1 The determinants of holistic work practices: A fuzzy-set analysis Conrad Schulze-Bentrop (First draft. Comments are welcome!) Beitrag zum 12. Kolloquium zur Personalökonomie, Universität Wien, 5. und 6. März 2009 [email protected]Abstract Advances in production technology, information technology and human capital are believed to foster holistic work practices such as team work, job rotation, decentralization of responsibility and multitasking. However, the same factors have been considered as leading to a larger division of labor, more specialization and tayloristic work practices. I argue that the choice between holistic and tayloristic work practices crucially depends on contingency factors. In particular, it is speculated that the influence of customers and suppliers on the production process essentially influences whether a firm chooses holistic work practices. This idea is explored applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on data from the NIFA workplace panel, a dataset representative of the German mechanical engineering industry. In contrast to most studies applying configurational comparative methods, my analysis involves a large number of cases (some 500 observations). This reduces some of the problems inherent in QCA such as limited diversity and the need of simplifying assumptions. The fuzzy-set analysis shows that only workplaces combining the influence of customers or suppliers with certain complementarity-enabling characteristics have implemented holistic work practices. For example, the joint presence of a strong influence of customers on the one hand, and computerized systems of production planning and control and NC/CNC-machines on the other, is one sufficient combination of conditions leading to the presence of holistic work practices. The analysis also shows that computerized systems of production planning and control and NC/CNC machines act as functional equivalent to multi-skilled workers; either condition is necessary for the implementation of holistic work practices.
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The determinants of holistic work practices: A fuzzy-set analysis Conrad Schulze-Bentrop
(First draft. Comments are welcome!)
Beitrag zum 12. Kolloquium zur Personalökonomie, Universität Wien, 5. und 6. März 2009
Advances in production technology, information technology and human capital are believed to foster holistic work practices such as team work, job rotation, decentralization of responsibility and multitasking. However, the same factors have been considered as leading to a larger division of labor, more specialization and tayloristic work practices. I argue that the choice between holistic and tayloristic work practices crucially depends on contingency factors. In particular, it is speculated that the influence of customers and suppliers on the production process essentially influences whether a firm chooses holistic work practices. This idea is explored applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on data from the NIFA workplace panel, a dataset representative of the German mechanical engineering industry. In contrast to most studies applying configurational comparative methods, my analysis involves a large number of cases (some 500 observations). This reduces some of the problems inherent in QCA such as limited diversity and the need of simplifying assumptions. The fuzzy-set analysis shows that only workplaces combining the influence of customers or suppliers with certain complementarity-enabling characteristics have implemented holistic work practices. For example, the joint presence of a strong influence of customers on the one hand, and computerized systems of production planning and control and NC/CNC-machines on the other, is one sufficient combination of conditions leading to the presence of holistic work practices. The analysis also shows that computerized systems of production planning and control and NC/CNC machines act as functional equivalent to multi-skilled workers; either condition is necessary for the implementation of holistic work practices.
Calculation with the fsQCA 2.0 software (www.fsqca.com)
The six configurations differ concerning their empirical importance. Empirical importance
refers to the degree to which the outcome is covered by a particular combination of
conditions. Two measures, the raw coverage and the unique coverage assess the empirical
importance. Raw coverage refers to the size of the overlap between configuration set and
outcome set relative to the size of the outcome set (Ragin, 2006: 301).iv The unique coverage
is derived because single cases are often explained by more than one configuration. The
unique coverage controls for overlapping explanations by partitioning the raw coverage. It is
calculated for a certain configuration by subtracting the joint raw coverage of the remaining
configurations from the joint raw coverage of all configurations including the one of interest.
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The raw coverage for the configurations ranges from 0.40 to 0.14. The unique coverage
ranges from 0.05 to 0.01. Hence, each configuration provides a unique contribution to the
explanation of holistic work practices.
In the first, most relevant configuration, computerized PPC and NC/CNC-machines is
combined with a high influence of customers on the production process. Hence, these
conditions lead to the presence of holistic work practices in work groups independent of the
remaining three conditions. In other words, this configuration represents firms that have
adopted advanced information and production technologies and that have a production
process strongly influenced by the customers.
The next four, less relevant configurations do not show the combined presence of
computerized PPC and NC/CNC-machines but they all employ multi-skilled operators.
Configurations 2 and 4 are special in three aspects: First, they represent firms with a low
influence of suppliers on the production process. Second, they combine polyvalence of the
operators with the absence of NC/CNC-machines (configuration 2) and the absence of
computerized PPC (configuration 4). Third, the firms represented by these configurations are
solely single part or module producers.
The last, least relevant configuration comprises all three complementarity-enabling features.
This combination indicates firms that produce complete systems or aggregates and are highly
reliant on the suppliers.
Overall, the findings provide conditional support for Hypothesis 2. Basically, firms with
complementarity-enabling characteristics adopt holistic work practices if their production
process is strongly influenced by customers or suppliers. Furthermore, those firms adopt
holistic work practices that follow the two described “special” paths.
5 Conclusions
The analysis delivers strong support that complementarity-enabling characteristics are
necessary but not sufficient for the presence of a holistic work organization in work groups.
However, the findings are limited to work groups of the German mechanical engineering
industry.
The regression analysis alone would provide evidence for the “from-tayloristic-to-holistic”
argument. The fuzzy-set analysis supports the argument that advances in information
technology, communication technology or human capital enable a holistic work organization.
However, the choice of work organization, i.e. which one outperforms the other, depends on
contingency factors such as the need for a flexible production. Thus, rather than technological
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progress, a changing involvement of customers or suppliers in the production process
determines a trend. In future studies, contingency factors deserve further attention.
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i Ragin (2006) defines the consistency score of a necessary condition X (or combination of conditions)
as:
=
=
≤ =∑
∑1
1
min( , )( )
I
i ii
i i I
ii
X YConsistency Y X
Y. Y denotes the outcome, and I the number of cases.
ii The coverage of a necessary condition X (or combination of conditions) is defined as:
=
=
≤ =∑
∑1
1
min( , )( )
I
i ii
i i I
ii
X YCoverage Y X
X
. Y denotes the outcome, and I the number of cases.
iii The consistency score of a sufficient condition X (or combination of conditions) is defined as:
∑
∑
=
==≤ I
ii
I
iii
ii
X
YXYXyConsistenc
1
1),min(
)(
.
Y denotes the outcome, and I the number of cases.
iv The coverage of a sufficient causal condition X (or combination of conditions) is defined as: