Die organisationelle Revolution: Lassen sich die postulierten Produktivitätseffekte empirisch belegen?

The polar model of work organization is motivated by stylized facts of the last 10-20 years. A widespread process of reorganization towards innovative work practices and extended worker responsibility has been observed. The polar model derives formal conditions for such a holistic reorganization and provides stringent hypotheses on productivity effects, which are tested empirically in the paper at hand. To conlude, we do not find strong support for the productivity effect hypothesis, although the empirical polar types are concordent with the theoretical characteristics. Hence, we extend the polar model by applying lattice theoretical results. Altogether, a third and intermediate equilibrium type or work organization is derived. This type is dominated by intertemporal flexibility of production and, hence, annualized hours schemes. Technically, minimum sufficient conditions for a complementary system are established. The empirical evidence is much more in favor of the three-layer model. In particular, the hypothesis of increasing marginal productivity effects of work reorganization can be maintained.