The Uses and Problems of Job Evaluation Techniques in Developing Industrial Nations

Abstract

The objective of the study is to assess the usefulness of job evaluation
techniques in the imposition of incomes policy to a developing country,
namely Egypt. The concept of job evaluation is examined from the viewpoint
of neo-classical economic theory and of social science, as is the
notion of incomes policy. Both imply the erection of a hierarchy of tasks
evaluated against shared social and technical values within a society.
Since such values are rarely shared in the manner implied by the use of the
term "consensus", it is unlikely that either job evaluation or incomes
policy will result in social or industrial peace.
In the context of developing countries job evaluation/incomes policy is
seen by the administration to offer a way of distributing rewards according
to some agreed standard of production efficiency and some concept of social
fairness. In the first instance, technical efficiency, such a distribution
would be designed to bring about the best allocation of labour services,
According to the second criterion, social justice, it ought to result in
the fulfilment of the political ideals of the revolutionary elite. In
practice not only do these two standards of performance conflict, but in
the assessment of "fairness" the notion of equity is likely to come up
against prevailing perceptions of occupational and job status, sanctified
as Lady Wootton believes, by time and practice. Faced with the need to
attract labour into the most effective uses and by the constraints set by
the existing and accepted hierarchy of jobs (and power), equity tends to
give way to pragmatism in the eyes of the elite. However the very nature
of job evaluation exposes these compromises with the self-set revolutionary
principles of the elite and makes for political sensitivity and instability.
It therefore becomes important to recognise the moulding effect that job
evaluation has on the expectations and aspirations of the active - and
inactive - work force and to adopt a flexible but consistent standard of
evaluation.
This theoretical analysis is set against a historical description and
analysis of the Egyptian economy and is illustrated by data taken from
an industrial survey of 108 firms carried out by the Ministry for Industry
in 1975. The author also presents attitudinal data gathered in 1976 from
five companies located in the Mid-Delta and greater Cairo regions of
Egypt. This type of study is unique in recent times.

Date of Award	1979
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aston University