Technology and Supervisory Functions

In the last decade, a modest number of investigations have been undertaken which probe the relationship between supervisory functions and the level of technological attainment or refinement. To the extent that results have been available, variation in content and method has compounded the problem of discerning possible relationships among the variables comprising process technology and supervisory organization and activities. This paper reports an exploratory field study dealing with the influence of process technology on two important functional activities of supervision, Direction and Control. Two high-volume production units within baking industry, one more technologically advanced than the other, provided the basis for the development of comparative data and information. Supervisors in the more advanced technological system devoted significantly less time to direction and control activities. This difference in allocation of supervisory time and variation in supervisory practices suggests some of the organizational necessities evolving from an advanced technology. In addition, the potential diminution of such historically important supervisory functions as direction and control points to changes in the composition of functional supervisory activities as more advanced states of technology are realized

Business · Control (management) · Economics · Exploratory research · Field (mathematics) · Information technology · Knowledge management · Operations management · Process (computing) · Process management · Production (economics) · Sociology · Supervisory control · Variation (astronomy) · Artificial Intelligence · Business Process Modeling and Analysis · Computer Science · Engineering · Mathematics

• Psychology in Industry

  C G Browne, Norman R F Maier•Industrial and Labor Relations…•1956

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