Lecture 4

<2 Men>

• Poor conditions• Low pay• No ‘glamour’• Physically demanding

work

• An ‘honest’ job• Job security (from

union protection)• Full knowledge of

retirement time and benefits

• Lots of time for family; many close friends

• High-flyer, educated ‘knowledge worker’

• Great pay• World-class

professional in global company

• Frequent up-rooting (homelessness?)

• Volatile job-market• Few close friends

and community• Family neglected• ‘Losing control’ of

life

<How did we get ‘here’?>

Pre-Industrialisation

• Pre-industrialisation– Decentralised, home-based,

small scale work– All family members involved

• Agricultural labourers, domestic servants, small workshops

• Certain industries were industrialised since late medieval times– Mines– Shipyards– Mills

Source: The British Library

Pre-Industrialisation: The Navy

• 85,000 officers & men in 1759

• Early bureaucracy– Mutually beneficial rules

• Early form of ‘human resource management’– Consultations with crew– (See Grint, 2005: 53)

Source: National Maritime Museum

Industrialisation

• Technological advances– Steam engines– Mechanical production

• Innovations– Factory production– Division of labour– Co-ordination &

controlSource: http://www.thepotteries.org/postcards/works/3.htm

Industrialisation

• Effects:– Time-keeping– Regular working hours– Decline of female

participation in the workplace

– Move from family wages to a single wage

– Decline of domestic production Source: http://www.thepotteries.org/postcards/views/2.htm

Division of Labour

How many kinds of TIME are there?

Time is now currency. It’s no longer passed; it’s spent.

Spinning Jenny

Spinning Jenny

SteamPower

<Cotton, steel, steam = Capitalism?>

Protestant EthicNew Social Groups

(or Classes)

Division of Labour

New Technologies+ Factories

New Markets

Higher Production

Growth of Cities

Agricultural Revolution

Capitalism is the “spread of production for profit on the basis of wage labour”

<From Fordism to the Knowledge Economy>

Fordism Post-

Fordism

Flexi-Specialisation / PoMo

Products and Product Customisation

Mono / No customisation

Diverse with some customisation

Multiple / High customisation and design

No. of Workers, Skilled Tasks

High, Minimal Medium, Skills diversity required

Low, Highly skilled

Work Hierarchy High and very bureaucratic

Different teams on different areas / products

Minimal / Fluid teamwork

Level of Organisation

Highly organised Flexibly organised

‘Dis-organised’

Fordism Flexi-Spec

Class Identity

Job Security

Trade Union Power

Skilling

Personal Commitment

? ?

<And Post-Modernism?>

From Organisations to ‘Organisations’

From Jobs to ‘Jobs’

From Colleges to ‘Colleges’

“You think CNN lacks focus – what is focus, anyway?! If you’re alive, all the time, how can you have focus? Focus is something a newspaper has, because there is a day to think about it. Or with a magazine there’s a month. Whoever said that was a yo-yo!” (Ted Turner)

“CNN’s executive VP for news gathering arrives at CNN center in Atlanta at about 6.00am, checks domestic and international news desks to see what’s happened over the night. From then his work is mostly 50 to 75 phone onversations and quick, stand-up meetings. He doesn’t attend committee meetings. There are no committees to have meetings! It never takes more than 3-4 folks, all located within a few yards of each other, to make any one decision, with no fuss, on the spot and often on the run. Chairs, it seems, are also for yo-yos!” (Peters, T. 1992 Liberation Management,p.33-34)

<A Note on the G-Word>

Top Jobs in a Flat World

• The Great Orchestrators (Project Managers)

• The Great Synthesizers (Connectors, Creators)

• The Great Leveragers (Tech Wizards)• The Great Adapters (Multi-Skilled)• The Great Localisers (Contextualisers)• The Great Explainers (Educators)• The Green People (Environmentalists)