ABSTRACT
Taylorism and Fordism are the paradigmatic opposite poles to work-related social sciences. The post-Fordist modernization strategies seemed to guarantee simultaneously both ‘good work’ and ‘efficiency’ under new conditions. The context changed, but the promise remained the same: work design can solve the conflicts among workers, firms and societal interests. In reality a new scientific management has emerged that is human-centred, a new paradigm of post-Fordism. Organizations still report unsatisfactory and unacceptable results for their employees when implementing the ‘new organization’. These may take the form of job dissatisfaction, health problems and/or increased workload. This paradigm offers such explanations as: (a) managers do not really want to share power; or they are not able to perceive the discrepancy between their ideal support of empowerment, and their actual behaviour; (b) workers are socialized under restrictive conditions and consequently refuse more responsibility. These explanations, which are substantiated in many empirical studies, tell however only half the truth.
