John Hassard

The Invention of Corporate Culture: A History of the Histories of Cadbury

The concept of culture promised to make organization studies more historical. This promise has not been fulfilled. Possible reasons for the failure to integrate business history and organization studies are explored and a synthesis developed, using the historical concept of invented tradition in conjunction with the social cognition biases identified by organizational culture. The major part of the article then demonstrates how Cadbury, a British confectionery company well known for its Quaker traditions, invented its corporate culture by attributing significance to the Quaker beliefs of the Cadbury family retrospectively. A history is reconstructed, mainly from published sources, to demonstrate how the histories constructed by the firm, including a centenary celebration in 1931, were part of the process of giving meaning to the firms labor-management institutions.

Deskilling and reskilling within the labour process: The case of computer integrated manufacturing

Copyright (c) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. The deskilling/reskilling controversy within the labour process debate is considered within the context of the implementation of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). Effective implementation of CIM is shown to require an appreciation of the social and organizational issues associated with organizational change. As such the deskilling/reskilling issue is worthy of analysis within the CIM context and aspects of the labour process debate are examined. The effects of technological change on the skills of shopfloor oerators and supervisors are examined by analysing two dimensions of skill, technical complexity and discretion or autonomy. The paper concludes that the outcomes of technical change are framed by managerial perceptions and consequent decisions on how technology should be implemented in terms of work organisation.

Market‐driven Strategies and the Design of Flexible Production Systems: Evidence from the Electronics Industry

Links the concept of market-driven business strategies with the design of production systems. It draws upon the case of a firm which, during the last decade, changed its strategy from being “technology led” to “market driven”. The research, based on interdisciplinary fieldwork involving long-term participant observation, investigated the factors which contribute to the successful design and implementation of flexible production systems in electronics assembly. These investigations were conducted in collaboration with a major computer manufacturer, with other electronics firms being studied for comparison. The research identified a number of strategies and actions seen as crucial to the development of efficient flexible production systems, namely: effective integration of subsystems, development of appropriate controls and performance measures, compatibility between production system design and organization structure, and the development of a climate conducive to organizational change. Overall, the analysis suggests that in the electronics industry there exists an extremely high degree of environmental complexity and turbulence. This serves to shape the strategic, technical and social structures that are developed to match this complexity, examples of which are niche marketing, flexible manufacturing and employee harmonization.

An application of decision process modelling to manufacturing system design

As levels of investment in advanced manufacturing systems increase, effective project management becomes ever more critical. This paper demonstrates how the model proposed by Mintzberg, Raisinghani and Theoret in 1976, which structures complicated strategic decision processes, can be applied to the design of new production systems for both descriptive and analytical research purposes. This paper sets a detailed case study concerning the design and development of an advanced manufacturing system within the Mintzberg decision model and so breaks down the decision sequence into constituent parts. It thus shows how a structured model can provide a framework for the researcher who wishes to study decision episodes in the design of manufacturing facilities in greater depth.

Cutting Down the Workforce: Eunuchs and Early Administrative Management:

The literature that exists on the role of eunuchs in pre-modern bureaucracies suggests that purposive castration was a means of securing subordinate commitment and maintaining organizational control. This paper briefly summarizes this literature, and tests these conclusions against the Chinese experience. It finds that cultural factors were more important than the simple fact of desexualization in determining the role and behaviour of eunuchs, and that in many cases castration did not engender loyalty or commitment, or facilitate control.

Competitive Edge Through Flexible Work Organization: Evidence from the UK Electronics Industry

This paper addresses the issue of flexibility in manufacturing from two perspectives: the view taken by the operations management and engineering literature and then notions of flexibility in labour management as seen irom an sociological paradigm. This dual theoretical basis is used to consider strategy and competitive edge in the U.K. electronics industry, where flexibility and response is frequently seen as a means to compete in world markets. The paper concludes that whereas flexibility does offer some opportunity for U.K. electronics companies to compete with “giants” in the industry [1], this approach does have consequences, often adverse, in terms of job security for employees. The reasons for this stem not only from the typical personnel policies adopted by companies, but also as a result of a retreat from component processing operations and a focus on downstream assembly activities. The latter in intended to increase flexibility and response and to slim down the organization as a whole, but with the obvious consequence of plant closures and reductions in employment numbers.