...Deskilling Braverman concept of deskilling has a clear-cut link with the Marx belief that workers are the object of exploitation to capitalist in labour process in many respects. Workers, into the larger extent were economically constrained because they have no alternatives to sell their labour power otherwise to capitalists. As capitalists seek into the most efficient way of the production process, labours who play a central role in production line are affected by the changes of process through the new technology or manager controls (i.e. bureaucratization). Braverman, through his prominent theory argued that the advent of technological development and division of labour has removed workers control over their work, by enabling their overall skill being degraded to one or a few specialized task in order to suit with the machines. In historical order, the notion of deskilling can be noticed in three major parts of technological advancement which was mechanization, automation and computerization. These Tayloristic labour process advancements was first promoted by Frederick Taylor in 1911 who believed that wokers are inherently lazy and resistance to their works. Therefore, the managerial approach was more likely to economic motives rather than people-friendly approaches. Capitalists turned to developments in management and machinery in larger scale. At this point, Braverman argued that the control of labour was becoming more complex than it had been before and significantly...
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...surplus value of labour as labour power was directed towards production of commodities, motivating managers to control efficiency and duration of work. Braveman classified deskilling into organisational and technological deskilling. This essay is going to give an introduction, followed by various criticisms and defences before reaching a conclusion. Organisational deskilling is common in factory settings to separate the conception and execution of work which imitate scientific management. Managerial and technical staff would deal with conceptual tasks such as planning and developing new protocols, while shopfloor workers would be left with the less challenging execution of the work. This method not only limits the discretion of shopfloor workers but also ensures monopoly over technical knowledge about the work. Technological deskilling occurs in industries that make use of automated processes due to advancement in technology. In mid to late 19th century, intricate workflows simplified with machineries and resulted in deskilling of work, from blue collar to white collar level. Braveman claimed that new technologies do not lead to deskilling but allowed separation of task conception from execution, commonly seen when a small group of managers have control over most of their workers. The typical cases of deskilling are BESNA and the wapping dispute. BESNA (Building Engineering Services National Agreement) was comprised by seven major employers in the mechanical and electrical sectors...
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...Semester 1, 2012 Week 9: Innovation II Product Innovation Dr Gary Buttriss 9.1 What is a product-service system? What may be the impact on its own sustainability of a corporation currently providing products moving towards a product-service system? (See especially reading 9.1.) Answer • What is a product-service system • “A marketable set of products and services capable of jointly fulfilling a user‟s need. The product/service ratio in this set can vary, either in terms of function fulfillment or economic value. (p.238) • Also a system of products, services, supporting networks and infrastructure designed to be competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business models (p. 239) • Impacts on sustainability of a corporation • Drivers: Can provide access to new strategic markets opportunities, market trends and developments and potentially stay competitive as patterns of production and consumption are transformed. • Barriers: Fundamental cultural shifts are required. Markets and products may be hard to develop, consumers may resist. MGMT2001 - Corporate Sustainability 2 Context and Characteristics • Blurring of manufacturing and service: The role of services in providing value is ever more important. Added value is created by technological improvments, intellectual property, product image and brand names, aesthetic design and styling that differentiate and diversify products. Functional economy: Function...
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...The American Federation of Labor is important to the problems of racial clash and workplace discrimination in addition to deskilling faced by poor Anglo Americans and immigrant workers at the end of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era for the reason it was the union that encouraged separation and distinction. By the same token, because the American Federation of Labor did not encourage the membership of unskilled workers it was presented and perceived to be a union of aristocrats. Though, regardless of their enrolment standards, it is noted that in comparison to the Knights’ “dreamer goals,” the American Federation of Labor were more successful in attempting to overcome the aforementioned workplace problems as they had a more realistic objective that fit the economic and social times in America. To emphasize their motto of “working men, fighting for working men’s rights...
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...In the 20th century the industrial revolution was a time of societal transformation and paved the way for advances in systems and technology. As it relates to manufacturing, industrialization meant breaking down complex tasks performed by an individual into smaller tasks delegated to several team members as well as “studying, analyzing and specifying the best way to do each of those tasks” (McLaughlin & McLaughlin, 2008, p. 43). There are many indications of an industrialization process taking place within our current healthcare system. Three problems associated with “Industrializing Structure for Delivery” are: separation of labor, standardization of roles and responsibilities and deskilling of labor (Rastegar, 2004, p. 79). The practice of medicine is becoming more and more specialized. Physician duties that were previously identified and carried out by them are now delegated to nonphysician clinicians or nurses with less training and less education as the physician (Rees, 2008, p. 392). The utilization of Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners and hospitalists are examples of the separation and division of physician labor. Rastegar (2008) argues that patients with complicated illnesses requiring various healthcare settings may feel as if they are “a product on an assembly line” (p. 82). A proponent of this fragmentation of patient care is the effort to replace physicians with a lower cost and more malleable labor force. Historically, a physician had a lot...
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...Lecture 6: The Deskilling Thesis H. Braverman – Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) • The central text in what has come to be called the labour process approach. • Context for Braverman: ❑ Braverman associated with Monthly Review journal – founded in 1949 by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman. An influential journal but little impact on American sociology. Best known product of this school is Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital (1966). Indeed, Braverman’s analysis of work is predicated theoretically upon Baran and Sweezy’s analysis of ‘Monopoly Capital’ [ie oligopolistic, ‘organized’ capitalism. ❑ After mid-1960s increasing interest in neo-Marxism in the US – partly result of social conflicts evident in America in late 1960s which threw doubt of the utility of the structural-functionalist paradigm. ❑ In the 1970s – re-emergence of radical political economy in both the USA and Western Europe. Produced the Union of Radical Political Economists and the journal Insurgent Sociologist in USA and wide array of groups and journals in Western Europe – of which the most well known are: New Left Review, Capital and Class and Economy and Society. • In the late 1960s in the USA two sets of ideas had emerged within the social sciences which formed the concepts against which Braverman reacted: ❑ H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: a German social philosopher, member of the Frankfurt school, who argued that the affluence generated...
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...Question: How influential is Scientific Management in 21st Century? Please note: The referencing system used in this essay is NOT the Harvard System and therefore INCORRECT practice. Please ignore this style of referencing, the essay is shown as a model of good practice only re structure and analysis. How influential is scientific management in the 21st century? 1. Scientific management was originally developed in the 1800s by an economist, Adam Smith. He was interested in a factory that operated and produced pins, and through the breaking down of tasks e.g. division of labour he increased output from 20 pins per employee per day to 4,800 pins. However the greatest break through in scientific management came in the 1900s during the peak of the industrial revolution, and due to the emergence of the factory system more attention was being given to methods or factors that could contribute towards increasing output levels. It was here that Frederick Taylor began his studies into this field and his ideas were later furthered by individuals such as Gilbreth and Gantt. Despite each individual having a significant input into the study of scientific management Taylor was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Scientific Management’ and hence the term ‘Taylorism’ being introduced. 2. Technically Scientific Management is the “management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker”[1]. However George Ritzer defined Scientific Management...
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...CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction of Organizational structure 1.1.1 Background of Organizational structure The environment is dynamic and is changing day by day. Organization set up in such dynamic environment needs to adapt and survive in such hostile conditions to achieve the organizational goals and objective. Organizational structures developed from the ancient times of hunters and collectors in tribal organizations through highly royal and clerical power structures to industrial structures and today's post-industrial structures. As pointed out by L. B. Mohr, the early theorists of organizational structure, Taylor, Fayol, and Weber "saw the importance of structure for effectiveness and efficiency and assumed without the slightest question that whatever structure was needed, people could fashion accordingly”. Organizational structure was considered a matter of choice. When in the 1930s, the rebellion began that came to be known as human relations theory, there was still not a denial of the idea of structure as an artefact, but rather an advocacy of the creation of a different sort of structure, one in which the needs, knowledge, and opinions of employees might be given greater recognition." However, a different view arose in the 1960s, suggesting that the organizational structure is "an externally caused phenomenon, an outcome rather than an artefact." In the 21st century, organizational theorists such as Lim, Griffiths, and Sambrook (2010) are once again...
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...There are many implications of possible future developments and future uses of ICT but the ones that I will be explaining further are instant communication, videoconferencing and teleworking, security, the use of CCTV and GPS, digital divide, deskilling and also online information and services. The first implication is instant communication. We have numerous communication technologies which we can use such as:- WiFi, Bluetooth and mobile broadband to communicate with people daily. This has affected the world of work in today’s society as people who work in companies like Sun Life, Aviva and BT don’t have to get up specifically to go and sit in an office all day. It has become very easy for people to contact their peers in one of the ways noted up above. There has been a huge development in videoconferencing and teleworking which has allowed people to not travel as much as they used to which is having a positive impact on the environment. People who work in one organisation but are situated around the world, don’t have to travel to physically speak to each other as things like videoconferencing has allowed people around the world to collaborate on tasks that need to be completed. There has also been problems with the future developments and future uses of ICT and one of them is security. When people complete financial transactions on their mobile phones from companies like Barclays, NatWest or any other online banking websites; or even online shopping websites; they...
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...There is no honest answer to “who changes work organization”. The changes to work develop from the constant battle between employee and employer over workplace control. Additionally managers, unions and the state bring other variables to the mix, each collectively shaping our workplaces. Numerous types of changes can occur; all of which have an effect on the workers psychological feelings. Finding the balance between worker and employer goals is essential for maintaining business quota and respecting worker feelings. Sociologist perspectives can help us understand how and why these changes occur in the workforce. It’s very common in most employment relationships for the worker and the employer to have diverging interests. The employer favors the interest of the organization, typically with a capital or “business” goal in mind. On the contrary, employees conduct work on the basis that they need to provide a standard of living outside of work for themselves and possibly their families. With separate goals in mind, conflict is highly probable. Employers generally hold the position of control. Most employees don’t have the option of working; rather it is simply required for them to put food on the table. This idea is relative to that of a bureaucratic hierarchy, a work system based on authority and rules (Krahn et al. 2011, p 225). Bureaucracies typically cause employee submission, which a loss in control that employers are looking to gain. The idea that there would be little...
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...Question: How influential is Scientific Management in 21st Century? Please note: The referencing system used in this essay is NOT the Harvard System and therefore INCORRECT practice. Please ignore this style of referencing, the essay is shown as a model of good practice only re structure and analysis. How influential is scientific management in the 21st century? 1. Scientific management was originally developed in the 1800s by an economist, Adam Smith. He was interested in a factory that operated and produced pins, and through the breaking down of tasks e.g. division of labour he increased output from 20 pins per employee per day to 4,800 pins. However the greatest break through in scientific management came in the 1900s during the peak of the industrial revolution, and due to the emergence of the factory system more attention was being given to methods or factors that could contribute towards increasing output levels. It was here that Frederick Taylor began his studies into this field and his ideas were later furthered by individuals such as Gilbreth and Gantt. Despite each individual having a significant input into the study of scientific management Taylor was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Scientific Management’ and hence the term ‘Taylorism’ being introduced. 2. Technically Scientific Management is the “management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker”[1]. However George Ritzer defined Scientific Management...
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...Dr Alf Crossman Organisational Behaviour Management Work 1 Key Areas of Focus • Division of Labour • Adam Smith • General Principles of Management • Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor Organisational Behaviour • Henri Fayol • Bureaucracy • Max Weber 2 Session Objectives • To explore the nature of classical organization theory • To become familiar with the key classical theorists’ work • To understand the principles and impact of: Organisational Behaviour • Bureaucracy • Management • To understand the principles and impact of: • Division of labour • Scientific management/Taylorism • Fordism • To explore the arguments surrounding ‘deskilling’ and labour process 3 The Obsession with Organization Before the factory system production took place primarily in cottages – the ‘putting out’ system and small workshops. Output was the main priority. Self-organization was the predominant approach. The introduction of the factory system introduced a new imperative – time. Time became a valuable resource and organization of labour became increasingly important Organisational Behaviour 4 Of the Division of Labour • Adam Smith – An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776 • Pin-making example • Division of Labour In an early chapter of his book, Smith observes: “One worker could probably make only twenty pins per day. However, if ten people divided up the eighteen steps required to make a pin...
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...organizing, distributing, and maintaining different information for an organization but as technology continues to enter the work force, clerical jobs are being affected in a variety of ways. “Technology can change not only the content of jobs but also the number of clerical jobs” (Hodson & Sullivan pg. 316). It can be argued that technology will lead to both job growth and job elimination in regards to clerical work. Clerical work can consists of a lot of record keeping and coordination, and some aspects of the job can be done completely by computer now which may lead to the displacement of some clerical workers. The jobs that are likely to see the biggest decline are the non-customer facing jobs like switch board operators or typists. Deskilling may occur because the tasks that once needed to be completed manually are now completed by a machine or computer. Because the worker in this case is no longer using his/her skills, they become deskilled and automation takes over. Inevitably, this may lead to these jobs becoming obsolete and ultimately eliminated. In contrast, many clerical jobs should stay strong even with the implementation of new technology because of the human interaction that is required. Hotel clerks, receptionists, and secretaries may even expect to see growth as a result of technology making their jobs more efficient and cost effective. Mobile technology has added a whole new aspect to technology on a more individual level. With smartphones like Blackberrys and...
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...| | QUESTION: "In considering the influence that technology in general or any single technology has over human affairs, it is ... necessary to consider not only the technology and its presumed "imperatives," but also the key human agents of the technology, the organisations in which they operate, and how these influence the course of technological change" (Rudi, 257). Introduction Over the years, technology has become a developing existence in companies and inevitably, companies are trying to integrate technology into their work processes. Today, technology has become a necessity in a company and it has been viewed often as an improvement in the efficiency of the workplace by companies. However, there has been a number of different views as to how technology will impact the organizations, the management and the employees. Modern and critical perspectives will be taken to provide different insights on how technology is been viewed and understand. Since critical theory perspective is focused on challenging the modern theory perspective, we will be able to have a greater depth of understanding on technology environmental relationships. The modernist theory emphasize on the need for power and control for profit maximization. The critical theory on the other hand, provide a social perspective on how technology has an impact to the workers and the working environment. In this essay, we will take a look at how the development of technology is perceived differently by...
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...to affect a big deal of our lives as employees and of organizations. To what extent does technology actually control employees in cotemporary organizations? 1. Technology has changed organizational life: -the development of nonstandard work -teleworking -web 2.0 -Technology encourages nonstandard work -Ian McLoughlin: cognitive skills have become more valuable than action-central abilities 2. Determinism= the argument that technology does have predictable consequences for work and organizations 3. Myths - Myth of technological unemployment (6 compensatory effects): technology can create as many jobs as it eliminates, if not more. Unemployment is not higher today than it was in the 19th century. -Myth of technological deskilling: technology can deskill, but it can also increase the demand in skills and understanding -the politics of technology -3 areas of choice in the new technology implementation process (design, goals, work organisation) Conclusion: Technology has had a big impact on organizations, we can affirm than it controls employees in contemporary organisations to a very little extent: it suggests and enables, but doesn’t control. Most changes, such as teleworking, nonstandard work etc are the consequence of technology development AND employee preferences =choice. Winner - we tend to oversimplify and polarize: technology is either a good or bad...
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