Managerial Strategies and the Worker: a Marxist Analysis of Bureaucracy

Abstract

Systematic study of the sociology of organizations is almost absent in both the classical and modern Marxist traditions. Although some recent studies in the Marxist tradition show considerable promise, the field has been dominated by the Webenan perspective. The development of new theory should be informed by the Marxian concepts of (a) labor theory of value, (b) the forces and relations of production, (c) historical development of capitalism, and (d) class structure and class struggle. Bourgeois organizational theory has some serious deficiencies, but there is much of value that can be subsumed under the broader rubric of Marxist political economy. The potential for a Marxist theory of bureaucracy is explored in an examination of managerial strategies to minimize external uncertainties in a monopoly capitalist system, and internal uncertainties arising from the work force. Strategies for controlling the work force include the division of labor, organizational hierarchy, rules and procedures, the uses of secrecy and hoarding of knowledge, and the maintenance ofethnic and sexual divisions in the work force. Further research is needed on (a) differentiating capital accumulation and social control strategies, (b) comparisons between workers in the state and corporate sectors, (c) comparisons between work organization under full range of socialist economies and those in capitalist economies in both manufacturing and government and (d) alternatives for the future. SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF T H E SOCIOLOGY of organizations is almost absent in both the classical and modern Marxist traditions. Marxist scholars have given little attention to the bureaucratic aspects of the labor process and have thus left us without a sophisticated understanding of how managerial decision making and the institution of "bureaucratic rationality" have served the purposes of capital accumulation and social control of the work force during the capitalist epoch. This inattention has limited our knowledge of the structural contradictions of capitalist administrative practice.For the most part Marxists have ceded this area of intellectual inquiry to professors of business administration and to sociologists who take the Weberian perspective as a point of departure. Both Giddens (1973) and Wright (1974) have described the disjunction between the Marxian and Weberian traditions in a fashion that is suggestive for the study of the industrial enterprise. Wright notes:Marxists have generally continued to focus on the dynamics and contradictions of capitalist society seen as a total system, while paying relatively little attention to the organizational dynamics of the state . . . Analvsts in the Weberian tradition in contrast. have continued to treat organizations in isolation &om the social contradictions in which they are embedded (1974: 103).We hope in this paper to begin to synthesize these divergent viewpoints, and subsume current bourgeois' administrative and sociological theory and research under the broader rubric of Marxist political economy. Recent...

Speaking up or staying silent in bullying situations: the significance of management control

“…Thus, the evidence would suggest that rather than being a justice mechanism as outlined above, workplace bullying procedures are in fact almost the opposite. This perspective would be supported by more radical scholars who have long held a view of workplace procedures as a source of managerial power and tool of worker discipline (Goldman and Van Houten, 1977). Procedures represent an institutionalisation of conflict, acting to restrict worker agency, through the suppression of conflict.…”

Gestión, poder, innovación y estrategia en las organizaciones

“…Lo fundamental es controlar los procesos laborales, así sea claro que en el análisis de todos los componentes organizacionales se puedan evidenciar ventajas y desventajas. (Stone, 1973;Braverman, 1974;Marglin, 1974;Goldman & Van Houten, 1977;Clawson, 1980y Pfeffer, 1994. En el mismo sentido, Spenner (1990) dice que existen por lo menos dos dimensiones de la habilidad: la complicidad sustantiva (el nivel, alcance e integración de las tareas mentales, manipuladoras e interpersonales de un puesto) y autonomía-control (la discrecionalidad o libertad de acción en un puesto para controlar el contenido, la manera y la velocidad en que se realizan las tareas), (Spenner, 1990: 402 -403).…”

Criticisms of the Dominant Perspective on Organizations

“…Likewise, not all theorists who use the dominant perspective accept these assumptions, characteristics, and methodologies with equal vigor. Depending on the purpose of the critique, the dominant approaches have been variously labeled "rational paradigm" (Benson, 1977b and Colignon and Cray, 198 1 ) , "rational selection model" (Benson,197 1 ) , "bourgeois sociology of organizations" (Goldman and Van Houten, 1977), "prevailing rational and functional theories" (Meyer and Rowan, 1977), "goal paradigm" (Georgiou, 1973), "tool view" (Perrow, 1979a), "conventional organizational analysis" (Salaman, 1978), and "comparative structuralism" (McNeil, 1978). Generally the criticisms of the comparative structural and structural contingency approaches are that analysts who have used these approaches :…”

“…The important question is not who commissions the research but why they are able to commission it. As Goldman and Van Houten (1977) point out, managers, and not workers, have control of the financial resources to commission organizational research.…”

“…The aspirations, perceptions, values, interests, and actions of lower level participants in organization are as important and deserving of study as those of management (Goldman and Van Houten, 1977;Heydebrand, 1977;Stone, 1974;Gallie, 1978;Mechanic, 1962). In Power and Discontent Gamson (1967) examines the "authorities" and "potential partisans" which are the actors in our dual perspectives of organizations.…”