Flexibility and changes in forms of workplace subjectivity: a case study of the South African automobile assembly industry
[摘要] This thesis is an investigation into worker responses to restructuring of work and productionorganisation in a South African automobile manufacturing company. The orgnnisation of work and production is analysed as part of managerial strategies aimed at promoting flexibilityWorker responses will be conceptualized in a general model of worker subjectivity. Subjectivityhere means the process through which workers make sense of changes in factory life accordingto regulative ideas and general moral and cultural constructions of the meanings of industrialwork.I adopted a method based on observational research and semi-structured interviews with agroup of workers, integrated by archival research and interviews with managers and unionorganisers,The results of my enquiry confirm hypotheses and theoretical frameworks critical towards thenotion of flexibility as representing a clear divide with traditional mass production methods.In fact, managerial promotion of flexibility coexists here with relevant continuities in hierarchicaland authoritarian structures, paternalism, lack of skills' recognition, use of technology as amainly cost-cutting device, routinisation and lack of worker responsibility and independence.[Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version]
[发布日期] [发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand
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