1.5 Historical Foundations of Organizational Behavior

A revolution is a sudden, major change. To understand where the first industrial revolution got its name, consider what happened over a span of a mere century. Up to the early 1700s, all goods were made by artisans who performed all or most of the steps themselves; for instance, a cobbler would convert a piece of leather into a pair of boots by himself. By 1800, the cobbler's descendants were working in shoe factories, repeating the same, generally machine-operated task throughout a 12-hour workday.

The industrial revolution of the mid-1700s, which started in England and rapidly spread throughout the Western world, changed the nature of daily activity. With centralized factories, work became something one did under strict instructions from a manager; it also became much more hierarchical, bringing prestige and power to a few. This first industrial revolution reached a high point in North America 150 years later, thanks largely to Henry Ford, the automotive industrialist who pioneered the use of interchangeable parts and the moving assembly line. This development made manufacturing so efficient that the cost of cars dropped from thousands of dollars to a few hundred. It also transferred all responsibility for the nature and pace of factory work from the workers to the plant managers. The resulting conflict between assemblers and managers led to the rise of unionism. The latter part of the 20th century has seen the emergence of an equally profound revolution in the workplace. Some of the characteristics of this revolution are addressed below.

New jobs, once abundant in manufacturing, are becoming scarce. For instance, as recently as 1980, all writing was done by pen or typewriter; printed matter was composed by skilled typesetters. Now there are more than 50 million computers in business use in North America, and virtually all white-collar employees are expected to be familiar with their operation. Good new jobs with major employers are scarce. Most new job openings involve service rather than manufacturing, and most service openings are for low-skill, dead- end positions. Much new work in Canada is self-generated by entrepreneurs, mostly women, starting in their own homes. The jobs that do exist offer less security than they used to, as managers talk of "flexibility" and "global competitiveness." In addition to being replaced by machines, employees are becoming casualties of "restructuring," in which companies close down or relocate, or use microelectronic and satellite technology to transfer work such as programming and data entry to staff in low-wage countries. Factories concentrate on high-tech efficiency. Instead of stockpiling components, they rely on computer communication with suppliers and customers, and "just-in-time" delivery of components. They also use temporary or contract workers ("just-in-time personnel"). Temporary jobs have increased by over 20 percent in the past five years, and one in every ten employed Canadians is now in such a job, typically without much security or benefits. About two-thirds of such employees would rather have permanent work, and one in five adult Canadians is either unemployed or underemployed.

Unions have lost much of their power and continue to lose it, as governments give employees more basic rights under the law than the unions did at their height. Because unions once controlled job classification, seniority used to bring relief from physically demanding, repetitive work, which would be turned over to young newcomers. Now plants aren't hiring, and to keep their jobs employees have to work harder and longer at the same types of work they were hired to do a quarter-century earlier. The "workday" used to be the hours of daylight. Many people worked at home or lived on the job site. With the industrial revolution, the workweek increased to 70 or 80 hours. The major goal of unions was to reduce the workweek to 40 hours. Now the workweek is defined in law, but employers, faced with expensive fringe benefits and training costs, would rather induce employees to work overtime than hire additional staffers who might be expensive to dismiss when no longer needed.

There has long been tension between operators and their workplace machinery, but it's taken on a new face. Computers do not work very intuitively, and workers feel the machines control them more than vice versa. Jobs that were once described in terms of the skills or knowledge required are now defined in terms of the apparatus to be operated. The company that took pride in its large team of friendly and knowledgeable switchboard personnel has replaced them with user-friendly, automated voice-mail and a technician who can maintain it.

"Labor-saving" machinery hasn't reduced workers' labor as much as it has lessened the employers' costs. The employer who has replaced six staffers with a costly machine wants the machine to be operated efficiently and continuously, preferably while reporting to management how it's being operated. Machines are still driving the operators.

No equipment has been changed more radically than that used for communicating. At the time of the first business, messages could travel as fast as a horse could gallop or a ship could sail. Those speed limits didn't change with the first industrial revolution; the changes didn't begin until the mid-1800s, and they advanced significantly only a century after that. Today's executives can communicate with their partners across the globe more easily than their grandfathers could communicate with the branch across town.

With the reduction of political trade barriers and with more efficient transportation, the marketplace is becoming global. A new motion picture or computer program can be sold in 100 countries rather than one or two, and fads can quickly spread across the world.

A global marketplace justifies investing huge sums of development resources, and also makes it harder to predict demand and serve consumers. Errors are more likely and more costly; decision-makers must be fast and accurate.

Retailing is also changing, with specialized catalogues at one end and huge warehouse stores at the other. Advertisers are targeting more specific types of prospects. There are new forms of marketing, and a more sophisticated approach to customer service.

Not long ago the typical Canadian employee was a white male breadwinner with a secure job that paid enough to support his family. Today's job applicants, male and female, represent vastly more diversity in education, work and life experience, ethnicity, age, and lifestyle. Employees in today's workforce are more knowledgeable, skilled and are more concerned about how the organization can help them improve and also how they can contribute in their own way to the organization. They believe in being active members of the organization.

Employees are also consumers, as their employment permits the purchase of goods. In the past, people's needs were simple, and there were few goods for sale. Workers were paid by the day, and if they didn't need anything they could take days off. Now there's a limitless range of goods that people want, and both spouses, if they have work, have to put in longer hours to pay for them.

Management style is changing in complex ways. On the one hand, there's increasing emphasis on humanizing the workplace and improving the quality of worklife. On the other hand, sophisticated (often computerized) machinery and surveillance technology are giving supervisors more information about, and control over, employees.

Employees' social structure is changing. Jobs were once rigidly classified by training, formal designations, the apprenticeship system, custom, and union contract. If the factory's power failed, the plant plumbers would have a cigarette break or a card game; if the assembly line stopped, the assemblers would have some off-time together. Now employers are increasingly gaining the right to move staff where needed and to have them do whatever is assigned. This removes the job classification barriers as well as the opportunities for downtime and the human interaction associated with it. Employers argue that these changes give workers more variety and protection from repetitive strain injuries. But employees find they have fewer opportunities to make friends, take a break, and engage in human interaction. And they have to work harder, replacing one repetitive task with a series of repetitive tasks. Another change is the way management is borrowing the Japanese method of altering employees' attitudes toward the employer. To foster feelings of solidarity and loyalty, Japanese staff and managers share common uniforms, cafeterias, parking places, work locations, and to a large extent pay. Through prework rituals of songs, slogans, and calisthenics, workers are trained to think of themselves as part of a large team and to focus on kaizenThe search for ways of improving productivity and quality., which is the search for ways of improving productivity and quality. But employees are finding that kaizen reduces the number of their jobs and increases their workload, and that they're acquiring the skill of being able to multitask rather than being multi-skilled. Employees who feel that they're being made to work harder rather than smarter tend to be less committed to their employers and more likely to switch jobs.

The technical meaning of workActivity that is purposeful, motivated, skillful, disciplined, and structured by task and time. is clear in physics, but when applied to how we make our living, the word has long troubled dictionary writers, philosophers, and social scientists. For most of their time on earth, humans probably didn't think of what they did during the day as work. Few of our early ancestors traveled every morning from where they lived to follow the orders of someone else in exchange for some sort of payment. Even the basic concepts of hours, cash, and employment are quite recent.

Now, nine out of ten North American workers sell their labour for wages, so it's not surprising that work dominates our thought and lives. Work can be defined as activity that is purposeful, motivated, skillful, disciplined, and structured by task and time. It is generally cooperative and paid for by someone else. It is conceived of as something one is required to do; a rancher on horseback is working, whereas a suburbanite riding a horse is engaging in a leisure activity.

In the past few centuries, work was often seen as a noble, almost spiritual, endeavor; to call someone hard-working was a compliment. Now, our attitudes toward work are inconsistent. A steady job brings status, pride, dignity, and self-definition, whereas unemployment can result in depression, anxiety, and lowered self-esteem. Yet, many people view work as an unpleasant and undervalued activity that economic necessity demands they perform.

Other major trends in the "Changing World of Work" include the following:

• New technologies: growing use of information and communication technology;

• Growth in the service sector, more specific risks (ergonomics and personal contact with people, stress, violence);

• New forms of work, such as telework, self-employment, subcontracting, temporary employment, flexible hours;

• Integration and globalization;

• Aging workforce;

• Raising employability through new qualifications, increasing interest in autonomous work;

• Changing management structures and — organizations have become flatter, smaller and leaner;

• Increasing participation of women in the workforce;

• Growing number of SME's, in which knowledge and resources are often insufficient;

• Increasing work pace and work load. The above types of workplace changes (to jobs, unions, equipment, marketplaces, employees, and the organization and— and to work itself) are more sudden and far-reaching than you probably realize. These changes, which add to the second industrial revolution, offer both opportunities and challenges to those who study and participate in organizational behavior.