Analysis and Review of the Job Enlargement Concept

Introduction:

Adam Smith stated that the division of labor is a forerunner of and a necessity to a successful economical system.² Extended and refined, the division of labor results in the type of job specialization that Drucker refers to above - "... split up the operation into its constituent motions ..." - but job specialization goes one step farther and assigns only a few of these motions to any one operator. The division of labor of Smith's day resulted in some men being blacksmiths, some being carpenters, some being millers, etc.; but the job specialization as pioneered by Taylor, Gantt, and Henry Ford resulted in a much finer breakdown of tasks. Taking the blacksmith as an example, the specialization found in some mass production industries of today would find one man assigned to hold the shoe on the anvil, another to beat it to its proper shape, a third to quench it while a fourth would apply it to the horse's hoof the blacksmith as an example, the specialization found in some mass production industries of today would find one man assigned to hold the shoe on the anvil, another to beat it to its proper shape, a third to quench it while a fourth would apply it to the horse's hoof.

In the years that have elapsed since Drucker noted that the task of job design is only half complete a number of individuals from the fields of psychology, industrial engineering, and personnel management have contributed toward the completion of that task. This paper examines those contributions which comprise the broad area of job design called "job enlargement."