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Industrial products are associated with many human activities which relate either to the creation of products, or to their use. The former class of activities includes the operations of organizational groups like designers, workshop people, marketing teams, management executives etc. The latter class consists of buying and exploiting the finished products, and the actors in these activities are again people which can be classified into various groups.
Any of the above mentioned activities may occasionally contain problems which need improvement with the help of research. Another goal for an investigation can be to gather universally valid knowledge of the activities that were studied, in other words to create or enlarge theory of this activity which theory can then perhaps later be used for the benefit of other, similarly problematic cases.
Sometimes the targets and results of development have no importance outside of the team or group of people that carries out the activity that is being studied - they do not cause any detrimental side effects to outsiders. This type of project can be called intrinsic. It does not need any acknowledgment nor assistance from the outside, not counting perhaps some help and advice from a researcher.
In the modern world, however, few groups of people are so independent that changes in their internal activities would not interest some other parties. This concerns especially teams that work in steadfast organizations like commercial businesses. To guarantee lasting practical effects from a development project of such an activity, it is important to secure the constructive co-operation of all the involved groups and people. In order to achieve this, the methods of development should be selected so that they harmonize with the normal modes of operation in the organization. Such methods and projects can be called extrinsic. The methods must allow for the fact that the problems and their remedies perhaps appear quite different to various groups concerned.
When selecting the most suitable methods among the large assortment of external and internal methods it can be advantageous to consider the prevailing degree of autonomy, i.e., how much power the individuals: the workers or the citizens, normally have in the operations of the system, as compared to the power of the administration and other parts of the organization.
Researchers have knowledge and powerful instruments to change things, but they do not govern the world. This job is reserved for the general administration of states, businesses and other organizations. If a researcher wants to change an activity, he should first examine the way in which the organization is functioning at the moment and who the people that make the decisions are. An especially consequential aspect concerns the degree of autonomy (or democracy), which indicates how far the average member of the organization can participate in the decisions taken by the administration. Organizations have different policies in this respect, and these policies heavily regulate the methods available for the researcher assisting in the developing the organization. Below are examples of some usual variations which can be found as well in public as in private organizations:
A researcher who has been asked to assist in developing an activity should first see how power is distributed in the organization. After this, it is up to him to decide how closely he wants to advocate the cause of either of the parties, or whether an intermediate position is feasible. This choice is naturally influenced by which party has employed the researcher. It tends to be the management.
Earlier, most researchers aiming at developing an activity used to identify themselves as representatives of the management or tried to adopt an "objective" attitude. The researcher thought that his task would be to find the means to solve the problems and then to teach the solutions to the "laymen". The researcher thus wanted to act as a doctor who cures the disease of the patient by means of science. The patient needs not waste time on studying medical theory: the drug will have an effect without him contributing in any way.
The above procedure may be effective in those sciences which have a generally accepted theory available. This may be the case as far as the diseases of people and animals are concerned, for example, but the "illnesses" of organizations often heal better if doctors and patients devise the cures together. Worker/citizen participation will also be profitable for the administration and for the researcher himself, notably because of the following:
When selecting the method and the degree of participation, you should recall the inception of your project. Who is asking for your help? The answer prescribes who will participate in your project. It also prescribes the method of research and is thus also reflected in the following presentation of methods for the development of activities:
The presentation will be concluded with a discussion on Assessing Activity Development.
Extrinsic means here that the project originates from outside of the group ("target group") whose activity is being developed. So is the case usually when the target group belongs to a larger organization and it is subordinated to its administration. Examples of such multi-level structures are business companies and government administration. Note that the latter sometimes finds it necessary to intervene even in the activities of private groups in order to control their safety or health.
In business management developing a working process is nothing exceptional. In fact, each supervisor and manager is supposed to discuss development topics with his or her subordinates, in connection with the daily supervision routines. A separate development project is usually necessary only when large changes are called for and many people are involved.
The usual approach is to plan a development
project from the management's viewpoint. The following model of a
productive enterprise, presented in the figure on the right is often a good
basis for this. The model depicts two principal processes of business. In
the top half, the material operations (green arrows) start from the box of
the workers, continue into production and to the customers on the right.
The lower part shows the financial procedures (yellow). (The above model is, of course, just one of innumerable alternatives when describing a business, cf. other possible points of view.)
Usual developing methods for business activities include:
Governmental control of private activities is another example of extrinsic development of activity. It aims usually at assuring the hygiene or safety of an industrial activity, especially the safety of workers but also protection of outsiders against emanations of noise, harmful gas or radiation. Even private activities like traffic are controlled to some extent. Official regulations usually stake out the allowable limits, minimal or maximal, of the activity, but do not otherwise restrain it. The normal approach of research is then methods engineering.
Methods engineering is a research approach which aims at improving the existing process of production. Its objectives are usually:
You can often
specify the objective with the help of the diagram below.
The diagram shows some ways of measuring the efficiency and productivity of the production process.
The Motion and Time Studies or the Methods Time Measurement (MTM) methodology was created in the beginning of 20C on the basis of the "scientific management" philosophy, and the central objective was to increase productivity. This was achieved with the help of accurate productivity standards for all repetitive types of work (e.g., how many units were produced per hour). The characteristic instrument of the researcher was the stopwatch.
Originally, the researcher was not supposed to discuss things with
the worker. Nowadays, according to modern development policy,
co-operation with the workers/employees and with their organizations is
essential, so we cannot employ the original simple method of studying
work any longer.
However, what is still usable is the typical
list of questions which consists of five basic topics with the additional
question "Why":
Originally, the purpose of the Motion and Time Studies was to improve the productivity of work, which was measured with the ratio of (production quantity) / (number of hours).
Nowadays production is often looked at in a wider context, taking the
user of the product into account; moreover, the results of Methods
Engineering have started to be used for other than lucrative purposes.
In the study of ergonomics or "human factors
engineering" and in work protection (that is, occupational health
and safety engineering) the following straining and risk factors of work
are discussed (cf. also Risks related to products):
Remember that often the worker has quite good reasons in doing the work in the way he does, but his knowledge and skill is usually "tacit". The researcher's task is to help it become explicit and express it verbally so that the researcher and the worker can discuss the method of work and perhaps find a better one.
However, when interpreting answers given by
workers, the researcher should rely on his own judgement because the
workers' answers are often tinted with the following things:
The researcher makes his improvement proposal largely on the basis of earlier experience obtained through observing similar work elsewhere. The report is usually brief, it will only be needed so that the proposal could be accepted by the management and perhaps also by the workshop committee.
In the course of time, when similar work has been repeatedly investigated in several sites, researchers will have statistics on the productivity of the work, or how much work is needed to produce a product under different circumstances. These statistics can serve as a basis for productivity standards which can then be used in work planning and possibly to measure contracts.
Methods Engineering has its origins in the period of "scientific management" at the turn of the century. Initially, the opinions of the workers were hardly relevant. Nowadays it is understood that no profound changes can be achieved if they are not planned together. It is not only a question of the right of the workers, but also of using their expertise. In many countries the labour market organizations have now agreed that Methods Engineering projects must be at least discussed in the co-operative committees of the workplaces. Even individual workers often are invited to participate in development projects.
Another modern application of methods engineering aims at economizing the use of materials and avoiding waste and pollution. These targets are discussed separately under the title Industrial Ecology.
Finally, methods engineering can be used to develop not the manufacture but the use of a product. The purpose then is to beat the competing products in the marketplace by going deeper in the product development process: by improving not only the product but simultaneously its use as well. An example of such a project is given on a separate page about Product Development. If the enterprise owns a customer feedback system it can provide helpful ideas to be developed further by methods engineering.
Human engineering management is discussed in:
Nowadays, research often relates to improving the motivation and well-being of the worker. The researcher may thus find useful references also among the books on work psychology.
In the early 20th century, human engineering was based on the principle of the division of work.
One of its first advocates was Scottish economist Adam Smith. In the book The Wealth of Nations (1776) he pointed out how specialization tends to develop skill, dexterity, and innovations. Moreover, it saves the time lost in changing from one kind of work to another. To this list of blessings English mathematician Charles Babbage (in the book On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers, 1832) added that dividing the task into short operations allows paying lower wages for the easier tasks.
In 1913, Henry Ford put the work division theory in practice and introduced an assembly line in his car factory, thus reducing the time to assemble a car from 12 hours and 28 minutes to one hour and 33 minutes.
Later, Smith and Babbage's statements were validated in thousands of factories. After the initial success, however, many of those factories proved intolerably trivial and monotonous from the worker's point of view. The drawbacks were ingeniously illustrated e.g. in the film Modern Times (1936) by Charles Chaplin.
A remedy was suggested sometime around 1943, first by the president of the IBM Corporation. He proposed that the monotonous tasks be enriched by making them more varied and thus more interesting. The new policy was soon to be called job enlargement.
At first, the performed changes were not spectacular. At the IBM, they entailed only enhancing the machine operator's job by such extra
responsibilities as machine set-up, tools sharpening and inspection of the product.
The results of the IBM experiment were reported as:
Up to the 1980s, the development of the organizational principles of the factory or the office relied heavily on the inventiveness of the management. Now, in many enterprises, there are permanent employer-employee committees for the job of conceiving and evaluating development projects of production methods. A researcher is often appointed as the secretary of such a committee. Such arrangements help finding the areas where changes are needed, and they also simplify carrying out the reforms.
Another process of development started from an investigation in the Hawthorne (Nevada) works of the Western Electric Company, in 1927. The goal was to study the effect of varying the intensity of illumination on the production of the workers. The results, however, showed that whether the lighting was made brighter or dimmer, the production increased. This led to a series of carefully designed studies during a period of five years, in which other questions, like the lengths of the working day and of the rest periods, were also studied. Some test persons were moved to a separate test room next to their earlier workplace, the huge assembly hall. Several experiments were discussed with the workers, and their co-operation was sought.
The results of these studies were quite opposite to the researchers' original assumptions. The output of the work increased at every step along the way. The supervision could be cut down. Work contentment increased, sick absences decreased to one third, other absences even more. The workers' health was maintained or improved.
The workers had no clear idea as to why they now produced more, but as shown in the replies to questionnaires, "there is the feeling that better output is in some way related to the distinctly pleasanter, freer, and happier working conditions" (from the research report, quoted by Barnes).
In other words, the illumination, the length of the rest periods and the length of the working day were of minor importance to the workers, compared with the motivation they received from being the centre of the researchers' attention. They had the feeling that they were important to the enterprise. This type of reaction to an experimental design has since been known as "Hawthorne effect".
The Hawthorne studies launched many new investigations on workers' needs and human relations. In 1943 Abraham Maslow presented a theory (A Theory of Human Motivation) of the hierarchy of human needs. He arranged the basic needs in a series according to how essential their fulfilment was. Maslow thought that after the most urgent need is satisfied, it will be forgotten and the next level of needs then becomes the motivator. Maslow's hierarchy is as follows:
On the basis of the theory by Herzberg et al., hundreds of
surveys have been conducted at various work places. M. Scott Myers
("Who Are Your Motivated Workers?") interviewed 282 workers at a
Texas Instruments plant, concluding that the classification proposed by
Herzberg was valid there as well. On the right in the picture above, you
will find the percentages of different motivations factors. It can be seen
that some factors are almost exclusively positive, whereas others are
negative, and some are both. It was also found that workers could to a
certain extent be divided into two groups: those to whom it was more
important to receive plenty of positive motivation, and others to whom
avoiding negative motivation factors was more important. (motivation
seekers vs. maintenance seekers)
The goal of a quality
control system is to minimize the sum of costs from quality control and
the costs caused by bad quality (A + B in the diagram on the right).
A modern quality system usually consists of:
Quality systems are described in the standard ISO 8402 and in the series of standards ISO 9000.
Quality circle is a Japanese method in which the normally established work groups at a plant discuss the possibilities of improving the quality of the products and of minimizing the errors and losses in production.
The objective is to encourage, develop, and carry out the initiatives and suggestions from
the workers/employees of the organization.
The system usually consists of the following parts:
Intrinsic can be called those methods of improving an existing activity where the active group itself, perhaps with the help of an advisory researcher, initiates and carries out the investigation and creates the proposals for necessary improvements. Depending on the structure of the organization that this group belongs to, these proposals then perhaps are submitted for acceptance (or modification) by the management or other concerned parties.
The most important method of intrinsic development of activities is action research. It is often suitable for the development of those activities which belong to industrial production.
Another related sphere of activity is the use of the finished products. Sometimes it may be worthwhile to find new or improved ways of using an industrial product. Such insights can then be used to design new versions of the product which create and fulfil new needs felt by potential customers. This approach is discussed in Developing the usability of a product.
Action research is a method in which the researcher temporarily joins the target community, and, with his theoretical tools, helps the community to solve the problems it is facing. German Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) is often mentioned as the father of the method; one initial stage of the method was also the so-called participating observation. Advantages of action research are:
Action research is not only a tool for developing activity but also a
collective learning process. It consists of the following, repetitive cycle:
The modified style of action shall then be taken as the starting point of the following cycle of the action research project. -- The cycle is repeated as often as necessary.
The lessons from the researcher to the group are not conveyed through research reports but mainly through training and commissions organized by the community itself. At the beginning of the discussions, it is usually the researcher who has the initiative, but the purpose is to achieve self-government as soon as possible, in problem solving as well as in focusing research in general.
The job of the researcher is to help the community to work in the above cyclical process and provide the group with tools to achieve this purpose.
Difficult points in the process are transitions from everyday
phenomena to theoretical models; and, on the other hand, from the
model to everyday life, see figure on the left. This transition can be made
easier devising a wall chart composed in discussions between the
researcher and the group. In the chart, any features and problems of the
action can be shown with mobile notes.
One way to start could be for everyone to write comments on the
problems anonymously on pieces of paper. The descriptions of problems
concretely shown and structured on the walls will then provoke
discussions and promote critical and theoretical interpretations of the
problems. It is the researcher's duty to show how such a chart is started.
Another tool often offered by researchers is a reflection questionnaire handed out to the participants by the researcher a day or two before the meeting. The researcher has formed open ended questions which will make the respondents specify and conceptualize the situation and the problems. The questionnaire may include questions on facts and attitudes with which the researcher examines the present state of the group for his own research report (see questionnaire).
In 1985, a large
development programme was started in Sweden. It was called
Leadership, Organization and Co-determination. The purpose was to
initiate and support development of new forms of work and enterprise
organization. This was to take place by the combined effort of labour,
management, and research.
For 5 years, about 60 researchers came to work within the
programme that finally encompassed 150 enterprises and public
institutions.
In a programme where loyal collaboration between the participants is vital, communication gaps cannot be allowed. To guarantee the even flow of the "democratic dialogue" in the project, the participants agreed on a certain policy of discussions. Below, there are examples of the "rules":
Jungk and Müllert think that in addition to the rational-analytical level, the intuitive-emotional level should also be included in the discussions. That would help in focusing on the causes of controversy and reveal a new type of creative insights.
What is the role of the researcher in the action research process? Few researchers have so much previous knowledge about the operations and problems of an unknown group that they would be able to estimate them or explain them immediately, let alone form a theoretical model of it all. Instead, the researcher can make his own general theoretical knowledge and skills available to the group. The researcher offers methods for analysis, gets the necessary information from the outside and asks questions that the members of the group would never have thought of themselves.
The researcher's own interest in action research is usually to write a report on the project. Its contents will be a report on the phases of the project and a summary of the gathered data and the results obtained. This part of the report is a typical case study, description of one single case.
It will be easier to write a report on the progress of the project if the researcher has kept a daily diary on the events and discussions. Recordings can be helpful as well, especially if there have been several discussions at the same time in several working groups. On methods, see also Observation.
In action research, it is essential to proceed from practical problems to theoretical models (and, later on, back to practice again), but this will not be easy for the people in the group, who are only acquainted with practical operations. It will be easier to move to theory if you start with small practical things and proceed to bigger ones in the following way:
Another way is to look at the action from different viewing angles alternately. This can help to gain deeper understanding of the action, cf. the hermeneutic method. Fertile perspectives can be for example:
As soon as there is a general understanding of the purpose and the conflicts of the work, and everything has been put into the model accepted for describing the action, the researcher and participants will discuss the means by which the goals will be best obtained and the conflicts removed. The alternatives for change will be found by looking at the theoretical model.
It will often be helpful first to take some distance to the everyday problems and
proceed from the initial "case study" level of topical facts (like tasks, products and organisation) to a more general theoretical level which consists of concepts (like efficiency, motivation etc.) and discuss the problems on this level, perhaps in the light of general theories of management. If potential solutions to the problems are found on this "level of general models" (see diagram on the right) the discussion can continue back on the case study level.
The alternative remedies for the problems will be found in the zone of potentiality (or in the "zone of near development"): in a range of possibilities which has not been thought of before or which has not been obtainable by one individual alone but which can be reached now with collective agreement.
The researcher is there to introduce examples of other groups he has taken part and of their methods and results. Moreover, he can introduce general theoretical models of management and co-operation.
During the initial decades of action research, there was a tendency to apply the methods and criteria of positivist research. It was thought that action research was essentially a hypothesis which should be tested in practice. Today the prevalent view is that action development should not be measured with the criteria of informative research but by comparing the results with the objectives of the project itself. The objectives are of three types:
Each of these must be judged with its own criteria, and the ways to do it will be accounted for in the following.
At the outset of a collective project, the purpose of the project is usually more or less
clearly defined as the elimination of a certain problem. On this basis we
can, at the end of the project, evaluate whether this goal has been
achieved; though often in the collective meetings, the objectives of a
project have changed many times from what they were in the beginning.
In any case, we can evaluate if the project has been useful enough.
An agreement on the usefulness of a collective project cannot always be reached. It may be logically impossible to find a common solution which would be the absolutely best one for everyone ("Arrow's clause of impossibility"). Instead, we often can use the definition by Pareto of an optimal state being reached when it is impossible to increase the well-being of any member of the group without an equal reduction in the well-being of somebody else. Pareto's idea was thus that the well-being of a group is the sum of the well-being of all its members.
In the case of disagreement in the evaluation, the group could resort to conventional methods of group activity like taking a vote. This will, however, seldom be necessary; usually a prolonged discussion is enough to reach a reasonable fair agreement on the success and results of a collective project. The reason is that during the project the participants have learned to understand each other's points of view and therefore they seldom too stubbornly stick to their original views. On the contrary, at the latest stages of the seminars, the atmosphere tends to be quite enthusiastic, and the evaluation of the results, too, may become too positive on the spur of the moment. To test the solidity of the estimate, the researcher could consider getting a second estimate from the participants through a later questionnaire or interview.
In any case, the usual procedure in action research is that the group itself estimates the results of the project. Evaluation of this kind is in accordance with the normal rhythm of the method, and also the only effective way for the group to put an end to the project is by collective agreement in which the results of the work will be confirmed as well.
The developments that are agreed upon in the group, may sometimes affect also people not present in the group. These people that have personal relations on the evaluand and can benefit and/or suffer losses because of it, can be called "stake holders" in the project. Guba and Lincoln have made a general list of such people, in the book Fourth Generation Evaluation, 1989. They divide the stake holders into three groups,
Although not quite appropriate for action research, it is also possible for the researcher to move on to an "objective" point of view at the end of the project, and evaluate the project by measuring the "goodness" of the situation in the group at the beginning and the end of the project. The prerequisite for this is that the researcher is able to develop a suitable, reasonably objective meter for this, and that the initial state of the group at the outset of the project has been sufficiently documented, although the researcher often finds that at the outset, many such things have been documented which do not appear to be relevant at the final stages. Evaluation methods in an objective, positivistic style can be found in literature under the heading Evaluation. See, e.g., King et al.: How to Assess Program Implementation (1987) and the journal Evaluation Review. When collecting outside expert estimates, it might be advisable to use impartial interviewers.
Participating in an action research project can be interesting and rewarding because of the new ways of thinking and working that the participants learn and develop. It seems to correspond to the expectations of people today of what life should be like in society. Assessments of such questions may be collected at the final meetings of the project, if pertinent.
During the project, the researcher has gradually learned to know the members of the group well, so that he will be able to assess the development of their knowledge, skills and attitudes during the survey in his report. The question of whether this kind of information concerning private persons can be published in the report depends on certain ethical considerations.
On the other hand, the development in the action of the whole community can be assessed. Will it now be capable of coping with similar, or also unpredictable, problems on its own? The group may try to assess this in their discussions. The final answer will only come in later operations, which the researcher could perhaps follow and report later, in a different publication.
Although the problems of different communities may differ, in every process of action research there are usually such invariable features that could be generalized and applied elsewhere. That would be useful and
interesting. These possibilities should be highlighted by the researcher in
the report. This can, however, be difficult in the
process of action research, because the problem solving skills acquired
by the participants in an action research process are typically non verbal
know how which is difficult to be conveyed to others by means of a
written report. Every group should have a chance of experiencing the
learning process itself. If the researcher wants to make a report on it, its
contents are usually an account of the different stages of the report, and
a summary of the accumulated data and the results obtained.
The validity of the facts presented in reports should be somehow assessed before publishing the report. If the report includes descriptive facts concerning the object or interpretations explaining them, their validity can be assessed in the same way as theoretical results in general, see Evaluation of the results. Moreover, the researcher could perhaps compare the results with other, corresponding projects documented in literature.
The pragmatic validity of the results, i.e. their application to situations appearing elsewhere at a later date, is another question. It will only be known when somebody tries to apply them, and consequently, assessing this pragmatic validity will be difficult when writing the report. It might be possible to have estimates from the outside if there was a research seminar on the subject.
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April 21, 2005. Original location:
http://www2.uiah.fi/projects/metodi
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