Productivity and Social Organization

The Ahmedabad experiment: technical innovation, work organization and management

A. K. Rice, A. K. Rice

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136437403
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médecine
• Subtopic: Prestation de soins de santé

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.
This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press.
Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1958 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Part I
The Project and its Background

Chapter 1
Introduction

Productivity and Social Organization

This book is an account of the work undertaken by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in collaboration with the Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Company Ltd. in India. The work, which falls within the field of 'operational' or 'action' research, has been concerned with the interaction of social and technological change in a textile mill employing over eight thousand workers. Experiments which achieved both social and technological changes were carried out over a period of some three years. Measurements of their effects on each other and on productivity were made.

In 1951 Trist, in a study he made with Bamforth of the longwall method of coal-getting in Great Britain, introduced die concept of a production system as a socio-teclmical system. This concept was later extended to designate a general field of study concerned with the interrelations of the technical and socio-psychological organizations of industrial production systems.¹ Trist and Bamforth showed that the introduction of the three-shift longwall cycle into British coal-mining resulted in the breakdown of an established social system at the coal face.

A new social system came into being, characterized by maladaptive mechanisms, as a defence against the social and psychological consequences of the new technology. The close tie between technological process and sociological and psychological phenomena has also been demonstrated by other workers in both Europe and America. Wilson, speaking at the International Congress of Psychology in Montreal in 1954, said: 'Perhaps the most striking fact about recent work is its independent appearance in various countries and centres, and the emergence or similar findings in such studies as are comparable.'¹

The concept of a socio-technical system arose from the consideration that any production system requires both a technological organization— equipment and process layout—and a work organization relating to each other those who carry out the necessary tasks. The technological demands place limits upon the type of work organization possible, but a work organization has social and psychological properties of its own that are independent of technology. While industrial production systems are, of necessity, designed in accordance with technological demand, there has been a tendency to project the technological into the associated work organization. The assumption is then made that there is only one work organization that will satisfy the conditions of task performance. This has meant treating groups and individuals as though they were machines and has led to what has aptly been called the 'machine theory of organization'.² Where, as has frequently happened, the resulting work organization has failed to satisfy the social and psychological needs of its members, their attitudes to task performance have inhibited the full realization of technological potential and lowered productivity.

A socio~technical system must also satisfy the financial conditions of the industry of which it is a part. It must have economic validity. It has, in fact, social, technological and economic dimensions, all of which are interdependent, but all of which have independent values of their own. These need to be taken into account in any reorganization due to change in any one dimension.

In the experiments described in this book attempts were made to take into account both the independent and interdependent properties of the social, technological, and economic dimensions of existing socio-technical systems, and to establish new systems in which all dimensions were more adequately interrelated than they had previously been.

The work with the Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Company Ltd. was carried out in the cultural setting of an old and eastern civilization into which western technology has been introduced only recently, and with only limited impact. Ruth Benedict has said that every culture, every era, exploits a few out of a great number of possibilities'.¹ The generality of the findings of the work described in this book is based upon the belief that, in our era, the majority of cultures are endeavouring to exploit the same possibility—the increased productivity arising from the application of technological advance to human effort. While it would be an over-simplification to suggest that the findings of experiments in the interaction of social, technological, and economic change in an Indian textile mill could have unqualified application elsewhere, nevertheless, the limits imposed on productive organization by technological demand and the universal endeavour to exploit the same kind of technology do suggest that the findings may have more than local significance.

The Project

The Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Company Ltd., more familiarly known as the 'Calico Mills', manufactures finished cloth from raw cotton in two mills, the Calico Mills and the Jubilee Mills, both situated in Ahmedabad. There is also a chemical division manufacturing bulk chemicals such as caustic soda, chlorine, and chlorine products. One chemical plant is in Ahmedabad on the same site as the Calico Mills. Another, now in the course of erection, is in Bombay, some three hundred miles south of Ahmedabad. Throughout the book the Calico and Jubilee Mills will usually be referred to by their more familiar collective title of the 'Calico Mills'. Where reference is made to the Calico Mills, as distinct from the Jubilee Mills, the context will, I hope, make the distinction clear.

Towards the end of 1952, the Chairman of the Company visited the Tavistock Institute in London. He described the immediate problem facing his Company as one in which the introduction of modern machinery and modern working methods was creating social and psychological problems for management and workers, both in their relations with each other and with the trade unions.

His problem was a part of a more general problem arising from the rapid industrial development in India since independence. In Britain, the first country to develop industrially, over ninety per cent of the working population is engaged in industry and commerce and lives in cities and towns. In America the rural population has decreased from fifty to twenty per cent in the past few decades. The industrialization of India is relatively recent. Even today, probably only about one per cent of the population is engaged in modern mechanized industry. Though in such centres as Bombay, Ahmedabad, and Kanpur a textile industry has been established for nearly a hundred years, attitudes towards mechanization and modernization are still affected by the more conservative majority engaged in agriculture and village crafts. The tropical climate, physical conditions, and standards of nutrition all contribute to a belief, widely held in India, that whatever mechanization or modernization of working methods may be introduced, norms of output will always remain lower than in the more highly industrialized countries situated in more temperate climates. While wages are still far below those in Europe and America they have increased considerably since independence. As elsewhere in the world there is strong and continuous pressure from industrial workers for improved standards of Eving, There has not, however, been any corresponding increase in productivity.

The Chairman of the Calico Mills recognized that changes in working methods and in attitudes towards mechanization would be unlikely to be successful without corresponding changes in the methods and organization of management, and that a study of management structure and behaviour would be a necessary corollary to any study of the workers and work organization. As a result of discussions with the Chairman of the Company I went to India early in 1953 for a short visit to explore the possibility of establishing a collaborative relationship between the Company and the Institute and to allow the members of the Company and myself to have some experience of working together. So far I have visited the mills four times for periods varying between three and nine months. On one visit I was accompanied by a second staff member for six months. Terms of reference have been very broad—to collaborate with management and workers in attempts to solve the social and psychological problems which faced them through changes in methods of work or of management. In practice, this has meant discussion of whatever problem has been urgently confronting the Chairman, other members of management or the workers, and working with them in trying to find some kind of solution. Starting points have been technological, economic, social or psychological—the terms of reference have set no limit either for the Company or for myself.

During the first visit my terms of reference were discussed with the Chairman and then with other senior managers. It was agreed that I should be responsible directly and only to the Chairman and that, except in any selection procedures in which I might be involved, I would not report on individuals working in the Company. It was also agreed that any managers or workers within the Company could, if they wished, discuss with me, as individuals or as groups, their work, their roles, and their relationships, and that such discussions would be private; that is, nothing would be reported except with their permission. A meeting was held of all ranks of management of the Calico Mills at which the kind of work projected, the methods, and the terms of reference were explained and discussed. The President and leading members of the Textile Labour Association (the recognized trade union) and some technical members of the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association also attended the meeting.

The account to be presented in this book is an interim report of work not completed, and still continuing. Because of the technological, social, and economic changes that will continue to take place in India, as elsewhere, changes will continue in the Calico Mills. In this sense the work will never be completed, and no final report will be possible.

The project was carried out within a consultant-client relationship, in which my primary professional responsibility was to give such assistance as I could to the solution of problems causing concern to the client. For this reason almost the only quantitative data available are the data of normal industrial practice and the qualitative data are such records of events as I was able to make either directly or through the collaboration of members of the Company. Although the work was directed towards specific problems, and specific steps were taken to deal with them, at no time could any of the resultant processes be kept isolated from other contemporary processes. Nor, because of the urgency of the problems, was it ever possible to consider long-term experiments, even had control been theoretically possible. The data available, therefore, are a collection of industrial data and a record of observed events arising from a complex variety of simultaneous processes. The problem has been to relate the changes and the events to each other; the danger that, in the analysis of any one process, the effects of other events and other processes would be ignored.

In subsequent chapters three changes are described, two in different kinds of weaving and one in management. In the first, changes were initiated in the social organization of a production system which had recently undergone violent disturbance by the introduction of a new technology —automatic weaving. The changes introduced into the social organization enabled the production system to settle down by making possible the acceptance of the changes in the technological organization. The changes were implemented as soon as they were suggested. In the second, in weaving with Lancashire looms ('non-automatic' looms in which the traditional method of weaving was practised), technological and social changes were initiated simultaneously and took far longer to be accepted and become effective. In the third, in management, disturbance had already occurred as a result of changes in the social and economic conditions of the society in which the Company existed, and as a result of the changes introduced into the weaving and other production systems. The changes introduced into management took into account the resultant changes in all parts of the Company and provided the opportunity for the whole system to settle down at a more effective level of performance.

Analysis of the Changes

Changes occasionally occur with dramatic suddenness. More frequently they are slow, difficult to observe and still more difficult to analyse. It is often only possible to observe that change has occurred after it has occurred; then only because some event happens to demonstrate that, at some previous time, a change must have occurred to have made the event possible. In the present account, changes have been divided into phases, the length of each phase being determined by the occurrence of an event which can be related to identifiable change in the process under study. All the known events believed to have had any effect on the process have been recorded. The phases have been related, so far as has been possible, to such quantitative measures as have been available. This has given a 'four-dimensional' record:

a chronological phase sequence of the process;
events directly related to it;
other events less immediately relevant but which can be shown to
have had effects;
the quantitative data available.

Thus, the analysis in Chapter 14 of the results of the experimental reorganization of non-automatic weaving identifies nine phases of length varying from ten to one hundred and four days. Each phase is identified by social or technological changes in the methods of work organization in the first 'dimension'. The second 'dimension' is characterized by events in the experimental shed itself, and the third by events in the mill and in the external environment. These three 'dimensions' are related to each other for each phase, and the quantitative results of efficiency, damage, and cost are then related to the whole.

The same methods of analysis have been used for all three change processes described, but, whereas in the weaving sheds certain quantitative data could be directly related to the changes introduced, in the reorganization of management no such immediately relevant data were available. Some indications of the overall results of the Company are given, and these can, in the sense that management is responsible for overall results, be considered with caution and reservation as related, however indirectly, to the reorganization.

Plan of the Book

The book is presented in six parts. The remainder of the first part is concerned with background information about the Company and its setting in Ahmedabad. The second is a brief statement of the concepts and assumptions used in the work of the project. In the third, fourth, and fifth parts, work in three specific areas of company activity is described. Although for the sake of clarity each sub-project is treated as a separate piece of work, all are accounts of parallel activities which overlapped each other not only in time but as regards the people involved in them. I have tried to indicate the interaction between events in the different sub-projects, but, with so much happening at the same time, the events were not always easy to disentangle from each other; unwittingly, some over-simplification may have occurred. In the sixth and final part further consideration is given to the concepts and assumptions used and some general observations are made about the social and psychological demands of machine technology.

¹ Trist, E. L., and Bamforth, K. W., 'Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-Getting', Human Relations, 1951, Vol. IV, No. 1.

¹ Wilson, A. T. M., 'Some Contrasting Socio-Technical Production Systems in Industry'. A paper given in a symposium on 'The Interaction of Technological and Social Factors in Industrial Production Systems' at the 14th International Congress of Psychology, Montreal, June 1954. The other contributors were John Hemphill, Rensis Likert, and Gunnar Westerlund.

² Katz, Daniel, and Kahn, Robert L., 'Human Organization and Worker Motivation', Industrial Productivity, L. R. Tripp (Ed,), 1951, Industrial Relations Research Association.

¹ Bene...