Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism

Ortega, Jaime

doi:10.1287/mnsc.47.10.1361.10257

Cited by 211 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…A drawback of the NLSY79 is that we lose a large number observations because of attrition from the sample and missing information. 19 These missing values are particularly problematic because they prevent us from being able to construct complete occupational histories. In particular, we lose 693 respondents because we cannot identify either their highest degree or the date at which they received their highest degree.…”

Section: The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth 1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We do so because we worry 18 In this tabulation, after making the sample selection rules discussed below, we treat individuals with missing occupation information as being out of the labor force. 19 For example, sometimes relevant questions were skipped for invalid reasons.…”

Section: The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth 1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only a handful of other papers also consider experimentation in the labor market. Ortega (2001) builds a two period model of job rotation and shows that expected productivity is higher when firms learn about workers through job rotation rather than through fixed job assignments. Ortega does not, however, fully characterize the optimal job rotation policy.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Experimentation and Job Choice

Antonovics

Golan

2012

Journal of Labor Economics

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Section: The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth 1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth 1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experimentation and Job Choice

Antonovics

Golan

2012

Journal of Labor Economics

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“…Additionally, the motivational benefits of variety (Hackman and Oldham 1976;Fried and Ferris 1987) are more likely salient when a worker has completed a task a number of times (Ortega 2001). Prior work that examines the individual-level productivity effects of specialization and variety across many days has examined only the possible direct effects of variety (Boh et al 2007;Narayanan et al 2009), and has not considered any complementarities that variety may offer over time (Lindbeck and Snower 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

2012

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Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition and variety (i.e., working on different tasks) to keep workers motivated and provide them opportunities to learn. In this paper, we investigate how these two strategies may bring different productivity benefits over time. For our empirical analyses, we use two and a half years of transaction data from a Japanese bank's home loan application-processing line. We find that over the course of a single day, specialization, as compared to variety, is related to improved worker productivity. However, when we examine workers' experience across a number of days, we find that variety helps improve worker productivity. Additionally, we show that part of this benefit results from workers' cumulative experience with changeovers. Our results highlight the need for organizations to transform specialization and variety into mutually reinforcing strategies rather than treating them as mutually exclusive. Overall, our paper identifies new ways to improve operational performance through the effective allocation of work. Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks-1 - AbstractSustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition or variety to keep workers motivated and allow them to learn. In this paper, we investigate how these two strategies may bring different benefits within the same day and across days. Additionally, we examine the impact of these strategies on both worker productivity and workers' likelihood of staying at a firm. For our empirical analyses, we use two and a half years of transaction data from a Japanese bank's home loan application processing line. We find that over the course of a single day, specialization, as compared to variety, is related to improved worker productivity. However, when we examine workers' experience across days we find that variety, or working on different tasks, helps improve worker productivity. We also find that workers with higher variety are more likely to stay at the firm. Our results identify new ways to improve operational performance through the effective allocation of work.

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“…In contrast to Demougin and Siow (1994), I explicitly model the market structure and discuss other aspects of organizational design. Other related articles are Meyer (1994), Jeon (1996), Ortega (2001), andCarrillo (2003). They analyze how to choose task allocation, team composition, and job rotation when the firm needs to learn about the employees' talents to make promotions or efficiently allocate labor.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational Form and the Market for Talent

Harstad¹

2007

Journal of Labor Economics

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This article brings together the market for products, the market for talent, and firms' organizational form. While the organizational design determines the allocation of blame and fame within the firm, the value of a good reputation depends on the market structure. Consequently, the market structure dictates the optimal organizational design. If competition becomes tougher and the market thicker, transparent firms decentralize while nontransparent firms concentrate control, transparency itself is improved, corporations switch from unitary to multidivisional form, and the turnover of managers increases. The model rationalizes recent trends in both executive pay and organizational design.

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Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism

Cited by 211 publications

References 13 publications

Experimentation and Job Choice

Experimentation and Job Choice

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

Organizational Form and the Market for Talent

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