1st Edition
The Transformation of Work? Skill, Flexibility and the Labour Process
Originally published in 1989, and now reissued with a new preface by the editor, this interdisciplinary study brings together an internationally distinguished group of scholars to shed light about work organization and the effects of new management methods and technologies. The book gives an incisive account of changes in work organization and relations during the latter part of the 20th Century. Accessible and comprehensive, it will be of interest to those in the sociology of work, industrial relations, organization theory, economics, geography and management.
1.The Transformation of Work? Stephen Wood 2. When Certainty Fails: Inside the Factory of the Future Bryn Jones 3. Machinery, Labour and Location Richard Walker 4. Multinational Corporations and the New International Division of Labour: A Critical Appraisal Erica Schoenberger 5. Jobs and Skills Under the Lifelong Nenkō Employment Practice Makoto Kumazawa and Jun Yamada 6. Flexibility and the Changin Sexual Division of Labour Sylvia Walby 7. The Talents of Women, the Skills of Men: Flexible Specialization and Women Jane Jenson 8. The Transformation of Training and the Transformation of Work in Britain David Lee 9. ‘New Production Concepts’ in Final Assembly – The Swedish Experience Christian Berggren 10. The Transfer of Japanese Management Concepts in the International Automobile Industry Ulrich Jürgens 11. Automation, New Technology and Work Content William Cavestro 12. Alternative Forms of Work Organization Under Programmable Automation Maryellen R. Kelley 13. Computer Rationalization and the Transformation of Work: Lessons From the Insurance Industry Eileen Appelbaum and Peter Albin 14. The Limits to Industrialization: Computer Software Development In a Large Commercial Bank Sarah Kuhn 15. Work Organization and Product Change in the Service Sector: The Case of the UK National Health Service Rod Coombs and Ken Green 16. What is Socialist About Socialist Production? Michael Burawoy and János Lukács.
Biography
Stephen J. Wood
Original reviews of The Transformation of Work?
‘Wood’s collection is stimulating and in places excellent.’ British Journal of Industrial Relations
‘This collection makes a valuable contribution to thinking about contemporary work…The diversity of the authors and types of work settings studied are other attractive features.’ Walter R. Nord, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol 37, No. 1 (1992)
‘This collection should be on the reading list of everyone who has been inspired by popular accounts of flexible firms and second industrial divides...It does bring a great deal of lucidity to the topic.’ Ian Miles, Futures, 1990.
