Authority and Control in Modern Industry: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

by Robertson; Paul L.

• ISBN13: 9780415132121
• ISBN10: 0415132126
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-08-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book includes contributions from scholars in the US, Germany and Japan and takes a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches to the issue of organization and authority in the modern corporation.

Table of Contents

List of figures	ix	(1)
List of tables	x	(1)
List of contributors	xi	(1)
Acknowledgements	xii
Introduction	1	(16)
PAUL L. ROBERTSON
Authority and the management of labour	1	(12)
Summary and conclusions	13	(4)
1 The rise of the factory system in Britain: efficiency or exploitation?	17	(28)
S. R. H. JONES
Introduction	17	(4)
Factories before the Industrial Revolution	21	(2)
Technology and the factory	23	(3)
Traditional explanations for the rise of the factory system	26	(3)
Factories, discipline and the 'new left'	29	(5)
New technology and exploitation	34	(1)
Transaction costs and the factory system	35	(4)
Transport improvements, transaction costs and technology	39	(2)
Conclusion	41	(4)
2 The coevolution of technology and organisation in the transition to the factory system	45	(28)
RICHARD N. LANGLOIS
Introduction	45	(2)
What is a factory?	47	(3)
Division of labour, routine and technology	50	(5)
'Durability', fixed costs and supervision	55	(8)
Evolution, explanation and the inevitable	63	(10)
3 Class structures and the firm: the interplay of workplace and industrial relations in large capitalist enterprises	73	(47)
THOMAS WELSKOPP
The problem and the argument in outline	73	(2)
The limitations of conventional theory	75	(4)
'Micropolitics' as macroreductionism	79	(3)
The concept of the 'firm' and critical social theory	82	(3)
'Class relations' and 'class structures' as axes of the structuration of 'employment relations'	85	(4)
'Class relations' in social systems of production: the 'enterprise' context	89	(13)
'Class relations' as system-specific power resources in the configuration of Workplace and intrafirm industrial relations	102	(8)
Concluding remarks: the 'firm' as an incompletely organised 'political coalition'; and consequences for historical research	110	(10)
4 Knowledge, information and organisational structures	120	(20)
P. P. SAVIOTTI
Introduction	120	(1)
Knowledge: some basic considerations	121	(4)
Knowledge and information	125	(3)
Knowledge and the external environment of firms	128	(2)
The division of labour and coordination	130	(3)
Organisations, organisational boundaries and environmental change	133	(3)
Summary and conclusions	136	(4)
5 Technological change, transaction costs, and the industrial organisation of cotton production in the US South, 1950-1970	140	(15)
LEE J. ALSTON
The organisation of cotton production before the cotton picker, circa 1950	140	(3)
The adoption of the mechanical cotton picker, and changes in the industrial organisation of cotton production	143	(8)
Concluding remarks	151	(4)
6 The maintenance of professional authority: the case of physicians and hospitals in the United States	155	(18)
DEBORAH A. SAVAGE
PAUL L. ROBERTSON
Introduction	155	(2)
The professional mode of production	157	(6)
Professionals and complementary institutions	163	(2)
The Joint Commission Model	165	(4)
Conclusion	169	(4)
7 Men and monotony: fraternalism as a managerial strategy at the Ford Motor Company	173	(30)
WAYNE A. LEWCHUK
The automobile industry as a male domain	175	(6)
Masculinity in the period before mass production	181	(3)
Masculinity and mass production at the Ford Motor Company	184	(12)
Conclusions	196	(7)
8 Management and labour in German chemical companies before World War One	203	(18)
SHCHIO KAKU
Introduction	203	(2)
Development of the German coal-tar dyestuffs industry	205	(2)
The managers of the German coal-tar dyestuffs companies	207	(2)
Terms of labour	209	(5)
Company welfare facilities	214	(2)
Conclusion	216	(5)
9 Buddenbrooks revisited: the firm and the entrepreneurial family in Germany during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries	221	(19)
DIRK SCHUMANN
The debate about the family firm	221	(3)
'Family firm': a definition	224	(1)
Bavaria as a point of reference	225	(1)
The family firm in the early stage of industrialisation	226	(2)
The family firm in the advanced stage of industrialisation	228	(3)
Heirs	231	(1)
The entrepreneurial family and the middle classes	232	(2)
Summary	234	(6)
Index	240