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Assembling Jobs: A Model of How Tasks Are Bundled Into and Across Jobs

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  • Lisa E. Cohen

    (Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5, Canada)

Abstract

How are tasks bundled into and across jobs within organizations? In this paper, I develop a model of this process of job design by drawing on a multisite qualitative study of task allocation following the installation of a DNA sequencer. The model that emerges is one of the assembly of tasks through multiple subassembly processes with multiple assemblers. Four activities produced requirements and requests for job designs and propositions about how to meet these: actively searching, passively receiving, doing work, and invoking preexisting ideas. The ideas that emerge from these processes are further transformed through reconciliation, interpretation, and performance. My observations show that this overall process is far reaching and incorporates many elements, not all of which are explicitly intended for job designs. The arrangements that emerge from this process are not the product of a deliberate and controlled job design process within the boundaries of a single organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa E. Cohen, 2013. "Assembling Jobs: A Model of How Tasks Are Bundled Into and Across Jobs," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 432-454, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:24:y:2013:i:2:p:432-454
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0737
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Aruna Ranganathan, 2023. "When the Tasks Line Up: How the Nature of Supplementary Tasks Affects Worker Productivity," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 556-585, May.
    4. Consoli, Davide & Marin, Giovanni & Marzucchi, Alberto & Vona, Francesco, 2016. "Do green jobs differ from non-green jobs in terms of skills and human capital?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1046-1060.
    5. Cameron, Lindsey D. & Chan, Curtis K. & Anteby, Michel, 2022. "Heroes from above but not (always) from within? Gig workers’ reactions to the sudden public moralization of their work," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. Marie Le Mouel & Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2015. "Cross-Country Estimates of Employment and Investment in Organisational Capital: A Task-Based Methodology Using the PIAAC Database," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1522, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Matthew Bidwell & Ethan Mollick, 2015. "Shifts and Ladders: Comparing the Role of Internal and External Mobility in Managerial Careers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1629-1645, December.
    8. Ruthanne Huising, 2014. "The Erosion of Expert Control Through Censure Episodes," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1633-1661, December.
    9. Steven J. Kahl & Brayden G. King & Greg Liegel, 2016. "Occupational Survival Through Field-Level Task Integration: Systems Men, Production Planners, and the Computer, 1940s–1990s," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1084-1107, October.
    10. Enrique Fernández-Macías & Martina Bisello, 2022. "A Comprehensive Taxonomy of Tasks for Assessing the Impact of New Technologies on Work," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 821-841, January.
    11. Ofer Arazy & Johannes Daxenberger & Hila Lifshitz-Assaf & Oded Nov & Iryna Gurevych, 2016. "Turbulent Stability of Emergent Roles: The Dualistic Nature of Self-Organizing Knowledge Coproduction," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 792-812, December.
    12. Zabara, Tatiana, 2019. "Evolution of entrepreneurial teams in technology-based new ventures," Other publications TiSEM cc09d065-3811-47b6-9c93-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Sharique Hasan & John-Paul Ferguson & Rembrand Koning, 2015. "The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1665-1681, December.
    14. Marie Le Mouel & Mariagrazia Squicciarini, 2015. "Cross-Country Estimates of Employment and Investment in Organisational Capital: A Task-Based Methodology Using Piaac Data," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2015/8, OECD Publishing.

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