generaliztion or specialization
Case Study 4: Generalization or Specialization?
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I remember the days when if I fell ill, my mother would take me to a general physician. The doctor would prescribe some medicines as per his initial diagnosis of the illness and past experience. In case of a failure in effectiveness of the medicine, other options were sought to address the illness. Zooming ahead to 2012, today we look at specialization in all fields. Today if the child’s ear is blocked the mother will take him to an ENT specialist.
Laws of economics support the practice, whereby, specialization and division of labor is expected to provide highest levels of productivity. This idea was, first, put forth by Mr. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, in his book ‘Wealth of the Nations’. Under this regime each worker becomes an expert in one isolated area of production, thus increasing his efficiency. The fact that laborers do not have to switch tasks during the day further saves time and money. Specialization has also been the basis of trade between nations. The countries specialized in commodities that their resources could produce efficiently and then proceeded to trade. It was observed that the world productivity levels improved massively.
The world today is shifting from demanding a “jack of all trades” to demanding the “master”. The abundance of information in today’s world leads to any person adept at internet search skills is able to provide a general perspective about any topic under the sun. The need is to be able to provide an in-depth idea about the topic. Also, the level of competition in today’s world leaves no scope for error and thereby, comes the demand for specialization. With a team of such specialists, the performance delivered tends to have been scrutinized from the different perspectives, leaving lesser scope for flaws.
The shift to specialization has influenced the growth of new industries and
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I remember the days when if I fell ill, my mother would take me to a general physician. The doctor would prescribe some medicines as per his initial diagnosis of the illness and past experience. In case of a failure in effectiveness of the medicine, other options were sought to address the illness. Zooming ahead to 2012, today we look at specialization in all fields. Today if the child’s ear is blocked the mother will take him to an ENT specialist.
Laws of economics support the practice, whereby, specialization and division of labor is expected to provide highest levels of productivity. This idea was, first, put forth by Mr. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, in his book ‘Wealth of the Nations’. Under this regime each worker becomes an expert in one isolated area of production, thus increasing his efficiency. The fact that laborers do not have to switch tasks during the day further saves time and money. Specialization has also been the basis of trade between nations. The countries specialized in commodities that their resources could produce efficiently and then proceeded to trade. It was observed that the world productivity levels improved massively.
The world today is shifting from demanding a “jack of all trades” to demanding the “master”. The abundance of information in today’s world leads to any person adept at internet search skills is able to provide a general perspective about any topic under the sun. The need is to be able to provide an in-depth idea about the topic. Also, the level of competition in today’s world leaves no scope for error and thereby, comes the demand for specialization. With a team of such specialists, the performance delivered tends to have been scrutinized from the different perspectives, leaving lesser scope for flaws.
The shift to specialization has influenced the growth of new industries and