Selection in the Rationalization Process.

The author of this essay considers selection both as a principle inherent in rationalization and as an object in the rationalization debate. Discussing two conflict concepts of rationalization - lean production and qualified group work - of Japanese and European origin, respectively, the author examines how the future course of rationalization is preconceived, and even pre-negotiated, in the very formulation of such concepts. Both the examples she discusses involve contemporary variants of the old rationalizing idea; both are used as a basis in negotiating new methods and goals of rationalization. Old and new selection mechanisms are implicitly or explicitly included in the two new conceptions, with concomitant definitions of what is politically acceptable.