different theories on work systems design, that of Frederick Wilmslow Taylor, a pioneer in the management sciences, and that of Eric Trust. It compares Taylor, who essentially asserted that there is a best method of doing a given task and a person who is best suited to doing it, with Trust, who, in his research, compared productivity between different, comparable branches of an organization and tried to relate the differences in productivity with employee morale.

From the Paper:

"A work system as organized following Taylor's theories is characterized by having a tall management structure, with clearly defined lines of command and communication, and well-defined decision-making roles in the organization. Production in such an organization is generally in the form of a production line, with each worker having a specific task assigned to them, which is all they are trained to perform. Communication and decision making is generally top-down, and employee rewards are generally based solely on production targets."

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