Measuring work factors: A case study to identify relationships among work activities, styles and an environment

Abstract

A work environment needs to be designed based on the nature and characteristics of the work activities and the work styles. Unless we have a clear understanding of what factors of work activities and styles depend on what factors of work environments and vice versa, we would not be able to modify or add components of work environments “effectively.” This paper first presents our framework to measure work factors of work activities, styles and an environment, and then discusses results of our case study of applying the framework to actual work practice at NTT Data Corporation. Our framework consists of three representational models: The KPM (Knowledge Production Model) for representing work activities, the MS-GI (Mobile-Settled, Group-Individual) model for characterizing work styles, and the SOU (System-Office-Usage) model for representing a work environment. We have conducted a survey on 274 workers at an organizational unit of NTT Data Corporation by applying the three models. The result shows that the framework is successfully applied to understand the relationships among the three work factors at least partially if not completely. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the framework can be used to evolve work environments by taking into account work activities and styles.