Managerial Academy of Applied Sciences in Warsaw
5/7/5, Krzywickiego Str. Warsaw 02-078, Poland
siro19@wp.pl
EDITORIAL REVIEW OF THE BOOK BY E. DUBOIS AND P. ŻUKOWSKI TREATISE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF WORK AS AN APPLIED SCIENCE PUBLISHED BY THE PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE RZESZÓW UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN RZESZÓW IN 2023 (P. 339, ISBN 978-83-7934-630-1)
The book Treatise on the organization of work as an applied science has been published on the publishing market – a book important for the science of work, management science, and above all for the science of work organization. In order to bring its content closer and encourage readers to familiarize themselves with it, I present its concise thematic characteristics with a few attached comments.
The reviewed book consists of 10 chapters. Each chapter is a separate whole and contains a list of basic scientific literature related to its content.
Chapter 1 is a kind of extended introduction to the book. It consists of three issues, each of which could be a separate entity: general concepts related to organization and management, the history of the development of the science of organization and management, and the relationship between work organization and other sciences dealing with various aspects of this field of science. It would therefore be appropriate to divide the content of this chapter into three different parts, supplementing them and giving them the rank of chapters.
In the initial part of the chapter, the authors of the work define the basic concepts such as: organization, organization, control, regulation, directing, management, or management efficiency and present its basic conditions.
Next, the fields of science closely related to the science of work organization were discussed, in particular: praxeology as a general theory of efficient action, work physiology, work psychology, work sociology, work pedagogy, or ergonomics as a science of adapting the environment to human needs in the work process .
The next part of the chapter presents: the genesis and development of the science of work organization and management, including its various schools and directions. The historical presentation of the development of the science of organization and management was conducted by the authors in the mid-twentieth century. The literature attached to the chapter allows readers to supplement the latest knowledge in this area individually.
Chapter 2 is devoted to the principles of work organization. They distinguish and discuss four basic principles of work organization:
– the principle of division of labor,
– the principle of harmony,
– the principle of concentration,
– the principle of work optimization.
Then, their various implementation aspects were discussed in detail. At the end of the chapter, the general principle of work organization and detailed principles, supplementing the above-mentioned basic principles, were presented.
Chapter 3 presents the forms of work organization. The authors distinguish and discuss four basic forms of work organization:
– individual work,
– collective work,
– teamwork,
– rotating work.
Chapter 4 is devoted to work organization methods. The authors discuss in detail the cycle of organized action, which consists of the following five stages:
– task (problem) analysis,
– work planning (planning to solve the problem),
– preparation of means (resources) and operating conditions,
– completing the task (solving the problem),
– performance control.
Then they characterize the diagnostic and prognostic method of work organization.
In Chapter 5, the authors present network methods of work organization. It is about graphical methods of analyzing the network of dependencies (activities) in the organization of work, useful in particular in planning and controlling the work process.
Chapter 6 is entirely devoted to value analysis and includes: the essence of value analysis, the stages of the procedure cycle, and methods and techniques supporting value analysis.
Chapter 7 covers the organization of an effective and safe workplace from the point of view of ergonomics. The authors characterize the human work environment according to various impact factors, distinguishing the following impact factors:
^ physical, ^ biological, ^ chemical, ^organizational, ^ social, ^ psychophysical.
Then, they extensively present the principles and postulates of ergonomics regarding work.
Chapter 8 is devoted to the study and evaluation of work. The starting point for the authors‘ considerations is the evaluation of a job position, in particular the adoption of appropriate criteria for its assessment.
Evaluating a job position is, in short, determining its relative importance in achieving the organization’s goals. Combined with the job valuation, it allows you to construct a qualification table, which is a set of job classification categories with similar levels of work complexity and is used to develop salary tables.
Chapter 9 contains more important concepts and theories of work motivation. It presents traditional (classical) approaches to motivating employees to work.
The last, 10th, chapter of the book is devoted to the profile of a modern manager. The authors present managerial skills (personal and interpersonal), as well as the professional, personality and ethical and moral dimension of the manager’s profession. This chapter (as well as the entire book) presents a traditional approach to defining professional qualifications and competencies.
All in all, readers receive a decent dose of knowledge about work, work organization, management, the development of the science of work organization and management, and related sciences such as praxeology and ergonomics. Therefore, the book can be used to broaden the readers‘ general knowledge and specialist knowledge regarding the organization of work, but it can also be useful in their self-education, in vocational education at the secondary and higher level, in particular in didactic and scientific work.
Konstancin, August 30, 2023.