Object Salience in the Division of Labor: Experimental Evidence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Raveendran, Marlo; Puranam, Phanish; Warglien, Massimo
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Riverside; INSEAD Business School; Universita Ca Foscari Venezia
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2015.2216
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 2110-2128
• 关键词: Organization design; division of labor; Decomposability; experiments

摘要

When we engage in the process of division of labor, there are typically multiple alternatives, but insufficient knowledge to choose among them. Under such conditions, we propose that not all alternatives are equally likely to be pursued. In particular, when we engage in the process of division of labor for novel and nonrepetitive production, we argue that we display a tendency to perceive and select object-based task partitions over activity-based partitions. We experimentally investigate how the salience of objects over activities manifests itself in individuals and groups engaged in division of labor for the assembly of strongly or weakly decomposable products. We draw implications for organization design as well as the impact of technological change on organizations.