Job design meets organizational sociology

摘要

The shift of the American economy from manufacturing to services has drastically changed the nature of jobs and organizations. Job design today takes place against a very different backdrop than it did during its formative years, when some of the long-dominant theories were constructed. Jobs are far more likely to be in services, such as retail, than in manufacturing. In a nation of shopkeepers, "task identity," "task significance," or "knowledge of the actual results of the work activities" can be somewhat constrained, and whatever autonomy sales clerks had extends only as long as their new electronic leash. The content of jobs changes rapidly, and insecurity rises at the micro level (due to the high turnover in services relative to manufacturing,) and the macro level (due to the increasing "offshoreability" of the American economy).