Tavistock approach
The Tavistock approach is a research method into the effects of mechanization and division of labor in mining .
Effects of mechanization and division of labor
From 1949 the Tavistock Institute carried out studies on the “effects of mechanization and division of labor in mining” in the English coal mining industry .
Working groups that have worked well up to now should be torn apart after the introduction of new technologies in longwall mining and the division of labor introduced instead. But the miners found a solution in which they combined traditional group work with the then new mining technology. Division of work and dissolution of the working groups could thus be avoided. This resulted in lower absence rates, fewer accidents and higher performance than in other mines.
The socio-technical system approach
The “socio-technical system approach” of the Tavistock Institute emerged from these investigations. This states that when new technologies are introduced, not only the organization of work has to be optimized, but also the social system. Optimal solutions are found when these changes are redesigned together. See also bottom-up approach . By transferring responsibility for complete areas of responsibility to working groups, increased flexibility of the entire socio-technical system is achieved.
Organizational development
These findings were formative for the method of organizational development and are used in the planning and implementation of many change processes in organizations.
literature
- Eric Lansdown Trist , Ken Bamforth : Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-Getting: An Examination of the Psychological Situation and Defences of a Work Group in Relation to the Social Structure and Technological Content of the Work System , in: Human Relations, February 1951, vol. 4 no. 1, pages 3-38, doi : 10.1177 / 001872675100400101
swell
- ↑ Derek S. Pugh and David J. Hickson (ed) 1996 Eric Trist and the Work of the Tavistock Institute in Writers on Organizations , Fifths Edition 1996; Penguin Books, London; P. 177-184