4.7. JOB DESIGN AND CONFLICT
Sometimes the design of jobs increases the chances of conflict in organizations. This is particularly true because the goals of scientists are sometimes not the same as those of the organization. The goals of scientists are more likely to reflect scientific values, while the goals of the organization often reflect concern for profitability (Keenan, 1980; Souder and Chakrabarti, 1980).
An important attribute of job design is the degree of autonomy that is allowed on the job. There are two kinds of autonomy (Bailyn, 1984): strategic autonomy, the freedom to set one's own research agenda, and operational autonomy, the freedom to implement the agenda in different ways. Bailyn discovered through empirical studies that at the beginning of a technical career operational autonomy is more important than strategic autonomy. As the employee becomes more and more experienced, it is essential for the employee to have a certain amount of strategic autonomy. Thus, in the design of jobs we ought to assume that the employee will have a certain amount of autonomy. However, the kind of autonomy that we design for the job may differ depending on the level of the incumbent in the particular job.
There is a considerable literature that discusses the conflict between professional values and organizational goals. Professional values reflect concerns for scientific development. To the extent that scientists regulate their behavior to reflect such professional values, they are likely to remain up to date. Thompson and Dalton 1976, however, point out that this emphasis on keeping up with professional development often clashes with basic organizational goals.
Scientists tend to identify more with their profession than with the institution in which they practice. Research administrators, as they move up the ladder, increasingly tend to identify more with their organizations than with their profession. These different tendencies may provide a clue to some conflicts that may emerge between scientists and research administrators. Since the relationship between research administrators and research scientists in an organization is an important variable in determining the success of the organization's research activities, the research administrators need to find ways to minimize this apparent conflict. Ross 1990 has suggested four ways to optimize the administrative role. These are:
Maintaining a service orientation toward the organization
Remaining flexible
Promoting free and complete communication
Ensuring that the main goal is the furtherance of research objectives
LaPorte (1967) describes the main sources of conflict between professional and organizational goals:
There is often a clash between profit and technological innovation, since an interesting technological development may not necessarily be profitable.
The expression of professional desires and goals is often different from management because the individual wishes to be autonomous, while management wishes to integrate the organization.
Professionals seek freedom from procedural rules, while managers emphasize them.
Professionals seek rewards contingent on professional status, while managers emphasize rewards that match the organization in strength and status.
Pelz (1956) identified four types of conflict that occur in technical organizations. Type I is mostly technical conflict that occurs with peers and is related to such things as technical goals, milestones, means of achieving particular goals, and interpretation of data. Type II is interpersonal conflict with peers (for example, likes and dislikes, trust and apprehension about the goals of peers.) Type III is conflict that occurs between supervisor and subordinates about technical or administrative matters such as technical approach, milestones, and schedules, while Type IV is conflict that occurs between the supervisor and the subordinate about interpersonal matters such as power, authority, rules, and procedures. Evan's (1965a, b) empirical research discovered that technical conflict is twice as prevalent as interpersonal conflict in governmental and industrial laboratories.
A rather common type of conflict occurs when different parts of the organization have different mandates and, as a result, try to maximize different criteria. An example is the conflict between marketing and research and development groups. The research and development groups are likely to wish to develop products that meet certain technical criteria, while the marketing groups are likely to wish to develop products that will sell well. While the two sets of goals are not incompatible, there are situations when the coordination of the activities of these two groups is complicated and requires very careful attention by management. To prevent goal conflict Arvey and Dewherst (1976) note that it is important for management to set up goal-clarifying and planning activities that include all parties involved.
The problem has been analyzed by Souder (1975) and Souder and Chakrabarti (1980), who have identified three possible approaches or mechanisms for the coordination of the research and development groups and the marketing groups. The three approaches—"stage-dominant," "process-dominant," and "task-dominant"—are described below.
In the stage-dominant approach the research and development groups, as well as the marketing groups, create formal structures that have specialized functions; these groups have narrowly defined responsibilities and specifically limited activities. People in an organization have responsibilities that are directly tied to their functional specialties. For example, the engineers limit their activities and responsibilities to the technical side, while marketing people, who are concerned about the way the public reacts to products, have specific responsibilities that deal with the way the product is likely to be received by the public. These formal structures are also reflected in the way the particular job is transferred from one group to another. There are formal and institutional transfer points where the research and development people hand the job to the marketing people, or the marketing people hand it back to the research and development people, with a special ceremony.
In the process-dominant approach there are no apparent transfer points, and the parties hand the job to each other, back and forth, without any kind of ceremony. There are no apparent cases where one group builds up and another builds down in order to get extra manpower to complete a particular job during a particular phase. Rather, people move in and out of the activities and the groups as needed. The interaction between the technical side and the marketing side is almost continuous and people do not have points at which they say "that is your job" and "I am not going to deal with that," but rather they are continuously involved in the development of the product. The incumbents in this process are specialists, of course. However, engineers, for example, understand a fair amount about the marketing situation, and the marketing people understand quite a bit about the technical aspects of the project. There is no paperwork that is filed to indicate transition points where the job goes from the research group to the marketing group or from the marketing group to the research group. The products are expected to and do oscillate from one group to the other.
The task-dominant approach is characterized by even greater flexibility. Here the incumbents have a strong orientation and focus toward the task and the end product, and they talk in terms of "our" product rather than "our" and "their" functions. It is not "I am the technical person" or "I am the marketing person," but rather "I am the person who is interested in that product." There are no transfers of authority in this case, and personnel do not go on and off the team as the product is developed. People are specialists, of course, but they do not function as specialists. They are part of the team that is developing the product, and the fact that they happen to be scientists or engineers, economists, or public opinion experts is irrelevant. All they are doing here is participating in a project-oriented team. Thus, in the task-dominant approach the individuals are in continuous contact with each other as a team. This is very different from the situation in which there are formal structures where the research group meets with the marketing group and where people have identities as a "research person" or as a "marketing person."
Souder argues that each of these approaches has some advantages under some conditions, so that one should not generalize and say that one of these three approaches is better than the others under all conditions. Obviously, when you have an organizational structure that allows people to be specialists, they can practice their special skill and become very good at the particular functional activity.
Unfortunately, while the specialists can be especially good in their activities, they may not have very much understanding of what is going on in the other group. The advantage of high specialization is that specialists can do some tasks very fast and extremely well. At the same time, a disadvantage is that there is little coordination with other activities.
Souder has outlined a number of factors that are relevant to maximizing the effectiveness of one or the other of these three organizational structures. Those who are facing the specific question of how to organize teams should consult the original publication (Souder and Chakrabarti, 1980), which shows that the criteria that one wishes to maximize will influence the type of organizational structure likely to be optimal. These criteria include environmental factors (e.g., environmental uncertainty, dynamics), task factors (type of technology, the type of innovation), and organizational factors (the nature of the organization, the complexity of the organization, the kinds of communication patterns, and the division of responsibilities).
Affective events theory posits that characteristics of the workplace and incidents at work constitute discrete events that influence positive and negative moods and emotions. Job satisfaction is in part a result of such moods. The congruence of the values of the organization and the person is likely to result in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, long tenure in the organization, and intent to stay in the organization (Joshi and Mavtocchio, 2008).