Busy Bee Ltd

question 95

Essay

Busy Bee Ltd. has a large secretarial pool on the third floor of company headquarters where professional and lower-level managers have their reports and other documents word-processed. The tasks are received by the secretarial pool coordinator and assigned randomly (on an availability basis) to secretaries in the pool. The secretaries often do not know the managers or professionals for whom the word-processing assignment is being completed. They rarely find out about the quality of their work because revisions are often sent to other secretaries in the pool due to the rotating work assignment system. Some assignments involve simple word-processing while others require complex formatting using more sophisticated word-processing software. Some secretaries don't mind working in the pool, but most are there because it represents the entry-level secretarial position. They resent the lack of control over work assignments and look forward to being transferred to other secretarial jobs in the firm where there is more freedom to schedule their own work activities. Turnover in the pool is much higher than for other support staff at Busy Bee Ltd. Would job enlargement (combining tasks) be an effective job design strategy for employees in Busy Bee's secretarial pool?

---

Definitions:

Indicator Variable

A variable used in statistics and econometrics that takes on a value of 1 if a specific condition is true and 0 if it is not.

Test Statistic

A value calculated from sample data during a hypothesis test used to decide whether to support or reject the null hypothesis.

Logistic Regression

A statistical method used for predicting a binary outcome from one or more predictor variables, modeling the probability of occurrence of an event.

Lactic Acid

A chemical compound produced in the muscles during intense physical activity and responsible for the sensation of muscle soreness.