Entrevista

This section considers why context is such a crucial question when considering change management. Several of the previous sections have noted the importance of the wider context surrounding the firm and the workplace. For example, my review of the ethnographic literature highlighted the importance of product markets and

technologies while the discussion of workers’ responses registered the significance of different trade union and industrial relations traditions. In much of the mainstream management literature about lean manufacturing, however, it is treated as a universal recipe for executing large scale changes in the production process regardless of context. Womack [2007] and Florida and Kenny [1993], for example, have equated lean manufacturing with Japanisation, but do not regard this approach as permanently conditioned by the Japanese context. Instead they see its elements as being installed as a package globally in the same shape and form, provided that first principles are adhered to.

Subsequent commentators have challenged this over generalised picture and have emphasised the crucial role played by the wider political economy within which firms operate, while also seeing this political economy as characterised by significant sectoral, regional and national variations. Commentators, such as Aglietta [2005], Freyssenet [2009]

and Boyer [2002] have developed an ambitious ‘regulation school’ analysis of the adoption, adaptation and hybridization of production models on this basis. Meanwhile , Elger and Smith working in the labour process tradition, have offered a more modest heuristic device which also treats context as a crucial dimension of the introduction of changes in work organisation and employee involvement. Both of these approaches have challenged the view that change management takes place in accordance with the linear process envisaged originally by Womack and his collaborators [Womack et al., 2007] and have tended to see policy selection and implementation as more selective and even

piecemeal. At the same time they have tried to specify the kinds of dimensions of context which shape different change management policies and determine whether they succeed or fail.

Drawing on the above discussion on the quality, intensity, causality and

completeness of change, we can see that that in much of the literature including that of the regulationist school [Aglietta, 2005; Boyer, 1998; Freyssenet, 2009] there is a tendency to treat lean manufacturing as a distinct and complete production system, though Boyer and Freyssenet are also at pains to emphasise the contextual and

contingent nature of the functioning of such ‘production systems’. This means that they tend to identify the modification of such systems as a product of the failure to implement the key features of the model because of the impact of macro-structural contingencies, instead of addressing the contested micro-political nature of the workplace that underlies the implementation of managerial policy.

The remainder of this discussion tries to understand the varied and shifting nature of modes of work organisation in relation to the contextual conditions under which they operate. It starts by considering the claims of the GERPISA school of thought in this regard represented by some of its primary exponents Boyer [1998; 1996], Durand [2007] and Freysennet [2009]. They suggest that the adoption and adaptation of modes of work

organisation, such as lean manufacturing, are contingent, often piecemeal and are conditioned by the context and institutional framework they operate under. We will review this argument to understand how they and others have attempted to explain changes in work organisation by reference to changes in political, economic and institutional arrangements. Thus the regulationist literature attempts to characterise changing modes of work organisation and their impact on the labour process and on relationships between the various constituents of the plant (the main area of enquiry of my thesis) and contextualise these in relation to political and economic transformations. The three components of changing regimes of work organisation which they identify are: changing paradigms of production and consumption; changes brought about in relation to suppliers; and the consequences for corporate decision-making, all of which are related to fluctuating world automobile markets and globalisation.

As a prelude to considering the arguments of Freyssenet and Boyer and also Elger and Smith[2006], it is helpful to register some important distinctions in terms of the scale, completeness and intensity of the processes of change that are being

considered here. In this sense we need to unpack the word ‘change’ in the way that Erickson and Kuruvilla [1998] do when they survey the literature on how the extant, intensity and degree of change within industrial relations systems are affected by points of departure. These fundamental punctuations in industrial relations systems are

characterised by changes in underlying understandings on managerial policy, collective bargaining arrangements and employment policies. Changes may be either gradual, discontinuous or ritual.

Changes in the industrial relations system may be evolutionary or incremental in nature rather than discontinuous [ Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998: 9]. The authors inspired by Darwinian theory venture to identify that important external and internal developments over time affect the contiguity of the industrial relations model being

followed within various countries. These points of rupture in the industrial relations system are marked by periods of equilibrium, discontinuity and transformation. They describe a process of discontinuous change, where the structures and functions of the industrial relations system undergo modification after remaining under extended periods of punctuated equilibrium, wherein the industrial relations system undergoes experimenting in policy and practice, finally doing away with the prevalent system as whole. These points of departure in the industrial relations system could arrive after a relative period of equilibrium or relative system stability and quiescence marked economic upheavals and changes in the industrial relations system. These intervals of non-transformative industrial relations and discontinuous change are termed by them as punctuated equilibrium.

They argue that industrial relations systems are dynamic, and continuously evolve and change, at key historical junctures or moments of transition they undergo rapid change, “deep structure” is seriously altered, and there is a great deal of

experimentation in industrial relations policy and practice. Between such critical junctures, the systems typically undergo relatively minor modifications (or, in other terms, they evolve). The key historical junctures represent punctuations or

“discontinuous transformations” [Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998: 12].

Erickson and Kuruvilla (1998) identify the manner in which changes in the deep structure of the industrial relations system within which workers and employers interacted at times of economic crisis and tumult whereby the internal validity and coherence of the assumptions informing the industrial relations system were under deep interrogation by the state, the public and employees. For instance, the post-war era in the USA brought about fundamental questioning of the elements that comprised the industrial relations superstructure that operated under the rubric of democratic capitalism, which, as they illustrate, precipitated a

change in the industrial relations system. They [1998: 16] cite Priore and Sabel who comment on the far-reaching changes the great depression of the 1930s-40s brought about.

During the 1930s and 1940s, arguably, the network of fundamental social choices (or “deep structure”) underlying the U.S. industrial relations system was brought under serious reconsideration with questions that challenged the institutional Industrial Relations arrangement of the state, firms and workers: would unions be socially accepted and

formally sanctioned by law? What would the basic mechanisms be for certifying a union and for conducting labour-management relations? Even more crucial, how, exactly, would a union be defined, and how would the workplace be governed? These changes in deep structure under periods of revolutionary change as suggested by Hannan, Freeman and Gersick [cited in Erickson and Kuruvilla 1998: 11] are comprised of:

• The network of fundamental assumptions and principles underlying the system seriously comes under question. In other words, there is a

reconsideration (and, ultimately, change) of what Gersick calls the “deep structure”.

• Change is rapid, by comparison with change during the longer periods of relative stability.

• There is great experimentation and increases in speciation and diversity, as various new forms are tried out before one dominant form takes root.

Erickson and Kuruvilla [1998] also describe another form of change as one where changes made earlier on during the founding stages of the system, but unrelated towards its “working integrity”, later push it towards evolving new pathways, which may thus be owing to historical decisions taken in the distant past [Erickson and

Kuruvilla, 1998: 9]. The deep structure comprises of intricately linked choices to which actors have access, and if the constituent elements of this deep structure have undergone

far-reaching change, then the industrial relations system has indeed undergone transformation [Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998: 12].

Over time, “socioeconomic conditions driven by globalisation and intense competition” drive through instability in the deep structure of the system by affecting coherence and internal validity of constituents of the system through ‘wear and tear’. These events overtake the system which was designed for another time, and therefore render it redundant and incapable of taking on new developments leading to its changes in the workplace practices.

As evident below continuing on the theme identifying defining moments of rupture and continuity of change in the industrial relations system industrial relations scholars have tried to pick out specific political economic contextual developments over a long period of time. These developments may have either favoured or inhibited

managerial prerogatives to organise production, on the level at which managerial decisions are taken and where there is impact on trade union mobilisation power. Even as they disagree, they identify specific causal mechanisms that have triggered changes in the industrial relations system and have had repercussions for workers.

Some commentators such as Kochan et al [Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998: 17] to say that the industrial relations order on which much of the discipline’s literature was founded is no longer relevant. Others like Hyman [Hyman cited in Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998: 6] beg to disagree, arguing that industrial relations was not

transformed by such events to the extent that old tensions were abandoned and that continuities did not recur in the movement towards a new regime of industrial relations. The move towards the features such as “an enterprise focus (as the locus of human resources and industrial relations decision-making and strategy), increased flexibility (in how work is organised and labour is deployed), the growing importance of skill

features indicating changes in the industrial relations system in the 1990s [Kuruvilla, 1998: 4].

Furthermore, decentralisation in bargaining, management’s increased autonomy, and the switch to a bundle of workplace practices that included teams, contingent pay, employee participation, training, and employment security amounted to a transformation in the United States of the industrial relations system towards post-Fordism, all of which challenged the foundational arrangements on which the industrial relations system is premised.

For instance, using their model, I argue that the regime of industrial relations brought about by lean manufacturing may imply some rupture in this equilibrium but it nevertheless contains essential ingredients that represent continuities with Fordism, and therefore mirrors many of the elements that comprise the deep structure of Fordism. The analytic payoff of Erickson and Kuruvilla [1998] is the importance they grant towards the political economic context in their attempt to freeze specific macro epochal trends over a finite period of time, that have in turn gone on to alter the internal elements of the industrial relations system under which managers, workers and the state operate. At the micro level a case study enables singling out of the definitive epochs of rupture that have caused far-reaching transformation in a firm’s industrial relations history and

understanding the causes in the long term that triggered that rupture. Studying how significant events in reaction to the evolution of managerial policy provides me an impetus to consider the big picture of viewing present developments against the continuum of changes occurring in the industrial relations system over a finite time period.

This attempt to identify the macro context of varieties of change is relevant to my research project because it seeks to illuminate distinctive macro-economic variables including globalisation, competition and institutional class compromises in specific

locations and the ways in which these are related to the changing trajectories of work organisation and industrial relations. Durand [2007], for example, considers the implications of these factors for a cross-section of actors including operators, middle managers and senior plant managers. On this basis, Boyer [1995; 1998], Freyssenet [2009] and Durand (2007: 3-19) and other writers – though not from this school, such as

Korczynski and Ott [2004: 590] – identify a fundamental shift in the compromise over time between the company, government (especially through legislation), productive value chains and trade unions, and related changes in the distribution of the welfare state. This shift becomes possible because the state shifts its role from being a guarantor of jobs and regulator of the economy (by means of legislation/encouragement of collective laissez faire and superintendent of industrial relations institutions), to becoming the sponsor of a cluster of apparently efficacious decentralised or outsourced services to its ‘customers’, with only limited regard to protecting levels of employment and working conditions, both of which are left to the market to determine.

Unpacking further the issue discussed earlier regarding linear causality, it is important to register the arguments made by Freyssenet et al. [2009]. Though these arguments remain contentious, they provide a foundation and starting point for further unpacking of the literature to illuminate my research questions. They characterise an older regime of production and accumulation in both Europe and America, in which, particularly after the war, the welfare state [Drache,1998: 23] and growth driven by internal consumption with a reasonably clear consensus between state, industry and workers produced a moderately hierarchised income distribution which underpinned moderately hierarchised social and professional category and satisfactory social

protection [Freyssenet, 2009: 8]. An important highlight of this regime of accumulation was that mass production was well synchronised with mass consumption [Drache, 1998: 1916] for a consumer who had a finite sense choices of mass produced automotive

products to make in the course of his purchase. The welfare state sought to be achieved through “high productivity, stable international order and strong workers movement” [Drache, 1998: 3]. Freyssenet then argues that the oil crisis of the early 1970s upset this 'punctuated equilibrium' mode of mass consumption of standardised automobile models within a product-led industry, in which companies driven by the need for economies of scale alone decided what consumers would be offered. After the oil crisis, the tastes of more assertive, price-conscious consumers forced companies to become more market sensitive in their models, catering to different segments, and this affected their production strategies and product platforms.

Against this background Freysennet [2009: 11] emphasises first the ambivalent nature of the assimilation of a new production paradigm in terms of their transferability, as he questions the ‘technicist’ strand of thought embodying a recipe-book approach where individual paradigms if implemented in accordance with tried and tested

principles of their individual proponents would synchronise perfectly without losing any of their individual features. Thus the implementation of new modes of work organisation intended to bring about changes in production is often selective and piecemeal because management actors had to interpret the relevance of varying ‘production models’ during the process of their application in different production environments, and under different pressures. This is illustrated by Freyssenet [2009: 10] in the following terms:

For example, some people assimilated Toyota’s lean flows with Honda’s responsiveness, yet the former implied rigorous production planning whereas the latter was based on innovation rents derived from innovative models being launched before competitors could copy them. What followed was the construction of a number of systems that were cut off from their original objectives and even contradicted them on occasion, leading to some disappointing results. The sum total of best practices can

only be transformed into profits for a firm if they are compatible with one another.

Second, he also argues that any given ‘functional’ paradigm of lean manufacturing in any specific plant was based on a specific company-governance compromise between the company, state and operators. On this basis the analytical payoff of describing the post 1980s counter oil shock was to highlight the important role of the local governance apparatuses of particular firms, including the relationship between state and trade unions, as industrial relation arrangements influenced the production strategies of companies and their choices of product platforms and modes of work organisation. One response to this was what the regulationists term the ‘volume and diversity’ strategy for profitability:

Many carmakers continued to follow a ‘volume and diversity’ strategy based on increased sales volumes and a commonalisation of invisible components, on the one hand, and on a diversity of bodies and visible equipment on the other. [Boyer and Freyssenet, 2002: 10]

Freyssenet [2009: 20] argues that the rapidity of capital flows associated with financial opportunism, and an unequal distribution of national income based on merit and good fortune, commenced the process of globalisation. This phase was marked by a wave of consolidation across various segments of the automotive industry, including the takeover of Nissan by Renault, even as demand across various segments stagnated. In post-recessionary Japan after the bubble of the 1980s such processes of consolidation also had to deal with the demographic aspect of an aging labour force, especially as, according to Ohle [2009], younger workers appeared to have a declining interest in taking up production jobs and looked to other sectors for employment. This implied that Toyota had to turn to European repertoires of work organisation based on the Scandinavian experience to offset the shortfall

in the availability of employable young operators, who previously provided the dexterity to meet the requirements of tight lean manufacturing job routines.

Returning to Freyssenet’s [2009: 15] overall attempt to map the trajectory of changing market conditions and consumption patterns and their impact on the mode of work organisation in auto firms, the mid-1990s marked the emergence of the new economy and a rapid upswing in the fortunes of one section of the populace in America and elsewhere, coupled with the stagnation of the old economy where income inequalities widened and job security could no longer be assumed. Freyssenet characterises this as a case of differing social trajectories and heterogeneous expectations. Against this

background it was gradual economic revival throughout the 1990s and careful attention to specific model ranges such as pickup trucks – rather than attention to Japanese modes of work organisation – that allowed automakers in the US to balance the books. However, there was no guarantee that particular attention to specific models, in response to the changing consumer income distribution and demand, would produce profitability in the