Showing papers on "Deskilling published in 2000"

From Taylorism to Ms Taylor: the transformation of the accounting craft

Abstract: The history of professionally qualified accountants and their regulatory processes command considerable attention in the academic accounting literature. In contrast, “non-qualified”, clerical employees have been virtually excluded from serious accounting research. This paper aims to overcome this serious deficiency in the academic literature. The framework used in the paper to analyse the work practices of accounting clerks draws strongly on the theoretical foundations of Marx and subsequent development by Braverman. We will show that the majority of work experience in the accounting industry is one of deskilling according to Tayloristic “Scientific Management” principles.

‘They’ll still get the bodily care’. Discourses of care and relationships between nurses and health care assistants in the NHS

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of recent changes in work organisation in the NHS, drawing on research undertaken in two English hospital wards. Nurses’ and health care assistants’ responses to the introduction of a new skill mix are explored through qualitative interview data. The nurses’ perceptions are explored in relation to theories of occupational closure. These suggest that claims to distinct knowledge and ownership of the process of care may be undermined by the reproduction of hierarchical models of work organisation. The data suggest that the nurses’ ambivalence, recognised by managers, seems to limit their effectiveness in resisting fordist practices of routinisation and deskilling. It also impacts upon health care assistants, who seem to be excluded from nursing’s occupational project and whose contribution to care may, as a consequence, be devalued.

A History of Work in Britain, 1880-1950

Abstract: This book discusses the extent to which work was transformed in Britain between 1880-1950. Chapters explore: the historiography and theorizing of work; the changing labor force; the debates on deskilling, and work intensification; employers and the management of labor, work conditions, and occupational health, the role of the state in the workplace; women, gender relations, and inequalities at work; trade unions, work and politics. The book emphasizes the diversity of work experience, the uneven pace of change and the weaknesses in Marxist theories of the changing nature of work. Workers emerge as both victims and active players, capable of regulating work conditions, relationships, and the labor process, with the trade unions increasingly playing a vital, protective role.

Taylorism given a helping hand: How an IT system changed employees' flexibility and personal involvement in their work

Abstract: Illustrates how the implementation of a major information technology (IT) system within the Norwegian Army affected the way the employees perceived their flexibility and personal involvement in their work. By employing Taylor’s initial works, this paper illustrates how the introduction of this IT system was perceived by some of the employees. Shows how, instead of increasing employees’ work engagement, the IT system had the opposite effect. Demonstrates that the new IT system contributed to a deskilling of the employees, to a more task‐oriented approach to their work, and to increased employees’ interdependence. Instead of increasing employees’ personal flexibility and involvement in their jobs, the research shows how the new IT system in fact contributed to a reduction in the freedom to choose when and how quickly to do their jobs.

Are specialist nurses deskilling general nurses

Abstract: Specialization and sub-specialization are inevitable these days because of the rapid expansion and development in medical knowledge. It is impossible for one person to be expert in all aspects of health care. A specialist is someone who is educated and has experience in, and develops the competencies and skills of, a particular field or endeavour.

What's in Information Technology? Issues in Deploying IS in Organisations and Developing Countries

Abstract: In the developed world we live at a time when the promise of technology is bright and alluring both for national economies - witness the fascination of the USA, UK and developing countries with the information superhighway, and for organisations which have and are computerising at rapid rates (see Dutton et al., 1996; Global Knowledge, 1997; Scott Morton, 1991). For some a dark side to such a reliance on technology is recognised. Such viewpoints are many faceted: some have seen a problem of automation linked to deskilling and lack of employment (see Braverman, 1974); others argue that a deeper problem lies in the way in which technology is being used to overwhelm nature (see Heidegger, 1977). Within such broad ranging debates it is important that sufficient attention is paid to exploring examples of information technology transfer and implementation and, of equal importance, to theorising these experiences to suggest wider understandings of the relationship between information technologies, society and organisations.

Immigrant Women and Labour Flexibility: Resisting Training through Learning

Abstract: This roundtable focuses on the lives and experiences of immigrant women in the context of casualisation of labour and job deskilling. Each author presents a study and they note the failure of many training programs to overcome the complex ways in which race and gender, the new economy, and other forms of exclusion discriminate against immigrant women. They argue that the planning and execution of training must be considered within the wider context of globalisation, economic restructuring and labour market flexibility.

Squeezing Librarians Out Of the Middle

Abstract: The labour process in North America’s libraries is greatly affected by technological change and the libraries’ predominantly female workforce is particularly vulnerable to displacement and deskilling Interviews with employees of major public and academic library systems in the United States and Canada suggest that library workers, especially women, feel little control over decision-making involving the introduction, integration and use of new technologies Themes of futility and frustration in their descriptions of the work environment suggest that women are often marginalized in the social relations of technological change in libraries This work is supported by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (no 410-95-0185)

In Anticipation of Our Editorship

Abstract: Among the devices that we use to impose order upon a complicated (but by no means unstructured) world, classification--or the division of items into categories based on perceived similarities--must rank as the most general and most pervasive of all. And no strategy of classification cuts deeper--while providing such an even balance of benefits and difficulties--than our propensity for division by two, or dichotomy. Some basic attributes of surrounding nature do exist as complementary pairings--two large lights in the sky representing day and night; two sexes that must couple their opposing parts to produce a continuity of generations--so we might argue that dichotomization amounts to little more than good observation of the external world. But far more often than not, dichotomization leads to misleading or even dangerous oversimplification. (Stephen Jay Gould, 1997, pp. 30-31) As the new editors of the Journal of Teacher Education, we begin our term at a particularly important, and somewhat daunting, moment--at the beginning of a new millennium and a time when, once again, teacher education is under heavy attack with its future uncertain. Perhaps most important, our editorship is aimed at eschewing dichotomies, as Gould (1997) does in Questioning the Millennium, his essay on the significance of 1,000 years in human history. Gould points out that people--and their beliefs--are not simply either good or evil, nor even are organisms either plant or animal, vertebrate or invertebrate. Similarly, we believe that the field of teacher education is not best illuminated or explored when it is framed in the terms of dichotomies--teacher education as either policy or pedagogy, teacher educators as either researchers or practitioners, and learning to teach as either theoretical or practical. Along the same lines, we do not find it useful to think of professional development in dichotomous terms as either conservative or liberating, teacher education policy as either deskilling or professionalizing, and schools and departments of education as either collaborative or isolated. We believe it is imperative, especially at this time when the issues are so highly publicized and politicized, to recognize that teacher education is an extraordinarily difficult, complex, and essential enterprise that is no more reducible to dichotomies than it is to eclectic jumbles. As new editors, we are committed to upholding the 50-year tradition of the Journal of Teacher Education as the major national forum for consideration of essential themes and topics in teacher education. Since it became a campus-based journal in the early 1970s, the editors--Haberman, Lasley, Ashton, and Ducharme and Ducharme--have built the reputation of the journal as the top peer-reviewed publication in its field. Although each aspect of teacher education named in the journal's subtitle--research, practice, and policy--is important in its own right, the hallmark of JTE has been its inclusion of all three. As new editors, we intend to concentrate on producing a journal that examines the complex intersections of research, practice, and policy in teacher education. We urge prospective authors to consider these intersections in their submissions. The key to our editorial vision for the journal is recognition of the increasingly complex and interdisciplinary field of teacher education and the growing number of competing positions in the discourse. Although history reminds us that this is not a new state of affairs, it is inescapably clear at the turn of the century that there is no consensus about what teachers need to know, who should provide education for teachers, how teachers should be certified and licensed, and what role teachers and teacher education should be expected to play in school improvement. As editors, we hope to broaden the perspectives represented in the journal by including a wider range of cultural, social, and political positions and including articles written by a greater range of stakeholders in teacher education. …

Are programmers oppressed by monopoly capital, or shall the geeks inherit the earth? commentary on Nathan Ensmenger & William Aspray, "software as labor process"

Abstract: In their bold, provocative paper, “Software as Labor Process,” Nathan Ensmenger and William Aspray examine the history of software production through the lens of labor history. They do so to make sense of the ever-present “software crisis” that has attended society almost from the outset of the electronic digital computer. They do so employing principally the framework of the now-OLD “new labor history”—i.e., “labor process” study in which what takes place “on the shop floor” becomes central and how struggle for control of the shop floor takes priority over other parts of the story such as the union organizing campaigns and politics of the old labor history. Their deployment of the old new labor history in writing the history of software distinguishes this paper as a pioneering effort, though like most pioneering enterprises, it is not without problems. Ensmenger and Aspray also employ some of the framework of the NEW “new labor history” in which attention is focused on how matters of gender and race, not just class, play out on the shop floor. Here, again, their effort is bold but not without problems. In what follows, I critique this paper by addressing the paper’s discussion of early software workers, the relevance of the deskilling framework for software history, and the relevance of the NEW new labor history for software history. I will conclude by suggesting what the labor history of software should include were one to be executed fully.