Higher Education And Corporate Realities

Class, Culture And The Decline Of Graduate Careers

Phillip Brown, Richard Scase

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781135370596
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A new approach to the analysis of cultural reproduction focusing on the impact of economic change. The book demonstrates the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes in recruitment caused by interaction between corporate restructuring and the education system.; This book is intended for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates in sociology with an interest in the sociology of work and the sociology of education as well as researchers and students within human resource management and cultural studies.

CHAPTER ONE

Organizational change and managerial careers

The growth of large-scale organizations has been one of the major social trends of the 20th century. In all the industrialized societies, there has been the emergence of multinational corporations that have dominated and shaped the character of domestic economies and the global division of labour (Chandler 1977, Wallerstein 1979). Alongside this process there has been the growth of state institutions as a result of a need to provide services in such areas as education, health, and social welfare (Esping-Andersen 1990). Despite the rediscovered popularity of “enterprise” and “entrepreneurship”, state institutions in most of the advanced capitalist economies continue to shape the character of the social structure as well as the economic fabric within which profit-making corporations operate (Burrows 1991). Therefore, it is not surprising that the dominance of large-scale institutions—both in the private and the public sectors—has attracted the attention of social scientists. The emergence of such organized forms raises important issues about patterns of decision-making in society, ownership and control, and social accountability (Kumar 1989). Further, the growth of large-scale organizations has fundamental ramifications for the dynamics of class relationships and, coupled with them, the patterning of opportunity structures. Indeed, no analysis of social class and social mobility in society can be undertaken adequately without consideration being given to the broader processes of organizational change (Scase 1992).

Unfortunately, there are few studies of organizational change that are related to analyses of the dynamics of class relationships and to the distribution of opportunities and rewards in society. A number of factors account for this, not least the fragmentation of sociological research into a number of subdivisions such as “education”, “work and organization”, “social class and stratification”, so that key inter-relationships are neglected because they cut across what have now become traditional academic divisions within sociology. Although sociological research in the areas of social class, education, stratification, and social mobility has documented historically and cross-nationally broader social trends, rarely have these been related to specific processes of organizational change and how they, in turn, lead to changing demands for different kinds of human talent (Sabel 1982). Thus there are few sociologically-informed studies of how organizational restructuring is requiring new management competences and offering different kinds of careers with important implications for staff recruitment and training (Constable and McCormick 1987). The lack of such analysis is especially surprising, given that a process of organizational restructuring is currently affecting the nature of managerial work and this, in turn, is leading to changing demands for the “quality” and “nature” of human skills (Handy 1989). The selection of those chosen for employment in large organizations is becoming both more complex and indeterminate because of the growing importance that senior managers attach to intangible personal qualities in their recruitment processes (Scase and Goffee 1989). This is having ramifications for the “providers” of managerial and professional skills, such as institutions of higher education (IHEs). Hence, one of the reasons why corporate leaders claim that higher education is failing to meet the needs of industry in Britain is not because of the precise quality of technical competences which university students acquire, but because of their perceived inability to produce personal qualities considered to be appropriate for newly-emerging paradigms of organization (CBI 1989).

During the immediate postwar decades the prevailing paradigm of organizational design was one that emphasized the desirability of bureaucracy and the bureaucratic mode of operation.¹ Thus, as organizations expanded, corporate leaders developed systems of administration which were largely based upon Fordist methods and principles (Gramsci 1971). As on the shop floor, the ongoing pursuit of cost-effectiveness and rationality was achieved through job fragmentation and the creation of management processes based upon a precisely defined division of work tasks (Braverman 1974). If the principles of Fordism (or scientific management) enabled managers to exercise tight supervisory control over shop floor operatives, it was the opinion of corporate leaders that similar methods could be applied to the execution of middle managerial and administrative work tasks. Accordingly, administrative work processes could be systematically investigated through “scientific” enquiry and, on the basis of detailed analysis of each persons work tasks, rational administrative and managerial work processes could be created (Bendix 1956). It was because of this that the postwar decades witnessed the rapid growth of “management science” as an academic discipline, with its application of the techniques of operational research and systems analysis to management practices.

The outcome was the design of organizations according to a number of core principles, many of which have become synonymous with the notion of bureaucracy as it is conventionally discussed within the sociological literature (Child 1984). Thus the rational and therefore cost effective organization was one in which there was centralized control with hierarchical decision-making. Gommunication procedures were required to be vertically structured so that those vested with senior managerial authority could monitor and control the flow of information and determine the effective allocation of resources within the organization. The bureaucratic paradigm of organization stressed the need for tasks to be allocated according to strictly defined principles of superordination and subordination. Hence obedience and compliance were strongly emphasized as organizational values. But equally important was the breakdown of the total work process into precisely defined job tasks. If this was one of the essential features of “Fordist” forms of shop floor organization (Sabel 1982), it was considered just as pertinent for determining the rational allocation of duties among managers with the adoption of bureaucratic forms of control, the potential indeterminacy and ambiguity of managerial work is routinized into coordinated and precisely designated job descriptions which become the tasks and duties of individuals. Consequently, a further objective of Fordism can be attained, namely the nurturing of “expert” skills and competences. But as managers undertake their duties within a clearly designated division of tasks, bounded by systems of authority and steeped in relationships of superordination and subordination, they become dependent upon both the organization and each other through rôle allocation in the exercise of their duties. At the same time, a cognitive management style emerges which emphasizes dependency, conformity, co-operation, and “satisfactory” job performance (Merton 1964).

The implications of such assumptions for recruitment procedures are selfevident. The overriding goal is to select those who are prepared to undertake their tasks in a compliant, dutiful, and reliable manner. The required behaviour of middle managers is to perform “satisfactorily” rather than “outstandingly”, if only because the latter can lead to uncertainties and therefore ambiguities within the work process. Staff recruitment therefore focuses upon those who can demonstrate an ability to learn the rules, who are prepared to be compliant within rôles of superordination and subordination, and who are able to work with others within a functionally interdependent division of labour. They are not expected to be “creative”, “entrepreneurial”, or “individualistic” since these qualities can lead to an undermining of the bureaucratic culture upon which modern administrative techniques are established. Traditionally, such requirements have been reflected in the British educational system, with those graduating from the “elite” universities being selected for future senior management positions in which, in the exercise of their own creativity, responsibility and discretion, they manage others. These people, in turn, through their own schooling and university experiences, can be relied upon to undertake their organizational tasks in a compliant, routine and bureaucratic fashion (Brown and Lauder 1992).

It is for these reasons that British companies continue to be characterized by a particular feature, namely, the selection of future senior managers from a very restricted number of elite universities (Handy 1987). For such positions, the experiences of elite forms of higher education that encourage the exercise of “independent thought” and “judgement” are seen as essential. For middle and junior managerial positions on the other hand, there is a tendency to recruit from the less prestigious schools, colleges and Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) which recruit those who have enjoyed a particular pattern of family and childhood socialization. Hence, they are inclined to select middle-class white males (and increasingly females) who are perceived to be capable of ultimately filling “middle” management positions. It is assumed that these students possess the necessary personal characteristics to perform their duties in a compliant and routinized manner. The growth of large-scale organizations, then, structured on the basis of Fordist or bureaucratic principles, have had a number of implications for the nature of class relationships, social mobility and for the rôle of IHEs in Britain (Perkin 1989). Certainly, during the early postwar decades, the structuring of organizations according to bureaucratic principles offered relatively secure middle-class career paths (Wilensky 1962).² By undertaking their work tasks according to clearly-specified procedures and precisely-formulated job descriptions, they were able to enjoy reasonably high earnings and social status. As middle managers, they commanded “respect”, both within the workplace and in the wider community (Pahl and Pahl 1971). Accordingly, the expansion of the middle class, claimed to be symptomatic of the affluence of the 1960s and early 1970s, was contingent upon the development of organizational forms that required the recruitment of people for the rapidly expanding number of “routine” corporate managerial positions (Young and Willmott 1973). A consequence of these organizational processes was the perception of a class structure that was breaking down because of fluid and growing occupational opportunities.

However, since the early 1970s the bureaucratic paradigm that has shaped the modern corporation and notions of managerial competence has been subject to revision and reform. A number of factors contributed to this change in mood among corporate managers, three of which seem to be particularly pertinent. First, the oil crisis of 1973 not only increased the production costs of British companies, but also weakened the competitive position of the British economy as a whole. Secondly, this sense of economic decline was fuelled by the rapid industrialization of Pacific Rim countries and an apparent ability to outperform British companies in an increasingly competitive global economy. Therefore, the competitive success of Japanese and Pacific Rim companies was forcing many corporate leaders to review their business practices and to reassess the costeffectiveness of Fordist and bureaucratic-based management systems (Harvey 1989). Thirdly, the early 1970s witnessed a series of industrial disputes which led to the development of a widespread opinion among corporate leaders that management had lost the will, competence and/or right to manage, and that organized labour had become the dominant economic and political force. Within a corporatist framework of industrial relations it was commonly argued that excessive wage demands from organized labour had led to an accelerated fall in profit margins. As a result, corporate bosses claimed that they were reluctant to invest in new productive capacity and to expand their business operations in Britain.

Cost effective pressures have also become increasingly evident within public sector organizations, such as in the remaining state owned utilities, health, welfare and education institutions. With the election of the 1979 Conservative government, committed to reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, lowering overall levels of personal taxation, and “cutting back” the rôle of the state in the economy as a whole, public sector managers were under similar pressures to review their costs and to reappraise the effectiveness of their organizational and management practices. These trends continue today as private and public sector organizations strive to be more cost effective and efficient. Managers, accordingly, are pressurized constantly to achieve higher levels of measurable performance. Demands for greater efficiency in uncertain market (and political) conditions mean that they can no longer be assured of relatively secure jobs with reasonably predictable career paths. In common with other categories of employees, they are now the victims of corporate restructuring such that their jobs and duties are frequently redesigned, changed and often made redundant (Handy 1989). Even those organizations that have expanded their trading activities over the past decade have often been able to do so without increasing managerial and other staff levels. Changes in national and global markets have led corporations to implement strategies geared to the production and sales of products and services for specialist “niches” rather than for general markets. Often, organizational restructuring has led to the setting-up of smaller, wholly owned subsidiaries and “strategic business units”. Further, corporate strategies since the late 1970s are more likely to be concerned with achieving profits through consolidating and contracting trading activities rather than through generating high-volume growth. At the same time, the implementation of computer-based information systems has enabled senior management to cut overheads by reducing their need for routine clerical workers and various categories of junior and middle managers (Zuboff 1989). But perhaps most important of all, the economic and political pressures that have increasingly impinged upon the operation of large-scale organizations in both public and private sectors has brought about the demise of the bureaucratic paradigm, as the basis upon which effective and rational mana gerial decision-making can be structured. It has been superseded by “flatter”, “looser” postbureaucratic organizational models which emphasize alternative attributes (Minzberg 1983).

A major part of the rhetoric within present-day senior management strategies is to abolish bureaucratic forms of organization, in order to eliminate cultures which foster risk avoidance and conformist, “ritualistic” forms of behaviour. The popularity of bureaucracy rested upon the extent to which operating procedures— characterized by the clear delineation of work tasks and responsibilities— sustained reliable, predictable, and compliant forms of behaviour. It was assumed that organizational goals could be achieved in a pre-planned and orderly fashion and with a minimum amount of ambiguity. However, in the 1990s there is an increasing recognition of the costs associated with these structures in their tendencies to mould “bureaucratic personality types” among employees who then prefer to value rôle conformity and job security rather than innovation and change. As a result, senior managers—particularly those within private-sector organizations—are anxious to encourage more “entrepreneurial” and “creative” forms of conduct among their middle-level and junior colleagues. Indeed, intrapreneurship is frequently used rhetorically to describe the attitudes of those managers who, working within “looser”, less clearly defined organizational structures, adopt many of the attitudes and behaviours supposedly characteristic of “classical” 19th-century entrepreneurs (Minkes 1987).

There is, then, the growing popularity of organizational paradigms based upon principles and assumptions that are in sharp contrast to those underlying more bureaucratic forms. Instead of an emphasis upon clearly defined tasks, work rôles are broadly determined according to their contribution to the accomplishment of specific objectives. According to such paradigms, channels of communication are encouraged to be “open”, “flexible” and “informal” rather than, as in bureaucratic structures, according to strictly prescribed rôles of authority. If reliability and conformity are valued attributes within bureaucratic management systems, in more loosely structured organizations a greater emphasis is supposed to be placed upon individual creativity and the capacity to cope with ambiguity and change. Managers are expected to be psychologically immersed in their jobs—rather than to rôle play as in bureaucracies—and it is for this reason that so much importance is attached to fostering appropriate organizational cultures, since it is through these rather than through explicitly stated rules and regulations that psychological involvement is to be obtained (Hofstede 1991).

It is ideals of this sort which are to be found in much of the rhetoric and many of the present-day panaceas advocated by management “gurus” as prescriptions for improving organizational effectiveness. Indeed, these seem to be growing in popularity among senior managers in both private and public-sector organizations as witnessed, for instance, in the worldwide success of Peters’ and Watermans In search of excellence (1982). In this book, the authors argue that high-performing organizations have been able to reduce their dependency upon formalized structures and to implement cultures which encourage, among other things, “a basis for action”, “autonomy and entrepreneurship”, “productivity through people”, “hands on, value driven leadership”, and “simultaneous loosetight” organizational properties. Similarly, other advocates of organizational change stress the desirability of “simple structures”, “adhocracies” and “matrices” (Minzberg 1983). Hence it is argued that small and medium-sized companies enjoy considerable competitive advantages over larger organizations because their chief executives, who are often owner-managers, are able to exercise “direct” day-to-day control over their employees by cultivating open and informal systems of communication (Scase and Goffee 1989). Similarly, in large-scale organizations, it is claimed that the nurturing of “matrices” and “adhocracies”, typically involving the utilization of ever-changing project teams and task forces, offer a means of overcoming more rigid departmental, functional or divisional boundaries in order to achieve particular goals. Further, for many large-scale organizations, the need for greater responsiveness to more competitive and rapidly changing market circumstances is expressed in the adoption of more “devolved” and “decentralized” structures. Hence the setting-up of “strategic business units” and shifts towards highly autonomous divisions, to which budgeting control and strategic management are delegated, represent attempts to be more responsive to the changing needs of different product markets. Some large corporations have even gone so far as to abandon altogether their divisionalized structures and to substitute in their place wholly owned subsidiary companies. The latter can enjoy almost total strategic and operational autonomy so long as they achieve a satisfactory level of performance as determined by their parent holding companies (Peters 1992).

Senior managers’ rhetorical rejection of the bureaucratic paradigm has led to the implementation of a variety of organizational forms, many of which are subsumed under the general label of the “flexible” or “adaptive” firm (Atkinson 1985, Kanter 1989). Indeed, the extreme of this development is the organization which consists of little more than a small number of negotiators who agree trade terms with a variety of production subcontractors, who then sell on the products to wholesalers and retailers with no direct involvement in the production process itself. In such instances, the office and the telephone supersede the workplace and such organizations are little more than brokers in various products and services, negotiating trading terms with a broad range of subcontracting manufacturers, franchisees and others. If such forms of organization represent the “adaptive” firm in the extreme and hence only a very small number of organizations, their numbers are nevertheless increasing (Handy 1989). They are, for instance, growing rapidly in the media industry, where production processes in television and film, once undertaken in an integrated manner “inhouse”, are now fragmented and subdivided among a variety of “independent”, self-employed “freelances” who are temporarily co-ordinated into “one-off” teams for the purposes of particular projects. As soon as a particular project is completed, the teams are dismantled and each freelance worker seeks engagement on another task with other groups of specialists.

If adaptive forms of organization are becoming a more pronounced feature of modern economic life, they are also reinforced by senior managerial attempts to change the nature of their corporate cultures. Just as organizations vary in their structural characteristics, they also differ in their predominant values and assumptions (Schein 1985). Highly bureaucratized organizations tend to foster cultures which emphasize the desirability of clearly defined rules and procedures for attaining operating efficiency. These encourage the adoption of routinized behaviour and reinforce a general psychological resistance to change. Established procedures will be assumed to be both effective and efficient and as such, not be regarded as cumbersome “red tape”. Such rôle cultures tend to sustain values which give priority to “security” and “promotion” as rewards for staff who perform their duties satisfactorily, with loyalty and compliance (Handy 1985). Within bureaucratically structured organizations, therefore, predominant structures and cultures tend to be mutually reinforcing, so that employees come to exhibit “bureaucratic personalities”. Hence, they develop cognitive styles which reduce their propensity to risk. It is in response to this that, alongside the introduction of more “adaptive” or “flexible” forms of organization, senior managers are drawing upon cultural paradigms which emphasize the value of experimentation, innovation, and creativity...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• References