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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.6
Publication Date: June 25, 2020
DOI:10.14738/assrj.76.8442.
Linke, K. (2020) Operational Alteration Of The Labor Capacity Index Measurement Model For Qualitative Work. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 128-137.
Operational Alteration Of The Labor Capacity Index
Measurement Model For Qualitative Work
Knut Linke
Institute of Knowledge Management,
University of Applied Sciences Weserbergland, Hameln.
ABSTRACT
The Marx term Labour capacity contains the ability to handle change,
imponderables and complexity and is personal part of an employee. The
Labour Capacity Index (LCI) is developed to measure the use of labour
capacity at work places and from employee itself. The index helps to
understand the handling and dealing of complexity and imponderables
at work. For the index itself is assumed that the index itself news small
adjustment to be more valuable. A critic point of the LCI seems to be the
existing scale and the used values, do to limitations on the available
record set. This paper displays the results of a hopeful useful change in
the operationalization of the measurement of labour capacity to
increase the understanding of workers and their personal and
experienced input to work. The comparison of the results is based on a
survey with the working environment of IT employees. From the
analysis of the results and out of the following comparison between the
new and the old approach for the LCI, it can be displayed that the change
in the operationalization can be done successfully. The including of new
variable values also allowed a more detailed and distributes view on the
labour market and the research labor capacity.
Keywords: Labour Capacity Index, Labour Analysis, Labour Science,
Management Statistics
INTRODUCTION
The research work is embedded in the research project "Open IT Bachelor and Open IT Master -
from IT Practitioner to Bachelor Business Informatics and Master IT Business Management" [1],
which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education. The latter develops and tests
credit transfer programmes for vocational IT specialists with IT-IHK initial or secondary education
[2, 3]. The research project is divided into two funding phases. The first funding phase (2014 to
2018) primarily examined the framework conditions for academic continuing education for IT
specialists. The focus of the second funding phase (2018 to 2020) is on the analysis of the actively
used, structural work capacity of IT specialists and their ability to implement personnel knowledge
in the operational environment. The research on this field is necessary to understand the
informatization of the working world [e. g. 4, 5, 6] which results in the assumptions that services
and production processes are decentralized continuously, virtualized as well as offered and
provided internationally [7]. Information technology and informatization allowed and allows
production capital a global distributed production and exercise of services [8] as well as the
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol.7, Issue 6, June-2020
realization of global and virtual project work [9]. The progress is favored by the increasing
information space created by computerization, especially on the Internet [10] and the production
itself, in the information space and of application and IT products, is already following standardized
patterns to organize development processes [11]. It is assumed that the process of real and formal
subsumption [12] is processed within the labor marked and especially resulting in the pattering of
informatization work.
LABOUR CAPACITY AND LABOUR CAPACITY INDEXING
Idea of Labour Capacity
Definition of Labor Capacity:
„The qualitative and social essence of work is displayed in laboring capacity; in contrast,
labour power is always already an abstraction from this process. Laboring capacity
encompasses all the capabilities that are needed for the confrontation with the world –
i.e. for appropriation processes in the broadest sense – and that renew, convert, and
transform in its course: The comprehensive forming and application of the senses, living
working knowledge with its objectified (but not yet objectified) and non-objectified
shares of experiential knowledge and, finally, capabilities of the situational concretizing
application of theoretically-grounded knowledge or theoretically-grounded procedures
and methods.“ [13].
Labour capacity is the ability to deal with change, complexity and the unforeseen in the workplace,
which means that employees know the necessary routine (or solution) within a complex overall
system due to their labour capacity [14]. This can, for example, be a routine but not documented or
prescribed intervention in a production process. Such activities cannot be carried out by unskilled
persons and require skilled workers or similarly qualified persons who have work experience and
for example, experience in dealing with uncertainty, lack of instructions, demands or changes, and
who can react to these factors. Labour capacity is not the contrast between routine and non-routine,
but rather the confident and flexible handling of uncertainties and challenges, based on experience
and working knowledge. Detachment from routine and non-routine is necessary, since no work
consists only of one or the other [14]. To a certain extent, every work activity contains a non-routine
continuum that confronts the routine and, in part, makes it possible. This also applies to work with
and on machines as well as pure manual work. Both work activities cannot automatically be
understood as routine work to be automated, as they are only subject to theoretical automation.
Nor should routine be understood as "simple repetitive action in the sense of a static body of
experience" [15]. Experiences help us to cope with uncertainties and new environments and to
make decisions, even in the unknown and in uncertainty. This is where intuition, gut feeling and
emotion come into play, for which experience knowledge is necessary. Theoretical knowledge is
reinterpreted and can help in making decisions. This leads to an intuitive-improvised action, which
can be differentiated from analytical-planning action [16].
The labour capacity is important from the societal perspective and for employers and employees
when considering theses that predict the exchange of workers through computer programs or
automation [17]. The general assumption in the above-mentioned evaluation by Frey & Osborne
was that routine work can be substituted more quickly and easily (substitution thesis), while non- routine activities (complementarity thesis) are seen as upgraded work activities and more difficult
to substitute.
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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.76.8442 130
Linke, K. (2020) Operational Alteration Of The Labor Capacity Index Measurement Model For Qualitative Work. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal,
7(6) 128-137.
For the analysis of labour capacity, Pfeiffer and Suphan [14] have developed the labour capacity
index (LCI) approach, which aims to make the use of labour capacity of employees more tangible.
This approach does not examine the dichotomy between routine and non-routine, does not include
expert opinions or assessments of automation, and does not assume that work can be robustly
explained purely by comparing routine and non-routine. Moreover, routine should not be
understood as a simple repetitive action in the sense of a static set of experiences. For the first
analysis of the LCI, the results of the employee survey conducted by the German Federal Institute
for Vocational Training [18] were used. From this survey, 18 quantitative items were selected to
form the LCI. The questions were assigned to the respective fields of handling complexity,
situational imponderables and the structural increase in complexity.
The fields of IT core occupations, engineering occupations and technicians showed the highest
values in the LCI. This leads to the assumption that the occupational activities that are carried out
in this area are characterized by an extremely high non-routine share and that employees have to
draw on their experience here. Pfeiffer and Suphan define this even more precisely for the IT sector
and state that 91% of labour activities in the IT services sector can only be carried out by accessing
the employee's labour capacity. In addition, Pfeiffer [19] states that there is a link between rising
skill levels and rising labour capacity. The above-mentioned labour activities usually take place
within the framework of knowledge or project management work. The labour there includes
distinct expert work, which can also be carried out largely independent of location and visualized.
In addition, decisions often have to be made even if relevant information or necessary action
competences are not available. The complete planning of work steps is immanently impossible in
such situations, so that experience and its previous interpretation must be drawn upon. The existing
complexity must be (correctly) interpreted.
Measurement of Labour Capacity
The measurement of the in 2.1 mentioned labour capacity index contains three sections:
• Situational handling of complexity (sitCOM): Frequency of situational problem solving and
decision-making within the professional activity.
• Situational handling of imponderables (sitIP): Subjective labor action involves working
under time pressure, with emerging imponderables and with anticipatory problem
prevention, as well as situations where an action is necessary to prevent major consequential
problems.
• Section C: Handling of structural complexity increase (strCOM): The extent of changes in
work equipment, work object and work organization in the last two years, as well as their
influence on the work environment and increase in stress during work.
The questions of the sections and their changes will be displayed in 3.1 in this paper.