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Managerial Strategies, Activities, Techniques and Technology: Towards a Complex Theory of the Labour Process

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Book cover Labour Process Theory

Part of the book series: Studies in the Labour Process ((SLP))

Abstract

How can managerial strategies be measured both over time and, particularly, across different organisations? In Industry and Labour (1977) I suggested that two types of strategies, Responsible Autonomy and Direct Control, could be used to guide the analysis of management behaviour in the labour process. A key proposition was that managers were pushed to change their strategies in response to changing market conditions and changing forms and strength of worker resistance in ways which could be predicted, with appropriate qualifications. This proposition was tested by examining a number of case studies over a long period of time and by picking out major changes in market conditions, worker resistance and managerial strategies. Dealing with gross empirical phenomena (the only kind generally available to historical studies) allowed a rather simple theoretical framework to be employed. In order to deal with more detailed data, a more complex theoretical framework is needed. In this chapter I attempt to develop such a framework.

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Authors
  1. Andrew Friedman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UMIST, Manchester, UK

    David Knights (Senior Lecturer in the Manchester School of Management) & Hugh Willmott (Lecturer in the Manchester School of Management) (Senior Lecturer in the Manchester School of Management) &  (Lecturer in the Manchester School of Management)

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© 1990 David Knights and Hugh Willmott

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Friedman, A. (1990). Managerial Strategies, Activities, Techniques and Technology: Towards a Complex Theory of the Labour Process. In: Knights, D., Willmott, H. (eds) Labour Process Theory. Studies in the Labour Process. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20466-3_6

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