Organizational work, Part II. The distribution of work

Abstract

This paper is the second part of a three-paper series on organizational work. It introduces a new measure of organizational work called the M-curve distribution. An M-curve shows the fraction of task processes by each type of process law. Tasks are classified by whether they are (1) planning, (2) directing, controlling and coordinating, or (3) execution task processes. They are also classified by their level of aggregation. M-curves exhibit regularities with different shapes for different types of process laws. An organization or any of its units can have an M-curve at any level of task aggregation. Areas have M-curves of groups, groups have M-curves of bundles, bundles have M-curves of modules, etc. There is a distribution of M-curves. M-curves for planning tasks tend to be downward-sloping, M-curves for DCC tasks tend to be hump-shaped, and M-curves for execution tasks tend to be upward-sloping. A method is presented for calculating the differences between a pair of M-curve distributions and even an entire distribution of M-curves across different levels of task process aggregation. Examples of M-curves are given for planning areas, DCC areas, and execution areas. The M-curve concept is extended to calculating M-curves for individual positions called IM-curves. Part III of this series will examine the propositions in this paper using data from 17 organizations.