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19
Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process:
Retrospect and Future Research Directions
Christopher Wright*
Labour process research has had a profound impact on the study of work by highlighting
the central role of management in controlling labour cost and application. It is also an
approach that is strongly grounded in a historical and empirical methodology. This paper
reviews the contribution of labour process theory and research over the last forty years to the
study of Australian labour and business history. While interest in the labour process from
an historical perspective has declined in recent years, this paper identifi es four areas where
recent research may offer conceptual inspiration, specifi cally: questions of managerial and
professional identity; organisational change and management innovation; the nature and
control of service work; and globalisation and comparative labour process analysis.
Labour process research grew dramatically in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s,
fundamentally reshaping debates in sociology, industrial relations, organisational
behaviour, and business and management studies. Importantly, the study of the
labour process has always involved a strong historical and empirical tradition, with
researchers grounding their theoretical contributions within a detailed analysis of
how employer strategies, technologies and employee skills have evolved over time.
Rather than viewing work simply as a feature of contemporary social relations, labour
process theorists highlighted the ways in which modern work organisation is the
product of a rich history of contestation and confl ict; refl ecting the basic features of
the capitalist economic system. As a result, labour process researchers have provided
an excellent demonstration of how historical research can help to make sense of
contemporary phenomena, as well as contribute to broader political agendas such
as the advocacy for new and better forms of work organisation.1
Since the 1990s, however, academic research into the labour process, and
employer control strategies more generally, has declined in popularity as new
academic fashions have arisen. For instance, the rise of post-structuralism in critical
management studies and the so-called ‘discursive turn’ in the social sciences more
generally, have led many to dismiss labour process analysis as ‘essentialist’ and
reliant on a crude Marxist interpretation of economic power and worker subjectivity.
For many commentators, labour process theory and related research is seen as having
run its course and having little to contribute in terms of new conceptual insights.
Indeed, during the 1990s it was common to read of labour process theory in a state
of ‘crisis’, ‘wreckage’ and ‘disarray’.2
In this paper I review the contribution of labour process theory and research
over the last forty years to the study of Australian labour and business history. After
outlining the key components of labour process theory and its principal contributors,
the paper explores key themes in the Australian literature on the labour process and
managerial strategy, including: the rationalisation of work and deskilling; the role
of scientifi c management and Taylorism; alternative forms of labour management
strategy; and variations in employee responses and labour resistance. Australian
20 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
studies of the labour process exhibit both commonalities and variations with North
American and European experience refl ecting differences in industrial regulation,
trade union organisation and industry structure. Despite the decline in academic
popularity for labour process analysis, I argue that there is still signifi cant potential
for further historical work in a labour process tradition which draws on new and
emerging themes from the broader social sciences. Focusing on recent developments
in workplace sociology and organisational studies, I outline a number of conceptual
themes which offer signifi cant potential for future historical research.
The Labour Process in Historical Perspective
The central feature of labour process analysis is the examination of how employers
have sought to control employees at work in order to maximise productive work
effort. Implicit within this analysis is an interpretation of the capitalist employment
relationship as inherently open-ended, in that while employers hire workers for a
wage, the amount of productive labour actually expended by employees will vary.
Labour process theorists stress how unlike other components of the production
process, labour is composed of people with their own aspirations and needs, and
who retain the power to resist treatment as a simple market commodity. Labour
process writers therefore argue that management develops strategies or practices
in order to better control the transformation of the workforce’s potential to work
(labour power) into actual work effort (productive labour).3
Labour process theory emerged as a distinct approach to the study of capitalist
work relations from the mid-1970s following the publication of Braverman’s seminal
work Labor and Monopoly Capital. Based on Marx’s original interpretation of the
history of capitalism, Braverman sought to update and extend Marx’s original
analysis to account for developments in the ‘monopoly phase’ of capitalism
during the twentieth century. Unlike the nineteenth century phase of competitive
capitalism, Braverman argued the transition to monopoly capitalism and the market
dominance of large, coordinated corporations resulted in the real subordination of
labour through a far more detailed control of work. He argued that employers, in
seeking to gain greater control over the labour process, had separated the conception
of work from its execution. This had led to deskilling, job fragmentation, and the
transformation of work from the craft system to modern forms of labour control
based upon techniques of scientifi c management and mechanisation.4
Braverman’s analysis proved profoundly infl uential in understanding changes
in the nature of capitalist work. First it emerged at a time of signifi cant social and
industrial unrest. Large-scale industrial stoppages during the later 1960s by factory
workers protesting against dehumanised assembly-line work and attempts at work
reorganisation, gave his book an immediate relevance to the key social changes
of the time.5 Braverman’s focus on the workplace also fi tted with the ‘bottom-
up’ perspective of the ‘new social history’ which also stressed the emergence
of the working class and industrial rationalisation.6 Most importantly though,
Braverman’s analysis transcended the traditional academic boundaries that existed in
understanding the organisation of work. Up until this time, the study of management
and its relationship to labour at the workplace had been fragmented between a
variety of academic disciplines. For example, a broad body of industrial sociology
had explored the changing nature of occupations and provided ethnographies of
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 21
industrial work. Sociologists such as Bendix, and later industrial relations writers
such as Fox, had also highlighted the historical development of management
ideology.7 From a different perspective, management writers such as Woodward
and McGregor, and business historians such as Chandler, had examined the nature
and development of management organisation, structure and style.8 However, as
Littler highlighted, Braverman’s book differed from these works by linking themes
that had previously been viewed as unrelated and providing the potential ‘for the
birth of a new, integrated approach to the study and history of work’.9
During the later 1970s and early 1980s, debate over the development of the
labour process led to a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature. Several
writers criticised Braverman’s determinism, in particular, his assumption that
capitalism developed in a predetermined fashion according to its own internal logic.
They argued that more detailed historical analysis revealed capitalism’s uneven
and contradictory development, and that Braverman’s broad sweep methodology
ignored such historical complexity. Far from the depiction of managers as omnipotent
and all-knowing, critics argued the rationalisation of the labour process could itself
generate new control problems. Further, divisions within management, as well as
employee and trade union resistance, could result in opposition to the introduction
of new control techniques.10 Many also questioned Braverman’s emphasis upon
scientifi c management as the central feature underlying the capitalist labour process.
Edwards and Littler for instance, argued that Braverman confused the claims of
scientifi c management’s advocates with the reality of shopfl oor practice, which they
viewed as a failed experiment.11 For others, such as Thompson, the institutionalisation
of scientifi c management within job design made it ‘an essential and defi ning
feature of the capitalist labour process’,12 although he acknowledged the pattern of
its implementation, the variety of its forms, and additional or alternative strategies
of control also needed to be highlighted.
Following criticism of Braverman’s work, discussion shifted from an analysis of a
single dynamic of deskilling, to consideration of a variety of management techniques,
and the factors under which management pursued certain strategies. Edwards
for example, in his book Contested Terrain, argued the labour process in American
industry had developed progressively from simple direct controls to more indirect
forms. Unlike Braverman, he argued that worker resistance was the major reason
underlying changes in the means of control. For example, he claimed that during the
competitive period of capitalist development, entrepreneurs relied upon personal
control of their workforce. As fi rm size increased, employers delegated responsibility
to foremen and supervisors. However, the harsh and arbitrary manner in which
foremen dealt with workers led to labour disputes, and eventually forced managers
to experiment with new techniques such as welfarism, scientifi c management, and
company unionism. With the failure of these techniques by the 1930s, Edwards
argued managers adopted more indirect control strategies determined by the
structural features of work. These included ‘technical control’, where the pace and
content of work was controlled through the design of production technology. While
technical control through innovations such as the assembly line ensured output, they
also unifi ed workers and increased their ability to slow and even stop production.
In response to such organised resistance, Edwards argued management increasingly
shifted towards ‘bureaucratic control’, in which the regulation of worker behaviour
22 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
was achieved through the formulation of work rules, job categories, wage scales,
and disciplinary procedures.13
Another model of labour process development was presented by Burawoy,
who explored both the role of the state as well as the ways in which employees
often consented to management’s workplace authority. Burawoy identifi ed three
periods of labour process development, which he termed ‘despotic’, ‘hegemonic’,
and ‘hegemonic despotism’. Despotism, he argued, was a common feature of
nineteenth century competitive capitalism, where employers through mechanisation
and the subdivision of jobs undermined workers’ bargaining power and maintained
discipline through the threat of dismissal. With the shift to monopoly capitalism,
Burawoy argued the decline in competitive pressure as well as an increase in
state intervention limited the application of despotic forms of control. Within this
hegemonic period, the state by providing welfare benefi ts and legislative recognition
of trade unions, forced employers to adopt practices aimed at gaining worker
consent. This was achieved by management establishing rules governing production.
Burawoy argued the last and most recent phase, hegemonic despotism, resulted
from the internationalisation of capitalism, in which labour made concessions to
management in order to prevent capital from moving overseas.14
While Edwards and Burawoy’s work broadened the analysis of the labour
process and management control, their work was also a source of further criticism
resulting in more fi ne-grained historical analysis. For example, while the concept
of management strategy implied omnipotence and rationality, detailed historical
studies of specifi c companies and industries highlighted the often ad hoc nature of
management action and the lack of long-term vision.15 Indeed, far from a common
model of employer strategy, detailed historical analysis revealed signifi cant industry
and company variation. For example, studies of the emergence of personnel
management in American industry during the 1920s and 1930s, not only highlighted
the important role of government and professional associations in promoting more
bureaucratic employment practice, but also signifi cant variation between fi rms and
industries.16
Moreover, labour strategies might involve combinations of practices at a variety of
levels which could prove complementary but also contradictory. For instance Gospel,
in his analysis of the history of British employer practice distinguished between
labour management practices at three levels. First, what he termed ‘employment
relations’ which included the recruitment, selection, training, and reward of
employees. Second, ‘work relations’, that is, how management chooses to organise
the technical and social features of work. Third, ‘industrial relations’, which referred
to the management of trade unions and the nature of collective bargaining. While
management might adopt a particular practice, its effect could well vary depending
on which level of labour management is examined. Hence, as Littler demonstrated
of British industry, while scientifi c management resulted in the bureaucratisation
of work relations (job design and the structures of shopfl oor control), such practices
had little impact upon employment relations.17
Appreciation of the complex and contingent nature of the labour process was
highlighted particularly in a number of cross-national comparative historical studies.
Although labour process analysis has tended to remain a largely Anglophone
phenomenon, studies such as Littler’s comparative analysis of labour process
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 23
developments in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan highlighted the
importance of different institutional arrangements in varying national paths of
labour process development. These included the varying role of government and
trade unions, as well as different sources of management knowledge transmission,
such as multinational companies and early management consultancies. These
themes of cross-national variation were also developed in other studies and edited
collections which highlighted the complex and contingent path of employer control
in a broadening range of country settings.18
Australian Research on the History of the Labour Process
In comparison to the rapid interest in the labour process amongst US and UK
researchers during the later 1970s and 1980s, Australian studies of the labour process
were slower to develop. Unlike America and Britain, Australia lacked an industrial
sociology tradition of workplace-level research with the study of industrial relations
dominated by a preoccupation with the formal institutions of industrial arbitration,
trade unions and employer associations. Moreover, while labour historians had made
signifi cant contributions to the study of the working class and labour movement,
issues of work organisation and management practice were often viewed as
contextual factors and remained largely neglected.19
This began to change during the mid to late 1980s as Australian researchers from
a variety of backgrounds began to focus on the issue of work organisation from an
historical perspective and seek to empirically test the local application of labour
process theory. Among the fi rst to broach this question were Connell and Irving, who
in their 1980 historical examination of class in Australia highlighted the scarcity of
existing empirical investigations of work organisation and managerial strategy. In
response, a number of writers sought to fi ll this gap. Game and Pringle’s 1983 book
Gender at Work, while not explicitly historical, focused on the gender division of
labour and highlighted the traditional role of sectors such as banking and insurance
as key locations of ‘women’s work’. Cochrane’s 1985 article in Labour History provided
an insightful overview of the changing nature of management control during the
post-World War II period. Based on an examination of management journals from the
1940s and 1950s, he emphasised the professionalisation of management in Australia
and growing employer interest in scientifi c management, personnel practices and
mechanisation. He argued that the changed economic context of the post-war boom
and full employment was a major impetus for employers to explore new means of
labour engagement and control.20 Other examples of a growing interest in labour
process concerns included Shields’ examination of the impact of arbitration court
decisions on employee skills and apprenticeship in the metal trades in the inter-war
period, and Nyland’s study of the role of the federal arbitration court in legitimating
scientifi c management ideas after the First World War.21
A range of industry-specifi c studies also emerged with an explicit focus on issues
of control, the labour process and management strategy. A prime example was
Frances’ research into the clothing and boot trades during the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries which stressed changing systems of management control, the use
of new technologies, deskilling and the gender division of labour. Other important
contributions included: Willis’ examination of the chain system in the meat industry;
Reekie’s study of the use of welfarism by the large department stores in the 1920s;
24 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
Patmore’s analysis of bureaucratic control and systematic management practices
in the NSW Railways; and studies by Wright and Quinlan of management’s labour
strategies in the early Australian steel industry.22 In all of these cases, researchers
focused on different types of employer strategies, fi nding distinctive patterns of
practice in very different industry settings.
However, despite this growing body of research, as Dunford stressed in a 1988
discussion paper, the historical development of Australian labour management
practice and labour process changes remained largely undocumented.23 While
studies such as Cochrane’s attempted to draw a general picture, they lacked the
empirical detail of workplace analysis. In contrast, industry studies provided a
more detailed examination although they were limited in scope and lacking any
comparative dimension. As a result, not only were signifi cant areas of industry yet
to be examined, but an integrated analysis was also lacking. This was important
as overseas research had highlighted not only the variety of labour strategies used
by employers, but also signifi cant variation between sectors and fi rms, suggesting
a complex explanation for how and why employers managed their workforce in
particular contexts. In Britain for example, changes in work organisation and labour
management practice during the inter-war period were most pronounced in new
mass production industries, such as chemical, automobile, electrical appliance and
consumer products manufacture. This contrasted with traditional industries where
labour process changes were introduced in a more piecemeal fashion. A similar
pattern of the variable adoption of new labour practices such as scientifi c and
personnel management was also evident in the USA, where workplace and business
historians pointed to a range of intra-fi rm and exogenous factors (for example, state
legislation, professionalisation) for differences in managerial approaches.24
During the 1990s, Australian research on workplace industrial relations, the
labour process and managerial strategy grew dramatically, infl uenced by public
policy interest in workplace industrial relations and microeconomic reform. While
this resulted in an increasing number of contemporary studies of different industries
and companies and their employment practices,25 these issues were also explored
from an historical perspective, adding signifi cantly to earlier research on the topic.
Indicative of this trend was a chapter devoted to the labour process in Patmore’s
1991 text Australian Labour History; Frances’ 1993 monograph The Politics of Work,
which brought together her earlier work on the clothing industry with additional
case studies of the footwear and printing industries;, and Wright’s 1995 book The
Management of Labour, which explored the history of Australian labour management
practice throughout the twentieth century.26
These studies not only documented the empirical detail of workplace history,
including an explicit acknowledgement of multiple management control strategies,
but also sought to use broader theories of management practice (including labour
process theory) to better explain why particular strategies were used by employers
and the contingent factors underlying variations in practice. For example, Wright’s
study used a combination of labour process and strategic choice theory. Building on
the work of Gospel, he explored how Australian employers had sought to increase
labour productivity and reduce labour cost at the levels of work, employment
and industrial relations through a combination of coercive and consent-based
strategies. Utilising a combination of archival sources, management publications,
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 25
and oral history interviews with former managers and employees, he found
signifi cant variations between fi rms in the use of scientifi c, personnel and industrial
relations management. Like Frances, he argued a combination of factors including
fi rm structure, ownership, product and labour markets, explained some of these
variations, as well as other actors such as arbitration tribunals and trade unions which
sought to regulate and possibly control practices. Wright also stressed the impact of
other fi rm-external actors including knowledge diffusion agents such as management
consultancies, government departments and professional associations.27
An increasing number of studies have now appeared in Australian labour history
and industrial relations journals exploring various features of management control
over work and linking this to different theoretical concerns. Examples here included
Taksa’s study of ‘Taylorism’ as a cultural ideology of workplace change in her study
of scientifi c management in the NSW Railway workshops, Cockfi eld’s exploration of
the impact of state arbitration on managerial prerogative and workplace control in
the Victorian metal industry, and Bramble’s investigation of the origins of industrial
relations strategy in the post-war auto manufacturing industry.28 Indeed by the
late 1990s it was possible to discern a number of key themes that underpinned the
Australian study of the history of the labour process. First, and in line with overseas
labour process writing, Australian researchers quickly moved beyond a concern with
deskilling as the dominant form of managerial control to a consideration of a broader
range of employer strategies. Hence, while there has been signifi cant attention (and
some might argue a preoccupation) with Taylorism and scientifi c management, there
has also been extensive investigation of technological change, corporate welfarism,
company unionism, personnel management, and industrial relations strategies.29
Second, the Australian literature placed particular emphasis on the role of the state
as both a potential constraint on employer activity, as well as a source of legitimation
for managerial authority. For example, Quinlan’s study of management strategy
in the steel industry stressed the critical role of arbitration courts as enforcers of
managerial prerogative. The state also proved pivotal in advocating for new forms
of management practice over time, whether it was Whitley Councils in the 1920s,
personnel management in the 1940s and 1950s, or industrial democracy and work
redesign in the 1970s and 1980s.30 Third, Australian researchers emphasised the role
of labour and trade union response to management practice as a key determinant
in the spread of techniques such as scientifi c management and more formalised
personnel and industrial relations management. This extended beyond a view of
labour as a homogenous entity and stressed the importance of skill, gender and ethnic
divisions as central to the contestation that followed workplace change. A prime
example in this regard were studies of the post-war steel and auto industries, which
emphasised the important role of a large migrant workforce for employer strategies
of mass production. As Lever-Tracy and Quinlan noted, the divided nature of the
working class in post-war Australia meant very different workplace experiences in
terms of the patterns of work intensifi cation.31
While the frequency of published Australian research on the history of
management strategy, technological change and employer practice has declined
in recent years, there have been a number of notable studies which have further
broadened our knowledge of these issues with respect to under-researched industries
and practices. For example, recent studies by Pragnell and Balnave have done much
26 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
to expand our understanding of corporate welfarism, a concept which is extensively
documented overseas. Similarly, business historians such as Merrett and Seltzer have
undertaken a detailed exploration of personnel practices in the early Australian
banking industry and helped to expand our understanding of service sector labour
management practice. Finally, while the details of labour management in unionised
industries is increasingly well documented, we know surprisingly little about the
history of employment practices in small fi rms and non-unionised companies,
although an interesting article by Kerr provides useful insights into this neglected
part of Australian industrial history.32
However, beyond widening the ambit of our empirical focus, are there other
conceptual insights that can be applied to a labour process perspective of Australian
history? In the section that follows I consider some possibilities for broadening the
conceptual lens of historical workplace studies and whether recent debates in the
fi elds of workplace sociology and organisation studies might offer inspiration for a
renewed appreciation of the labour process.
Future Directions for Historically-Informed Labour Process Research
Despite the declining academic popularity of labour process analysis, there is still
signifi cant potential for further historical work in a labour process tradition which
draws on new and emerging themes from the broader social sciences. Focusing on
recent developments in workplace sociology and organisational studies, a number
of areas offer signifi cant potential for future historical research.
Managerial and Professional Identity
A key theme of much recent research in organisation and critical management
studies has been the issue of managerial identity and the contradictory location of
managers as both controllers of subordinate employees, as well as being subject
to control themselves in terms of their performance and work intensity. Indeed, a
growing body of literature has highlighted how managerial employees have been a
particular focus of organisational restructuring through ‘downsizing’, ‘reengineering’
and ‘delayering’.33 These trends are often portrayed as recent phenomena, however
we know surprisingly little about how managers themselves have been managed
over time and how they have sought to rationalise their position of authority.
While isolated historical insights can be found in studies of particular industries
and company histories which have highlighted the important role of foremen and
early innovations in ‘staff’ development and executive education, the history of
how managerial cadres have developed in different Australian industry settings has
yet to be comprehensively documented.34 Exploring management and managers as
specifi c subjects of historical inquiry could provide not only rich empirical insights,
but also inform broader conceptual debates around self-perceptions of their role,
the nature of leadership, and changes in managerial careers.
A second dimension of managerial identity relates to the potential for fractions
of management to emerge around distinct functional and occupational traditions.
For example, Armstrong’s studies of the history of inter-occupational competition
between accounting, engineering and personnel specialists in British industry,
and Shenhav’s study of the history of the engineering profession highlight the
importance of intra-managerial competition and ‘turf wars’ based around defi ned
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 27
occupational specialisms. For instance, the history of personnel and human resource
management highlights how different management specialists are often engaged in
a ‘professional project’ aimed at increasing their legitimacy and status as functional
experts. However, these claims to professional status are rarely uncontested, nor are
they necessarily successful. While existing research sheds some light on the varying
fortunes of different management functions over time, we are yet to see similar
studies to those of Armstrong and Shenhav with regard to the history of Australian
‘managerial professions’.35
Organisational Change and Management Innovation
A second theme which may offer insight for further historical research on the
labour process and managerial strategy is the issue of organisational change and
management innovation. Again while there is a signifi cant mainstream and critical
management literature focused on these issues, historical research into the reasons
why and how employers change control practices over time could provide valuable
insights into an area that is dominated by a largely ‘presentist’ methodology, and
which sees contemporary change as unprecedented.36 As studies such as Pettigrew’s
analysis of ICI and Child and Smith’s study of Cadbury demonstrate, longitudinal
and historical case studies of business organisations and their approaches to
labour can provide useful insights into the role of changes in managerial personnel
and values, corporate governance, technologies, and markets in the evolution of
managerial control. While there are many interesting histories of major Australian
companies which provide empirical insights into some of these issues, it is rare to fi nd
academic investigations of single-company cases which engage with these broader
theoretical debates. Potential topics for such historical case studies of organisational
change could include the different strategies and forms through which managers
‘manage change’, as well as the political nature of organisational change as a process
involving contested interests.37
The Nature and Control of Service Work
A third theme for future historical research relates to recent contributions to the study
of service work. A legitimate criticism of much of the fi rst and second-generation
labour process literature was its focus on manufacturing industries to the exclusion
of service work. While there have been several Australian historical studies of
service industries such as retail and banking, these are less common than studies of
manufacturing industries, where the techniques of formalised shopfl oor production
control, personnel and industrial relations management predominate.38 Moreover,
while historical research on employer strategies such as corporate welfarism have
touched on issues of service work,39 historical studies into the labour process of
Australian service work could be expanded.
A broadened focus on the history of service work could for instance include a
broader range of service settings such as airlines, hospitality, health services, and
fi nancial and professional business services. Several good overseas examples in this
regard are Yates’ history of communication and offi ce technologies, and Downey’s
historical investigation of telegraph messengers, both of which highlight the complex
interplay of technology, skills and managerial control in diverse service work
settings.40 Second, the theoretical lens could be broadened to include new concepts
28 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
from contemporary studies of service work. Key examples here include theoretical
constructs such as ‘emotional’ and ‘aesthetic’ labour. For instance, these concepts
might provide signifi cant conceptual purchase in industries such as the airline
industry and other ‘frontline’ work where customer engagement is a key source of
perceived service quality.41
Globalisation and Comparative Labour Process Analysis
Finally, a fourth area for future historical research of the labour process relates to
the globalisation of work. In particular, there is a need to extend Australian insights
of managerial practice within a broader comparative historical understanding of
different institutional and cultural contexts. While there are many insightful studies
into the changing nature of work in newly industrialised settings, many of these
adopt a contemporary perspective, or adopt a single country historical review.42
Genuine comparative historical research into the evolution of the labour process is
less common, but what work has been conducted has provided valuable insights
by highlighting differences that single-country studies often assume as givens.43
For example, several studies have explored the comparative history of Australian,
Canadian and British employer practice, and stressed the importance of economic
structure, shared cultural heritage, geographic location and paths of knowledge
diffusion, as key factors underlying variations in the extent and sophistication of
management practice. Indeed, the expansion of historical comparative research into
a broader range of settings with similar colonial or resource-intensive economies to
Australia (for example, South America or Africa) may provide even richer conceptual
insights regarding the role of diverse institutional and cultural contexts.44
One useful conceptual model in this respect is provided by Smith and Meiksins,
who emphasise an historical approach to the study of comparative political economy
and workplace relations. In particular, their model goes beyond the dichotomy of
national difference versus economic convergence, and stresses the importance of
a ‘dominance effect’ of perceived ‘superior’ or legitimate models of management
practice. These and related insights such as Abrahamson’s concept of ‘management
fashion’ provide space for a more agential view of managers and other diffusion
agents (such as consultants, ‘management intellectuals’ and business schools),
in the promotion and adoption of new management practice. From a historical
perspective, changes in the labour process are then seen as occurring within a
broader international context of management knowledge diffusion, varying levels
of economic development, and distinct national institutional variations which can
impede or promote the adoption of new and hybrid forms of shopfl oor control.45
Conclusion
The growth of post-structuralism and the ‘discursive turn’ that now characterises
mainstream critical management studies has resulted in a waning of academic
interest in traditional labour process analysis. Rather than a homogenous and
all-powerful management exerting total control over its workforce, conceptions
of work now encapsulate a more nuanced view of control and resistance, which
provides space for the subjective perceptions and views of the managers and the
managed. Importantly however, workplace sociology, work organisation and labour
management continue to be vibrant areas of research as evidenced by the volume
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 29
of critical studies on new industries and types of ‘atypical’ work. For instance,
research into agency employment, call centres and the global outsourcing and
relocation of work demonstrate a continued empirical and conceptual concern with
how employees are managed at work, and increasingly how these employees and
managers understand their role and identity at work.46
Australian research on the history of the labour process, while somewhat later
to develop than in the USA and UK, has provided a signifi cant body of scholarship
which has revealed a multi-faceted pattern of employer strategies. While the
central concern of labour process analysis involves a straightforward distinction
between the potential and reality of employees to produce value (labour power
versus labour), how employers seek to ensure such a conversion has resulted in an
increasingly complex picture. Issues of managerial control, deskilling, technological
change and worker resistance have been highlighted as key components of the
Australian workplace over time. However, the Australian labour process has also
been distinctive in the limited and variable uptake of specifi c control strategies (for
example, scientifi c management), the strength of organised labour, and the critical
role that the state has played as a regulator of workplace behaviour and a bulwark
for managerial prerogative.
While interest in the labour process from an historical perspective has perhaps
declined in recent years, drawing on recent contributions from critical management
and organisation studies offers insights for further historical investigation. This paper
has highlighted four areas where recent research may offer conceptual inspiration,
specifi cally, questions of managerial and professional identity; organisational
change and management innovation; the nature and control of service work; and
globalisation and comparative labour process analysis. These are areas which offer
potentially rich and interesting historical terrain. Far from the death of labour
process analysis proclaimed by its critics, I would suggest there is plenty of life left
for a conceptual framework that focuses on a core feature of human existence – the
nature of work.
Christopher Wright is a Professor of Organisational Studies in the University of Sydney
Business School. His research focuses on the diffusion of management knowledge, managerial
and professional identity, and organisational change. He is currently exploring business
responses to climate change.
<christopher.wright@sydney.edu.au>
Endnotes
* The author wishes to thank the two anonymous referees who reviewed this article for their
constructive criticism.
1. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century,
Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974; Paul Thompson, The Nature of Work: An Introduction to
Debates on the Labour Process, Macmillan, London, 1983.
2 John Hassard, John Hogan, and Michael Rowlinson, ‘From labor process theory to critical
management studies’, Administrative Theory and Praxis, vol. 23, no. 3, 2001, pp. 339-62; Paul
Thompson and Chris Smith, ‘Follow the redbrick road: Refl ections on pathways in and out of the
labor process debate’, International Studies of Management and Organization, vol. 30, no. 4, 2000, pp.
40-67; David Knights and Hugh Willmott, (eds), Labor Process Theory, Macmillan, Basingstoke,
1990; Stephen J. Jaros, ‘Labor process theory’, International Studies of Management and Organization,
vol. 30, no. 4, 2000, pp. 25-39.
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30 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
3. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital; Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of
the Workplace in the Twentieth Century, Basic Books, New York, 1979.
4. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital; David Harvey, The Limits to Capital, Basil Blackwell,
London, 1982, pp. 106-10; Craig Littler, The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: A
Comparative Analysis of Work Organisation in Britain, the USA, and Japan, Heinemann, London, 1982,
pp. 20-27; Thompson, Nature of Work, pp. 67-87.
5. John Kelly, Scientifi c Management, Job Redesign, and Work Performance, Academic Press, London,
1982.
6. Edward Palmer Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, V. Gollancz, London, 1964;
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, ‘The political crisis of social history: A Marxian
perspective’, Journal of Social History, vol. 10, no. 2, 1976, pp. 205-20.
7. Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of
Industrialization, Harper & Row, New York, 1963; Allan Fox, Man Mismanagement, Hutchinson,
London, 1974; Donald Roy, ‘Quota restriction and goldbricking in a machine shop’, American
Journal of Sociology, vol. 57, no. 5, 1952, pp. 427-42.
8. Joan Woodward, Industrial Organisation: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1965; Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of the Enterprise, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1960; Alfred
Chandler, Strategy and Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1962.
9. Littler, Development of the Labour Process, pp. 25-6.
10. See, for example, David Stark, ‘Class struggle and the transformation of the labor process’, Theory
and Society, vol. 9, 1980, pp. 89-129.
11. Edwards, Contested Terrain, pp. 97-104; Littler, Development of the Labour Process, pp. 30, 46-63.
12. Thompson, Nature of Work, p. 74.
13. Edwards, Contested Terrain.
14. Michael Burawoy, ‘Towards a Marxist theory of the labour process: Braverman and beyond’,
Politics and Society, vol. 8, no. 3-4, 1978, pp. 247-312; Michael Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent:
Changes in the Labour Process under Monopoly Capitalism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1979;
Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production, Factory Regimes under Capitalism and Socialism, Verso,
London, 1985.
15. Howard Gospel, Markets, Firms and the Management of Labour in Modern Britain, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
16. Sanford Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions and the Transformation of Work in American
Industry, 1900-1945, Colombia University Press, New York, 1985; James N. Baron, Frank R. Dobbin,
and P. Devereaux Jennings, ‘War and peace: The evolution of modern personnel administration in
U.S. industry’, The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 92, no. 2, 1986, pp. 350-83.
17. Howard Gospel, ‘New managerial approaches to industrial relations: Major paradigms and
historical perspective’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 25, no. 2, 1983, pp. 162-76; Gospel, Markets,
Firms and the Management of Labour; Littler, Development of the Labour Process.
18. Littler, Development of the Labour Process; Howard Gospel and Craig Littler, (eds), Managerial
Strategies and Industrial Relations: An Historical and Comparative Study, Heinemann, London, 1983;
Steven Tolliday and Jonathan Zeitlin, (eds), The Power to Manage? Employers and Industrial Relations
in Comparative-Historical Perspective, Routledge, London, 1991.
19. Ron Callus and Russell Lansbury, ‘Workplace industrial relations’, Labour and Industry, vol. 1, no. 2,
1988, pp. 364-72; Christopher Wright, The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995.
20. Robert Connell and Terry Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and
Argument, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980; A. Game and R. Pringle, Gender at Work, George
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983; Peter Cochrane, ‘Company time: Management ideology and the
labour process, 1940-1960’, Labour History, vol. 48, 1985, pp. 54-68.
21. Chris Nyland, ‘Higgins, scientifi c management and the 44-hour week’, in K. Hince and A. Williams
(eds), Industrial Relations: Research Themes, Association of Industrial Relations Academics of
Australia and New Zealand and Industrial Relations Centre, Wellington, 1987, pp. 187-230; John
Shields, ‘Capital, craft unions and metal trades apprenticeship in NSW prior to World War II’, in
Drew Cottle (ed.), Capital Essays, UNSW, Kensington, 1984, pp. 6-18.
22. Raelene Frances, ‘No more Amazons: Gender and work process in the Victorian clothing
trades, 1890-1939’, Labour History, no. 50, 1986, pp. 95-112; Evan Willis, ‘Trade union reaction
to technological change: The introduction of the chain system in the meat export industry’,
Prometheus, vol. 3, no. 1, 1985, pp. 51-70; Gail Reekie, ‘“Humanising industry”: Paternalism,
welfarism and labour control in Sydney’s big stores 1890-1930’, Labour History, no. 53, 1987, pp.
1-19; Greg Patmore, ‘Systematic management and bureaucracy: The NSW railways prior to 1932’,
Labour and Industry, vol. 1, no. 2, 1988, pp. 306-21; Christopher Wright, ‘The formative years of
management control at the Newcastle Steelworks, 1913-1924’, Labour History, vol. 55, 1988, pp. 55-
70; Michael Quinlan, ‘Managerial strategy and industrial relations in the Australian steel industry
1945-1975: A case study’, in Managing Labour?, Mark Bray and Vic Taylor (eds), McGraw-Hill,
Sydney, 1986, pp. 20-47.
23. Richard Dunford, ‘Scientifi c management in Australia: A discussion paper’, Labour and Industry,
vol. 1, no. 3, 1988, pp. 505-15.
Wright • Historical Interpretations of the Labour Process 31
24. Littler, Development of the Labour Process; Miriam Glucksmann, ‘In a class of their own? Women
workers in the new industries in inter-war Britain’, Feminist Review, no. 24, 1986, pp. 7-37; Jacoby,
Employing Bureaucracy; Baron et al., ‘War and peace’; Daniel Nelson, ‘Scientifi c management and
the workplace, 1920-1935’, in Sanford Jacoby (ed.), Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative
Perspectives on American Employers, New York, 1991, pp. 74-89.
25. See, for example, Tom Bramble, ‘Political economy and management strategy in the metal and
engineering industry’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 31, no. 1, 1989, pp. 22-45; Christopher
Wright and John Lund, ‘Best practice Taylorism: “Yankee speed-up” in Australian grocery
distribution’, The Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 38, no. 2, 1996, pp. 196-212.
26. Raelene Frances, The Politics of Work: Gender and Labour in Victoria, 1880-1930, Cambridge
University Press, Melbourne, 1993; Greg Patmore, Australian Labour History, Longman Cheshire,
Melbourne, 1991; Wright, Management of Labour.
27. Frances, Politics of Work; Gospel, Markets, Firms and the Management of Labour; Wright, Management
of Labour.
28. Lucy Taksa, ‘Scientifi c management: Technique or cultural ideology?’, Journal of Industrial Relations,
vol. 34, no. 3, 1992, pp. 365-95; Sandra Cockfi eld, ‘Arbitration, mass production and workplace
relations: “Metal industry” developments in the 1920s’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, no. 1,
1993, pp. 19-38; Tom Bramble, ‘Strategy in context: The impact of changing regulatory regimes on
industrial relations management in the Australian vehicle industry’, Asia Pacifi c Journal of Human
Resources, vol. 34, no. 3, 1996, pp. 48-62.
29. On Taylorism, see Taksa, ‘Scientifi c management’; Christopher Wright, ‘Taylorism reconsidered:
The impact of scientifi c management within the Australian workplace’, Labour History, vol. 64,
1993, pp. 34-53. For examples of other studies see Eric Eckland, ‘Managers, workers, and industrial
welfarism: Management strategies at ER&S and the Sulphide Corporation, 1895-1929’, Australian
Economic History Review, vol. 37, no. 2, 1997, pp. 137-57; Christopher Wright, ‘Employment,
selection and training procedures in Australian manufacturing, 1940-1960’, Journal of Industrial
Relations, vol. 33, no. 2, 1991, pp. 178-95.
30. Quinlan, ‘Managerial strategy’; Wright, Management of Labour.
31. Constance Lever-Tracy and Michael Quinlan, A Divided Working Class, Ethnic Segmentation and
Industrial Confl ict in Australia, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1988; Robert Tierney, ‘Racial
confl icts in the Australian automotive industry in the 1950s: Production line workers, the Vehicle
Builders Employees’ Federation and shop fl oor organisation’, Labour History, no. 76, 1999, pp. 20-
40.
32. Nikola Balnave, Industrial Welfarism in Australia, 1890-1965, PhD Thesis, University of Sydney,
2002; Brad Pragnell, ‘Selling Consent’: A History of Paternalism and Welfarism at David Jones
Limited, 1838-1958, PhD Thesis, University of New South Wales, 2001; David Merrett and Andrew
Seltzer, ‘Work in the fi nancial services industry and worker monitoring: A study of the Union Bank
of Australia in the 1920s’, Business History, vol. 42, no. 3, 2000, pp. 133-52; Melissa Kerr, ‘Labour
management practices in non-union fi rms: Australian abrasive industry 1945-70’, Labour History,
no. 92, 2007, pp. 75-88.
33. See for example Craig R. Littler, Retha Wiesner, and Richard Dunford, ‘The dynamics of
delayering: Changing management structures in three countries’, Journal of Management Studies,
vol. 40, no. 2, 2003, pp. 225-56.
34. For example BHP and David Jones are two examples of early innovation in what is now termed
‘management development’, see Wright, Management of Labour, p. 21. For some insights into
changes in organisational structure and corporate governance in Australian companies see Grant
Fleming, David Merrett, and Simon Ville, The Big End of Town: Big Business and Corporate Leadership
in Twentieth-Century Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.
35. Peter Armstrong, ‘Management control strategies and inter-professional competition: The cases
of accountancy and personnel management’, in David Knights and Hugh Willmott Gower (eds),
Managing the Labour Process, London, 1986, pp. 19-43; Peter Armstrong, ‘Engineers, management
and trust’, Work Employment and Society, vol. 1, no. 4, 1987, pp. 421-40; Y.A. Shenhav, Manufacturing
Rationality: The Engineering Foundations of the Managerial Revolution, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1999; Christopher Wright, ‘Reinventing human resource management: Business partners,
internal consultants and the limits to professionalisation’, Human Relations, vol. 61, no. 8, 2008, pp.
1063-86.
36. See for example Dexter Dunphy and Doug Stace, ‘Transformational and coercive strategies
for planned organizational change: Beyond the O.D. model’, Organization Studies, vol. 9, no.
3, 1988, pp. 317-34; Sandy Piderit, ‘Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A
multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change’, Academy of Management
Review, vol. 25, no. 4, 2000, pp. 783-94.
37. Andrew Pettigrew, The Awakening Giant: Continuity and Change in Imperial Chemical Industries,
Blackwell, Oxford, 1985. For some recent examples of Australian historical cases of organisational
change and labour management see Monica Keneley, ‘In the service of the society: The labour
management practices of an Australian life insurer to 1940’, Business History, vol. 48, no. 4, 2006,
pp. 529-50; Mark Westcott, ‘Markets and managerial discretion: Tooth & Co., 1970-1981’, Business
History, vol. 50, no. 5, 2008, pp. 602-18.
32 Labour History • Number 100 • May 2011
38. See for example Merrett and Seltzer, ‘Work in the fi nancial services industry’; Reekie, ‘Humanising
industry’.
39. Sanford Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism since the New Deal, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ, 1997; Pragnell, ‘Selling Consent’.
40. Joanne Yates, Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1993; Gregory J. Downey, Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor,
Technology, and Geography, 1850-1950, Routledge, New York, 2002.
41. A. Hochschild, The Managed Heart, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1983; Chris
Warhurst and Dennis Nickson, ‘A new labour aristocracy? Aesthetic labour and routine interactive
service’, Work Employment Society, vol. 21, no. 4, 2007, pp. 785-98; Steve Taylor and Melissa Tyler,
‘Emotional labour and sexual difference in the airline industry’, Work, Employment and Society, vol.
14, no. 1, 2000, pp. 77-95.
42. Jos Gamble, Jonathan Morris, and Barry Wilkinson, ‘Mass production is alive and well: The future
of work and organization in East Asia’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol.
15, no. 2, 2004, pp. 397-409; Chris Smith and Ngai Pun, ‘The dormitory labour regime in China as
a site for control and resistance’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 17, no.
8, 2006, pp. 1456-70; William Tsutsui, Manufacturing Ideology: Scientifi c Management in Twentieth
Century Japan, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1998.
43. Littler, Development of the Labour Process; Tolliday and Zeitlin (eds), The Power to Manage?; Mauro
Guillén, Models of Management: Work, Authority, and Organization in a Comparative Perspective,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.
44. Jacques Ferland and Christopher Wright, ‘Rural and urban labour processes: A comparative
analysis of Australian and Canadian development’, Labour/Le Travail, vol. 38, 1996, pp. 142-69;
Arthur McIvor and Christopher Wright, ‘Managing labour: UK and Australian employers in
comparative perspective, 1900-1950’, Labour History, vol. 88, 2005, pp. 45-62.
45. Chris Smith and Peter Meiksins, ‘System, society and dominance effects in cross-national
organisational analysis’, Work, Employment and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, 1995, pp. 241-67; Chris Smith,
‘Work organisation within a dynamic globalising context: A critique of national institutional
analysis of the international fi rm and an alternative perspective’, in Chris Smith, Brendan
McSweeney, and Robert Fitzgerald (eds), Remaking Management: Between Global and Local,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 25-60; Eric Abrahamson, ‘Management
fashion’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 21, no. 1, 1996, pp. 254-85.
46. See for example Stephen R. Barley and Gideon Kunda, Gurus, Hired Guns and Warm Bodies,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2004; Paul Thompson and Chris Smith, (eds), Working
Life: Renewing Labour Process Analysis, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010.
