Individualism—Collectivism and Incentive System Design as Predictive of Productivity in a Simulated Cellular Manufacturing Environment

Abstract

We respond to recent calls for a more inclusive behavioral as well as structural perspective on today's state-of-the-art manufacturing designs. Specifically, we empirically examine individualism—collectivism's productivity-related consequences for today's agile, cellular manufacturing designs across incentive systems. Findings indicate that, as hypothesized, the alignment of cell members' collectivistic orientation, a cooperative task structure, and equalitarian performance incentives resulted in one of the higher levels of productivity. However, the assumption that productivity will monotonically increase with the alignment of organizational components and worker orientation now appears questionable. While complete misalignment resulted in a productivity deficit averaging 7.6 percent, as long as one of the two major organizational design elements explored in this study (task structure and individual- versus group-based incentives) is aligned with the individualistic or collectivistic orientation of workers, optimal cell productivity is achieved.