ABSTRACT
Two logics underlying the relationship between work and society have been identified in previous chapters. First, we considered the basic logic of a changing social world in which industrial capitalist principles are dominant. Second, we looked at the logic of modern work organisations in which industrial capitalist and bureaucratic principles are applied to shape work arrangements and practices. These two logics are now brought together to recognise a third logic, one in which the ‘officers’ of these bureaucratic corporations – their managers – initiate changes in how work is carried out as they strive to exert control over task performance in order to assist the survival of the enterprise that employs them. And this striving to achieve a level of ‘productive cooperation’ (see p. 110) which enables
corporate entities to survive takes place in a context of competition and power struggle, at every level, across the world.
