Multi-task learning and the reorganization of work: From Tayloristic to holistic organization

Arbeitspapier

The paper analyzes the contemporary organizational restructuring of production and work within firms. We emphasize the shift from a "Tayloristic" organization of work (characterized by significant specialization by tasks) to a "holistic" organization (featuring job rotation, integration of tasks and learning across tasks). We examine four driving forces behind this restructuring process: advances in production technologies promoting technological task complementarities, advances in information technologies promoting informational task complementarities, changes in worker preferences in favor of versatile work, and advances in human capital that make workers more versatile. Our analysis can also help explain the recent widening of wage differentials and disparities in job opportunities, not only between groups with similar characteristics, but also within these groups.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 39

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Labor Demand ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Organization of Production ; Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
• Subject: Restructuring ; Work organization ; Technological change ; Information flows ; Multitasking ; Job rotation ; Learning ; Arbeitsorganisation ; Reorganisation ; Lernprozess ; Technischer Fortschritt ; Informationstechnik ; Humankapital ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Lindbeck, Assar ; Snower, Dennis J.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 1999

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/2257
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET