Do New Production Concepts and a New Management of Employment Relations, Yield Higher Employee Performance and Lower Job Strain?

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In this article old versus new production concepts (NPCs) and employment relation instruments, are studied, separately and in combination, to find out which yield high employee performance and low job strain. Therefore, in 2005, TNO conducted coupled surveys among 149 supervisors and employees. In the past decades, in reaction to dysfunctions of Tayloristic and professional bureaucratic production concepts and employment relations, several new forms of employment relations and NPCs, appeared. Examples are the Socio-technical NPC and customized employment relations. In this study both this NPC and customized employment relations - i.c. customized performance targets - demonstrate positive associations with employee performance. According to Socio-technical theory the design of employment relations is relatively unimportant, as human resources are mobilised primarily by the production concept. Our results for this NPC show the legitimacy of this assumption, because its high employee performance is irrespective of the employment relation instruments. On the contrary, in the other NPCs and in professional bureaucracies, the (employment relation) instruments of respectively an increased period needed for learning the job, and customized performance targets can compensate for the lower employee performance in these production concepts. The results do not show increased job strain, due to new production concepts, or new employment relations. production concepts, employment relations, labour productivity, socio-technical theory