Critically discuss the covert job redesign in the case study in relation to appropriate theories of
Within this case study and the car assembly line in discussion it is evident that the motivation theory of the management is linked to two popular principles, in that people have certain needs which are mainly fulfilled through work and management can influence and make the best of people through motivation and the performance of work, through the design of the job and the work processes that individuals are told to follow. However it is the employees who have created this job redesign and management are happy to let it go on providing quality and productivity is not affected. This is evident in that the employees are expected to do their job without assistance, except in special circumstances. This belief in management, that the needs of employers can be manipulated and controlled through job design, relates to Taylor’s Scientific Management approach in which many jobs were deskilled, value of labour was reduced, thus making labour less costly and easier to replace. Boring, repetitive, rigidly structured jobs as like the case study implies of the car assembly line. This also links to the view of many in management that skill gives people power, therefore using the technology to deskill people, as the case study suggests, in that they are only allowed to do their job with assistance in special circumstances, has allowed the car assembly line management to control the workforce by taking away the skill element and structure their job and processes in a way that skill can only be used when a machine breaks down, which the case study implies should not be very often due to this being a special circumstance. ... The evidence of his job design came through Taylor’s economic man where he looked at a theory of motivation covering all, and this belief came from his and many other theorist’s belief that the basic motivating factor for workers was money or wages.