Description
One of the central dynamics shaping organizations today is a contradiction managers face between ensuring workforce discipline and harnessing worker creativity. This contradiction has been intensifying over the last four decades as employee involvement has become increasingly important in response to rapid technological change, requirements for flexibility, and demands for continuous improvement. In manufacturing, global best practice includes lean production with substantive worker empowerment; cross-training in enlarged tasks and inclusion in problem solving and decision making. Yet, many managers instead face these conflicting pressures by training workers in narrow tasks and using them exclusively for manual labor. In this richly evidenced study of American manufacturing, Matt Vidal presents a synthetic theory called 'organizational political economy', integrating concepts from organization theory into a classical marxist framework. This theory emphasizes how contradictory developments - conflicting pressures and competing logics of labor management - lead management to be divided. Some managers adopt best practice by substantively empowering their workforce while others settle for good enough. Capitalist management is increasingly a source of organizational inefficiency. This argument is not limited to manufacturing. Managers experience contradictory pressures - for standardization versus discretion, deskilling versus upskilling - in a wide range of occupations including education, healthcare, software development, and many more.
About the Author
Matt Vidal is Reader in Sociology and Political Economy in the Institute for International Management, Loughborough University London. He is author of Organizing Prosperity (with David Kusnet) and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx (with Paul Prew, Tomas Rotta and Tony Smith) and Comparative Political Economy of Work (with Marco Hauptmeier). He has published over twenty articles or book chapters on work, human resource management, employment relations, labor markets, comparative political economy, and social theory. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reviews
Matt Vidal has written a book that reveals a new understanding on both workforce and supplier development. His research is impeccable. The managers and workers he interviewed opened up and provided detail that outlined the subtleties and dilemmas of human resource management and supply chain management. * Paul D. Ericksen, Supply Chain Advisor, IndustryWeek *
A superb piece of engaged scholarship, helping us make sense of the tensions and ambiguities of the capitalist workplace. Compelling material from the shop-floor, combined with deep, path-breaking theory. Sets a new standard for research on management and organizations. * Paul Adler, Harold Quinton Chair in Business Policy, University of Southern California; former President of the Academy of Management *
A lucid and provocative intervention into the debates about 'lean' production, drawing on Marxist theory, organizational sociology, and rich empirical data from original fieldwork in dozens of U.S. factories. Management Divided is an important contribution to labor sociology and to critical management studies. * Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center; former President of the American Sociological Association *
The major contribution of this book is to shift labour process analysis from the control/resistance/consent framework to a broader perspective, where managers are not just concerned with controlling labor, and workers are not just resistors, but seek meaning through work, while remaining suspicious of management. It lays bare the structural dilemma for management through the capitalist production of inefficiency -- where managerial satisficing is a response to contradictory pressures to give workers more input into decision-making to enhance their creativity while needing to ensure workforce discipline. * Chris Smith, Professor of Comparative Management and Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway University of London *
The logic of lean production has overwhelmed economic institutions, from industry to retail to health care and beyond. In this book, Matt Vidal has torn away the curtain of lean production, revealing its internal contradictions and opening up a vital discussion of the challenges workers and managers now face. A must read. * Steven Vallas, Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University *
Matt Vidal's book, which builds on a series of essays by the author, represents a thought-provoking contribution to critical management and labor process research. The starting point of Management Divided is the observation that the field of critical research on the labor process needs a management theory that it does not yet possess...Vidal's management theory is also a theory of lean production as a specific production regime. * Martin Krzywdzinski, Head of the Research Group on Globalization, Work, and Production at the WZB (Berlin Social Science Center) *
Management Divided is a lesson in theory building. It develops a complex theory of labour management and production models...Altogether, this book represents one of the very few that explicitly integrates organisational and industrial analysis, with a theory of competition as well as workplace relations. Vidal connects deep structural contradictions with organisational theory, production models, managerial agency, worker alienation and the capitalist production of inefficiency. * Devika Narayan, Organization *
This important book sees Matt Vidal bring a refreshingly rigorous application and synthesis of Marxist, institutional and organisational sociological theory to rich fieldwork on American lean production...Its empirical depth will render the book a definitive account of lean production. * Alex Wood, Critical Sociology *
Vidal has written an engaging book built upon an impressive body of data. He provides readers lengthy original passages that allow them to get a sense for daily routines and form their own conclusions...Students of the labor process have much to gain from Management Divided and it deserves debate. * Peter Ikeler, Critical Sociology *
Vidal has written a very stimulating book that fills a gap, especially with respect to a critical theory of management within the framework of labor process theory. The book represents an important step away from a pure control-resistance model of organization... Also to Vidal's credit is that his theory brings together labor process theory with institutionalist approaches. His book will be a must read for the further debate on lean production and management. What makes the book particularly interesting is the wealth of empirical material. * Martin Krzywdzinski, Industrial and Labor Relations Review *
Management Divided is a unique book for its ability to bring together different theoretical approaches and levels of analysis and is a stimulating and engaging read for all scholars interested in management, organizations and work. * Chiara Benassi, Critical Sociology *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198795278
Author Matt Vidal
Format Hardback
Page Count 386
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 163mm * 27mm
About the Author
Matt Vidal is Reader in Sociology and Political Economy in the Institute for International Management, Loughborough University London. He is author of Organizing Prosperity (with David Kusnet) and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx (with Paul Prew, Tomas Rotta and Tony Smith) and Comparative Political Economy of Work (with Marco Hauptmeier). He has published over twenty articles or book chapters on work, human resource management, employment relations, labor markets, comparative political economy, and social theory. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reviews
Matt Vidal has written a book that reveals a new understanding on both workforce and supplier development. His research is impeccable. The managers and workers he interviewed opened up and provided detail that outlined the subtleties and dilemmas of human resource management and supply chain management. * Paul D. Ericksen, Supply Chain Advisor, IndustryWeek *
A superb piece of engaged scholarship, helping us make sense of the tensions and ambiguities of the capitalist workplace. Compelling material from the shop-floor, combined with deep, path-breaking theory. Sets a new standard for research on management and organizations. * Paul Adler, Harold Quinton Chair in Business Policy, University of Southern California; former President of the Academy of Management *
A lucid and provocative intervention into the debates about 'lean' production, drawing on Marxist theory, organizational sociology, and rich empirical data from original fieldwork in dozens of U.S. factories. Management Divided is an important contribution to labor sociology and to critical management studies. * Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center; former President of the American Sociological Association *
The major contribution of this book is to shift labour process analysis from the control/resistance/consent framework to a broader perspective, where managers are not just concerned with controlling labor, and workers are not just resistors, but seek meaning through work, while remaining suspicious of management. It lays bare the structural dilemma for management through the capitalist production of inefficiency -- where managerial satisficing is a response to contradictory pressures to give workers more input into decision-making to enhance their creativity while needing to ensure workforce discipline. * Chris Smith, Professor of Comparative Management and Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway University of London *
The logic of lean production has overwhelmed economic institutions, from industry to retail to health care and beyond. In this book, Matt Vidal has torn away the curtain of lean production, revealing its internal contradictions and opening up a vital discussion of the challenges workers and managers now face. A must read. * Steven Vallas, Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University *
Matt Vidal's book, which builds on a series of essays by the author, represents a thought-provoking contribution to critical management and labor process research. The starting point of Management Divided is the observation that the field of critical research on the labor process needs a management theory that it does not yet possess...Vidal's management theory is also a theory of lean production as a specific production regime. * Martin Krzywdzinski, Head of the Research Group on Globalization, Work, and Production at the WZB (Berlin Social Science Center) *
Management Divided is a lesson in theory building. It develops a complex theory of labour management and production models...Altogether, this book represents one of the very few that explicitly integrates organisational and industrial analysis, with a theory of competition as well as workplace relations. Vidal connects deep structural contradictions with organisational theory, production models, managerial agency, worker alienation and the capitalist production of inefficiency. * Devika Narayan, Organization *
This important book sees Matt Vidal bring a refreshingly rigorous application and synthesis of Marxist, institutional and organisational sociological theory to rich fieldwork on American lean production...Its empirical depth will render the book a definitive account of lean production. * Alex Wood, Critical Sociology *
Vidal has written an engaging book built upon an impressive body of data. He provides readers lengthy original passages that allow them to get a sense for daily routines and form their own conclusions...Students of the labor process have much to gain from Management Divided and it deserves debate. * Peter Ikeler, Critical Sociology *
Vidal has written a very stimulating book that fills a gap, especially with respect to a critical theory of management within the framework of labor process theory. The book represents an important step away from a pure control-resistance model of organization... Also to Vidal's credit is that his theory brings together labor process theory with institutionalist approaches. His book will be a must read for the further debate on lean production and management. What makes the book particularly interesting is the wealth of empirical material. * Martin Krzywdzinski, Industrial and Labor Relations Review *
Management Divided is a unique book for its ability to bring together different theoretical approaches and levels of analysis and is a stimulating and engaging read for all scholars interested in management, organizations and work. * Chiara Benassi, Critical Sociology *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198795278
Author Matt Vidal
Format Hardback
Page Count 386
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 163mm * 27mm
