Week 4 : Emergent Forms of Organization and Ways of Organizing

1
Week 4 Emergent Forms of Organization and Ways
of Organizing

• Beyond Fordism
• Managers and academics spent the majority of
  this century building and perfecting the
  hierarchical organization. If we are to believe
  the press, however, they are now busily
  destroying it, proposing in its stead networked,
  process-oriented, shamrock, learning, team-based
  and fast cycle organizational models (Applegate)
• On the basis of what you have studied/learned so
  far, what do you identify in this quote that is
• Contentious?
• Problematical?

2
Fordism v. Post-Fordism

• Features of Fordism
• Specialisation, Repetition
• Separation of mental from manual work
• Economies of scale
• Technical control (pacing)
• Just-in-case
• Pay tied to productivity

• Features of Post-Fordism
• Multiskilling, Variety
• Self-organising
• Economies of scope
• Cultural control
• Just-in-time
• Diverse rewards

Can these distinctions be mapped on to
organizations? What analytical relevance do the
concepts of inequality and identity have for
examining post-Fordism?
3
Toyotaism and Lean Production

• Toyotaist Model
• Participation exploit and combine tacit
  knowledge(s)
• Criss-crossing divisions
• Diverse career ladders
• Job for life
• Corporate citizens

• Lean Production Model
• Careful selection
• Job switching
• Surveillance
• Just-in-time (reduce wastage and capital tied up)
• Squeeze porosities

the ideology and practice of Toyotaism are
designed to promote a cooperative culture and
strong identification with the corporation
(Jaffee) Described by Kenney and Florida as
corporatist hegemony
4
Contingency of New Production Models

• Importance of national and cultural contexts of
  development and adoption
• Managerial agency constrained as well as enabled
  by structural conditions
• Labour markets (skill composition organization)
• Capital markets (financial institutions)
• Regulatory frameworks
• Others ???

Do structural factors operate independently of
agency? How is their relationship most credibly
theorised?
5
Concentration and Mediated Decentralization ?

• Large corporations continue to dominate but are
  vulnerable during periods of rapid technological
  change
• Tendency of capitalist enterprise to become
  oligopolistic
• Increased use of networks and alliances to share
  risks
• Increased flexibility contingent upon minimising
  potential loss of control
• Increased use of benchmarks and performance
  measures. Control-at-a-distance
• Shifts in forms of organizing (i.e from Fordist
  to post-Fordist methods) are fraught with
  dilemmas, contradictions, compromises and
  constraints. Dynamic of resistance and control

Does it make sense to ask the question What
kind of theory best captures the change in
organizing practices?
6
Conclusion / Take-Away

• Tensions between impulse to Dominate and
  imperative to be Responsive,Flexible and
  Adaptable
• Issue of how much weight is given to agency in
  the design of strategy and structure
• Question of how values inform and impede
  processes of representation and analysis