Understanding the wide range of outcomes achieved by firms trying to implement TQM and similar process improvement initiatives presents a challenge to management science and organization theory: a few firms reap sustained benefits from their programs, but most efforts fail and are abandoned. A defining feature of such techniques is the reliance on the front-line workforce to do the work of improvement, thus creating the possibility of agency problems; different incentives facing managers and workers. Specifically, successfully improving productivity can lead to lay-offs. The literature provides two opposing theories of how agency interacts with the ability of quality-oriented improvement techniques to dramaticlly increase productivity. The 'Drive Out Fear' school argues that firms must commit to job security, while the 'Drive In Fear' school emphasizes the positive role that insecurity plays in motivating change. In this study a contract theoretic model is developed to analyze the role of agency in process improvement. The main insight of the study is that there are two types of job security, internal and external, that have opposite impacts on the firm's abilty to implement improvement initiatives. The distinction is useful in explaining the results of different case studies and can reconcile the two change theories. / National Science Foundation, grant SBR-9422228, the Ford Motor Company and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company

The primary aim of this survey is to: * explore whether there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market; * * describe the characteristics of potential job-sharers and to explain why Job-sharing would be an appropriate and feasible solution to unemployment, massive retrenchments, poor quality ofwork life (QWL) and low worker productivity Job-sharing has been used in many developed countries to address a variety of problems at the individual, organisational and national level. These include allowing workers to have a balance between their work and non-work life; to increase worker productivity and QWL and to increase employment opportunities. The literature survey affirms that these problems are prevalent in Africa as a whole and in South Africa specifically. The survey results reveal that the environment in South is Africa is conducive to jobsharing and that slightly over one third of the workers and organisations and two thirds of the jobseekers are willing to job-share. The results of this study also reveals that QWL, productivity and unemployment does influence the willingness to job-share and that approximately 80% of the employees would rather either job-share, work-share or opt for some other alternative than to have retrenchments. Thus by implication, job-sharing would address the problems relating to poor QWL, low worker productivity, fewer employment opportunities, as well as massive retrenchments in South Africa. The study has also explored possible reasons and obstacles to job-sharing and found that whether these are perceived as significantly important or not, depends on whether one is an employer, employee or job-seeker . The job-seekers feel more than others, that there is no reason insurmountable or obstacle preventing the introduction of job-sharing by which to avert their unemployed status. There are also differences in willingness to job-share among subgroups with regard to the industry, area of work, position held in the organisation and the availability of job-sharing positions in the organisation. This thesis reports that there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market, to address a variety of problems pertaining to workers, organisations, job-seekers and, therefore, the whole nation at large. / Business Management / D.B.L.

Understanding the wide range of outcomes achieved by firms trying to implement TQM and similar process improvement initiatives presents a challenge to management science and organization theory: a few firms reap sustained benefits from their programs, but most efforts fail and are abandoned. A defining feature of such techniques is the reliance on the front-line workforce to do the work of improvement, thus creating the possibility of agency problems; different incentives facing managers and workers. Specifically, successfully improving productivity can lead to lay-offs. The literature provides two opposing theories of how agency interacts with the ability of quality-oriented improvement techniques to dramaticlly increase productivity. The 'Drive Out Fear' school argues that firms must commit to job security, while the 'Drive In Fear' school emphasizes the positive role that insecurity plays in motivating change. In this study a contract theoretic model is developed to analyze the role of agency in process improvement. The main insight of the study is that there are two types of job security, internal and external, that have opposite impacts on the firm's abilty to implement improvement initiatives. The distinction is useful in explaining the results of different case studies and can reconcile the two change theories. / National Science Foundation, grant SBR-9422228, the Ford Motor Company and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. MIT Sloan School of Management, Center for Innovation in Product Development

The primary aim of this survey is to: * explore whether there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market; * * describe the characteristics of potential job-sharers and to explain why Job-sharing would be an appropriate and feasible solution to unemployment, massive retrenchments, poor quality ofwork life (QWL) and low worker productivity Job-sharing has been used in many developed countries to address a variety of problems at the individual, organisational and national level. These include allowing workers to have a balance between their work and non-work life; to increase worker productivity and QWL and to increase employment opportunities. The literature survey affirms that these problems are prevalent in Africa as a whole and in South Africa specifically. The survey results reveal that the environment in South is Africa is conducive to jobsharing and that slightly over one third of the workers and organisations and two thirds of the jobseekers are willing to job-share. The results of this study also reveals that QWL, productivity and unemployment does influence the willingness to job-share and that approximately 80% of the employees would rather either job-share, work-share or opt for some other alternative than to have retrenchments. Thus by implication, job-sharing would address the problems relating to poor QWL, low worker productivity, fewer employment opportunities, as well as massive retrenchments in South Africa. The study has also explored possible reasons and obstacles to job-sharing and found that whether these are perceived as significantly important or not, depends on whether one is an employer, employee or job-seeker . The job-seekers feel more than others, that there is no reason insurmountable or obstacle preventing the introduction of job-sharing by which to avert their unemployed status. There are also differences in willingness to job-share among subgroups with regard to the industry, area of work, position held in the organisation and the availability of job-sharing positions in the organisation. This thesis reports that there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market, to address a variety of problems pertaining to workers, organisations, job-seekers and, therefore, the whole nation at large. / Business Management / D.B.L.

This master's thesis explores how job automation has influenced a selected bank branch workplace and what role gender plays in this process. The thesis is based on a case study focused on a team from one anonymized Czech branch of an international bank where robots are being introduced into the work process. Between November 2018 and February 2019, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six members of this team and obtained data were subjected to an analysis, the results of which are presented in this thesis. Interview questions revolved around changes in the workplace and the evaluation of these changes by the employees. The thesis therefore examines, among other things, whether robots have had any impact on working hours or workplace interpersonal relationships, what control tools narrators have had to monitor the work process, how robots have highlighted existing gender inequalities in the workplace and what issues have arisen after their implementation. The case study has pointed out the importance of further, closer inspection of robot implementation cases, each of which may be affected by a number of specific elements. This micro-level investigation may serve as a foundation for a better understanding of robotic process automation as well as a potential source for developing...