1/8/2021 Chapter 35 - Organizations and Health and Safety

Part V - Psychosocial and Organizational Factors Français

Chapter 35 - Organizations and Health and Safety

PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS AND ORGANIZATIONAL
MANAGEMENT
Gunnela Westlander

The term organization is often used in a broad sense, which is not so strange because the phenomenon of an
"organization" has many aspects. It can be said that studying organizations makes up an entire problem area of
its own, with no natural location within any specific academic discipline. Certainly the concept of organization
has obtained a central position within what is called management science—which, in some countries, is a subject
in its own right within the field of business studies. But in a number of other subject areas, among them
occupational safety and health, there has also been reason to ponder why one is considering organizational
theory and to determine which aspects of organization to embrace in research analyses.

The organization is not just of importance to company management, but is also of great significance for each
person’s work situation, both in health terms and in relation to his or her short- and long-term opportunities for
making an effective contribution to work. Thus, it is of key importance for specialists in the field of occupational
safety and health to be acquainted with the theorizing, conceptualization and forms of thinking about social
reality to which the terms organization and organizational development or change refer.

Organizational arrangements have consequences for social relationships that exist amongst the people who work
in the organization. Organizational arrangements are conceived of and intended to achieve certain social
relations at work. A multiplicity of studies on psychosocial aspects of working life have affirmed that the form
of an organization "breeds" social relations. The choice between alternative organizational structures is governed
by a variety of considerations, some of which have their origins in a particular approach to management and
organizational coordination. One form can be based on the view that effective organizational management is
achieved when specific social interactions between the organization’s members are enabled. The choice of the
structural form in an organization is made on the basis of the way in which people are intended to be linked
together to establish organizationally effective interdependent relations; or, as theorists of business
administration tend to express the idea: "how the growth of critical combinations is facilitated".

One of the prominent members of the "human relations school", Rensis Likert (1961, 1967) has provided an
enduring idea on how hierarchical "subsystems" in a complex organizational structure ideally should be linked
together. Likert pointed to the importance of unity and solidarity among members of an organization. Here, the
job supervisor/manager has a dual task:

1. to maintain unity and create a sense of belonging within a work group, and

2. to represent his or her work group in meetings with superior and parallel managerial staff. In this way the
bonds between the hierarchical levels are reinforced.

Likert’s “linking pin model” is shown in figure 35.1 . Likert employed the analogy of the family to characterize
desirable social interaction between different work units, which he conceived as functioning as “organizational
families”. He was convinced that the provision by management of scope and encouragement for the
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strengthening of personal relations between workers at different levels was a powerful means for increasing
organizational effectiveness and uniting personnel behind the goals of the company. Likert’s model is an attempt
to achieve “a regularity of practice” of some kind, which would further reinforce the organizational structure laid
down by management. From around the beginning of the 1990s his model has acquired increasing relevance.
Likert’s model may be regarded as an example of a recommended structure.

Figure 35.1 Likert’s linking pin model

One way of using the term organization is with the focus on the human beings’ competence; the organization in
that sense is the total combination of competences and, if one wants to go a bit further, their synergetic effects.
Another and opposite perspective places its focus on the coordination of people’s activities needed to fulfil a set
of goals of a business. We can call that the “organizational arrangement” which is decided upon on an agreed
basis. In this chapter on organizational theory the presentation has its point of departure in organizational
arrangement, and the members or workers participating in this arrangement are looked at from an occupational
health perspective.

Structure as a Basic Concept in Organizational Theory

Structure is a common term within organization theory, referring to the form of organizational arrangement
intended to bring a goal effectiveness. Business activities in working life can be analysed from a structural
perspective. The structural approach has for long been the most popular, and has contributed most—
quantitatively speaking—to the knowledge we have on organizations. (At the same time, members of a younger
generation of organization researchers have expressed a series of misgivings concerning the value of this
approach (Alvesson 1989; Morgan 1986)).

When adopting a structural perspective it is taken more or less for granted that there exists an agreed order
(structure) to the form in which a set of activities is carried out. On the basis of this fundamental assumption, the
organizational issue posed becomes one of the specific appearance of this form. In how much detail and in
which ways have the tasks of persons in different job positions been described in formally issued, official
documents? What rules apply to people in managerial positions? Information on the organizational pattern, the
body of regulations and specified relations is available in documents such as instructions for management and
job descriptions.

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A second issue raised is how activities are organized and patterned in practice: what regularities actually exist,
and what is the nature of relations between people? Raising this question in itself implies that a complete
correspondence between formally decreed and practised forms of activities should not be expected. There are
several reasons for this. Naturally, not all phases of work can be covered by a prescribed body of rules. Also,
defining operations as they should be carried out will often not be adequate to describe the actual activities of
workers and their interaction with each other because:

· The official structure will not necessarily be completely detailed, thus providing different degrees of scope
for coordination/cooperation in practice.

· The normative (specified) nature of organizational structure will not match exactly the forms that members
of the organization consider to be effective for activities.

· An organization’s stated norms or rules provide a greater or lesser degree of motivation.

· The normative structure itself will have varying degrees of visibility within the organization, depending on
the access of members of the organization to relevant information.

In practical terms, it is probably impossible for the scope of any norms which are developed to describe
adequately the normal routines that occur. Defined norms simply cannot encompass the full range of practice
and relations between human beings. The adequacy of the norms will be dependent on the level of detail in
which the official structure is expressed. It is interesting and important in the assessment of organizations and for
any preventive programmes to establish the extent of the correspondence between the norms and the practices of
organizational activities.

The extent of the contrast between norms and practices (objective and subjective definitions of organizational
structure) is important as is the difference between the organizational structure that is perceived by an
“investigator” and the individual organizational member’s image or perception of it. Not only is a lack of
correspondence between the two of great intellectual interest, it can also constitute a handicap for the individual
in the organization in that he or she may have far too inadequate a picture of the organization to be able to
protect and/or promote his or her own interests.

Some Basic Structural Dimensions

There has been a long succession of ideas and principles concerning the management of organizations, each in
turn striving for something new. Despite this, however, it remains the case that the official organizational
structure generally stipulates a form of hierarchical order and a division of responsibilities. Thus, it specifies
major aspects of vertical integration and functional responsibility or authorization.

We encounter the idea of vertical influence most readily in its simplest, classical original form (see figure 35.2).
The organization comprises one superior and a number of subordinates, a number small enough for the superior
to exercise direct control. The developed classical form (see figure 35.3) demonstrates how a complex
organizational structure can be built up from small hierarchical systems (see figure 35.1). This common,
extended form of the classical organization, however, does not necessarily specify the nature of horizontal
interaction between people in non-management positions.

Figure 35.2 The classical original organizational form.

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Figure 35.3 The extended classical form

An organizational structure mostly consists of managerial layers (i.e., a “triangular” structure, with a few or
several layers descending from the apex), and there is almost always a more or less accentuated hierarchically
ordered form of organization desired. The basic principle is that of “unity of command” (Alvesson 1989): a
“scalar” chain of authority is created, and applied more or less strictly according to the nature of the
organizational structure selected. There may be long vertical channels of influence, forcing personnel to cope
with the inconveniences of lengthy chains of command and indirect paths of communication when they wish to
reach a decision-maker. Or, when there are only a few management layers (i.e., the organizational structure is
flat—see figure 35.4), this indicates a preference on the part of top management to de-emphasize the supervisor-
subordinate relationship. The distance between top management and employees is shorter, and lines of contact
are more direct. At the same time, however, each manager will have a relatively large number of subordinates—
in fact, sometimes so many that he or she cannot usually exercise direct control over personnel. Greater scope is
thereby given for horizontal interaction, which becomes a necessity for operational effectiveness.

Figure 35.4 The flat organization

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In a flat organizational structure, the norms for vertical influence are only crudely specified in a simple
organizational chart. The chart thus has to be supplemented by instructions for managers and by detailed job
instructions.

Hierarchical structures may be viewed as a normative means of control, which in turn may be characterized as
offering minimum liability to members of the organization. Within this framework there is a more or less
generously allocated amount of scope for individual influence and action, depending on what has been decided
in relation to the decentralization of decision-making, delegation of tasks, temporary coordinating groups, and
the structure of budgetary responsibilities. Where there is less generous scope for influence and action, there will
be correspondingly smaller margin for error on the part of the individual. The degree of latitude can usually only
be guessed at from the content of the official documents referred to.

In addition to the hierarchical order (vertical influence), the official organizational structure specifies some
(normative) form of division of responsibility and thereby functional authority. It might be said that the art of
leading an organization as a whole is largely a matter of structuring all its activities in such a way that the
combination of different functions arrived at has the greatest conceivable external impact. The names of the
different parts (the functions) of the structure specify, albeit only as an outline, how management has conceived
the breakdown into various sections of activities and how these shall then be combined and accounted for. From
this we can also trace the demands placed on managers’ functional authority.

Modifying the Organizational Structures

There are many variants on how an organization as a whole can be built up. One of the basic issues is how core
activities (the production of goods or services) are to be combined with other necessary operational elements,
including personnel management, information, administration, maintenance, marketing and so on. One
alternative is to place major departments for administration, personnel, company finances and so on alongside
production units (a functional or “staff” organization). Behind such an arrangement lies management’s interest in
personnel, within their specialized areas, developing a broad range of skills so that they can provide production
units with assistance and support, reduce the burden upon them and promote their development.

An alternative to “administration parallel” is to staff production units with people possessing the required
specialized administrative skills. In this way cooperation across specialized administrative boundaries can be
brought about, thus benefiting the production unit in question. Additional alternative structures are possible,
based on ideas concerning functional combinations which would promote cooperative working within
organizations. Often organizations are required to respond to change in the operating environment, and hence a
change in structure occurs. The transition from one organizational structure to another can involve drastic
changes in desired forms of interaction and cooperation. These need not affect everyone in the organization;
often they are imperceptible to the occupiers of certain job positions. It is important to take the changes into
account in any analysis of organizational structures.

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Identifying types of existing structures has become a major research task for many organization theorists in the
business administration field (see, for example, Mintzberg 1983; Miller and Mintzberg 1983), the idea being that
it would be of benefit if researchers could recognize the nature of organizations and place them in easily
identifiable categories. By contrast, other researchers have used empirical data (data based on observations of
organizational structures) to demonstrate that limiting description to such strict typologies obscures the nuances
of reality (Alvesson 1989). In their view, it is relevant to learn from the individual case rather than simply to
generalize immediately to an existing typology. A researcher of occupational health should prefer the latter
reality-based approach as it contributes to a better, more adequate understanding of the situational conditions in
which the individual workers are involved.

Parallel Structures
Alongside its basic organizational structure (which specifies vertical influence and the functional distribution for
core activities), an organization may also possess certain ad hoc structures, which may be set up for either a
definite or indefinite time period. These are often called “parallel structures”. They can be instituted for a variety
of reasons, such as to further reinforce the competitiveness of the company (primarily serve the company’s
interests), as is the case with networking, or to strengthen the rights of employees (primarily serve the interests
of employees), such as mechanisms for surveillance (e.g., health and safety committees).

As surveillance of the work environment has as its primary function to promote the safety interests of
employees, it is frequently organized in a rather more permanent parallel structure. Such structures exist in many
countries, often with operational procedures that are laid down by national legislation (see the chapter Labour
Relations and Human Resources Management).

Networking

One example of networking is the recent effort aimed at improving the general level of
competence of operators which took place in a Volvo firm. Management initiated a network
whose members could work out a system of tasks ordered according to the level of difficulty. A
corresponding training programme guaranteed the workers a possibility of following a "career
ladder" including a corresponding wage system. The members of the network were selected
from among experienced employees from different parts of the plant and at different levels.
Because the proposed system was perceived as an innovation, the collaboration in the network
became highly motivating and the plan was realized in the shortest possible time.

In modern corporate management, network is a term that has acquired a specialized usage. Creating a network
means organizing circles of intermediate-level managers and key personnel from diverse parts of an organization
for a specific purpose. The task of the network may be to promote development (e.g., that of secretarial positions
throughout the company), provide training (e.g., personnel at all retail outlets), or effect rationalization (e.g., all
the company’s internal order routines). Typically, a networking task involves improving corporate operations in
some concrete respect, such that the entire company is permeated by the improvement.

Compared with Likert’s linking pin model, which aims to promote vertical as well as horizontal interaction
within and between layers in the hierarchical structure, the point of a network is to tie people together in
different constellations than those offered by the base structure (but, note, for no other reason than that of
serving the interests of the company).

Networking is initiated by management to counter—but not dismantle—the established hierarchical structure

(with its functional divisions) which has emerged as being far too sluggish in response to new demands from the
environment. Creating a network can be a better option than embarking on an arduous process of changing or
restructuring the entire organization. According to Charan (1991), the key to effective networking is that top
management gets the network working and selects its members (who should be highly motivated, energetic and
committed, quick and effective, and with an ability to easily disseminate information to other employees). Top
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management should also keep a watchful eye on continued activities within the network. In this sense,
networking is a “top-down” approach. With the sanction of management and funds at its disposal, a network can
become a powerful structure which cuts across the base organization.

Implications for Health and Safety

The occupational health specialist has much to gain by asking how much of the interaction between people in
the organization rests on the basic organizational structure and how much on the parallel structures that have
been set up. In which does the individual actively take part? What is demanded from the individual in terms of
effort and loyalty? How does this affect encounters with and cooperation between colleagues, work mates,
managers and other active participants in formal contexts?

To the occupational health specialist concerned with psychosocial issues it is important to be aware that there is
always some person(s) (from outside or inside the organization) who has taken on or been allocated the task of
designing the set of normative prescriptions for activities. These “organizational creators” do not act alone but
are assisted within the organization by loyal supporters of the structure they create. Some of the supporters are
active participants in the creative process who use and further develop the principles. Others are the
representatives or “mouthpieces” of personnel, either collectively or of specific groups (see figure 35.5).
Moreover, there is also a large group of personnel who can be characterized as administrators of the prescribed
form of activities but who have no say in its design or the method of its implementation.

Figure 35.5 The organization of occupational safety - a parallel structure.

Organizational Change as the Method—Health at Work as the Main Goal

The following organizational change was studied in one of the major Swedish engineering
companies. Here we find a good example of where the main objective was to improve/increase
the level of health at work. The locality is a large industry in a rural area where it is impossible
for trained secretaries to easily find other jobs. In practice, staff are forced to accept what this
major concern can offer if they want to carry on with their special working skills. Some 50
women worked there as secretaries. Most of them were married to men also employed by the
company and so were doubly bound to whatever work the area could offer. The common
problems for the secretaries were the duties and salary scales. The company offered no
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opportunities for job development, training or promotion, and the work of the secretaries in the
main consisted of simple routine duties, and so some of them were regarded as over-qualified.
Management saw secretarial positions as “the end of the line”, a staff policy which created great
irritation among the secretaries. The work changes which arose out of this discontent went on
for four years.

The intention was to obtain professional vocational development within the framework of
secretarial employment; the problem was that there was no demand for this either from
management or other staff categories. So the 50 secretaries had to carry through their objectives
in the face of strong opposition. Here is a summary of how their efforts to bring about change
progressed step by step..

The problem was first raised at a local meeting of the white-collar union. One of the secretaries
was present. She pointed out that most of her colleagues did work which seemed to fall into
other occupational classifications. The matter was noted but no action was taken. Some
secretaries then approached the union’s local committee and asked the chair to arrange a
meeting with a number of their executives. This was done. Salary scales and vocational
development for the secretaries was discussed. But interest declined after the meeting..

An internal consultant took over the problem and tried, in vain, to make the union take
responsibility for some follow-up. A second internal consultant, an expert in job evaluation,
became involved. Together with a firm of consultants, a survey was carried out among the
secretaries. The result showed that dissatisfaction was widespread..

At the request of the union and management, the consultants arranged a number of conferences
for the secretaries and their immediate superiors..

The intention here was to clarify for management what their working conditions were in
practice and what, in more explicit form, their wishes for vocational development were, all
within the framework of their secretarial duties. A great deal of hard work was done at these
conferences. Prejudices and oppositional attitudes were ventilated. A list of problems was
drawn up. A total of 45 managers and 53 secretaries participated. After this problem analysis
stage was completed, the consultants made it clear that their contribution was over..

The secretaries decided to take on the job themselves in the phase which now followed. Among
possible solutions, they selected a business-economic strategy—this with the assumption that it
would increase managerial interest in the matter. They divided themselves into small, specialist
working groups (technology, ergonomy, purchasing and so on). Each group took upon itself to
produce proposals to improve secretarial work. They also worked out a cost calculation for each
proposal..

During the next few years 22 working groups were formed to solve varied problems. Six
working groups were in operation 4 years after the start. From the names of these groups we can
see where interest for effectiveness lay: technology in the future, office materials, travel service,
copy-saving measures, training, sensitivity training. They were more and more successful in
gaining attention for their proposals, many of which were carried through..

A number of rationalization measures arose from the studies made by the groups. Now nobody
does any unnecessary work. Manuscripts are accepted as working material. Secretaries perform
copy typing only where necessary. An office computer system has been procured. The
secretarial group lost 10 staff by attrition (usually by moving to another part of the country.) The
secretaries started to be consulted by the company’s recruitment department when a vacant
secretarial post was to be filled. They were asked to propose reorganizations so that new staff
would not be needed. Up to now, 19 secretaries have been promoted to a higher job

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classification with higher salaries as their work became more skilled. Management is satisfied
with the organizational changes which have taken place..

The original idea of the project was to cut out unnecessary and unqualified items from
secretarial work and add more qualified duties. This succeeded; at the same time a great deal of
expensive duplication of work and long-winded working routines were discovered. After a
while, the process could continue in other forms. It was integrated into the work of the staff
department under the name RGSD (Reference Group for Secretarial Development)..

For some while, this organizational change became known all over the country. A number of
group members were invited to committees and conferences around the country to describe the
project..

Psychosocial health consequences. These work changes were of immense importance for the
secretaries personally. For most, it meant a greater consciousness of their vocational role and of
the opportunities which existed to improve the secretarial function in the company. A team spirit
grew up when they looked at problems common to them all. As a job collective they saw, step
by step, the result of their tenacious work. Their higher qualifications came from their own
efforts (Westlander 1991)..

Organizational Change

By studying organizational change we adopt a process perspective. The concept organizational change covers
everything from a change in the total macrostructure of a company to alterations in work allocation—
coordination of activity in precisely defined smaller units; it may involve changes in administration or in
production. In one or another way the issue is to rearrange the work-based relations between employees.

Organizational changes will have implications for the health and well-being of those in the organization. The
most easily observed dimensions of health are in the psychosocial domain. We can state that organizational
change is very demanding for many employees. It will be a positive challenge to many individuals, and periods
of lassitude, tiredness and irritation are unavoidable. The important thing for those responsible for occupational
health is to prevent such feelings of lassitude from becoming permanent and to turn them into something
positive. Attention must be paid to the more enduring attitudes to job quality and the feedback one gets in the
form of one’s own competence and personal development; the social satisfactions (of contacts, collaboration,
“belongingness”, team spirit, cohesiveness) and finally the emotions (security, anxiety, stress and strain) deriving
from these conditions. The success of an organizational change should be assessed by taking into consideration
these aspects of job satisfaction.

A common misconception which may hinder the ability to respond positively to organizational change is that
normative structures are just formalities which have no relevance to how people really act or how they perceive
the state of affairs they encounter. People who are labouring under this misconception believe that what is
important is “the order in practice”. They concentrate on how people actually act in “reality”. Sometimes this
point of view may seem convincing, especially in the case of those organizations where structural change has not
been implemented for a considerable period of time and where people have got used to the existing
organizational system. Employees have become accustomed to an accepted, tried and tested order. In these
situations, they do not reflect upon whether it is normative or just operates in practice, and do not care very
much whether their own “image” of the organization corresponds with the official one.

On the other hand, it should also be noted that the normative descriptions may seem to provide a more accurate
picture of an organization’s reality than is the case. Simply because such descriptions are documented in writing
and have received an official stamp does not mean that they are an accurate representation of the organization in
practice. Reality can differ greatly, as for example when normative organizational descriptions are so out of date
as to have lost current relevance.

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To optimize effectiveness in responding to change, one has to sort out carefully the norms and the practices of
the organization undergoing change. That formally laid down norms for operations affect and intervene in
interactions between people, first becomes apparent to many when they have personally witnessed or been
drawn into structural change. Studying such changes requires a process perspective on the organization.

A process perspective includes questions of the type:

· How in reality do people interact within an organization that has been structured according to a certain
principle or model?

· How do people react to a prescribed formal order for activities and how do they handle this?

· How do people react to a new order, proposed or already decided upon, and how do they handle this?

The point is to obtain an overall picture of how it is envisaged that workers shall relate to each other, the ways in
which this happens in practice, and the nature of the state of tension between the official order and the order in
practice.

The incompatibility between the description of organizations and their reality is one of the indications that there
is no organizational model which is always “the best” for describing a reality. The structure selected as a model
is an attempt (made with a greater or lesser degree of success) to adapt activities of the problems which
management finds it most urgent to solve at a particular point in time when it is clear that an organization must
undergo change.

The reason for effecting a transition from one structure to another may be the result of a variety of causes, such
as changes in the skills of personnel available, the need for new systems of remuneration, or the requirement that
the influence of a particular section of functions of the organization should be expanded—or contracted. One or
several strategic motives can lie behind changes in the structure of an organization. Often the driving force
behind change is simply that the need is so great, the goal has become one of organizational survival. Sometimes
the issue is ease of survival and sometimes of survival itself. In some cases of structural change, employees are
involved to only a limited extent, sometimes not at all. The consequences of change can be favourable for some,
unfavourable for others. One occasionally encounters instances where organizational structures are changed
primarily for the purpose of promoting employees’ occupational health and safety (Westlander 1991).

The Concept of Work Organization

Until now we have focused on the organization as a whole. We can also restrict our unit of analysis to the job
content of the individual worker and the nature of his or her collaboration with colleagues. The most common
term we find used for this is work organization. This too is a term which is employed in several disciplines and
within various research approaches.

First, for example, the concept of work organization is to be found in the pure ergonomic occupational research
tradition which considers the way in which equipment and people are adapted to each other at work. With
respect to human beings, what is central is how they react to and cope with the equipment. In terms of strain and
effectiveness, the amount of time spent at work is also important. Such time aspects include how long the work
should go on, during which periods of the day or night, with what degree of regularity, and which time-related
opportunities for recovery are offered in the form of the scheduling of breaks and the availability of lengthier
periods of rest or time off. These time conditions must be organized by management. Thus, such conditions
should be regarded as organizational factors within the field of ergonomic research—and as very important ones.
It may be said that the time devoted to the work task can moderate the relationship between equipment and
worker with respect to health effects.

But there are also wider ergonomic approaches: analyses are extended to take into account the work situation in
which the equipment is employed. Here it is a question of the work situation and the worker being well adapted
to each other. In such cases, it is the equipment plus a series of work organizational factors (such as job content,
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kinds and composition of tasks, responsibilities, forms of cooperation, forms of supervision, time devoted in all
its aspects) which make up the complex situation which the worker reacts to, copes with and acts within.

Such work organizational factors are taken account of in broader ergonomic analyses; ergonomics has often
included consideration of the type of work psychology which focuses on the job content of the individual (kinds
and composition of tasks) plus other related demands. These are regarded as operating in parallel with physical
conditions. In this way, it becomes the task of the researcher to adopt a position on whether and how the physical
and work organizational conditions with which the individual is regularly confronted contribute to aspects of ill-
health (e.g., to stress and strain). To isolate cause and effect is a considerably more difficult undertaking than is
the case when a narrow ergonomic approach is adopted.

In addition to the work organizational conditions to which the individual is regularly exposed there are a number
of work organizational phenomena (such as recruitment policies, training programmes, salary systems) which
may be more peripheral, but still have decisive importance in terms of what is offered to the worker by his or her
immediate work situation. This broader spectrum (and one might still wonder whether it has been treated
broadly enough) is of interest to the researcher who wishes to understand the relationship between the individual
worker and activities as a whole.

Organizational Psychology
Whereas work psychology has its focus on the individual’s occupational tasks and connected job demands in
relation to the individual’s capacity, the subject of organizational psychology refers to individuals as defined by
the place they occupy within an organization, as organizational members more or less outwardly visible, more or
less active. The point of departure for the organizational approach is the operation of a company or organization
and those various parts of it in which individuals are themselves involved.

Carrying out activities requires various organizational arrangements. A unifying organizational structure is
required; activities as a whole need to be broken down into identifiable job tasks. A task structure has to be
created in accordance with selected job distribution principles. Thus, management systems, technical systems
and maintenance routines are all required; and, in many cases, there is a need for special safety systems and
occupational health promotion systems in addition to the legally required safety organization.

In addition to the structural requirements for accomplishing tasks, systems for remuneration and control must be
implemented. Co-determination systems and systems for skills development and training (not least so that the
technical systems can be mastered) must all be in operation. All of these systems can be described as
organizational factors. They have the character of formalized activities designed to achieve a specific purpose,
and have a parallel existence within the company. As mentioned above, they may be either permanent or
instigated for a shorter or longer temporary period, but they all have some sort of influence on the terms on
which the individual works. They can be examined from various psychosocial perspectives: as support resources
for the worker, as control instruments employed by management, or as success factors for management or
employees. The interaction between these various organizational systems is of the greatest interest: their aims
are not always compatible; rather, they can be on a collision course. The “bearers” of the systems are human
beings.

Applying Organizational Psychology

The official in the company’s EDP Department and the claims adjuster in the Occupational
Injury Department were involved in intensive collaboration for a period of about six months.
They had never previously had the opportunity to work together and did not know each other
well. The EDP specialist is the head of his department, which forms a part of the company’s
central financial administration, positioned immediately below head-office management. The
occupational-injury claims adjuster is head of one of the company’s business units, the
Occupational Injury Department, which is geographically located in another part of the town.
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The EDP Department has the duty, on a continuous basis, to rationalize and redesign the forms
used by the company, so that the registration of documents and correspondence within the
company’s various business units is simplified and made as effective as possible.

The Occupational Injury Department has the task of handling the occupational-injury claims of
its policyholders (circle of clients) in a scrupulous and accurate manner, so that clients feel that
they are correctly treated. The EDP Department has a rationalizing function in the company,
whereas the Occupational Injury Department has a client-oriented function in a specialized area
of insurance business.

The occupational-injury claims adjuster has daily contacts with other officials in his own work
group and also with members of other work groups within the Occupational Injury Department.
These contacts are made primarily to discuss matters concerning occupational injuries that will
enable the maintenance of an intra-departmental consensus on the guiding principles for claims
adjustment. The Occupational Injury Department lives in a world of its own within the
company, and has very few direct contacts beyond those with its own circle of clients. Contact
with the rest of the company is extremely limited.

The EDP Department is a part of the company’s central financial-control system. The head of
department has brief but regular contacts with all parts of the company, in fact more with these
parts than with the personnel of parallel departments in central finance.

The primary reason why collaboration between the EDP official and the occupational-injury
claims adjuster arose is that the EDP Department received instructions from management to so
design its rationalization activities that insurance officials in the business units were able to
increase their productivity, and thereby provide scope to accommodate a wider circle of clients
(in part by offering new kinds of policies/insurance packages). The occupational-injury claims
adjuster reacts with great hesitation to the EDP official’s proposal when the latter indicates
management’s motive. The adjuster wants to achieve his own goal and fulfil his own function in
the company, namely that of satisfying the needs of policy holders for the scrupulous
administration of matters concerned with occupational injuries. He considers that this goal is
incompatible with a further increase in productivity.

The interaction between the official from the EDP Department and the occupational-injury
claims adjuster is complicated by factors concerned with their different locations within the
organization, their different kinds of obligations and their differing “points of view” on
activities in general. In other words, the two officials have to approach problems (in this case
the problems of profitability) from different perspectives.

What we have discovered is the existence of conflicting goals and forces, which are built into an
organizational design for activities, and which make up a platform for interaction between two
officials.

Organizational Change and its Psychosocial Aspects

To survive as an organization, management must constantly pay attention to what is going on in the world
outside, and must be constantly ready for change. Sudden changes forced by outside influences—such as a loss
of interest by a major customer, changes in demand, sudden appearance of new competitors, demands for
information from government authorities or governmental acts which restructure the public sector—must
produce immediate but rational reactions from management. The reaction is often to reorganize part or all of the
business activity. Most of the time, the situation is hardly one that puts the needs of health of the individual in
the foreground, or provides the time required for long-drawn-out participation of employees in negotiations over
change. Even if, in the long run, such negotiations would have been constructive, the fact is that management

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usually places its hope in the obedience and trust of the employees. Those who want to remain employed must
accept the situation.

Karasek (1992) in a survey of papers written for the ILO distinguishes between planned organizational changes
with regard to the extent to which they are “expert-directed” or “participation-directed”. The projects did not
display any national differences with regard to the relative weight placed on expert and participation direction.
However, it is maintained (Ivancevich et al. 1990) that the role of top management is important in
organizational-change projects designed to reduce the presence of occupational stress and improve workers’
well-being and health. Such interventions require the collaborative efforts of management/staff and employees,
and possibly also of experts.

When structural changes occur, it is inevitable that feelings of uncertainty will arise in all members of the
organization. Despite the fact that all will experience uncertainty, the degree and types of uncertainty will vary
according to position in the organization. The prerequisites for gaining a true picture of how well or badly the
company is proceeding in the changes are completely different at the management and employee levels. At the
risk of oversimplifying the situation somewhat, we can speak of two types of feelings of uncertainty:

1. Knowing about the uncertainty of the organization’s continued existence or success. This type of uncertainty
feeling will be found in decisionmakers. “Knowing about the uncertainty” means that the person in question can
make an evaluation of the relative advantages and disadvantages in coping with the uncertain situation. He or
she has the opportunity to deal with the situation actively (e.g., by obtaining more information, trying to
influence people and so on). Alternatively, a person can react to the change negatively by trying to avoid the
situation in various ways, such as seeking other employment.

2. Not knowing about the uncertainty of the organization’s continued existence or success. This type of
uncertainty will be found in employees in non-decision-making posts. “Not knowing about the uncertainty”
means that the individual has difficulty in making a judgement and generally has only the opportunity to react
passively (taking a wait-and-see approach, remaining in an unsettled and diffuse state, letting others take action).

Psychologically, especially when trying to prevent environmental effects of work, these differing feelings of
uncertainty are very important. One side will feel alienated toward the subjective reality of the other side. The
initiative for a change in organization usually comes from high up in the hierarchy, and the primary aim is
increased efficiency. Work on organizational change revitalizes a manager’s work content since change brings
about new conditions which must be dealt with. This can become a positive challenge, often a stimulation.
Among non-management employees, a reorganization has a more conditional function: it is a good thing only to
the extent that it improves, or leaves unaltered, the employees’ current and future work situation.

From a more detached perspective, people in specialist administrative positions or organizational experts may
show a third reaction pattern: the reorganization is interesting, whatever the result. It can be looked on as an
experiment showing how the employees and the business are affected—knowledge that will be of value in the
future to an administrator or organizational expert in the same or another company.

Changes in organization are complicated actions not only because of the practical changes that must be
introduced, but also because they often have psychological and psychosocial consequences. The result is that the
atmosphere at work reflects differing interests in the proposed changes and various types of psychic stress. Also
this complex social reality is difficult to study in a systematic way.

Business economists, sociologists, and psychologists differ in their approach to interpreting the links between
organizational change and individual working conditions. The psychology of work and organization directs
attention to the employees and to the conditions under which they labour. An effort is made to obtain
systematized knowledge about the effects of organizational change on individual health and work opportunities.
It is this approach that gives us information on the occupational mental health consequences.

In organizational sociology the individual conditions upon which organizational change has an impact are
mostly analysed in order to understand/describe/discover the consequences for the content of intergroup and
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interorganizational relationships and dependencies. In the business and administrative sciences there may be an
interest in psychological aspects, with the aim of understanding certain attitudes and behaviours of the members
of the organization (sometimes only those of the key persons in some sense) crucial for the progress of business
activities.

Measurement of Organizational Factors

Organizational factors, division of work, decentralization, reward systems are not physical objects! They are
intangible. It is not possible to take hold of them, and most of them express themselves in activities and
interactions which disappear with greater or lesser rapidity, only to be replaced by new ones. Those work
organization dimensions which it is possible to “measure” (in roughly the same way as is the case with physical
factors) are, not surprisingly, also the ones that a researcher with a background in the natural sciences finds most
manageable and acceptable. Time, for example, can be measured objectively, with a measuring instrument that is
independent of the human being. How work is organized in terms of time (the time spent at work and time for
breaks and lengthier periods of rest) can scarcely cause major measurement problems for ergonomists. On the
other hand, the individual’s own perception of aspects of time is psychological, and this is considerably more
difficult to measure.

It is also relatively easier for the investigator to come to terms with work organizational factors that are given
material form. This is what happens when instructions for managers, job descriptions and work procedures are
put in writing, and also applies when control systems and forms of personnel coordination are documented. The
systematic analysis of the contents of these texts can provide useful information. However, it should be
remembered that actual practice can deviate—sometimes significantly—from what is prescribed in writing. In
such cases, it is not so easy to obtain a systematic picture of people’s activities and attitudes.

Taking the Step from Conceptualization to Empirical Study

Measurement of organizational phenomena is based on a variety of information sources:

· written prescriptions of operational and coordinative procedures

· investigators’ systematic observation of work behaviour and social interaction

· employees’ self-reports on behaviour, interactions, activities, attitudes, intentions and thoughts

· policy documents, agreements, minutes of conferences, long-term prospects

· views of key persons.

Which kind of information should be given priority has to do partly with the kind of organizational factor to be
assessed and with method preferences, and partly with the organization’s generosity to let the investigator
explore the field in the way he or she prefers.

Measurement in organizational research is seldom an either/or issue, and is most often a “multisource”
enterprise.

In measuring organizational change it is even more necessary to give attention to the characteristic features. A
great deal happens in interpersonal relationships before and at a very early stage after change is initiated. In
contrast to laboratory experiments or in meetings where group questionnaires can be taken, the situation (i.e., the
process of change) is not under control. Researchers who study organizational change should find this
unpredictable process fascinating and not be irritated by it or be impatient. Industrial sociologists ought to have
the same feeling. The idea of evaluating final effects should be abandoned. We must realize that preventive work
consists of being at hand the whole time and providing adequate support. One should be especially careful with
formal superior-subordinate (employee) situations.

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Evaluating the research on organizational change from an occupational health perspective leads to the
conclusion that there has been a great variation of interest shown in the health of employees, especially their
psychosocial health, when organizational changes are taking place. In some cases the matter has been left totally
to chance, with a complete lack of interest or consideration by top management and even among members of
safety and health committees. In other cases there may be an interest, but no experience to base it on. In some
cases, however, one can glimpse a combination of efficiency and health reasons as the motivation for
organizational change. The case in which the main objective is to preserve or improve employee psychosocial
health is a rarity. However, there is a growing awareness of the importance of considering employee health
during all stages of organizational change (Porras and Robertson 1992).

During organizational change, relationships should ideally be marked by a feeling of cooperation, at least at the
informal level. Resources for all these activities are available in many present-day companies with their
personnel functions, their department charged with organization, company-run occupational health departments
and interested union representatives. In some of these companies there is also a more explicit philosophy of
prevention directing management on different levels towards an effective use of all these resources and moving
the professionals of these various functions towards fruitful cooperation. This visible trend to consider
occupational health aspects in the implementation of organizational change may hopefully expand—something
which, however, requires more consciousness among occupational health experts of the importance of being
well acquainted with the thinking and theorizing on organizational conditions.

REFERENCES
Alvesson, M. 1989. A flat pyramid: a symbolic processing of organizational structure. Int Studies Manag Org
14(4):5-23.

Charan, R. 1991. How networks reshape organizations—for results. Harvard Bus Rev September/October:104-
115.

Ivancevich, JM, MT Matteson, SM Freedman, and JS Phillips. 1990. Worksite stress management interventions.
Am Psychol February:252-261.

Karasek, R. 1992. Stress prevention through work reorganization: a summary of 19 international case studies.
Cond Work Dig 11(2):23-41.

Likert, R. 1961 and 1967. The Human Organization. New York: McGraw Hill.

Miller, D and H Mintzberg. 1983. The case of configuration. In Beyond Method: Strategies for Social Research,
edited by G Morgan. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Mintzberg, H. 1983. Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Morgan, G. 1986. Images of Organizations. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

Porras, JI and PJ Robertson. 1992. Organizational development: theory, practice, and research. In Chap. 12 in
Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, edited by D Dunnette and LM Hough. Chicago: Rand
McNally College Publishing Company.

Westlander, G. 1991. Organizational change and health at work. In The Psychosocial Work Environment: Work
Organization, Democratization and Health, edited by JV Johnson and G Johansson. New York: Baywood
Publishing Company, Inc.

OTHER RELEVANT READINGS

Westlander, G. 1997. People At Work: The Socio-Psychological Context. In press.
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Part V - Psychosocial and Organizational Factors Français

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