Abstract
Networks can be understood as organizational control strategies. As an example, we present two case studies of team-based networking strategies associated with the Total Quality Management movement in the United States. TQM's implied social contract requires some form of power sharing. In practice TQM team organization can also become another form of labor intensification. Similarly, TQM appeals to democratic values by emphasizing participation, communication, cooperation and team work. Such claims can also serve to legitimize major organizational changes, some of which follow familiar Taylorist patterns. Two cases illustrate how the technical components of communications systems help redefine control systems in TQM-based work rerganization experiments. In the manufacturing setting, communications took the form of web-and-hub networks, centralizing off-site engineering control of production workers. In the design and engineering workplace, peer-to-peer communications implemented by self-managed teams reduced intellectual ‘slack time’. In both cases the communications systems provided means to intensify labor.
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We wish to thank Sal Agnihothri, Andrew Clement, Peter Meiksins, Gary Roodman and Ina Wagner, as well as members of the SUNY-Binghamton School of Management Information Systems Seminar for their criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper. We are grateful to Suzanne Iacono and Nancy Zimmet for especially close and helpful readings. Katherine Karlson helped tremendously in locating sources. The opinions expressed here are our own. All the usual warnings about generalizing from culturally-specific cases apply. The authors are listed alphabetically.
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Klein, H.K., Kraft, P. Social control and social contract in networking. Comput Supported Coop Work 2, 89–108 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00749285
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00749285