David De Vries

The State, the Labor Process, and the Diffusion of Managerial Models

This study examines the autonomous goals of state actors and their administrative and cultural capacities to pursue them. Analyzing qualitative and quantitative data from Palestine/Israel during the years 1940–1960, we study the diffusion of joint productivity councils that use scientific management principles (scientific JPCs). We assess explanations for the diffusion of managerial models offered by theories of state autonomy, efficiency, labor control, and professionalization. We demonstrate that the actions of state leaders interested in stabilizing the economy and financing nation-building projects were a necessary condition for the diffusion of scientific JPCs, which were initially rejected by labor, capital, and industrial engineers. State actors used public policy to foster national and plant-level agreements between labor and capital and launched a moral discourse that framed productivity as a precondition for national survival. This case study brings insights from political sociology and the framing literature to organizational research and offers a new set of factors for understanding the nexus between the state, the labor process, and the diffusion of managerial models.