Richard S. Webster wrote:
> A request: would you please report the citation for Carol Gould's work.
"Rethinking Democracy - Freedom and social cooperation in politics,
economy, and society" by Carol C Gould published by Cambridge University
Press, 1988.
> As to LO - democracy linkages:
>
> NO WAY the high-involvement of company members, necessary for LO or any
> other element of "participative management" or "modern management," will
> occur without members feeling their work, culture and company governance
> is guided by the principles Gould uses.
But what if the organisation was a government agency. Would it not be
highly desirable that its governance processes were democratic? Are
Gould's principles no more than a statement of how these people work
together?
> How do we know: look at high-performing companies and see how many are
> managed by democratic values and practices, vs. those that feature
> "top-down, KITA (backside), one-best-way, managers know best, "my way or
> the hi-way?"
>
> These coercive and exploitive management practices are the features of
> Frederick W. Taylor's "scientific management," dating from the 1890s.
> These practices have impeded the spread of "scientific method" (from
> Deming, Juran, and other quality gurus, with their call for
> "truth-seeking, hypothesis-testing, management-by-fact, use of SPC, use of
> the Shehart/Deming cycle of plan-do-check-act, PDCA) as a replacement for
> "scientific management."
>
> Taylor's work has also impeded the work of Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert
> and other social scientists whose research discovered and confirmed
> improved performance and results when people were treated like human
> beings, consulted, involved in decisions that affected them -- the set of
> conditions that lead to high-performance including learning as a
> cornerstone of continual (not necessarily "continuous") improvement.
Could Taylor's work be seen as the origins of the paradigm "Manager get
work done". Since, this list involves a number of different cultures,
dare I raise the question of exportability of management theories as Geert
Hofstede does in his paper "Cultural Constraints in Management Theories"
published in Academy of Management Executive, 1993 Vol.7.No.1. Pages
81-94.
Roy Benford
Fulmer, UK
--Roy Benford <roy@benford.demon.co.uk>
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...Rick]
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