Taylorism

Organizational Behaviour is the only text to use a running case study to demonstrate the application of organizational behaviour in the real world, helping students with limited or no real-life experience of the business world to engage critically and effectively with the subject.

The early rise of fascism in Italy was accompanied by the spread of a new economic theory: corporatism, an attempt toward a third way in economics that sparked curiosity and obtained a certain measure of success in Europe and even further. Historiography, though, starting with some attentive foreign commentators, considers corporatism in fascist Italy an empty shell, devoid of any practical implementation. Nonetheless corporatism was enthusiastically embraced, in theory, by many economists, philosophers, jurists and even architects. Gaetano Ciocca (1882-1966), engineer and architect, heartily believed in corporatism as the synthesis emerging from the dialectical opposition of liberalism and communism. His judgement was not based on theoretical reasoning only, but on first-hand experience of the economic reality in the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1930, FIAT had appointed Ciocca to manage the construction of the first plant for the mass production of ball bearings in Moscow. In consequence, Ciocca lived two years in the Soviet Union experiencing all contradictions of the implementation of the first five-year plan. Communism, in his opinion, was just the ideological masque of a gigantic American style corporation. He summarised the experience in some newspaper articles and a volume published by the cosmopolitan editor Valentino Bompiani in the series “Panorama of our times”. The book, titled “Judgement on Bolshevism”, registered a stunning success and was favourably reviewed by Mussolini himself on the newspaper “Il Popolo d’Italia”. In 1934 Ciocca travelled to the United States to study the failings of the liberal market economy. He came back with a new volume for the Bompiani series, titled “Mass Economy”. The failings of liberalism, Ciocca argued, were similar to those of communism: the continuous state of war caused by economic competition had created wealth but not welfare.
The paper will analyse the representations of differing economic systems made by Ciocca on the base of his travels and the influence they had on the general opinion through the diffusion of his writings and the debates they sparked on newspapers and journals. Further attention will be dedicated to the documents, related to his voyages, preserved in personal archive of Gaetano Ciocca at the MART in Rovereto.

The development of platform capitalism and the digitization of labor processes have enabled scholars and the public to describe the contemporary organization of work giving particular emphasis to the role of algorithms. Through document analysis, interviews, participant observation and a direct work experience in two Amazon distribution centers, the article argues against the myth of the algorithmic organization of work. In order to do so, it proposes questioning the centrality of algorithms in management, locating them within a broader system of rules and practices. Rather than relying on concepts such as algocracy (Aneesh, 2006, 2009), the article tries to retrive and revisit the ideal type of bureaucracy in a «Pluralist» meaning (Gouldner, 1954; Burawoy, 1979; Edwards, 1979), putting it to the test of empirical analysis of the labor process.



Keywords: labor process, algorithmic management, platform capitalism, bureaucracy

Während die Brechung der Verfügungsgewalt über den eigenen Körper und seine Bewegungen in der profanen Sphäre der Lohnarbeit (zurecht) als Entmündigung erfahren wird, bedingt das Prinzip der segmentierten, ins Stocken geratenen Bewegung ästhetisch gewendet jedoch gleichzeitig die Möglichkeit zur Selbstdistanzierung und Reflexion: einer, der innehält, einen Schritt zurücktritt, um sich die Dinge aus gebührendem Abstand anzusehen. Die epische Dimension liegt auf der Hand. Die Unterbrechung fungiert in dieser Figur also als einerseits notwendiges wie beschädigendes Moment moderner Selbsterfahrung, dem jedoch gleichzeitig das Potential zur Selbstreflexion und, womöglich, zur Re-Okkupation von Handlungsfähigkeit innewohnt.

Che cosa mostrano le lotte dei drivers riguardo alla nuova relazione tra autonomia e controllo sul lavoro allo stadio attuale di riconfigurazione tecnologica? Dalla stessa domanda ne consegue un’altra: questo caso si identifica o si discosta dal modello generale di impresa Amazon, che tiene insieme diversi attori, quali clienti, altre imprese di fornitura e lavoratori (dalla logistica di magazzino a quella delle consegne)?
Partendo da una prospettiva di “determinismo tecnologico temperato”, la lotta dei corrieri è un caso di mobilitazione capace di porre una sfida al modello organizzativo di Amazon. Pur nella sua parzialità settoriale, l’importanza della posta in gioco e le questioni sollevate paiono di interesse generale, in quanto il modello applicato alle consegne è in linea di continuità con il neo-taylorismo algoritmico applicato all’interno dei magazzini.
Per fare ciò, questo contributo è articolato come segue. Dopo aver introdotto alcuni elementi strutturali di economia politica, che guardano all’espansione dell’azienda e al suo modello d’impresa, questo saggio si concentra su una prospettiva agentica, ovvero sul processo di lavoro3. Questa prospettiva evita le impasse del «determinismo tecnologico» classico e mostra la funzione critica del lavoro dentro il modello organizzativo definito dall’ordine d’impresa. Mettendo in luce le potenzialità aperte dalle nuove forme di conflitto, suggerisce così nuove possibilità per una contrattazione collettiva in grado di porre limiti alla mercificazione e al controllo del lavoro.

This book discusses the problem of relationship between the idea of knowledge-based society/economy and the discourses of work planning. The author argues that objectification is not opposite to the modern “humanistic” management and psychology of work but one of their most important resources. He also shows that objectification has both changed its main legitimate form and transformed its reference. The civilising of objectification is present in work planning not so much in spite of the criticism of various forms of objectification of subordinates, as thanks to it. This is why an ideological critique of organisational power over employees has become insufficient and the problem of objectification needs to be studied differently. The book offers an in-depth study of specific fragments of talk and text in which managers, psychologists and other experts publically engage in making the work planning knowledge-based. Empirical analyses result in new theoretical concepts such as managerial correctness, democratised and un-democratised knowledge economy, discursive reversibility. The book will be of interest to discourse analysts, sociologists, psychologists, cultural analysts and managers.

Harry Braverman's seminal work "Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century" is perhaps more important than ever in the current rapidly advancing developments in the field of Robotics, Information Technology and Computerization. Yet there has been little debate or research in these matters by Indian scholars or for that matter even across the globe. Only now the onset of what could possibly be a truly epochal series of events over the past decade has seen the beginning of some discussion in the west. Braverman elaborated and provided a rich analysis of one of the core concepts of Marx's critique of Capitalism: That the essential means by which the capitalist produces a profit is the expropriation of surplus labour time from the workers beyond the need to sustain themselves or even their immediate family. If we accept this as axiomatic, then we must also accept that without this act of expropriation, capitalism as we understand it cannot operate. That is to say, an economic system that completely replaces the total aggregate available labour with automation, cannot by its very nature be called a Capitalist system. Throughout this paper this aspect of Marx's analysis as must be kept in mind. We must therefore look at the current global situation as one where automation and computer technology is but one of two pillars holding up the hegemonic paradigm of the current infotech age – the other being the set of treaties and national policies that has reached fruition since the fall of the Soviet Union, collectively and somewhat vaguely described as globalization. This paper attempts to highlight various aspects of the current economic and technological paradigms now manifesting themselves throughout the globe, in the spirit of Braverman's own work.

Talk delivered at  West Oxford Academy, Oxford (27 October 2015) and Imperial College, London (18 February 2016). Both events were open to all.
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In February 1944, the world's newspapers were flooded with the news that Charles E. Bedaux, one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful industrial consultants, had committed suicide while under FBI custody in Miami, Florida. Here, readers were told, Bedaux was detained under a charge of treason for collaborating with the Nazis during the war.

Reminding readers that Bedaux had made a fortune out of his 'Bedaux System of Human Power Measurement', reporters, in particular Janet Flanner of 'The New Yorker', also reminded readers that Bedaux was already famous for being a friend of the British royalty before the war. What's more: they noted that the Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII) and Wallis Simpson had married at Bedaux's magnificent French château in summer 1937.

But who, really, was Charles E. Bedaux? Was it true, as Flanner's biopic asserted, that his vaunted 'Bedaux System' was merely 'pseudo-scientific' and 'did not differ much from the old Frederick Winslow Taylor shop-management system of the [eighteen] nineties'?

While conspiracy theorists and journalists have long-deployed a phantom version of Bedaux in a variety of fantastic international plots involving various British royals, Hollywood actors and top Nazi officials (Adolf Hitler included), until now there has existed no professionally-researched account of Bedaux's life, nor his influence as a consultant. Moreover, it will be suggested that Bedaux's demonised reputation has not just warped literature in relation to consultants, but also in relation to broader narratives related to the history of technology, business, and management.

This public talk will explore the fact that, in the Bedaux case, the truth really is stranger than fiction. But this has not stopped fanatics and even forgers working to make the opposite the case. It is time to set the record straight and work out where to go next.

En la exégesis habitual de alguno de los cambios en las estrategias, formas de comportarse y ser dirigidas las organizaciones-independientemente de su naturaleza-suele tenerse como referencias obligadas a: la presión del mercado, cambios en la legislación, y una serie de modificaciones que parecen provocan la adaptación de estas organizaciones al entorno. Como era de esperarse, el resultado de dichas presiones ha significado, por un lado, una supuesta ruptura epistémica de una de las más grandes filosofías y corrientes de pensamiento administrativo-en éste caso el taylorismo-; en pro de alcanzar en primera medida, los objetivos empresariales sobre los que se soporta la organización, y por otra parte, la generación, adopción y adaptación de nuevas formas de gestión y control al interior de las misma organización, como lo son: la calidad total, la gestión de calidad y la norma ISO 9000. En este sentido, éste articulo amplía el debate académico sobre sí los nuevos modelos industriales en las organizaciones centrados en la implantación de nuevas culturas organizacionales, son realmente modelos de ruptura epistémica con las tradicionales prácticas Tayloristas de la organización de trabajo o por el contrario es una nueva forma de nombrar y perpetuar el taylorismo.

This study investigates the implications of the introduction of electric lighting systems, building technologies, and theories of worker efficiency on the deep spatial and environmental transformations that occurred within the corporate workplace during the twentieth century. Examining the shift from daylighting strategies to largely artificially lit workplace environments, this paper argues that electric lighting significantly contributed to the architectural rationalization of both office work and the modern office environment. Contesting the historical and critical marginalization of lighting within the discourse of the modern built environment, this study calls for a reassessment of the role of artificial lighting in the development of the modern corporate workplace.
Keywords: daylighting, fluorescent lighting, rationalization, workplace design

Frederick Winslow Taylor, (born on march 20’th of 1856 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and died at the age of 59 in  1915) created a system of managerial authority, often referred to as scientific management, that encouraged increased productivity and the transfer of knowledge on production from the managers to the workers and vice-versa.

W niniejszym opracowaniu podjęto próbę identyfikacji znaczeń i zastosowań tayloryzmu do opisu obecnych warunków i sposobów zarządzania. Przeprowadzona analiza źródeł literaturowych umożliwiła wyodrębnienie kilku oddzielnych interpretacji, które podzielono na dwa główne nurty. Pierwszym z nich jest poziom organizacji pracy, drugi – poziom bardziej ogólny ekonomiczny. W obydwu z nich pojawia się zwrot neotayloryzm, który stanowił punkt wyjścia w przeprowadzonych przez autora badaniach w formule desk research. W rezultacie analiz przedstawiono różne interpretacje tayloryzmu z perspektywy współczesnych czasów, jak i wyjaśniono przesłanki uznawania go za wciąż aktualny.

The economic and social consequences of technological change in capitalist societies have always been profound. For capitalists themselves, new technologies can have pervasive effects, rendering obsolete even the most profitable businesses, while simultaneously creating opportunities for early adopters. For workers reliant on the sale of their labour power, the effects are even more differentiated: new technologies create opportunities for those who can acquire necessary skills, but destitution for those whose capabilities are no longer required. Beyond the immediate economic outcomes for individuals and their communities, there are spatial, organizational, and cultural consequences that transform the fabric of society.


In his analysis of the workplaces of the first industrial revolution, Marx concludes that ‘Large-scale industry possesses in the machine system an entirely objective organization of production, which confronts the worker as a pre-existing material condition of production’, and elsewhere he defines this condition as the real subsumption of labour. A hundred years later, his analysis underpinned modern socialist studies of labour and the struggle for control in the workplace. Indeed, ever since the birth of industrial capitalism socialists have not only critically examined technology in its social context, but also looked forward to futures of work based on radically different principles. As Alfred Barratt Brown wrote in 1934, ‘We need to look at the whole world of industry with fresh eyes, to ask ourselves again what we want to produce, and how we can best employ our powers in producing it, to the end that the work and its results may alike satisfy human capacities and human needs’.


This essay is concerned to look with fresh socialist eyes at the technologies that underpin our present world of work, and how they have been shaped and applied by capital to meet the needs of capital, oriented firmly towards the subsumption of wage labour in all its concrete forms. We cannot repurpose them towards our fundamental goal as socialists to build a world based upon equality and justice for all without directly challenging and contesting the existing social order. This requires, as always, both a broad vision of a sustainable, egalitarian and democratic society, and concrete proposals that can connect to existing struggles while also prefiguring radical change.

Bilimsel Yönetimin İlkeleri [The Principles of Scientific Management]. Çev. H. Bahadır Akın. Adres Yayınları, 111 s. ISBN: 978-975-250-008-2. Yönetim düşüncesi eğitim, sağlık, insan kaynakları gibi pek çok alanda araştırma konusu olmuş ve ortak amaç, iş birliği, insan faktörü açılarından incelenmiştir. Sanayi devriminin başlaması, Adam Smith'in ekonomi alanındaki fikirleri, Fransız ihtilali işletme kavramının ortaya çıkmasına sebep olmuştur (Özdemir, 2018). İşletme kavramıyla birlikte de örgüt ve yönetim kavramları kullanılmaya başlanmıştır. Bu adımlar yönetim düşüncesinin gelişmesine katkı sağlasa da yönetimin bilim olarak incelenmesi Frederick Winslow Taylor ile başlamış ve Taylor yönetim biliminin babası olarak kabul görmüştür. Kendinden sonraki dönemlerde düşünceleri 'Taylorculuk' olarak ifade edilmiştir. Amerikalı makine mühendisi olan Taylor'un 1911 yılında yayınlanan "The Principles of Scientific Management" adlı kitabı yönetimin bilim olarak kabul edilmesi için önemli bir çalışma olmuştur. Endüstrinin gelişmeye başladığı yıllarda eğitilmiş insana ihtiyacın artmasıyla makinelerin ve insanların yönetimi önemli bir konu haline gelmiş ve bu kitap konuyla ilgili önemli bir kaynak olmuştur. Yönetim alanında çalışmalar sürdüren Taylor, işletmelerde verimlilik artışını sağlayacak bilimsel çalışmalar yapmıştır. Taylor'un "The Principles of Scientific Management" adlı kitabı 2005 yılında H. Bahadır Akın tarafından "Bilimsel Yönetimin İlkeleri" adıyla çevrilmiş ve Adres Yayınları tarafından yönetim klasikleri serisinin ilk kitabı olarak basılmıştır. Kitap Taylor tarafından Amerikan Makine Mühendisleri Birliği'ne sunulmak üzere hazırlanmış olsa da yönetim alanında temel bilgileri içerdiği ve geniş örneklere yer verdiği için işletme yönetimi, insan kaynakları yönetimi ve eğitim yönetimi gibi yönetim alanını konu edinen alanlarda kaynak olarak kullanılmaktadır. Kitabın ana teması, yönetimin bir bilim olduğu ve bu bilimden yararlanılarak işletmelerde verimliliğin sağlanması için uygulanması gereken temel ilkelerdir.  * Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, İstanbul.

Il concetto di fordismo è venuto a designare di volta in volta un apparato di norme e criteri per l’organizzazione scientifica del lavoro, di tecniche per la produzione di massa, una cultura organizzativa della grande fabbrica, un processo omogeneo di governo della società industriale, fino a definire il compromesso sociale del secondo dopoguerra. Partendo da Henry Ford e arrivando a Gramsci, attraverso esperienze come quella italiana, francese e sovietica, il volume propone una complessiva storia comparata del fordismo, o meglio delle diverse idee e pratiche del fordismo che hanno permeato economia e politica nella prima metà del Novecento.

In its history, production, plots and gestures, slapstick comedy was tied to the rise of modern labor in terms of both Taylorist theory and Fordist practice. Comic heroes ranging from live action comedians Chaplin or Keaton to animated animals Felix or Mickey worked against work through the playful excesses of their obediences and transgressions within an increasingly rationalized, industrial world. The digital animation studio Pixar summoned slapstick and its specifically Fordist resonances in its 2008 feature, WALL-E, yet offered a twist in humanizing a figure of perfected Fordism itself with its title character, a robot repetitively working in a post-apocalyptic earth devoid of human life. Explicitly modeled after Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, WALL-E contrasts with the film’s humans, who are entirely liberated from labor through automation in a satirical reflection of both post-Fordist accounts of the ‘end of work’ as well as broader critiques of a distracting digital culture. This article focuses on the film’s revitalization of slapstick traditions within the context of recent debates about post-Fordism, the future of automated labor and the transformation of working human bodies. Just as slapstick’s relationship to modern labor touched on the playful mode of its cinematic production as well as their form as indexical montage so too does Pixar’s corporate reputation as ‘Creativity, Inc’ suggest a complex relationship between its slapstick hero and the digital labor animating his movement. The same will be argued of Pixar’s vaunted techniques with both digital image-making and commodity generation, both of which suggest a nostalgic animation of slapstick’s antinomies as much as a disavowal of the post-Fordist production of which Pixar is vanguard.

Teamwork in the automotive industry varies significantly from plant to plant. This book compares teamwork in four final assembly plants in Germany and the UK: the Opel Eisenach and a Mercedes factory in Germany, and the Vauxhall Luton and Nissan Sunderland plants in the UK. The plants in Eisenach and Sunderland are relatively new, and were from the outset organised around the principles of Lean Production.
The book addresses two questions: Firstly, can different models of teamwork be conceptualised with a simple, bi-polar model of teamwork, showing either innovative or structurally conservative characteristics? Secondly, do current models of teamwork signify a development towards post-fordism, as suggested by some researchers, or are they merely part of a neo-fordist rationalisation of production?
The following answers are suggested: Firstly, teamwork in different motor-car plants cannot be categorised in a bi-polar model; these different models of teamwork rather represent a continuum. Secondly, while teamwork moves manufacturing away from traditional taylorist models of production, it does not overcome Taylorism altogether.

For over 30 years we have been in the midst of a paradox. Following a questionable logic that sees education as a means to economic ends, efforts to reform education have focused on keeping the US from slipping in international economic competition. Relying on testing as a standard, in the end we may have decreased our human potential and become less competitive.

Our system has gotten worse at its core, in its philosophical tenets and in its ultimate effects, by placing unwonted pressure on our youth and in stifling their creativity. While this goes back decades, Respect for Teachers takes its title from a phrase --perhaps a codeword-- in President's 2011 State of the Union address and sits down to consider its implications. Connecting attacks on teachers, unions and schools and the misrepresentation of research to the promotion of new economic models in education, it suggests that the Obama administration may be, without quite realizing it, setting the stage for rapid privatization of the public system. As this endangers the egalitarian basis of democracy, it also reminds us that schooling is big business – many trillions of dollars world-wide. Joseph Schumpeter once said, “No bourgeoisie ever disliked war profits.” Respect operates under the premise that no bourgeoisie ever disliked the spoils of school reform, either.

REVIEWS:


Brian Ford’s brilliant new book does two important things: It debunks the Neoliberal attack on public schools and provides an avenue for rethinking education based on trust and the needs of children. Respect for Teachers is compelling and completely convincing. At a time when our national education conversation is confused and confusing, this new book is sorely needed. Don’t wait — start reading Respect for Teachers now if you want to reclaim the democratic vision of education.
— Peter W. Cookson


Brian Ford counters the negative and destructive, ideological attack on teachers and schools by constructing an alternative perspective [which has] powerful implications for creating a dynamic and productive educational system.
— Henry M. Levin, director, National Center for the Study for Privatization in Education and William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of economics and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University



A new voice, authoritative and convincing, informing us that when our leaders demean the competency of our educators and ignore their remarkable achievements in the face of the rapid expansion of childhood poverty, they both diminish a noble profession and harm the public system of education that is part of the ongoing American experiment in democracy. Highly provocative and recommended.
— David Berliner, Regents' Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University

This paper traces the parallel development of humanist critiques of Taylorism in the leading industrial nations of the 1930s. In the USA during the Great Depression, the Harvard researchers conducting the Hawthorne Experiments claimed to replace the mechanistic doctrine of Taylorism with a more holistic approach that became known as Human Relations. This shift of emphasis was mirrored in Nazi Germany. Social scientists at the German Labor Front theorized "organic rationalization" in opposition to Taylorism, claiming to "put the human being at the center of the work process." Meanwhile, Soviet engineers associated with Alexei Gastev's Central Institute of Labor, who had boosted Taylorism in the 1920s, were replaced by Stakhanovism - a movement claiming to wrest factory rationalization from the purview of efficiency experts and appropriate it for the workers.

“Scientific management trend”, which claims that there is only one best way to deal with every issue and directs its efforts to finding this way and applying it on production process, underpins today’s management science. We still witness the effects of Taylor’s insights and theories, who is the pioneer of this trend, on modern management understanding. It is observed that traditional management understanding which was criticised by Taylor is completely ignored in the personnel selection process. Also, it is noticed that a more advanced level has been attained by using the scientific management methods which were pointed out by Taylor in the process of personnel selection. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the harmony of Taylor’s insights and techniques in modern management and portray the contributions of Taylor on human resources management in the personnel selection process.

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/58583/

"Fabrikmahlzeit" examines the development of nutrition in Switzerland from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century from a twofold perspective: on the one hand, attention is focused on company canteens, which were set up as a means of harmonizing "industrial relations" between management and employees and were situated in the field of tension between eating habits and economic rationalization. On the other hand, the history of nutrition is a suitable probe with which social transformations can be registered. It shows how moral campaigns for a "rational national diet" were supported by nutritional physiological knowledge and social statistical methods. The thermodynamic model of the "human motor" made it possible to scientifically substantiate the popular saying "If you don't work, you shouldn't eat". A cultural history of the social that is sensitized to the category of gender opens up new insights into the dynamics of innovation in modern industrial society and makes it possible to analyse the popularization of scientific concepts and their significance in everyday life.

«Fabrikmahlzeit» untersucht die Entwicklung der Ernährung in der Schweiz vom ausgehenden 19. bis Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts aus einer doppelten Perspektive: Zum einen richtet sich die Aufmerksamkeit auf Betriebskantinen, die als Mittel zur Harmonisierung der «industriellen Beziehungen» zwischen Management und Arbeitnehmern eingerichtet wurden und sich im Spannungsfeld von Ernährungsgewohnheiten und betriebswirtschaftlicher Rationalisierung bewegten. Zum andern eignet sich die Geschichte der Ernährung als Sonde, mit der gesellschaftliche Umbrüche registriert werden können. Es wird gezeigt, wie moralische Kampagnen für eine «rationelle Volksernährung» durch ernährungsphysiologische Erkenntnisse und sozialstatistische Methoden unterstützt wurden. Mit dem thermodynamischen Modell des «menschlichen Motors» gelang es, die Volksweisheit «Wer nicht arbeitet, soll auch nicht essen» wissenschaftlich zu begründen. Eine für die Kategorie Geschlecht sensibilisierte Kulturgeschichte des Sozialen eröffnet neue Einblicke in die Innovationsdynamik der modernen Industriegesellschaft und ermöglicht es, die Popularisierung wissenschaftlicher Konzepte und deren Bedeutung im Alltag zu analysieren.

Existing literature on Taylorism has surprisingly ignored the role of its payment systems, while the results achieved on Ford’s five-dollar day programme appear contradictory and sometimes isolated from the organisational change simultaneously undertaken. I seek to fill these theoretical gaps. I provide a historical analysis of the relevant features of Taylorism and Fordism and analyse a simple agency model with a linear compensation scheme to account for the observed differences in payment systems between Taylor’s performance-related pay and Ford’s fixed wages. I show how the ex-post observed diverge may be interpreted in terms of technology-related differences in i) responsiveness of effort to incentives and ii) responsiveness of proceeds to effort.

Introducción Este ensayo apunta a la historia del Taylorismo y de la Ingeniería Industrial en Colombia. La propuesta es partir de una revisión conceptual del Taylorismo que resalta la necesidad de una mirada convergente de la historia de la ciencia, la historia de las ideas, la historia social del trabajo, y la historia empresarial. El texto se detiene en la teoría social para indagar el contexto de origen del Taylorismo, así como el lugar que ,como saber experto, tuvo en la organización de la vida social y productiva del siglo XX. En el mismo sentido el texto busca hacer explicito la relevancia historiográfica del tema taylorista frente al problema de la relación capitalismo-ciencia. Así pues, este escrito explora la pertinencia de una reinterpretación del sentido histórico del Taylorismo teniendo presente la mirada de la Historia de las Ideas y los aportes de la Sociología de la Ciencia, con la cual empezar a emprender un examen historiográfico más integral de la experiencia colombiana * 1. * El documento esta escrito apoyándose prolijamente en las notas de pie de página. Es probable que una lectura del texto que omita su examen pierda un poco el hilo de la trama argumental. El autor pide excusas por esta forma de presentar su exposición tan incomoda para el lector.

The importance of Classical Management Approach in management science is an undeniable fact.Within this management approach, the "Scientific Management Principles" presented by Frederick Taylor to the management world have an important place. In the Classical Management Approach, people are seen as machines and it is focused on how efficiently employees can perform in addition to machines.Today, a new epidemic has broken out, which is called Covid-19, which affects the whole world.Covid-19, which has turned into a global pandemic, has reached very serious mortality rates.Countries take very serious measures within the scope of combating the pandemic and try to protect their citizens from the epidemic.The effects of the pandemic also affected working life and many professional groups had to reorganize their workflows and job designs.This article aims to explain how digitalization and Covid-19 affect the management world and working life and talk about the interrelationships of Covid-19, digitization, and Taylorism.

Questa è la traduzione di un saggio breve di P. S. Adler sul caso significativo della NUMMI, la joint-venture fra Toyota e General Motors sul suolo americano. La commistione del modello giapponese e l'influenza sindacale hanno dato vita a un caso organizzativo singolare estremamente efficace, come viene presentato dall'autore.

Implementation of quantified self technologies in workplaces relies on the ontological premise of Cartesian dualism with mind dominant over body. Contributing to debates in new materialism, we demonstrate that workers are now being asked to measure our own productivity and health and wellbeing in art-houses and warehouses alike in both the global north and south. Workers experience intensified precarity, austerity, intense competition for jobs, and anxieties about the replacement of labour-power with robots and other machines as well as, ourselves replaceable, other humans. Workers have internalized the imperative to perform, a subjectification process as we become observing, entrepreneurial subjects and observed, objectified labouring bodies. Thinking through the implications of the use of wearable technologies in workplaces, this article shows that these technologies introduce a heightened Taylorist influence on precarious working bodies within neoliberal workplaces.

Decisa lotta per l'abolizione della divisione sociale del lavoro, delle carriere, dei titoli e della specializzazione professionale (cfr. PCInt., Il programma rivoluzionario immediato, punto h, Riunione di Forlì, 28 dicembre 1952).

"La divisione del lavoro offre anche il primo esempio del fatto che fin tanto che gli uomini si trovano nella società naturale, che esiste la scissione fra interesse particolare e interesse comune, che l'attività è divisa non volontariamente ma naturalmente, l'azione propria dell'uomo diventa una potenza a lui estranea, che lo sovrasta, lo soggioga, invece di essere da lui dominata. Non appena il lavoro comincia ad essere diviso, ciascuno ha una sfera di attività determinata ed esclusiva che gli viene imposta e dalla quale non può sfuggire: è cacciatore, pescatore, o pastore, o critico, e tale deve restare se non vuol perdere i mezzi per vivere; laddove nella società comunista, in cui ciascuno non ha una sfera di attività esclusiva ma può perfezionarsi in qualsiasi ramo a piacere, la società regola la produzione generale e appunto in tal modo mi rende possibile di fare oggi questa cosa, domani quell'altra, la mattina andare a caccia, il pomeriggio pescare, la sera allevare il bestiame, dopo pranzo criticare, così come mi vien voglia; senza diventare né cacciatore, né pescatore, né pastore, né critico" (K. Marx-F. Engels, L'ideologia tedesca).