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This chapter introduces the book. The core thesis is that a tension between ensuring worker discipline and harnessing worker creativity is one of the central dynamics shaping organizations today. This tension is an expression of a material contradiction inherent to the labor-management relation. As employee involvement has become increasingly important over the last four decades in response to rapid technical change, demands for flexibility, and continuous improvement, this contradiction has been intensifying. The argument is based on a case study of labor management and lean production in American manufacturing. This chapter presents the book’s theoretical framework, which is historical and comparative in nature, and argued to apply to a range of occupations including social services, educational, healthcare occupations, administrative support, and software development. It concludes with an overview of the argument and the individual chapters. |
