The Invisible Chain : Constraints and Opportunities in the New World of Employment

I would like to thank my colleagues at the Centre Pierre Naville with whom I have been able to build the environment of trust and intellectual independence that is so necessary in any scientific endeavour. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Daniel Bachet, who was kind enough to read through the sections dealing with alternative managerial structures and the present state of globalization. His suggestions have done much to enrich and enhance the text. Thierry Pillon has also helped immensely through his astute and pertinent comments. I would also like to thank GERPISA (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherche Permanent sur l'Industrie et les Salariés de l'Automobile) for encouraging and helping with the international comparisons that have given this work its global (and interdisciplinary) perspective. Companies and work have undergone significant change, and a new productive model has emerged. This book shows how the model works, showing its high degree of coherence in terms of the integration of functions within companies. This book creates a new and challenging theory of services, rooted in the concrete experience of workshops and offices. During the last twenty years the world of work has transformed the planet. Labour flexibility and precariousness; the requirement for total quality; the decline of the concept of qualification and its substitution by the notion of 'competency'; lays off in profitable companies; and more worker 'involvement', have all changed our experience of employment. This book shows how this new model of productivity works and argues that it has a high degree of coherence in terms of the integration of functions within companies. It also addresses the relation between 'just in time' teamwork and new ways of employee mobilisation which together lead to increased productivity. From this evidence Durand creates a new and challenging theory of services, which is nevertheless firmly rooted in the concrete experience of workshops and offices Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-6 Reforming Corporate Structures: Integrating Reticular Reasoning and Tight Flows....Pages 7-26 The Tight Flow Rules: Work under Time Constraints....Pages 27-56 The Competency Model....Pages 57-72 The Reshaping of Labour: Tight Flow and the Mobilization of Employees....Pages 73-92 The Fragmentation of the Labour Market and the Mobilization of Employees....Pages 93-111 Information Technology and the Service Industry: White-Collar Work....Pages 112-140 More Difficult but More Interesting Work? Intensification and Autonomy....Pages 141-166 Unionism and Globalization....Pages 167-198 Conclusion....Pages 199-208 Back Matter....Pages 209-242