Skills, Flexible Manufacturing Technology, and Work Organization

This study employs a national survey of over 3000 U.S. manufacturing establishments to explore associations between worker skill requirements and use of production and telecommunications technologies, work organization, and other management practices. Ordered probit equations show an empirical link between increases in each of six types of skill requirements, as reported by plant managers, and the use of flexible technologies and work organization practices. Technology use is most strongly linked to computer skill requirements. Work organization practices were strongly associated with problem-solving and interpersonal skill increases, suggesting that new work organization practices are broadening the set of skills sought by manufacturers. Traditional academic skills (e.g., math and reading) also were linked to the use of flexible technologies and work organization practices, but increases in these skill requirements were reported less frequently than were requirements for computer, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills.     

Skill, deskilling and new technology in the non-manual labour process

This article discusses the concept of skill and, using material from case studies on non-manual work, suggests that the microelectronic technology may have implications for work and skills that in each case will depend on a combination of social and technological factors.     

Maintaining change: the maintenance function and the change process

This paper explores the organisation of the maintenance function of five manufacturing and utility companies and the involvement of maintenance workers in plant improvement. It highlights the important role of the tacit skills of maintenance workers and the broader role of the maintenance function in technological change and organisational performance.     

Revisiting technical workers: professional and organisational identities in the software industry

This paper eradicates some of the myths of software workers as prototypes of the knowledge worker. Based on qualitative and quantitative research conducted in five Information Technology (IT) organisations, it examines how the factors of education, skill level and work role determine the opportunities presented to these workers, and how they are associated with differing levels of organisational identity. At the same time, the data reveal a consistently high professional identity, regardless of work role and qualifications.     

Skill relatedness and firm diversification

Because of the importance of human capital, a firm's choice of diversification targets will depend on whether these targets offer opportunities for leveraging existing human resources. We propose to quantify the similarity of different industries' human capital or skill requirements, that is, the industries' skill relatedness, by using information on cross‐industry labor flows. Labor flows among industries can be used to identify skill relatedness, because individuals changing jobs will likely remain in industries that value the skills associated with their previous work. Estimates show that firms are far more likely to diversify into industries that have ties to the firms' core activities in terms of our skill‐relatedness measure than into industries without such ties or into industries that are linked by value chain linkages or by classification‐based relatedness. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skill and Performance

It is popular to assume that there is a link between skill and performance, yet the evidence is tenuous. Both terms defy simple definition and much current work aggregates findings, conflating firms that compete on the basis of skill with those that do not. This article provides a detailed review of the difficulties involved. Skill may indeed contribute to performance on the shop floor but the performance of the organization as a whole is not the same as that of the shop‐floor writ large, while soft skills are difficult to assess and judgments may be contaminated by prejudice. It concludes with suggestions for better research designs that could capture this relationship.     

New technology and changing organisational forms: implications for managerial control and skills

Changes in organisational forms are central to the way new technologies impact on the future of work and employment. Drawing on case–study evidence of a call centre and its client relations and a multinational IT firm and its partnership with a government department, this paper explores the implications for skill and managerial control.     

Clerical workers, clerical skills: case studies from credit management

This article examines job knowledge and skill in clerical work drawing on five case studies from the area of credit management. The cognitive, social and 'tacit' skills necessary for clerical effectiveness in this sector are identified and examined. Feminist approaches to skills analysis are used to examine how and why this type of work is under-valued.     

English Language and Low‐Skilled Jobs: The Structure of Employment

We use the Bay Area Longitudinal Surveys (BALS) to examine skill requirements, the joint use of English and non‐language skills, and wages in low‐skilled jobs. Results show that low‐skilled jobs—even those open to workers with limited English—require English language skills. Furthermore, most make joint use of English and non‐language skills with the ability of any specific English skill set to enhance varying with the job’s specific non‐language skill required and industry.     

Creativity in Life Sciences Research

Studies in the literature on the performance of research scientists have examined a range of organisational factors but have often ignored personality characteristics. The present paper describes the preliminary work in examining personality using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation theory (KAI). In the course of the work, interesting patterns were detected in the sub-factors of which the KAI inventory is composed. This led to the idea of characterising researchers according to one of four types, as determined by the sub-factors of KAI. The paper describes the characteristics of the four types according to their level of creative performance and skills performance and also their level of job satisfaction. It suggests that this characterisation may hold useful insights regarding the deployment of research scientists.     

Skilled maintenance trades under lean manufacturing: Evidence from the car industry

This article explores how skilled maintenance trades have fared under lean automotive manufacturing, a cohort of workers relatively neglected in the literature. Historically, such trades possessed a distinct ‘craft consciousness’ derived from apprenticed-acquired skill, autonomy in job execution, strict job boundaries and relative occupational status and prestige. The article assesses how lean has impacted this craft tradition over time, drawing on a case study of one UK car plant to assess its trajectory across three decades. Four different skilled cohorts—electrical, mechanical, control engineers and die maintenance fitters—are examined to gauge respective trends in skill, autonomy, demarcation and status. While the study finds variation in experiences across different trades, the general trend points to a deterioration in work conditions on all four benchmarks of assessment. The article concludes by inferring implications for the future trajectory of skilled trades considering recent accounts provided in Industry 4.0 narratives.     

Work organization and occupational development in CIM: the case of Swedish NC machine shops

This article reports the results of a large survey of Swedish manufacturing companies employing numerically-controlled technology, on work organization and the changing nature of operator skills. The results are assessed in the light of likely changes in organizational structures and skill composition in future forms of computer-integrated manufacturing.     

Community Colleges and Employers: How Can We Understand their Connection?

This paper uses an original, nationally representative survey of manufacturing establishments to shed light on the interaction of employers with community colleges, including information on skill requirements and human resource practices. We test three hypotheses: that high‐skill employers use community colleges, that community colleges are a substitute for employer‐based training, and that community colleges are a complement to so‐called “high‐road” or “high‐commitment” human resource practices. We find limited utilization of community colleges by employers, but those that do establish a relationship are generally satisfied. Employers that demand high skills are more likely to use community colleges, as are “high‐commitment” firms.     

A Comparison of American and Japanese Work Practices: Skill Formation, Communications, and Conflict Resolution

This article examines whether American work practices are becoming more similar to Japanese work practices with regard to skill formation, communications, and conflict resolution. I find that separated skills, self-managing teams, and the dual conflict settlement procedure prevalent in three American unionized plants contrast with the practices found in three Japanese unionized plants, where integrated skills, middle-up-down decision making led by assistant and first-line supervisors, and an informal and one-channel conflict settlement procedure are used.     

Women, social skill and interactive service work in telephone call centres

This paper contributes to current debates about gender, work and skill in the service economy, focusing specifically on the case of women's employment in telephone call centres. The paper asks whether call centre employers are capitalising on women's 'feminine' social skills, and examines the degree to which these skills are being developed, acknowledged and recognised.     

Engineering the revolution? Imagining the role of new digital technologies in infrastructure work futures

Contemporary imaginations of the impact of new digital technologies (NDTS) are dominated by utopian visions of a ‘revolution’ in productivity and efficiency, contrasted with dystopian views of declines of work and human skills, and distrust of artificial intelligence's efficacy. This article explores imaginations of digital futures in the infrastructure sector through case study research of a global engineering organisation. Drawing on a practice approach, a typology is generated from interviews with engineers and managers to reveal that three broad imaginations compete within the organisation: technodeterminism; technoscepticism; and human-centric, all with utopian and dystopian variants. Clear relationships exist between the diverse imaginary positions taken by employees with their different roles, biographies and levels of the organisational agency. Those with relatively higher levels of agency tended towards technocentric utopianism while those with lower levels of agency displayed a resolutely dystopian version. Conversely, while the outward-facing image of the organisation promotes a utopian imagination of a technologically driven future, those with the very highest levels of the organisational agency remain technosceptic. This means that real change is slow. However, an encouraging manifesto for the future is suggested by those who are innovating NDTS to reimagine alternative infrastructure futures through improved human-centric social outcomes.     

Organisational, technical and marketing antecedents for successful new product development

Previous research in new product development has examined the role of organisational structure and marketing and technical skills and activities in encouraging successful innovation. This study examines the role played by organisational structure in supporting the marketing and technical/production activities in new product development, and direct and indirect effects of all of these antecedents on new product success. The goal of the study is to observe which factors lead to product success and to determine how they interconnect. Implications for new product management are provided in the concluding section.     

Who Cares about Skills? The Impact and Limits of Statutory Regulation on Qualifications and Skills in Social Care

This article examines the impact of statutory regulation on qualifications and skills in the social care sector in the UK. It draws on various sources and a set of case studies, first carried out in 2003 and replicated in 2008. The analysis shows that the advent of the statutory regime has had a positive effect on the volume of training and qualifications in the sector. However, few organizations have combined training with a broader set of human resource management practices of the kind required for the establishment of a high‐performance work system. This constitutes one of the continuing limits to further skill development. Changes in the regulatory regime risk losing benefits that have been gained.     

Skills in the green economy: recycling promises in the UK e‐waste management sector

In advanced economies the ‘greening’ of the economy is widely seen as promising extensive job creation and upskilling, alongside its other benefits. In popular and policy rhetoric, the growing importance of ‘green skills’ is asserted frequently. This study critically examines these claims within the context of the electronic waste management sector in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the cases of a non‐profit organisation and a small private enterprise in North West England, we observe that despite government support for developing skills in e‐waste, both the development and utilisation of skills remain minimal. Critically, the relatively more skill‐intensive process of reuse is substantially less profitable than recycling and resource capture. The study concludes by noting that the expectations from the green economy for high‐quality jobs need to be assessed within the context of similar, misplaced celebrations of previous transformations of work to avoid recycling the same promises.     

Workplace Transformation and Worker Upskilling: The Perspective of Individual Workers

How common is workplace transformation in the American economy? What are its implications for work force skill requirements and training investments? The existing literature addressing these questions is based on firm-reported survey data. Using new data available in the 1993 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this article examines the same questions from the perspective of individual workers. Our empirical results suggest that workplace transformation is commonplace. Fully 40 percent of private-sector workers surveyed report that in the space of just one year, a change occurred at work that required them to learn new job skills. About 23 percent of all respondents reported experiencing a workplace change we term anorganizational transformation. Incidence of formal training is positively related to indicators of organizational transformation, but the effect of these indicators is found to be sensitive to the inclusion of other important workplace change variables (namely, new products, new equipment, and new government regulations). While we expected to find strong positive relationships with product development and physical capital investment, government regulation has a surprisingly large impact on formal training.