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Designing for diversity or diversity for design? Tasks, interdependence, and within‐unit differences at work
Author(s) -
Harrison David A.,
Humphrey Stephen E.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/job.608
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , library science , management , unit (ring theory) , sociology , state (computer science) , political science , psychology , computer science , law , economics , mathematics education , algorithm
Organizations are defined by people getting together – pooling their energy and resources – to achieve broad goals they could not have achieved on their own. To reach those broad goals, organizations attract members, form structures and systems, and create products, services, or knowledge to be delivered at particular points in time. Because of the complexity involved in creating such high-quality and timely deliverables, differentiation of individual roles within the organization’s structures and systems is necessary. Such role differentiation is also manifest in organizations. Jobs vary. Tasks vary. They do so in ostensibly orderly ways. Classic approaches to work design capture this variation and a priori specialization, induce its underlying dimensions, and connect those dimensions via perceptual and cognitive mechanisms to individual affective and behavioral outcomes (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976, 1980; Sims, Szilagy, & Keller, 1976). Oh . . . and . . . welcome to Management 101.