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Theoretical problem
An organization has to be built up with people in it. When setting up a group of people that will be organized together, the following is needed: task analysis, people & skills and processes & procedures (Thompson 2008). The people in a group need to have technical or functional skills, task-management skills and interpersonal skills. It is not just for a group to perform their technical skills; normally the actions must be integrated and communicated with others outside and into the rest of the organization. All these factors are needed for a work group with a common goal according to Thompson (2008) s 203.
There is also an aspect of that all different people have different predisposition or tendency to work in different ways and the ability to handle different tasks and nature of tasks (Davis & Pharro, 2003). This view was already described by Taylor in the beginning of 20:th century when he stated that it was most beneficial to match men to jobs according to their capacity (Locke 1982)
Looking into this issue regarding specialists and generalists, one finds that Adam Smith was one of the first to write about specialization. He was the first that divided work into smaller pieces and made workmen only a part of a refinement of a product and not the producer of the whole product itself. The output could be increased since specialized at one or at few tasks, and transport and set-up time is reduced (Sandkull & Johansson, 1996). Many of the classic organizational theorists favour specialization over generalisation. Taylor is definitely one of them according to Locke (1982). Taylor emphasized maximum specialization not only for workers, but also for other functions such as managers. To make all these divided parts fit together as a whole, there are needed specialists to co-ordinate and plan all the work.
The following definitions of generalists and specialists can be found in literature:
• A generalist is one person that has to make decisions, solve problems and coordinate efforts of others to be able to fulfill the tasks assigned (Golembiewski, 1965).
• Persons knowing a lot of few things are specialists and persons knowing little about many things are called a generalist. The depth and breadth perspective can be used, generalists has breadth in their knowledge and specialists depth. (Ferreira & Sah, 2010)
• Persons that have the relative advantage of one task are called a specialist, and a person that is equally able to perform several tasks is called a generalist (Prasad, 2009).
Another way to view specialization is to give a highly trained specialists a rather comprehensive amount of tasks to be solved meaning a professional is responsible for the operation (Hanks & Chandler, 1994).
The benefits of having specialists are that the organization can handle highly complex tasks and that the overall efficiency will increase. Organization task diversity will affect the need of specialization, and the increase and expansion of tasks has proven to be the driver for specialization increase (Hanks & Chandler, 1994).
Having access to the tools and technology, the goal of the team and the actors, the group members and their skills, the only thing missing is structure according to the model below.
Looking at the classical organizational theorists, they were all trying to make up the winning formula to organize that would be valid for all organizations everywhere and anywhere, and early economists thought that structure was irrelevant to organizations performance (Scott & Davis, 2007). However, that has changed over the years.
A contingency theorist would, according to Scott and Davis (2007) say that” the best way to organize depends on the nature of the task environment to which the organization relates”. The contingency theorist has therefore moved away from the work of for example Taylor and Weber, who tried to find the optimal organization that would work under all circumstances. Organization is basically a map where a people can find the framework for the task being executed. The purpose of the organization is to make people work together and to create value, which they can not accomplish by themselves (Shani & Lau 2005). Or expressed as; oorganizations are social structures created by individuals to support the collaborative pursuit of specified goals, according to Scott (2003).
There are two ways to view work systems according to Yang (2008), one is the bureaucratic work system and the other is the high performance work systems. The bureaucratic systems focus on highly formal control using horizontal differentiation. High performance systems use various methods such as teamwork to integrate workers from different specialized areas and management levels. The bureaucratic system promotes people to move into different expertise areas and managerial positions while high performing systems promotes labor integration. The different requirements from organizations involved in traditional mass production, where the bureaucratic model fits, compared to faster change in demands from the customers leads to that a front line worker have to be more able to make decisions and also make them quicker (Yang, 2008). To be able to manage that, job definitions needs to be more flexible, tasks expanded and skills constantly need upgrading. What path each organization chooses to follow depends on many factors. One is size, and it is shown in larger organization that there is more likely that there are great resources to build up a structure of specialized departments, hierarchy and written rules and documents (Yang, 2008).
However, next question in this subject is how to organize? In general when designing the structure in an organization there are several options how to do it. Normally, the design and structure are not fixed over time and evolves and changes due to changes in requirements. Organization Structure groups jobs into larger units for example, working groups and departments and how they formally work together regarding communication and processes between teams/groups or individuals (Scott & Davis 2007).
Scott and Davis (2007) continue with asking the question; how can organizational structures be constructed to reflect the overall level of complexity and uncertainty of the technology employed?
Jay Galbraith states that there is no one best way to organize; however, any way of organizing is not equally effective (Scott & Davis, 2007).
In addition previous research about groups and the influence of structure in organizations have proven to be very important many times according to Gist, Locke and Taylor (1987). Their study discusses the importance of group interaction in the organizational structure and the effect on group performance.Therefore it is relevant and of interest to study groups. When adding the perspective of generalists and specialists the research question is as follows:
Is there a best organization structure for generalist and specialist groups?
Purpose
Putting the research problem into a wider perspective the motivation of this thesis evolves.
The purpose of this thesis is to explore and discuss different alternatives on organizational grouping from a generalists and specialists perspective.
To fulfil the purpose and to be able to answer the problem question, I believe there is a need to look into the different organization structures and examine where to find the generalists and specialists in the theoretical models of organization structures that exists. It is interesting to know how and why organizational structure looks like it does today and how it has evolved historically and how the theoreticians have handled specialists and generalists functions. To understand this, the study of the design parameters of an organization gives a good background.
One parameter to understand how organizations are functioning is to view upon the subject of work division, or division of labour, to investigate what theories exists regarding the job split between generalists and specialists. Also the study will touch on the subject on how generalists and specialists work together, because this also influences the overall organizational structure.
I will explore some of the definitions there are regarding specialists and generalists, what the respective characteristics are and how they are affected by different organizational structures. This is to bring light to the understanding how they do or do not fit into the organization respectively.
As showed in the empirical study of this thesis, different organization structures could facilitate or obstruct the work of specialists or generalists. Therefore it is crucial to understand different structures and what the consequences could be when grouping the respective function in different ways.
This study will be of value to practitioners involved in organizational design since the thesis brings light into the discussion around how to practically group specialists and generalists. It is also interesting for persons working in the respective function of being a specialist or generalist because I believe knowledge can help one to understand why things happen and why it is like it is. Also, the benefit of this thesis is to give insight to what can be changed to a more effective way of working for generalists and specialists.
For theorists the thesis gives input to the discussion around benefits and weaknesses of different organization types but here it is done in the perspective from a specialist and a generalist view.
The interviews conducted in this study can also give some understanding about the nature of generalists and specialists and also guidance to answer the research problem.
Table of contents :
1 Problem and purpose of study
1.1 Introduction and Background
1.2 Theoretical problem
1.3 Purpose
2 Methodology discussion and motivation
2.1 Qualitative research and inductive approach
2.2 Epistemological considerations
2.3 Ontological considerations
2.4 Research methods used
2.5 Secondary and Primary data
2.6 Analysis method
3 Literature Review and Theory
3.1 Organizational design theory
3.2 Structural features of organizations
3.3 Organizational theory analysis
3.4 Organizations forms and metaphors
3.5 Bureaucracy
3.6 Group Structure Theory
3.7 Division of labor
3.8 Departmentalization or Strategic Grouping
3.9 Consequences of organization form options
3.10 Organizing by Function versus Product
3.11 Advantages and disadvantages Specialists Generalists
3.12 Individuals in groups
4 Interpretation and Analysis
4.1 Data category form the interviews
4.2 Definitions and validity
4.3 Differentiation versus Integration
4.4 Bureaucracy and hierarchy influences on the generalists and specialists
4.5 Work division and Group structure
5 Conclusions and further study
5.1 Conclusions
5.2 Further study
6 References
Appendix
