From silos to cells: Reducing repetitive jobs through sociotechnical redesign

Lander Vermeerbergen, Sam Pless, Geert van Hootegem and Jos Benders
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Lander Vermeerbergen: Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium
Sam Pless: Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium
Geert van Hootegem: Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium; Research Institute for Work and Society, KU Leuven, Belgium
Jos Benders: Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway; Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2021, vol. 42, issue 1, 160-178

Abstract: Given the negative effects of repetitiveness on employees’ well-being, organisational performance and societal expenditure, it is desirable to reduce the number of repetitive jobs. So far, intervention strategies seeking to reduce the number of such jobs have mainly focused on individual jobs, without taking into consideration that these are embedded in organisational structures. Employee surveys and interviews were collected to measure changes in organisational structures and job repetitiveness in 18 different organisations, which had each participated in a sociotechnical redesign programme. The findings show that making work units responsible for a complete product or service (i.e. implementing cells), or installing semi-autonomous teams, results in a decreased number of repetitive jobs. This study underlines the impact of interventions in organisational structures on decreasing the number of repetitive jobs, and challenges current intervention strategies.

Keywords: Organisational intervention; organisational structure; repetitive jobs; sociotechnical theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:42:y:2021:i:1:p:160-178

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X18756758

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