Week 8 Managing the Human Resource
Home Up Sem2 Schedule Exercises/Presentations Week 1 Freedom Work and Organization Week 2 Labour Process Control and Resistance Week 3 Exercise Session 1 Week 4 Culture and Symbolism in Organizations Week 5 Exercise Session 2 Week 6 Gender and Consumption Week 7 Exercise Session 3 Week 8 Managing the Human Resource

 

What about the Managers? Overhead Transparencies

 

What about the Managers?

Objectives of session

Situate managerial work in context of contemporary trends in work re-organization

Position changes within wider economic and ideological context

Illustrate by reference to empirical studies

Develop critical perspective on analyses of changes in managerial work

 

Lecture Outline

Changes in Work Organization

BP’s Project 2000 : `Open’

Evidence from surveys and studies

Goffee and Scase

Dopson and Stewart

Watson

Futures of Management

 

Changes in Work Organization

New technology and lean production

Mobility and casualisation

Turbulence and intensified competition

Flexibility and multi-skilling

Delayering and outsourcing

Centralization and decentralization (`tight-loose properties’)

Information and knowledge management

Learning and Accountability

 

BP’s Project 2000 : `Open’

Open Thinking

Personal Impact

Empowering

Networking

 

BP’s Project 2000 : `Open Thinking’

Open Thinking

Rethinking traditional approaches

Using different views and opinions

Stepping outside established cultural frameworks

Global thinking whilst retaining local variations

 

BP’s Project 2000 : `Personal Impact’

Proactive – looking for opportunities

Considering others’ needs and contributions

Building trust and respect

Seeking responsibility; facing challenges openly

 

BP’s Project 2000 : `Empowering’

Encouraging joint problem solving

Helping to solve conflict within and between teams

Using the most effective style to get the best from people

Focused energy for implementing vision and values

 

BP’s Project 2000 : `Networking’

Emphasising common interests wherever possible

Making information available to others

Linking tasks to corporate goals

Building and maintaining channels of communication

Bringing people together with diverse skills

 

Futures of Management (1)

Professionalization?

Promotion of expertise

Strengthening of occupational identity and culture

But

Fragmentation into specialisms

Limited state support for professionalisation project

Dependence upon bureaucratic organizations

 

Futures of Management (2)

Unionisation?

Collective response to degradation of work

Established strategy

But

Ideological resistance

Lack of solidarity; individualisation

 

 

Futures of Management (3)

Privatisation?

Individual defence

But

Economic Vulnerability

Widens divisions