Work Organization & Job Design
Summaries of the articles
Pre-MSc. Change Management
University of Groningen
, Table of content
Article lecture 1:..........................................................................................................................3
Article 1: Work Design: Creating jobs and roles that promote individual effectiveness........4
Article lecture 2:..........................................................................................................................8
Article 1: Reader Work Organization and Job Design 2018 - 2019.........................................9
Articles lecture 3:......................................................................................................................17
Article 1: Work design influences: A synthesis of multilevel factors that affect the design of
jobs........................................................................................................................................18
Article 2: Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work................26
Article 3: Lessons from Seru production on manufacturing competitively in a high cost
environment..........................................................................................................................31
Articles lecture 4:......................................................................................................................34
Article 1: The modeling and assessment of work performance...........................................35
Article 2: Positive lean: Merging the science of efficiency with the psychology of work.....39
Article 3: Production quality and human factors engineering..............................................44
Article 4: Beyond motivation: Job and work design for development, health, ambidexterity
and more...............................................................................................................................45
Article 5: Interplay between performance measurement and management, employee
engagement and performance.............................................................................................57
Article 6: Visual management in production management..................................................63
Articles lecture 5:......................................................................................................................71
Article 1: Job Demands-Resources theory............................................................................72
Article 2: The theory of purposeful work behavior..............................................................75
Article 3: The person-situation debate revisited..................................................................80
Article 4: The role of general cognitive ability and job performance: Why there cannot be a
debate...................................................................................................................................85
Articles lecture 6:......................................................................................................................90
Article 1: Digitization of industrial work: Development paths and prospects......................91
Article 2: Work Design in Future Industrial Production: Transforming towards Cyber-
Physical Systems...................................................................................................................97
, Article lecture 1:
1. Cordery, J.L., & Parker, S.K. (2012). Work design: Creating jobs and roles that
promote individual effectiveness. The Oxford Handbook of Organizational
Psychology.
_________________________________________________________________________
, Article 1: Work Design: Creating jobs and roles that promote individual
effectiveness.
Cordery, J.L., & Parker, S.K. (2012)
Work is the activity that occupies most of the waking lives of billions of people around the
world, providing the means to many significant material, social and psychological ends.
Organizational restructuring 🡪 Interacting with the changes to demographics, markets and
technologies.
Workplaces these days are likely to be more diverse with respect to the experience and
backgrounds of people performing that work. Jobs are shaped by the interactive effect of:
1) Managerial and engineering choices with respect to work design and technology
2) The knowledge, skills, abilities and outlooks that individuals bring to the job.
Job, Role, and work design
Job design has developed; however, it has broadened its focus to incorporate the design of
both jobs and associated roles.
The expanded focus on both job and role design offers at least three advantages:
1) It recognises that the characteristic content and pattern of work
2) It acknowledges the fact that most jobs can be seen as comprising both prescribed and
predetermined tasks and activities.
3) It recognises that in most work settings, matching a person to a job is a decision that
involves considering not just their capacity to perform particular tasks, but also to
occupy particular roles
Purpose of this review: we adopt work design as an overarching term to describe the content,
structure and organization of tasks, activities and roles that are performed by individuals and
groups in work settings.
Historical perspectives on work design and individual effectiveness
The 18th century economist Adam Smith was one of the first to describe the potential
productivity advantages associated with the division of labour, though he also acknowledged
that the high level of repetition that this might involve could have deleterious psychological
effect on workers.
🡪 20th century Frederick Taylor, scientific management, after implementation the workers
reportedly resorted to sabotaging the operation of their machines in an attempt to reduce the
strain that the new system was placing them under. 🡪 workers got bored 🡪 later in 20th century:
socio-technological systems theory (STS); effectiveness is defined as the extent to which the
functioning of both human and technological subsystems are mutually reinforcing; Joint
Summaries of the articles
Pre-MSc. Change Management
University of Groningen
, Table of content
Article lecture 1:..........................................................................................................................3
Article 1: Work Design: Creating jobs and roles that promote individual effectiveness........4
Article lecture 2:..........................................................................................................................8
Article 1: Reader Work Organization and Job Design 2018 - 2019.........................................9
Articles lecture 3:......................................................................................................................17
Article 1: Work design influences: A synthesis of multilevel factors that affect the design of
jobs........................................................................................................................................18
Article 2: Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work................26
Article 3: Lessons from Seru production on manufacturing competitively in a high cost
environment..........................................................................................................................31
Articles lecture 4:......................................................................................................................34
Article 1: The modeling and assessment of work performance...........................................35
Article 2: Positive lean: Merging the science of efficiency with the psychology of work.....39
Article 3: Production quality and human factors engineering..............................................44
Article 4: Beyond motivation: Job and work design for development, health, ambidexterity
and more...............................................................................................................................45
Article 5: Interplay between performance measurement and management, employee
engagement and performance.............................................................................................57
Article 6: Visual management in production management..................................................63
Articles lecture 5:......................................................................................................................71
Article 1: Job Demands-Resources theory............................................................................72
Article 2: The theory of purposeful work behavior..............................................................75
Article 3: The person-situation debate revisited..................................................................80
Article 4: The role of general cognitive ability and job performance: Why there cannot be a
debate...................................................................................................................................85
Articles lecture 6:......................................................................................................................90
Article 1: Digitization of industrial work: Development paths and prospects......................91
Article 2: Work Design in Future Industrial Production: Transforming towards Cyber-
Physical Systems...................................................................................................................97
, Article lecture 1:
1. Cordery, J.L., & Parker, S.K. (2012). Work design: Creating jobs and roles that
promote individual effectiveness. The Oxford Handbook of Organizational
Psychology.
_________________________________________________________________________
, Article 1: Work Design: Creating jobs and roles that promote individual
effectiveness.
Cordery, J.L., & Parker, S.K. (2012)
Work is the activity that occupies most of the waking lives of billions of people around the
world, providing the means to many significant material, social and psychological ends.
Organizational restructuring 🡪 Interacting with the changes to demographics, markets and
technologies.
Workplaces these days are likely to be more diverse with respect to the experience and
backgrounds of people performing that work. Jobs are shaped by the interactive effect of:
1) Managerial and engineering choices with respect to work design and technology
2) The knowledge, skills, abilities and outlooks that individuals bring to the job.
Job, Role, and work design
Job design has developed; however, it has broadened its focus to incorporate the design of
both jobs and associated roles.
The expanded focus on both job and role design offers at least three advantages:
1) It recognises that the characteristic content and pattern of work
2) It acknowledges the fact that most jobs can be seen as comprising both prescribed and
predetermined tasks and activities.
3) It recognises that in most work settings, matching a person to a job is a decision that
involves considering not just their capacity to perform particular tasks, but also to
occupy particular roles
Purpose of this review: we adopt work design as an overarching term to describe the content,
structure and organization of tasks, activities and roles that are performed by individuals and
groups in work settings.
Historical perspectives on work design and individual effectiveness
The 18th century economist Adam Smith was one of the first to describe the potential
productivity advantages associated with the division of labour, though he also acknowledged
that the high level of repetition that this might involve could have deleterious psychological
effect on workers.
🡪 20th century Frederick Taylor, scientific management, after implementation the workers
reportedly resorted to sabotaging the operation of their machines in an attempt to reduce the
strain that the new system was placing them under. 🡪 workers got bored 🡪 later in 20th century:
socio-technological systems theory (STS); effectiveness is defined as the extent to which the
functioning of both human and technological subsystems are mutually reinforcing; Joint
