On the Shop Floor

On the Shop Floor: Two Studies of Workshop Organization and Output is an empirical study of the social factors influencing output in factories. The book investigates the correlation between worker social behavior and production output levels. The text presents a firsthand account of the social behavior of workers in two separate and unrelated workshops. Technological and administrative controls, social structure, and resolution of conflicts in the workshops are analyzed. The book also considers output performance of individual workers involving case studies of factors influencing performance. The general conclusion provides hypotheses to explain the differences in behavior between the two workshops. Managers, human resource practitioners, sociologists, industrial engineers, researchers, and business students will find the book invaluable.