To look at what specialization is, take a look around. Here is the store, there are shop windows, a cash register, modern merchandising rules are applied. The seller has a shop. He knows how to use a cash register, knows everything about the product, can beautifully put it on the shelves and, if desired, can easily persuade you to buy something.
Here is the bus. It is adapted for comfortable transportation of passengers (handrails, seats, large windows). The driver drives the bus along an asphalt road, guided by signs, follows traffic signals.
The above examples definitely have something in common:
- Each of them represents a certain type of activity, the result of which is a specific product or service (sale of goods, transportation of passengers).
- To carry out activities, special technologies, materials, equipment (bus, shop window) are used.
- Actions are carried out in a certain way by specialists (seller, driver).
We are dealing with specialization. What is specialization? This is when the state, enterprise or individual focuses their efforts on a certain activity, on creating a product (service) or even a separate part of the product. Cooperation is inextricably linked with specialization, which is the interaction of entities, each of which has its own specialization, but together they create one final product.
The idea of what specialization and cooperation are in interaction give elementary examples. One company specializes in the manufacture of engines, the other in the manufacture of tires, the third is engaged in the assembly of cars, but together they produce one final product - a car.
This is a collaboration. The marketer finds out which goods will be well bought, the supplier buys them, the economist calculates the
volume of goods turnover and the prices at which the company will make a profit. This is also cooperation.
The division of labor and specialization is an indispensable result of the development of the economic activity of society. A person cannot physically do everything at once. Moreover, he does not have all the necessary resources. Finally, it is simply ineffective.
Firstly, when a person is engaged in one thing, over time, he gets it all better. He can gradually improve the process, come up with something new. Technology and special equipment are emerging. Imagine an enterprise constantly changing the type of its products. Endless retraining of personnel, readjustment of equipment and a host of other efforts that result in reduced efficiency and productivity.
Therefore, today specialization and cooperation of production (and not only production) are natural and even necessary methods of managing. We are witnessing this process at all levels: from the division of household responsibilities to international economic cooperation.
Thus, answering the question of what specialization is, we can say that this is a modern international form of labor organization.