Ian Glover

Ageism in work and employment: thinking about connections

Emphasizes the universality, variety and scope of ageism. Considers why systematic investigation of the phenomenon has begun in recent years and how it has become a subject of political argument and debate. Suggests how thinking about ageism should be linked to the study of many economic, social and political factors. Argues that two contrasting theories, commodification and greening, may be useful in exploring the ways in which ageism influences and is influenced by the unfolding development of contemporary advanced, and many developing, societies.

Ageism and the labour process: towards a research agenda

Offers a fairly general discussion of the significance of ageism in work and employment and then proceeds to suggest that labour process researchers might very usefully pay some attention to it. Writers about the labour process tend to emphasize the issue of labour exploitation and gender and race discrimination but, to some extent, seem to overlook the problem of ageism in work and employment. In this context, considers the character of links between a number of economic and social phenomena and ageism, namely life cycles, divisions of labour, managerialism and industrialization. Specific aspects of ageism in the UK are discussed and the need for debate and policy formulation about the issue of ageism is called for.

British management and British history: Assessing the responsibility of individuals for economic difficulties

This article is concerned with the character of managers and management in the UK in the last half century. It describes and offers an explanation for the weaknesses especially apparent in the 1970s, when public concern with manufacturing and general economic performance was at its height. The explanation draws on economics, history, sociology and international comparisons of management. It goes on to discuss historical arguments and evidence in some detail, and in making all of the relevant comparisons, it draws on, and to an extent adopts, the highly critical and policy‐oriented stance used in the 1970s by me and my colleagues. A more experienced and detached standpoint is adopted in the last two main sections. In the first of them a ‘consolidated view’ of UK history is offered, one in which long‐term success and shorter run difficulties are compared and contrasted, partly with the help of some recent research which I and a colleague conducted. In the latter the nature and the effects of the sea change ...

Engineering Better Management

This chapter describes a set of mainly sociological ideas and arguments which have been associated with a loose grouping of academics and writers working at the margins of British academic sociology in the 1970s and 1980s. It also explores the way in which this set of ideas was influential in the Department of Industry for a time, especially in the period leading up to the establishment of the Finniston Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession. The central plank in the argument was that British culture consistently undervalues the practical business of making things. This is particularly marked in the disdain that the British show for manufacturing industry. This anti-manufacturing ethos pervaded Government thinking, and is equally to be found in much of British social science.