IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v24y2013i2p432-454.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assembling Jobs: A Model of How Tasks Are Bundled Into and Across Jobs

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa E. Cohen

    (Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5, Canada)

Abstract

How are tasks bundled into and across jobs within organizations? In this paper, I develop a model of this process of job design by drawing on a multisite qualitative study of task allocation following the installation of a DNA sequencer. The model that emerges is one of the assembly of tasks through multiple subassembly processes with multiple assemblers. Four activities produced requirements and requests for job designs and propositions about how to meet these: actively searching, passively receiving, doing work, and invoking preexisting ideas. The ideas that emerge from these processes are further transformed through reconciliation, interpretation, and performance. My observations show that this overall process is far reaching and incorporates many elements, not all of which are explicitly intended for job designs. The arrangements that emerge from this process are not the product of a deliberate and controlled job design process within the boundaries of a single organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa E. Cohen, 2013. "Assembling Jobs: A Model of How Tasks Are Bundled Into and Across Jobs," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 432-454, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:24:y:2013:i:2:p:432-454
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0737
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1110.0737
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.1110.0737?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baron, James N & Burton, M Diane & Hannan, Michael T, 1999. "Engineering Bureaucracy: The Genesis of Formal Policies, Positions, and Structures in High-Technology Firms," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-41, April.
    2. Jennifer A. Howard-Grenville, 2005. "The Persistence of Flexible Organizational Routines: The Role of Agency and Organizational Context," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(6), pages 618-636, December.
    3. Martha S. Feldman, 2000. "Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(6), pages 611-629, December.
    4. Brian T. Pentland & Martha S. Feldman, 2005. "Organizational routines as a unit of analysis," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(5), pages 793-815, October.
    5. Justin M. Berg & Adam M. Grant & Victoria Johnson, 2010. "When Callings Are Calling: Crafting Work and Leisure in Pursuit of Unanswered Occupational Callings," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(5), pages 973-994, October.
    6. Anne S. Miner, 1990. "Structural Evolution Through Idiosyncratic Jobs: The Potential for Unplanned Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 195-210, May.
    7. Beth A. Bechky, 2003. "Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities: The Transformation of Understanding on a Production Floor," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 312-330, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven J. Kahl & Brayden G. King & Greg Liegel, 2016. "Occupational Survival Through Field-Level Task Integration: Systems Men, Production Planners, and the Computer, 1940s–1990s," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1084-1107, October.
    2. Jillian Chown, 2020. "Financial Incentives and Professionals’ Work Tasks: The Moderating Effects of Jurisdictional Dominance and Prominence," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 887-908, July.
    3. Enrique Fernández-Macías & Martina Bisello, 2022. "A Comprehensive Taxonomy of Tasks for Assessing the Impact of New Technologies on Work," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 821-841, January.
    4. Enrique Fernandez-Macias & Martina Bisello, 2020. "A Taxonomy of Tasks for Assessing the Impact of New Technologies on Work," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020-04, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Ofer Arazy & Johannes Daxenberger & Hila Lifshitz-Assaf & Oded Nov & Iryna Gurevych, 2016. "Turbulent Stability of Emergent Roles: The Dualistic Nature of Self-Organizing Knowledge Coproduction," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 792-812, December.
    6. Aruna Ranganathan, 2023. "When the Tasks Line Up: How the Nature of Supplementary Tasks Affects Worker Productivity," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 556-585, May.
    7. Zabara, Tatiana, 2019. "Evolution of entrepreneurial teams in technology-based new ventures," Other publications TiSEM cc09d065-3811-47b6-9c93-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Consoli, Davide & Marin, Giovanni & Marzucchi, Alberto & Vona, Francesco, 2016. "Do green jobs differ from non-green jobs in terms of skills and human capital?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1046-1060.
    9. Sharique Hasan & John-Paul Ferguson & Rembrand Koning, 2015. "The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1665-1681, December.
    10. Cameron, Lindsey D. & Chan, Curtis K. & Anteby, Michel, 2022. "Heroes from above but not (always) from within? Gig workers’ reactions to the sudden public moralization of their work," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    11. Marie Le Mouel & Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2015. "Cross-Country Estimates of Employment and Investment in Organisational Capital: A Task-Based Methodology Using the PIAAC Database," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1522, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Matthew Bidwell & Ethan Mollick, 2015. "Shifts and Ladders: Comparing the Role of Internal and External Mobility in Managerial Careers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1629-1645, December.
    13. Marie Le Mouel & Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2015. "Cross-Country Estimates of Employment and Investment in Organisational Capital: A Task-Based Methodology Using Piaac Data," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2015/8, OECD Publishing.
    14. Ruthanne Huising, 2014. "The Erosion of Expert Control Through Censure Episodes," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1633-1661, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luciana D’Adderio, 2014. "The Replication Dilemma Unravelled: How Organizations Enact Multiple Goals in Routine Transfer," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1325-1350, October.
    2. Patrick S. Cohendet & Laurent O. Simon, 2016. "Always Playable: Recombining Routines for Creative Efficiency at Ubisoft Montreal’s Video Game Studio," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 614-632, June.
    3. Paul Spee & Paula Jarzabkowski & Michael Smets, 2016. "The Influence of Routine Interdependence and Skillful Accomplishment on the Coordination of Standardizing and Customizing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 759-781, June.
    4. Giada Baldessarelli & Nathalie Lazaric & Michele Pezzoni, 2022. "Organizational routines: Evolution in the research landscape of two core communities," Post-Print halshs-03718851, HAL.
    5. Gilstrap, J. Bruce & Hart, Timothy A., 2020. "How employee behaviors effect organizational change and stability," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 120-131.
    6. Niki A. den Nieuwenboer & João Vieira da Cunha & Linda Klebe Treviño, 2017. "Middle Managers and Corruptive Routine Translation: The Social Production of Deceptive Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 781-803, October.
    7. Mickaël David & Frantz Rowe, 2015. "Enterprise Systems Contribution to Organizational Routines Evolution Potential [Le rôle des systèmes d’information d’entreprise dans l’évolutivité des routines organisationnelles]," Post-Print hal-01559512, HAL.
    8. D'Adderio, Luciana, 2008. "The performativity of routines: Theorising the influence of artefacts and distributed agencies on routines dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 769-789, June.
    9. Brian T. Pentland & Thorvald Hærem & Derek Hillison, 2011. "The (N)Ever-Changing World: Stability and Change in Organizational Routines," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1369-1383, December.
    10. Anja Danner-Schröder, 2021. "Without actors, there is no action: How interpersonal interactions help to explain routine dynamics," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(7), pages 1913-1936, October.
    11. Davide Nicolini, 2011. "Practice as the Site of Knowing: Insights from the Field of Telemedicine," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 602-620, June.
    12. Scott Sonenshein, 2016. "Routines and Creativity: From Dualism to Duality," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 739-758, June.
    13. Scott F. Turner & Violina Rindova, 2012. "A Balancing Act: How Organizations Pursue Consistency in Routine Functioning in the Face of Ongoing Change," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 24-46, February.
    14. Jeremy P. Birnholtz & Michael D. Cohen & Susannah V. Hoch, 2007. "Organizational Character: On the Regeneration of Camp Poplar Grove," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(2), pages 315-332, April.
    15. Stephanie Bertels & Jennifer Howard-Grenville & Simon Pek, 2016. "Cultural Molding, Shielding, and Shoring at Oilco: The Role of Culture in the Integration of Routines," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 573-593, June.
    16. Schriber, Svante & Löwstedt, Jan, 2020. "Reconsidering ordinary and dynamic capabilities in strategic change," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 377-387.
    17. Anja Danner-Schröder & Daniel Geiger, 2016. "Unravelling the Motor of Patterning Work: Toward an Understanding of the Microlevel Dynamics of Standardization and Flexibility," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 633-658, June.
    18. Mark J. Zbaracki & Mark Bergen, 2010. "When Truces Collapse: A Longitudinal Study of Price-Adjustment Routines," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(5), pages 955-972, October.
    19. Paula A. Jarzabkowski & Jane K. Lê & Martha S. Feldman, 2012. "Toward a Theory of Coordinating: Creating Coordinating Mechanisms in Practice," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 907-927, August.
    20. Jeremy Aroles & Christine McLean, 2016. "Rethinking Stability and Change in the Study of Organizational Routines: Difference and Repetition in a Newspaper-Printing Factory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 535-550, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:24:y:2013:i:2:p:432-454. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.