Work Organization and knowledge: a comparative analysis amid Argentinean productive networks

MARCELO DELFINI, ANALÍA ERBES Y SONIA ROITTER

Sidney

Congreso; 15th IIRA World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA).; 2009

International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA).

Knowledge, as a productive factor, has become significant in the new productive context.   Enterprises are then faced with the need to create work organization structures that are conducive to learning processes and turn competence development dynamic. Thus, it can be pointed that specific structures within the work organization contribute to learning dynamics. This paper aims to analyse the different work organizations present amid Argentinean enterprises within the automotive, textile, farm machinery and siderurgy productive network, and the way their organizational structures are relative to create and diffuse knowledge. The following set of core questions guide our work: What distinguishing characteristics should be taken into account to identify work organization structures present amid the enterprises of these networks? What special features do these characteristics have in the enterprises in each of the networks? What kind of work organization better foster the process development of diffusing knowledge and innovation? Work organization can be defined as the set of technical and social aspects present in the production of goods and service. It deals with work division among people, and between people and equipment. They take part of the environment and the overall dimensions present in any labour setting (Novick, 2000). Organizational structure allows the order of activity sequence giving sense and coherence to the productive process. This includes both the place where work is carried out, and the objects and tool arrangements in the production space. Workers, technology and other workers (peers, superiors, and teachers) constitute a “human activity system” i.e. a context of individual and collective learning. Integrating technical and social elements will affect the dynamics of the learning processes. In consequence, only certain organizational structures favour the learning processes and the production and diffusion of knowledge. The dimension the work organization adopts and its effect on the diffusion of knowledge and the learning processes can be explained through analyzing the structure or organizational design of work, and its social management tools. The concrete ways the work is organized, i.e. the structure, set the conditions to substantively improve communication and knowledge interchange, and so activity coordination. However, this does not guarantee the development of new competences. It is also necessary to activate a set of management tools to put the structure into practice. From this analytical perspective, different forms of work organization can be set. These stem from the productive activity characteristics that range from the ones that foster learning processes to the ones that restrict them. This approach allows the identification of “Flexible” organizations, related to forming processes, “Formal Flexible” organizations that restrict learning processes, and “Rigid”, where job is highly specialized. These different organizational ways differ one to the other in the features of working team, in the relevance placed in experience acquisition in the productive process, and workers’ degree of autonomy.  This paper is based on the results of a survey administered in enterprises within the aforementioned productive networks in Argentina. Data was analyzed through indicators linked to work organization that help compare the different networks studied. The tool for analysis was a logit regression model that set the effects of the aspects defining the work organization ways on the innovative dynamics of the enterprises, as proxy of production processes and knowledge diffusion.