The Coevolution of Tasks and Expertise
Lisa Ellen Cohen, Le Hung Bui · 2025
How do tasks and expertise coevolve? Tasks and expertise are tightly linked and essential for the execution of work in organizations. Despite the link in the practice of tasks and expertise, scholars have yet to theorize them as coevolving. A small body of research provides evidence that by failing to treat them this way, research misses insights critical to explaining the evolving nature and future of work. To explore these dynamics, we analyze interviews and observations of people involved with the data-collection task in an early-stage startup. We trace the task’s detailed movement across jobs and by doing so, observe complex dynamics between the task and associated expertise. The task moved from proto-analysts to analysts to data-entry operators and, with that, the core expertise required for the task moved across positions. In addition, doing data collection produced expertise that those in the analyst position applied in performing other tasks. In part, because it facilitated the production of expertise, analysts continued to collect data – a task that they routinely complained about doing – even after it migrated to data-entry operators. Based on these findings, we develop the distinction between core and produced expertise. We also refine our understanding of hiving-off with an alternative explanation for why menial tasks might not be hived-off. Finally, our findings enhance our understanding of the dynamics around change in jobs and task segregation.