Author: Henri Savall Publisher: IAP ISBN: 160752435X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
The reprint of Henri Savall’s classic Work and People, originally published in French in 1974, is part of the Research in Management Consulting series effort to look backward as well as forward in examining trends, perspectives, and insights – especially from different countries and cultures – into the world of management consulting. Savall’s insights into the complexity of organizational life were groundbreaking, articulating the need to examine both economic and social factors as part of the same analysis, assessing technical and behavioral patterns through the lens of an integrated framework. As he has argued, there is a double-loop interaction between “the quality of functioning and economic performance,” and underestimating this socio-economic “tension” leads inevitably to reduced performance and losses, which he refers to as “hidden costs.” This approach, referred to as the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM), has significant potential for our thinking about organizational diagnosis and intervention. As Savall emphasizes, the North American tendency to cast people as human “resources” misses the essential point that human beings cannot be considered as simply another resource at the organization’s disposal. People are free to give or withhold their energy as they desire, depending on the quality of formal and informal contracts and interactions they have with their organizations. As such, the SEAM approach focuses on human “potential,” underscoring the need for managers and their organizations to create the conditions under which people will want to maximize their talents on behalf of the organization. Work and People focuses on the ramifications of this reality, as dysfunctions – the difference between planned and emergent activities and functions – can quickly lead to a series of costs that are “hidden” from an organization’s formal information systems (e.g., income statements, balance sheets, budgets). As his insightful work underscores, as organizations begin to accumulate dysfunction upon dysfunction, they inadvertently undermine their performance and create excessive operating costs, with lower productivity and less efficiency than they could achieve. As readers will discover, the frameworks, tools and ways of thinking about organizations, people and management in this volume – in essence the background to the socio-economic approach to organizational diagnosis and intervention – continue to hold great promise for our attempts to create truly integrative approaches to management and organizational improvement efforts.
Author: Publisher: Editions Bréal ISBN: 2749522161 Category : Languages : en Pages : 254
Author: Roberto Leombruni Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 9812702253 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 431
Book Description
This book presents the contributions to the first Wild@Ace conference. The acronym stands for OC Workshop on Industrial and Labor Dynamics OCo The Agent-Based Computational AproachOCO, and it has been the first event ever focusing on the very promising use of the agent-based simulation approach for investigation of labor economics and industrial organization issues. Agent-based models are computer models in which a multitude of agents OCo each embodied in a specific software code OCo interact. These agents can represent individuals households, firms, institutions, etc. Moreover, OC specialOCO agents can be added to observe and monitor individual and collective behavior. One of the main purpose of writing an ACE model is to gain intuitions on the two-way feedback between the microstructure and the macrostructure of a phenomenon of interest. How is it that simple aggregate regularities may arise from individual disorder? Or that a nice structure at an individual level may lead to a complete absence of regularity in the aggregate? How is it that the complex interaction of very simple individuals may lead to surprisingly complicated aggregate dynamics? Or that sophisticated agents may be unable to organize themselves in any interesting way?. The book includes contributions by some of the most distinguished researchers in the field, such as the economists Alan Kirman, Giovanni Dosi, Leigh Tesfatsion and Mauro Gallegati, and the sociologist Nigel Gilbert."
Author: Samuel Rosenberg Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1461308011 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
In the two decades before the mid-1970s, macroeconomic policies in Western Europe were frequently accompanied by policies of direct wage restraint in the pursuit of acceptable levels of employment, inflation, and international competitiveness. The same period witnessed a proliferation of social welfare programs, elements of which were sometimes commingled with demand management and pay policies in trilateral bargaining processes involving gov ernments, unions, and employers. In the wake of such subsequent develop ments as the oil price shocks, sharply intensified international competition, and slowing of growth rates in productivity, however, governments resorted more frequently to deflationist macroeconomic policies and also to policies aimed directly at increasing IIflexibility" in wage determination and the de ployment of labor by the firm. It is a major theme of this very interesting book that these labor market policies have not been demonstrably (or at least sufficiently) effective in com bating the high rates of unemployment which have been prevalent in most of the countries of Western Europe since the late 1970s. This theme emerges from the chapters on labor market developments and policies in six countries of Western Europe, the United States, and Hungary (a welcome addition to this type of scholarship), as well as another set of chapters'devoted to specific policy areas. In effect, Samuel Rosenberg and his colleagues-an interna tional team of nineteen economists and sociologists-are repeating in con crete terms a sermon preached by Keynes over a half century ago.
Author: Matteo Richiardi Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 981448136X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 431
Book Description
This book presents the contributions to the first Wild@Ace conference. The acronym stands for “Workshop on Industrial and Labor Dynamics — The Agent-Based Computational Aproach”, and it has been the first event ever focusing on the very promising use of the agent-based simulation approach for investigation of labor economics and industrial organization issues.Agent-based models are computer models in which a multitude of agents — each embodied in a specific software code — interact. These agents can represent individuals households, firms, institutions, etc. Moreover, “special” agents can be added to observe and monitor individual and collective behavior. One of the main purpose of writing an ACE model is to gain intuitions on the two-way feedback between the microstructure and the macrostructure of a phenomenon of interest. How is it that simple aggregate regularities may arise from individual disorder? Or that a nice structure at an individual level may lead to a complete absence of regularity in the aggregate? How is it that the complex interaction of very simple individuals may lead to surprisingly complicated aggregate dynamics? Or that sophisticated agents may be unable to organize themselves in any interesting way?The book includes contributions by some of the most distinguished researchers in the field, such as the economists Alan Kirman, Giovanni Dosi, Leigh Tesfatsion and Mauro Gallegati, and the sociologist Nigel Gilbert.
Author: Luc Boltanski Publisher: Verso Books ISBN: 1786633272 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 668
Book Description
New edition of this major work examining the development of neoliberalism In this established classic, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello get to the heart of contemporary capitalism. Delving deep into the latest management texts informing the thinking of employers, the authors trace the contours of a new spirit of capitalism. They argue that beginning in the mid-1970s, capitalism abandoned the hierarchical Fordist work structure and developed a new network-based form of organization founded on employee initiative and autonomy in the workplace—a putative freedom bought at the cost of material and psychological security. This was a spirit in tune with the libertarian and romantic currents of the period (as epitomized by dressed-down, cool capitalists such as Bill Gates and Ben and Jerry) and, as the authors argue, a more successful, pernicious, and subtle form of exploitation. In this new edition, the authors reflect on the reception of the book and the debates it has stimulated.
Author: Council of Europe Publisher: Council of Europe ISBN: 9287161518 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
Although the work place has become significantly more flexible in the former socialist countries of central and eastern Europe, the realities of their social institutional systems must be taken into account in any development strategies that aim to unite flexibility and security objectives. This volume seeks to contribute to a pan-European reflection on the concepts and issues of labour flexibility and social cohesion.
Author: Brian Bercusson Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1847314066 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
In recent decades, the prevailing response to the problem of unacceptable labour market outcomes in both Europe and North America - national regulation of labour standards and labour relations, coupled with collective bargaining - has come under increasing pressure from the economic and technological forces associated with globalisation. As those forces have shifted power away from national governments and labour unions and toward capital, the appropriate institutional locus of labour regulation has become hotly contested. There have been efforts to move the locus of regulation downward to smaller units of governance, including firms themselves, upward to larger units such as regional federations and international organizations, and outward to non-governmental organizations and civil society. In this volume, labour relations scholars from North America and Europe examine the efficacy of these emerging forms of labour regulation, their democratic legitimacy, the goals and values underlying them, and the appropriate direction of reform.
Author: Henri Savall
Author: 
Author: Annie Delhome
Author: Roberto Leombruni
Author: Samuel Rosenberg
Author: Matteo Richiardi
Author: Henri Savall
Author: Luc Boltanski
Author: Council of Europe
Author: Brian Bercusson