division of labor

Division of labor refers to the process where individual employees and their tasks become more specialized. Work is preformed by different workers that only perform specific tasks.


The classic example is a manufacturing assembly line. Early on, all production may be completed by an individual craftsman. As an assembly line grows in scale and more workers are brought into the process, labor tends to become more specialized as individual tasks are preformed by individual workers. In large companies different departments will form: human resource, information technology, management, marketing and sales to facilitate the production line.

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