ABSTRACT

Unfortunately, there are few studies of organizational change that are related to analyses of the dynamics of class relationships and to the distribution of opportunities and rewards in society. A number of factors account for this, not least the fragmentation of sociological research into a number of subdivisions such as “education”, “work and organization”, “social class and stratification”, so that key inter-relationships are neglected because they cut across what have now become traditional academic divisions within sociology. Although sociological research in the areas of social class, education, stratification, and social mobility has documented historically and cross-nationally broader social trends, rarely have these been related to specific processes of organizational change and how they, in turn, lead to changing demands for different kinds of human talent (Sabel 1982). Thus there are few sociologically-informed studies of how organizational restructuring is requiring new management competences and

offering different kinds of careers with important implications for staff recruitment and training (Constable and McCormick 1987). The lack of such analysis is especially surprising, given that a process of organizational restructuring is currently affecting the nature of managerial work and this, in turn, is leading to changing demands for the “quality” and “nature” of human skills (Handy 1989). The selection of those chosen for employment in large organizations is becoming both more complex and indeterminate because of the growing importance that senior managers attach to intangible personal qualities in their recruitment processes (Scase and Goffee 1989). This is having ramifications for the “providers” of managerial and professional skills, such as institutions of higher education (IHEs). Hence, one of the reasons why corporate leaders claim that higher education is failing to meet the needs of industry in Britain is not because of the precise quality of technical competences which university students acquire, but because of their perceived inability to produce personal qualities considered to be appropriate for newly-emerging paradigms of organization (CBI 1989).