MEXICAN CULTURE

Mexican culture regarded as a less than ideal environment 'in which to implement a learning strategy focused on employee involvement and empowerment

Mexican culture regarded as a less than ideal environment 'in which to implement a learning strategy focused on employee involvement and empowerment

Introduction

Advocates of lean production argue that a work system is truly lean only if a given bundle of practices, including worker empowerment, is implemented in the proper configuration. In contrast, my interviews and observations in six US manufacturing plants demonstrate that substantive empowerment is not a necessary condition for achieving a lean manufacturing system that yields considerable performance improvement (Schneider & Barsoux 2002:12).

Discussion

Like other post-Fordist theorists, lean production advocates argue that new work systems invert the Taylorist labour process based on deskilled work and rigid authority hierarchies. In its place would be work organization utilizing broadly skilled workers, empowered through extensive involvement in problem-solving, decision-making and continuous improvement. Broad agreement that performance is most dramatically improved when a package of complementary organizational and human resources (HR) practices—including extensive employee involvement (EI) or empowerment—is implemented generated strong expectations that high-involvement practices would be widely used by manufacturers (Perkins, Shortland 2006:4). Sample data suggest, however, that thorough, comprehensive restructuring is not the norm. A wide range of case studies also demonstrates limited and selective adoption of new work practices. Three distinct positions can be found in this critical literature.

An early critical position rejected the idea that lean production involved worker empowerment, arguing instead that it is based on work intensification and better process control.

A second position sees participatory arrangements as engaged in a new, ideological or cultural form of labour control. All three claim that participative arrangements co-opt workers into a managerial perspective—thus maintaining hierarchical authority without bureaucratic control (Schneider & Barsoux 2002:15).

Having found little evidence of a managerial emphasis on ideological control, I attempt to advance the intermediate position. Advocates of lean production argue that a work system is truly lean only if a given bundle of practices, including what I define below as substantive worker empowerment, is implemented in the proper configuration. In contrast, my interviews and observations in six US manufacturing plants demonstrate that extensive, substantive empowerment is not a necessary condition for achieving a lean manufacturing system that yields considerable performance improvement.

The data presented here suggest that three variables identified in previous research—strategic orientation of management (including the approach to implementation), organized worker power, and workforce disposition—are key to understanding the processes of work reorganization. I articulate an 'organizational political economy' account of work restructuring that emphasizes how these three variables interact in particular contexts, shaping and being shaped by the characteristics of local plant culture, politics and history (Perkins & Shortland 2006:1). Depending on how managerial orientation, organized worker power and workforce disposition interact in particular contexts, lean practices may be implemented in various configurations to achieve better process control, increased flexibility, reduced 'waste' and some degree of continuous improvement. While many configurations appear to be 'lean enough' for satisficing ...