[p2p-research] collaborative community and leadership

[Michel Bauwens]

Ryan,

I've sent this before, but I have now read it and I cannot insist enough
that this will be a key reading for you in your phd on leadership, this is
an absolute stellar essay on the emergence of collaborative community within
the firm:

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~padler/research/01-Heckscher-chap01%20copy-1.pdf

It makes me particularly happy because of what they say on page 59-60

A analysis of the focus of mgt. literature and practice indeed shows that
there is a 'zig zag' path between empowerment and control, that really
complements the post-Kondratieff-cycle analysis I made in my last essay on
Russia and the new wave ...

(thought the dating seems off, which could be explained by delayed effects
... I would have expected the post-WWII welfare consensus to be complemented
by workplace democracy ... but it only sets in the 70's when that contract
is breaking down ... the conclusion is counter-intuitive for me, i.e. that
laisser-faire phases actually strengthen employee involvement ...?? or
perhaps mgt. functions as a counterbalancing force for what happens in the
external economy??)

But it still bodes well and strengthens my own hypothesis that p2p will be
an integral part of the next social contract within 'green capitalism'

Here's the excerpt:

Researchers who have studied the evolution of the popularity of various
management techniques in management journals have consistently identified
periods that alternate between a focus on employee commitment
and a focus on managerial control:

1. Commitment, 1870s–1890s: welfare work.
2. Control, 1890s–1910s: scientific management.
3. Commitment, 1920–1940s: human relations.
4. Control, 1940s–1960s: systems rationalization.
5. Commitment, 1970–1990: employee involvement.
6. Control, 1990– : business process re-engineering and outsourcing.95

The surface pattern is one of alternation; but closer examination reveals an
underlying progression. Starting from a situation of ‘competitive
capitalism’
and ‘simple control,’96 the sequence of commitment approaches aims
successively deeper; the sequence of control approaches aims successively
broader; and the latter have become increasingly hospitable to the former.
First, relative to the commitment approaches, there is a clear shift from
the earlier reliance on paternalism, to relatively impersonal, bureaucratic
norms of procedural justice, to an emphasis on empowerment and mutual
commitment, targeting progressively deeper forms of subjective involvement
of the individual worker. And this sequence engaged progressively
deeper layers of work organization: welfare work did not seek to modify
the core of work organization; human relations addressed mainly supervision;
employee involvement brought concern for commitment into the
heart of work organization.

Second, the sequence of control innovations—from scientific management
to systems rationalism to re-engineering—aims at successively
broader spans of the value chain. Scientific management focuses on tasks
and the flow of materials in the workshop. Systems rationalism aimed at a
more comprehensive optimization of production and distribution activities.
Re-engineering and outsourcing aimed at the rationalization of flows
across as well as within firms.

Third, the relation between the commitment and control approaches
seems to have changed: the control approaches seem to have become
increasingly hospitable to commitment. Within two or three years of
publishing a text popularizing a rather brutally coercive method of business
process re-engineering, both James Champy and Michael Hammer
published new volumes stressing the importance of the human factor and
the need for job redesigns that afford employees greater autonomy.97 The
undeniably autocratic character of much early re-engineering rhetoric and
its rapid ‘softening’ compares favorably with more unilateral and enduring
forms of domination expressed in post-war systems rationalism. It
compares even more favorably with the even more unilateral and rigid
rhetoric in turn-of-the-century scientific management: scientific management
only softened its relations with organized labor after nearly two
decades of confrontation.98
The zigzag path of development in management technique appears to
trace a vector that corresponds well to Marx’s notion of ‘socialization’:
conscious control, and in particular in the form of collaborative community,
characterizes progressively broader spans of activity. Fig. 1.3 attempts
to diagram this argument.

-- 
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