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This article explores some of the similarities and differences between two approaches to the study of work that use moving images. The first approach, most notably practised by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, 'dissected' the movement of workers' bodies in the pursuit of efficiency. The second approach has emerged in the last few decades from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The article notes how shared technologies for data collection and shared interests in work practice belie more fundamental differences in analytic orientation. The article uses this comparison to highlight the potential contributions that the more recent corpus of studies can make to our understanding of work; an understanding that prioritizes the methodic practices in and through which members of society accomplish, experience and constitute work and organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a rejoinder to sociologist J. Child, M. Forbes, I. Glover and P. Lawrence related to professionalism and work organization. The alleged links between either professionalism-and-work-organization or work-organization-and-economic performance were not established; that is, they did not establish that observable average differences in patterns of work organization between samples of British and German firms could be attributed to professionalism nor did they establish that the companies with different patterns of work organization had different economic performances. To some extent I was arguing that the thesis was an unsatisfactory example of its kind through weaknesses in coriceptualisation, inadequate documentation, and the failure to deal with conflicting evidence. If the various elements could not be sustained then the thesis fell. However, I was arguing further that this approach to the problems of British manufacturing did not provide an appropriate framework for studies or policies on work organisation and economic performance. The emphasis on cultural factors in analysis and the educational system in prescription did little more than provide a familiar scapegoat.

In the understanding of managerial control over work, the labour process literature has been very influential. Recent critical contributions from the sociological tradition have, however, served to so fragment the underlying perspective that its coherence is now threatened. This paper seeks to demonstrate how a dialectical analysis can lay the basis for a viable amended approach. The need for a dialectical framework has often been urged illustrations of such a perspective in operation, however, are rare. Using a series of examples, this paper argues that the dialectic of work control can be revealed by focussing on two phenomena: the 'levels' and `circuits' of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines available theoretical models which have been derived front statistically established patterns of association between contextual and organizational variables. These models offer an interpretation of organizational structure as a product of organizational structure as a product of primarily economic constraints which contextual variable are impose. It is argued that available models in fact attempt to explain organization at one remove by ignoring the essentially political process, whereby power-holders within organizations decide upon courses of strategic action. This `strategic choice' typically includes not only the establishment of structural forms but also the manipulation of environmental features and the choice of relevant performance standards. A theoretical re-orientation this kind away from functional imperatives and towards' a recognition of political action is developed and illustrated in the man body of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]