The German Automobile Industry in Transition

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247
Author(s):  
Michael Schumann
Keyword(s):  
Automobile Industry ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Job Descriptions ◽  
Product Strategy ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Work Autonomy

This paper describes the new approaches the German automobile industry has developed during the last four years. It deals with product strategy, production concepts, work organization, industrial relations and technology. In the automobile industry, team concepts and groupwork have been the most important innovations in increasing efficiency. There are two fundamentally different approaches to team work The concept of ‘structurally conservative groupwork’ is a more or less modernized version of Taylorism. The job descriptions of production workers remain narrow, there is not much work autonomy and no reprofessionalization. By contrast, ‘structurally innovative groupwork’ builds on the specific assets of the German industrial order: the tradition of craft work (Facharbeiter), the strong focus on qualified, self-directed work, and the consensus orientation in the field of industrial relations.

scholarly journals Industrial Relations in the U.S. Automobile Industry: An Illustration of Increased Decentralization and Diversity

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry C. Katz
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Automobile Industry ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Auto Industry ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Contingent Compensation ◽  
The U.S

This paper traces the evolution of employment relations in the U.S. auto industry over the post World War II period with particular emphasis on recent developments. There is a strong movement toward growing variation in employment relations within both the assembly and parts sectors of the auto industry. Variation appears both through the spread of more contingent compensation and team systems of work organization. There is also wide variety across plants and industry segments in basic employment systems including low wage, human resource, Japanese-oriented, and joint team-based approaches. Declining unionization is a particularly strong influence in the parts sector although nonunion operations have now spread to the assembly sector. While these trends are well illustrated by developments in the auto industry, they are trends common to other parts of the U.S. economy.

Organization of work in Estonian university libraries: a review and survey

2014 ◽  
Vol 115 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 452-470
Author(s):  
Kate-Riin Kont ◽  
Signe Jantson
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Work Load ◽  
University Libraries ◽  
Job Descriptions ◽  
Organization Of Work ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Job Duties

Purpose – The aim of the current article is to investigate satisfaction of the staff of Estonian university libraries with the organization of work by analyzing characteristics, aspects and dimensions of the work, such as self-realization and skills realization opportunities, task complexity, task interdependence and fair division of tasks. Design/methodology/approach – The data used in this paper is based on a review of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concept of work organization, and the results of the original online survey created by the paper’s authors, conducted among Estonian university libraries. The results are interpreted on the basis of direction in the literature, and the authors’ opinions, based on our long-term working experience in Estonian academic libraries. Findings – Although a number of Estonian university librarians were mostly satisfied with the division of labor within their departments, the respondents feel that duties in the library as a whole should be reorganized and workloads should be divided more equally. Almost half of the respondents have performed (in addition to their main job) duties that are not included in their job descriptions. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has been previously carried out in the Estonian library context into work organization and coordination. Based on the current study, it can be concluded that the biggest challenge for university libraries in Estonia is to fixate clearly job descriptions and work procedures, divide job duties fairly and guarantee balanced work load. Additional duties should be accompanied with additional remuneration.

Whose Hard Times?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Automobile Industry ◽  
Joint Ventures ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Temporary Workers ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
Chinese Automobile Industry ◽  
New Generation

This chapter carries out an in-depth analysis of the transformation of China's automobile industry and its labor force over the past two decades, with particular attention on how shop-floor, national, and global processes interact in complex ways to produce the specific industrial relations and dynamics of labor unrest in the Chinese automobile industry. It argues that the massive foreign investment in China's auto sector through joint ventures and the increased scale and concentration of automobile production have created and strengthened a new generation of autoworkers with growing workplace bargaining power and grievances. However, the acute contradictory pressures of simultaneously pursuing profitability and maintaining legitimacy with labor have driven large state-owned automakers and Sino-foreign joint ventures to follow a policy of labor force dualism, drawing boundaries between formal and temporary workers. While formal workers enjoy high wages, generous benefits, and relatively secure employment, temporary workers suffer comparatively low wages, unsecure employment, and heavier and dirtier job assignments. Temporary and other low-wage autoworkers have also become the main source of militancy in the auto industry.

Reconstruction and restoration: the legacies of post-war German Industrial Sociology

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1017-1029 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holm-Detlev Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
High Skill

The article reconstructs the re-birth of Industrial Sociology in Germany after the Second World War in a comparative perspective. Although sharing the main context conditions and maintaining a constant and fluent exchange with their colleagues in other countries, the German intellectual traditions and specific institutional context motivated several particular interests and perspectives that shape a distinct German Industrial Sociology until today. The dominance of qualitative in-depth research, the focus on the emancipative potentials in high-skill-based work organization, the cooperative industrial relations tradition and the constant attempts to link employment studies with general social theory on modern capitalist society and social change characterize German Industrial Sociology. The richness of distinct national institutional settings for comparative social research on employment regimes may be another lesson to be learned from critical reconstruction of labour sociology.

Process Organization as a Determinant on Team Development and Maturity

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (12) ◽  
pp. 2-575-2-578
Author(s):  
Georg Stawowy ◽  
Holger Luczak
Keyword(s):  
Work Organization ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Team Development ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Company ◽  
Strategic Goal

Numerous German companies experience a slow down in team work two to three years after the implementation. Therefore, stability of work organization gains importance as a strategic goal. Based on a literature review on team development a model to describe team development as a basis for the definition of team maturity is presented in this paper. Furthermore, a classification of team tasks in addition to a chosen model of team development lead to a model to explain the relationships among process organization, team tasks and the level of social-psychological development. The underlying hypothesis are finally formulated. Following, a company case study with 28 teams has been conducted to research the tasks within a flow production line and to assess in 48 interviews with members of 14 teams the achieved level of team maturity.

`A Unique Working Environment': Health, Sickness and Absence Management in UK Call Centres

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Taylor ◽  
Chris Baldry ◽  
Peter Bain ◽  
Vaughan Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Diagnostic Model ◽  
Remedial Action ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Call Centres ◽  
Recent Emergence

This article fills an important gap in our knowledge of call centres by focusing specifically on occupational ill-health. We document the recent emergence of health and safety concerns, assess the responses of employers and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), critique the existing regulatory framework and present a holistic diagnostic model of occupationally induced ill-health. This model is utilized to investigate quantitative and qualitative data from a case study in the privatized utility sector, where the relative contributions to employee sickness and ill-health from factors relating to ergonomics, the built environment and work organization are evaluated. The principal conclusions are that the distinctive character of call-handling is the major cause of occupational ill-health and that effective remedial action would involve radical job re-design. Finally, the limitations of recent HSE guidance are exposed and industrial relations processes and outcomes analysed.

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