The management of the work-force: a sociological criticism of prevailing fashions

Prieto, Carlos

doi:10.1080/09585199300000039

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The assump-tion that committed workers are necessarily more productive has also never been proved (Bassett, 1994). Prieto (1993) notes that there are three types of¯exibility; numerical (¯exibility in the number of people in the workforce), wage (where wage adjustments can be linked to pro®ts), and functional (where there is a broadening of skills). These three types of¯exibility, he argues, are all very dierent and may even be contradictory.…”

Section: Conflicts and Tensions Within Soft And Hard Models Of Hrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These three types of¯exibility, he argues, are all very dierent and may even be contradictory. While¯exibility is frequently presented as a desirable attribute for both organizations and individuals, Prieto (1993) argues that the more coercive side has been downplayed. For instance, numerical¯exibility may include the use of short-term contracts or temporary assignments as a means to alter the size of the workforce, at the expense of more permanent forms of employment that may be more attractive to employees.…”

Section: Conflicts and Tensions Within Soft And Hard Models Of Hrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A Reappraisal

Truss

Gratton

Hailey

et al. 1997

J Management Studies

270

175

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Two of the most widely adopted models of human resource management are the hard and soft versions. These are based on opposing views of human nature and managerial control strategies. The hard model is based on notions of tight strategic control, and an economic model of man according to Theory X, while the soft model is based on control through commitment and Theory Y. We argue that because these assumptions are so divergent, they cannot both properly be incorporated within a single model of human resource management.Eight in-depth case studies were carried out, involving questionnaires, interviews and focus groups in order to ®nd out whether organizations were practising either form of HRM. We found that no pure examples of either form existed. The paper concludes that the rhetoric adopted by the companies frequently embraces the tenets of the soft, commitment model, while the reality experienced by employees is more concerned with strategic control, similar to the hard model. This distinction between rhetoric and reality needs to be taken into account in conceptualizations of human resource management.

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Section: Conflicts and Tensions Within Soft And Hard Models Of Hrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conflicts and Tensions Within Soft And Hard Models Of Hrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A Reappraisal

Truss

Gratton

Hailey

et al. 1997

J Management Studies

270

175

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In conclusion we will argue that dismissing these trends in management as mere 'fads' and 'fashions' (see, for example, Abrahamson, 1991;Huczynski, 1993;Prieto, 1993) risks ignoring an important cultural sign of new processes of governance. We suggest that taking the 'self' as the unit of analysis illuminates further transitional elements in the governance of work at the dawn of the 21st century.…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

Managerialism, the therapeutic habitus and the self in contemporary organizing

2008

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Over the last two decades, managerialism (Enteman, 1993) has become consolidated on multiple fronts. As a formula of governance, it has elaborated various vocabularies: the `audit society' (Power, 1997, 2007) has become entrenched in all types of organizations; surveillance methods (Lyon, 2001) have become increasingly dispersed and insidious; and — alongside —`new' concepts of subjectivity and the`self' are used to frame more intense regimes of self-discipline or what Tipton (1984) called `self-work'. These moves have been captured by Heelas (2002), Thrift (1997) and others in the term `soft capitalism'. In this article, we reflect upon this phenomenon by analysing some examples: `culture', `performativity', `knowledge' and `wellness'. Although they belong to a group often described as `fads' and `fashions' and dismissed as managerial `mumbo-jumbo', we suggest that their proliferation indicates a more stable cultural tendency of management discourses to capture subjectivity in its general agenda. We attempt to offer an historical-cultural interpretation from which this range of managerial concepts might be viewed. Our argument suggests that they have a certain cultural coherence that can be perhaps better glimpsed within a wider historical context. As a particular way in which managerialism frames its logic, analysing `soft capitalism' historically offers a reasonable basis for understanding the strength of its hard disciplinary edge as a regime of governance.

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“…As Margaret Thatcher (in the British context) encouraged managers to reclaim the 'right to manage' from what was seen as a detrimental post-war social contract with trade unions and workers, the cadre of managers and executives grew and the managerial idiom expanded in a variety of ingenious and subtle ways. For many, however, such as Wheen (2004) or Watson (2004), the cultural subtlety of managerial vocabularies and practices remains indiscernible from the proliferation of what they term 'mumbo-jumbo', 'gobbledygook', or 'psycho-babble'. In the field of organisation and management studies, the dominant critical interpretation is that new managerial discourses are mere 'fashions' and 'fads' (Abrahamson, 1991, Huczynski, 1993, or Prieto, 1993.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managerialism and “Infinite Human Resourcefulness”: a Commentary on the “Therapeutic Habitus”, “Derecognition of Finitude” and the Modern Sense of Self

Costea

Crump²,

Amiridis³

2007

Journal for Cultural Research

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This paper examines new managerial discourses and practices in which the dialectic of labour is reconstructed as a series of acts of self-understanding, self-examination and 'self-work', and through which the 'self qua self' is constituted as the central object of management technologies. We interrogate concepts such as 'excellence', 'total quality', 'performance', 'knowledge', 'play at work' and 'wellness' in order to decipher the ways in which managerialism deploys what we term therapeutic habitus, and projects a new horizon of 'human resourcefulness' as a store of unlimited potentialities. We invoke management's wider historical-cultural context to situate managerialism within the framework of modernity as a cultural epoch whose main characteristic is what we term 'derecognition of finitude'. It is the modern synthesiswith the 'self' at the centre of its system of values-that provides the ground for current elaborations of subjectivity by managerialism. The paper examines how current vocabularies and practices in organisations use 'work' to rearticulate discursively the human subject as an endless source of performativity by configuring work as the site of complex and continuous self-expression. Management itself thus acquires a new discursive outline: instead of appearing as an authoritarian instance forcing upon workers a series of limitations, it now presents itself as a therapeutic formula mediating self-expression by empowering individuals to work upon themselves to release their fully realised identity.

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The management of the work-force: a sociological criticism of prevailing fashions

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A Reappraisal

Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A Reappraisal

Managerialism, the therapeutic habitus and the self in contemporary organizing

Managerialism and “Infinite Human Resourcefulness”: a Commentary on the “Therapeutic Habitus”, “Derecognition of Finitude” and the Modern Sense of Self

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