ABSTRACT
Soael&l OiHerences •n Organwng Manufactunng UMS 77
works depanment, but continuing along the same line of professional spec1alitv. A qualification has to be added with reference to British superintendents. the upper layer of supervision. Unlike the foremen. they had a greater complement of additional qualifications. for example. Ordinary or Higher National Cenificates in mechanical or production engmeering. or management courses. But it is imponant to realize that they did not follow trade speciality lines, seemed more centred on principles, and .,.·ere less in evidence. Nonetheless, the trend seems to be away from the old-style supenntendent. who has advanced on experience alone, in favour of younger people with some additional traming. 4. Systems of training for technicillns and engineers are quite complex. To an imponant extent. they latch on to careers in the works. so that sizable groups of technicians are former workers or ha•·e works-related experience. This is one of the primary inputs into their process of qualification. the other being training or education in technical colleges. polytechnics. universities, grandes ecoles. Technikerschulen. Fachhochschulen. or whatever such institutions may be called. The works-related input is panicularly strong in France as its techmcal staffs are the largest to be found. Workers there stand a very good chance of being promoted to staff status. as technicians. Thus the basis qualification for technicians in France is the CAP. whereas it is an apprenticeship in Britain and, particularly, in Germany. In that way. national differences as to extent and dimensionality of workers' professionality become extended into the staff area. In France, qualifications were concentrated at extreme ends of the educational and training range. At all levels. people stressed the fact that the relationship between formal qualifications and job performance was fairly tenuous. The view prevailed that courses pro,;ded students with an insight into principles, but that, as far as work in detail ~~o·as concerned, people still had much to learn. This was true for both CAP and higher diploma qualifications. The professionality of higher qualifications is undoubtedly strong as far as formal knowledge and engineering principles are concerned. but it seems to be weaker with regard to product, equipment, and engineering practice specificity. Higher diplomas appeared to become fairly obligatory from a certain level of management upwards, but within the nonmanagement technical sector of factories, box 4 of our initial scheme, there was no noticeable hierarchical specificity of cenain qualifications. In Germany, by contrast. one was more likely to find a hierarchical incidence of formal qualifications. with engineering diplomas (Dipl.-lng. and lng. grad.) dominating at the department or section leader level, and technician diplomas below that level. But the professional coherence between qualifications at different levels was quite strong; apprenticeships in the works were the usual entry requirement for a number of technician courses, as well as for the 'lower' tier of higher engineering courses leading to the lng. grad. diploma; even in the range of those holding university degrees, it was not infrequent to find
stratifiedtoagreaterextentthantheGermanones,sothattheconcentrationin thisbracketisalsoaresultofcategonzation.Itisnearlyimpossibletoevaluate differentsystemsinquantitativewayswithoutaddingqualitativeconsiderations,whichusuallyvitiatethequantitativeview.Inwhatwaycouldasystem, forinstance,besaidtobemoreelitist?InGermany,ontheonehand,university degreesoccurlessfrequently,sothattheirholdersarecertainlyanelite;onthe otherhand,theFrenchsystemisinstitutionallymoreconcentratedathigher levels.Itseemspreferabletospeakofdifferentkindsofelitism.Linkedtothis arenationallydifferentkindsofcareerprogression,selectioncriteria.and divisionsoflabour.Qualificationsystemsandformsoffunctionaldifferentiationandintegrationaretwosidesofthesamecoin.Theirinteractivelogicis exploredinthefollowingsection.
