MIDLANDS STATE UNIVERSITY

BSC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

HRM 101 – Management and Labour

Lecturer: P. Chadambuka (chadambukap@msu.ac.zw/)/Office: G5A

Preamble

The module serves as a basis for introducing students to theories and concepts in the evolution of

management and labour issues. At the end of the module, students are expected to understand the

hostilities that exist between management and labour and be able to think critically, analyse the

innate conflict between the two groups and come up with solutions of managing conflict.

Students will appreciate the origins of various approaches and models that shape the discipline of

people management.

Learning and Assessment

Delivery

This course is delivered through lectures to provide guidance on critical concepts around

management and labour, coupled by group presentations which will provide a platform to discuss

critical issues in the subject area. Students are encouraged to prepare adequately for both

presentations and lectures and some selected readings may be provided during the learning

period.

Assessment

Continuous assessment (CA) constitutes 40% of final assessment and is based on at least one

essay and one presentation. Written essays should be structured and referenced according to the

prescribed University rules on academic writing. The Final Examination constitutes 60% of the

final assessment. The exam is a 3-hour paper and normally structured as follows; there are 5

questions on the exam paper. Question 1 is compulsory and then the student selects any other

two essays from the remaining four questions.

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AREAS OF STUDY

1. Defining Management

What is management?

Types and levels of management

Functions of management

Management and planning

Management and organising

Management and leadership

Management and the human nature

2. Historical features of labour management

Classical schools of management

Behavioural school

3. Management and the labour process

Defining the labour process

History of the labour process

Labour process theories

Karl Marx and alienation

Braverman’s deskilling thesis

Burawoy’s’ labour process

Worker Mobilisation

4. Motivation at work

Definition of work motivation

What motivates employees to work?

Types of employee motivation

Theories of employee motivation.

5. Emerging Trends in labour management

Informalisation/Casualization of labour

Technology and the management of work

The rise of precarious forms of work

The erosion of traditional sources of power among workers

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the increased use of contingent and contract labour, reliance on volunteer employees,

and other forms of relationships that challenge the traditional notion of the employee-

employer relationship

The knowledge worker in perspective

Reading List

Bennis, W. (1990).On Becoming an leader. New York:AdsonWesley.

Burawoy, M. (2015). Forty Years of Labour. Michigan Sociological Review Vol.29, 1-21.

Dessler, G.(2005).Human Resource management. Prentice Hall.

Dye, (2005).Understanding Public policy.New Jersey:Prentice hall.

Edwards, P. (1995) Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in Britain; Oxford, Blackwell.

Jones, C. (2003). As if business ethics were possible, ‘Within such limits’. Organization, 10 (2),

223-248.

Kreitner, R. (2001); Management, Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company.

Pfeller, J. (1994).Competitive Advantage Through people:Unleashing the Power of the

workforce. Boston Harvard Business School Press.

Pough, D,S and Hickson, D.J.(1989). Writers on Organisations.Hammondsworth.Penguin Books.

Sadler P, (1997).Leadership; Kogan Page; London

Seifert, R. (2011). On Having A Grievance, Feeling Aggrieved and Grieving. London: Institute

of Employment Rights Conference.

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TOPIC 1: MANAGEMENT

In simple words, management means utilising available resources in the best possible manner

and also for achieving well defined objectives. It is a distinct and dynamic process involving use

of different resources for achieving well defined objectives. The resources are: men, money,

materials, machines, methods and markets. These are the six basic inputs in management process

and the output is in the form of achievement of objectives. It is the end result of inputs and is

available through efficient management process

What is Management?

Field of Study -Management principles, techniques, functions, etc.-Profession

Team or Class of people-Individual who performs managerial activities or may be a

group of persons

Process-Managerial activities -planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling.

Key definitions

"Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organising, actuating and

controlling, performed to determine and accomplish stated objectives by the use of

human beings and other resources". (George R. Terry)

"To manage is to forecast and to plan, to organise, to command, to coordinate and to

control". (Henry Fayol)

"Management is a multi-purpose organ that manages business and manages managers and

manages workers and work". (Peter Drucker)

Koontz, et-al ( 1980) suggests that management can be defined as all the activities and

tasks undertaken by one or more persons for the purpose of planning and controlling the

activities of others in order to achieve an objective or complete an activity that could not

be achieved by the others acting independently.

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Management is the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which

individuals, working together in groups, accomplish efficiently selected aims. This basic

definition needs to be expanded:

Different context of defining management:

Production-or efficiency-oriented-“…Management is the art of knowing what you want

to do and then seeing that it is done in the best and cheapest way…”

Decision-oriented-“…Management is simply the process of decision making and control

over the action of human beings for the expressed purpose of attaining predetermined

goals…”

People-oriented- “…Management is the accomplishment of results through the efforts

of other people…”

Function-oriented-“…To manage is to forecast and to plan, to organize, to coordinate and

to control…”

Management levels

The term “Levels of Management’ refers to a line of demarcation between various managerial

positions in an organization. The number of levels in management increases when the size of the

business and work force increases and vice versa.

The level of management determines a chain of command, the amount of authority & status

enjoyed by any managerial position. The levels of management can be classified in three broad

categories:

-Top level / Administrative level

-Middle level / Executory

-Low level / Supervisory / Operative / First-line managers

Top Level of Management

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It consists of board of directors, chief executive or managing director. The top

management is the ultimate source of authority and it manages goals and policies for an

enterprise. It devotes more time on planning and coordinating functions.

The role of the top management can be summarized as follows -

Top management lays down the objectives and broad policies of the enterprise.

It issues necessary instructions for preparation of department budgets, procedures,

schedules etc.

It prepares strategic plans & policies for the enterprise.

It appoints the executive for middle level i.e. departmental managers.

It controls & coordinates the activities of all the departments.

It is also responsible for maintaining a contact with the outside world.

It provides guidance and direction.

The top management is also responsible towards the shareholders for the performance of

the enterprise.

Middle Level of Management

The branch managers and departmental managers constitute middle level. They are

responsible to the top management for the functioning of their department. They devote

more time to organizational and directional functions. In small organization, there is only

one layer of middle level of management but in big enterprises, there may be senior and

junior middle level management.

Their role can be emphasized as –

They execute the plans of the organization in accordance with the policies and directives

of the top management.

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They make plans for the sub-units of the organization.

They participate in employment & training of lower level management.

They interpret and explain policies from top level management to lower level.

They are responsible for coordinating the activities within the division or department.

It also sends important reports and other important data to top level management.

They evaluate performance of junior managers.

They are also responsible for inspiring lower level managers towards better performance.

Lower Level of Management

Lower level is also known as supervisory / operative level of management. It consists of

supervisors, foreman, section officers, superintendent etc. According to R.C. Davis,

“Supervisory management refers to those executives whose work has to be largely with

personal oversight and direction of operative employees”. In other words, they are

concerned with direction and controlling function of management.

Their activities include –

Assigning of jobs and tasks to various workers.

They guide and instruct workers for day to day activities.

They are responsible for the quality as well as quantity of production.

They are also entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining good relation in the

organization.

They communicate workers problems, suggestions, and recommendatory appeals etc to

the higher level and higher level goals and objectives to the workers.

They help to solve the grievances of the workers.

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They supervise & guide the sub-ordinates.

They are responsible for providing training to the workers.

They arrange necessary materials, machines, tools etc for getting the things done.

They prepare periodical reports about the performance of the workers.

They ensure discipline in the enterprise.

They motivate workers.

They are the image builders of the enterprise because they are in direct contact with the

workers.

PROCESS OF MANAGEMENT/ MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

PLANNING

Stoner and Freeman (1989) define planning as the process of establishing objectives and

suitable course of action before taking action.

In simple terms planning is the basic process we use to select our goals and determine

how to achieve them.

Thus managers decide what needs to be done, when and how it needs to be done and who

is to do it. In organsiations in Zimbabwe and world over planning exist at every level in

the organisation.

Planning encompasses defining the organisation’s objectives or goals, establishing an

overall strategy for achieving these goals and developing a comprehensive hierarchy to

integrate and coordinate activities.

In short, planning is concerned with the ends (what is to be done) as well as with means

(how it is to be done).

There are informal plans (not written down but in the heads of a few people) and formal

plans (specific objectives are written down and made available to organisation members. 8 | P a g e

In this case management clearly defines the path it wants to take to get from where it is to

where it wants to be.

Fayol (1949) is of the view that planning, is done to assess the future and make provision

for it. Thus planning can be viewed as a process which requires important personal and

interpersonal competencies, including those related to managing the organization’s

internal and external stakeholders. In this regard planning assumes total control of the

situation and through effective planning strategies are then made to bridge the gap

between where we are and where we want to be.

Basic Steps in Planning (Stoner and Freeman 1989)

Step 1: Establish a Goal or Set a Goal – panning begins with decisions about what the

organisation or sub unit wants or needs. In this respect it becomes clear that goals are an

indispensable part of planning. If one is unable to set meaningful goals, one will not be able to

make effective plans.

Reasons for failing to set effective goals

Unwilling to give up alternative goals – to set new goals and channel resources to

achieve then means foregoing certain choices.

Fear of failure – a person who sets definite, clear cut goals takes the risk of failing

to achieve it. Failure threatens self esteem to the respect they command.

Lack of organisational knowledge – one cannot establish meaningful objectives

without having a good working relationship with their organisation. All managers

should be well informed on all organisational activities.

Lack of knowledge about the environment – managers should understand both the

internal and external environment they are operating in.

Lack of confidence – if managers lack confidence they hesitate to establish

challenging goals.

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Step 2: Define the present situation – very crucial stage as it helps to identify how the

organisation falling short of its goals. What resources are available? When the current state is

analyzed it forms the basis for future plans. There should be open channels of communication.

Step 3: Identify Aids and Barriers – determine what factors internal or external environments can

help the organisation reach its goals. What factors might create problems.

Step 4: Develop courses of Action – this is the last step in the planning process which involves

developing various alternative courses of action, evaluate them and selecting the most suitable or

satisfactory. Decisions for the future actions are made.

Step 5: is evaluation, and during this part of the planning process managers will consider the

effects of alternative goals and plans. Managers will weigh out the advantages and

disadvantages, and they will focus strongly on cost effectiveness and "expected return" (Bateman

& Snell, 2009, p.23).

Step 6: Goal and plan selection- it entails identifying "the priorities and trade-offs among the

goals and plans" in order to select a plan that is the most "appropriate and feasible" (Bateman &

Snell, 2009, p.24). During this step managers must use the information gathered in the previous

step to determine what goal and plan they must choose.

Step 7: Implementation - "managers and employees must understand the plan, have the resources

to implement it, and be motivated to do so" (Bateman & Snell, 2009, p.25). This step is integral

because an excellent plan is not going to work if it is not properly implemented. A plan that has

been influenced by the input of employees is a great way to provide employees with motivation.

Step 8: Monitoring and controlling is an important step to the planning process because it allows

for review and change where needed. Planning is a continual process that allows for new plans

and strategies to be formulated and implemented when situations change.

Types of plans

Plans differ at all levels. There are three major types of plans that can help managers achieve

their organization's goals. These are namely strategic, tactical, and operational plans. Operational

plans lead to the achievement of tactical plans, which in turn lead to the attainment of strategic

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plans. In addition to these three types of plans, managers should also develop a contingency plan

in case their original plans fail (Contingency approach)

Operational plans –

The specific results expected from departments, work groups, and individuals are the

operational goals. These goals are precise and measurable. “Produce 8 tons per day” or

“Publish 20 books this quarter” are examples of operational goals.

An operational plan is one that a manager uses to accomplish his or her job responsibilities.

Operational plans provide details as to how the strategic plans can be accomplished.

Supervisors, team leaders, and facilitators develop operational plans to support tactical

plans.

Tactical plans

A tactical plan is concerned with what the lower level units within each division must do,

how they must do it, and who is in charge at each level.

Tactics are the means needed to activate a strategy and make it work. Tactical plans are

concerned with shorter time frames and narrower scopes than are strategic plans.

These plans usually span one year or less because they are considered short-term goals.

Long-term goals, on the other hand, can take several years or more to accomplish.

Normally, it is the middle manager's responsibility to take the broad strategic plan and

identify specific tactical actions.

Strategic plans

A strategic plan is an outline of steps designed with the goals of the entire organization as

a whole in mind, rather than with the goals of specific divisions or departments. Strategic

planning begins with an organization's mission.

Strategic plans look ahead over the next two, three, five, or even more years to move the

organization from where it currently is to where it wants to be. Requiring multilevel

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involvement, these plans demand harmony among all levels of management within the

organization.

Top-level management develops the directional objectives for the entire organization,

while lower levels of management develop compatible objectives and plans to achieve

them.

Top management's strategic plan for the entire organization becomes the framework and

sets dimensions for the lower level planning.

Contingency plans

Intelligent and successful management depends upon a constant pursuit of adaptation, flexibility,

and mastery of changing conditions. Strong management requires a “keeping all options open”

approach at all times — that's where contingency planning comes in

Importance of Planning

Provides Direction: Planning provides a clear sense of direction to the activities of the

organization and to the job behavior of managers and others. It strengthens their

confidence in understanding where the organization is heading and what for, how best to

make the organization move along the chosen path, and when should they take what

measures to achieve the goals of the organization.

Provides opportunity to analyze alternative courses of action: Another source of

importance of planning is that it permits managers to examine and analyze alternative

course of action with a better understanding of their likely consequences. If managers

have an enhanced awareness of the possible future effects of alternative courses of action,

for making a decision or for taking any action, they will be able to exercise judgment and

proceed cautiously to choose the most feasible and favorable course of action.

Reduces uncertainties: Planning forces managers to shake off their inertia and insular

outlook; it induces them to look beyond those noses, beyond today and tomorrow, and

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beyond immediate concerns. It encourages them to probe and cut through complexities

and uncertainties of the environment and to gain control over the elements of change.

Minimizes impulsive and arbitrary decisions: Planning tends to minimize the incidence

of impulsive and arbitrary decisions and ad hoc actions; it obviates exclusive dependence

on the mercies of luck and chance elements; it reduces the probability of major errors and

failures in managerial actions. It injects a measure of discipline in managerial thinking

and organizational action. It improves the capability of the organization to assume

calculated risks. It increases the freedom and flexibility of managers within well-defined

limits.

King-pin function: As stated earlier, planning is a prime managerial function which

provides the basis for the other managerial functions. The organizational structure of task

and authority roles is built around organizational plans. The functions of motivation,

supervision, leadership and communication are addressed to implementation of plans and

achievement of organizational objectives. Managerial control is meaningless without

managerial planning. Thus, planning is the king-pin function around which other

functions are designed.

Resource Allocation: Planning is means of judicious allocation of strategic and scarce

resources of the organization in the best possible manner for achieving strategic goals of

the organization. The strategic resources include funds, highly competent executives,

technological talent, good contacts with government, exclusive dealer network and so on.

If the organization enjoys a distinct advantage in possession of such resources, a careful

planning is essential to allocate them into those lines which would strengthen the overall

competitive position of the organization.

Resource use efficiency: For an ongoing organization, planning contributes towards a

more efficient functioning of the various work units. There is better utilization of the

organization's existing assets, resources and capabilities. It prompts managers to close

gaps, to plug loopholes, to rectify deficiencies, to reduce wastage and leakages of funds,

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materials, human efforts and skills so as to bring about an overall improvement in

resource use efficiency.

Adaptive responses: Planning tends to improve the ability of the organization to

effectively adapt and adjust its activities and directions in response to the changes taking

place in the external environment. An adaptive behavior on the part of the organization is

essential for its survival as an independent entity. For a business organization, for

example, adaptive behavior is critical in technology, markets, products and so on.

Anticipative action: While adaptation is a behavior in reaction and response to some

changes in the outside world, it is not enough in some situations. In recognition of this

fact, planning stimulates management to act, to take hold initiatives, to anticipate crises

and threats and toward them off, to perceive and seize opportunities ahead of other

competitions, and to gain a competitive lead over others. For the purpose, some

enterprises establish environmental scanning mechanism as part of their planning

systems. Thereby such enterprises are able to direct and control change, instead of being

directed and controlled by the pervasive external forces of change.

Integration: Planning is an important process to bring about effective integration of the

diverse decisions and activities of the managers not only at a point of time but also over a

period of time. It is by reference to the framework provided by planning that managers

make major decisions on organizational activities, in an internally consistent manner.

CONTROLLING

Control is a management function that focuses on the process of monitoring activities to

ensure that they are being accomplished as planned.

It also includes correcting any significant deviation that may exist between goals and

actual results.

Importance of Control

Important because it involves determining whether objectives are being accomplished as

planned. Also useful for determining whether delegated authority is being abused.

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Control Process

Management must first have standards of performance derived from the objectives it

formed in the planning stage.

Management must then measure actual performance and compare the performance

against the standards.

If variance exists between standards and performance, management can adjust

performance, adjust the standards, or do nothing, according to the situation.

Types of Control

Feed forward control – is future directed and designed to prevent problems by

anticipating them.

Concurrent control – takes place while an activity is in progress.

Feedback control – the most frequently found in organisations, takes place after an

activity or an event has occurred.

Qualities of Effective control

Accurate

Timely

Economical

Flexible

Understandable

It uses reasonable criteria

Strategic placement

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Suggests corrective action

Factors in Control Process

Size of the organisation

Manager’s level in organisation’s hierarchy

Degree of decentralization

Organisation’s culture

Importance of activity

Factors Affecting Span of Control

Span of control refers to the number of subordinates a supervisor has.

Qualification and Qualities - If the superiors and subordinates are well-qualified, trained,

experienced, and if they are experts in their jobs then their use of control will be wide and

vice-versa.

Level of Management

Nature of Work - If the work is difficult then the span of control is narrow and vice-versa.

Superior - Subordinates Relationship -If there are good relations between the superior and

subordinates, then the span of control will be wide and vice-versa.

Degree of Centralisation-

Use of Communication Technology - If face-to-face communication is used, then the

span of control will be narrow. However, if electronic devices are used for

communication then the span of control will be wide.

Financial position of the Organisation - If the organisation has a good financial position,

then it can have a narrow span of control. This is because a narrow span requires more

managers. More managers will increase the compensation or wage bill of the

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organisation. However, if the organisation has a bad financial position, then it will be

forced to have a wide span of control.

Clarity of Plans and Responsibilities - If the plans are clear and if the responsibilities are

well-defined, then the span of control will be wide. This is because the subordinates will

not have to go and consult their superior repeatedly for getting orders and guidance.

Time available for Subordinates - If the superior is busy with another work, and if he has

less time for his subordinates then his span of control will be narrow and vice-versa.

Faith and Trust in Subordinates - If the superior has good faith, trust and confidence in

his subordinates then the span of control can be wider

ORGANISING

Definition - Includes determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the

tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made. It

creates mechanisms to put plans into action.

Tasks are organised so that the output of individuals contributes to the success of

departments, which contributes to the success of divisions, which in turn contributes to

overall success of organisations.

Stoner and Freeman (1989) defined organising as the process of arranging an

organisation’s structure and coordinating its managerial practices and use of resources to

achieve goals.

Elements of Organisational structure

Work specialization - Having each separate step of a job done by a different

individual rather than one individual do the whole job e.g. shirt production

Unity of Command - Management principle that no employee should report to more

than one boss

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Span of control - The number of employees a manager can effectively and efficiently

manage

Authority and responsibility - Authority is the rights inherent in a managerial position

to give orders and expect them to be followed. Responsibility is an obligation to

perform assigned tasks.

Centralisation and decentralization - Centralisation is the higher the level in which

decisions are made. Decentralisation is pushing down of decision making authority to

lower levels in an organization

Departmentalisation - Grouping of activities in an organisation by function, product,

customer, geographical location or process.

Ways of departmentalisation

Function – work/job being done

Product – product or service being generated

Customer – group served

Geography – location of operations

Process – work flow

Contrasting mechanistic and Organic organisations

Mechanistic (Bureaucratic) Organisations –is structure that is high in specialisation,

formalisation and centralisation

Rigid hierarchical relationships

Fixed duties

Many rules

Formalised communication channels

Centralised decision authority

Tall structures

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Organic Organisations – an adhocracy : a structure that is low in specialisation, formalisation

and centralisation

Collaboration (both vertical and horizontal)

Adaptable duties

Few rules

Informal communication

Decentralised decision authority

Flatter structures

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is defined by Stoner and Freeman as, “the process of directing and inspiring

workers to perform the task-related activities of the group”.

Leadership involves other people. They define the leader’s status and make the

leadership process possible.

Again leadership involves an unequal distribution of power among leaders and group

members.

Leader and Manager - A leader may emerge from within a group. A leader is able to

influence others. A leader can influence others to perform beyond the actions dictated by

formal authority. A manager has legitimate power that allows her/him to punish or

reward. The ability to influence is based on the formal authority inherent in their

positions.

The Four Core Theory Groups

The four core groups of theory and some of the tools and models that apply with each.

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NB :-that there are many other theories out there.

1.Trait Theories (What Type of Person Makes a Good Leader?)

Trait Theories - Trait theories argue that effective leaders share a number of common

personality characteristics, or "traits." Early trait theories said that leadership is an innate,

instinctive quality that you do or don't have.

Trait theories help us identify traits and qualities (for example, integrity, empathy,

assertiveness, good decision-making skills, and likability) that are helpful when leading

others. However, none of these traits, nor any specific combination of them, will

guarantee success as a leader.

Traits are external behaviors that emerge from the things going on within our minds –

and it's these internal beliefs and processes that are important for effective leadership.

Trait theory suggests that leaders are born not made.

It believes that there are individuals with a predisposition to leadership.

Early theorist attempted to compare traits of those who emerged as leaders with the traits

of those who did not, and secondly they attempted to compare the traits of effective

leaders with those of ineffective leaders.

Possession of these traits is no guarantee of leadership because one cannot ignore

situational factors.

2. Behavioral Theories – (What Does a Good Leader Do?)

Behavioral theories focus on how leaders behave. For instance, do leaders dictate what

needs to be done and expect cooperation? Or do they involve their teams in decision-

making to encourage acceptance and support.

Behavioral Leadership Styles

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans,

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and motivating people. In the 1930s, Kurt Lewin developed a framework for leadership

styles based on a leader's behavior. He argued that there are three types of leaders:

(i). Autocratic leaders make decisions without consulting their teams. This style of

leadership is considered appropriate when decisions need to be made quickly, when

there's no need for input, and when team agreement isn't necessary for a successful

outcome. Leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it

accomplished, without getting the advice of their followers.

Some of the appropriate conditions to use it is when a manager has all the information to

solve the problem, is short on time, and when employees are well motivated.

This style is not to be used by managers as a vehicle for yelling, using demeaning

language, and leading by threats and abusing their power over employees. This is not the

authoritarian style, rather it is an abusive, unprofessional style called “bossing people

around.” It has no place in a leader's repertoire.

The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions.

If you a manager has time and wants to gain more commitment and motivation from

employees, then they should use the participative style.

(ii) Democratic/Participative leaders allow the team to provide input before making a

decision (determining what to do and how to do it), although the degree of input can

vary from leader to leader. This style is important when team agreement matters, but

it can be difficult to manage when there are lots of different perspectives and ideas.

This is normally used when a manager has a part of information, and their employees

have other parts. Note that a leader is not expected to know everything this is why

organisations employ knowledgeable and skillful employees.

Using this style is therefore becomes a mutual benefit for both leaders and their followers

it allows them to become part of the team and allows them to make better decisions.

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(iii) Laissez-faire leaders don't interfere; they allow people within the team to make many

of the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are

made. This works well when the team is highly capable, is motivated, trustworthy and

does not require close supervision. However, this behavior can arise because the

leader is lazy or distracted. This is where this approach can fail. This is used when

employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and

how to do it.

Clearly, how leaders behave affects their performance. Researchers have realized, though, that

many of these leadership behaviors are appropriate at different times. The best leaders are those

who can use many different behavioral styles, and choose the right style for each situation.

-A good leader uses all three styles, depending on what forces are involved between the

followers, the leader, and the situation. Some examples include:

-Using an authoritarian style on a new employee who is just learning the job. The leader is

competent and a good coach. The employee is motivated to learn a new skill. The situation is a

new environment for the employee.

-Using a participative style with a team of workers who know their job. The leader knows the

problem, but does not have all the information. The employees know their jobs and want to

become part of the team.

-Using a delegative style with a worker who knows more about the job than the manager. A

manager cannot do everything and the employee needs to take ownership of their job! In

addition, this allows the manager to be at other places, doing other things.

Forces that influence the leadership style:

How much time is available.

Are relationships based on respect and trust or on disrespect?

Who has the information — the manager, employees, or both?

How well the employees are trained and how well you know the task.

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Internal conflicts.

Stress levels.

Type of task. Is it structured, unstructured, complicated, or simple?

Laws or established procedures or training plans.

3. Contingency Theories – (How Does the Situation Influence Good Leadership)?

The realization that there is no one correct type of leader led to theories that the best

leadership style depends on the situation.

These theories try to predict which style is best in which circumstance. For instance,

when you need to make quick decisions, which style is best? When you need the full

support of your team, is there a more effective way to lead? Should a leader be more

people-oriented or task-oriented?

4. Power and Influence Theories – (What is the Source of the Leader's Power?)

Power and influence theories of leadership take an entirely different approach – these are based

on the different ways that leaders use power and influence to get things done, and they look at

the leadership styles that emerge as a result.

OTHER FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT.

NB* Students to research more on directing, staffing, innovation and

represantaion.

Staffing - involves “…man in the organisational structure through proper and effective

selection, appraisal and development of personnel to fill the roles designed into the

structure…”

Innovation - means crating new ideas which may either result in the development of new

products or finding new uses for older ones. It is necessary to grow better.

Representation - The manger has to represent himself for the organization. A manager

must win support effectively from different groups (either internal or external).23 | P a g e

MANAGEMENT AND THE HUMAN NATURE

5 Models of Analysing the human nature in an Organization

(1) Rational Economic Man, (2) Social Man, (3) Organizational Man, (4) The Self

Actuating Man, and (5) Complex Man.

1. Rational Economic Man:

From the organisational perspective, managers had, for a long time, viewed their employees as

rational beings who are primarily motivated by money. They took the ‘ECONOMIC MAN’ and

‘RATIONAL MAN’ approach to understand and predict the human behaviour. This model is

based on classical organisation theory.

The Scientific Management Movement was based on the belief that by rationally explaining the

one best way to do things and offering incentives to workers in the form of piece rates and

bonuses, organisational output can be increased. Psychologists have also studied this model for

predicting human behaviour. For example, McGregor’s assumptions of Theory X reflect this

model.

The basic assumptions of the concept of ‘Rational Economic Man’ are as follows:

(i) People are motivated primarily by economic incentives. They will do things

which get them the greatest economic gain.

(ii) As the organisation controls the economic incentives, human beings are

essentially passive agents, who are manipulated, motivated and controlled by the

organisation.

(iii) The feelings of the people are essentially irrational and must be controlled to

achieve rationality and self-interest.

(iv) Organisations can and must be designed in such a way so as to neutralize and control

people’s feelings and therefore their unpredictable traits.

In this model, people are induced to produce more by providing them with economic

incentives. In this case, there is no organisation-employees conflict because both are

24 | P a g e

satisfying their needs simultaneously. Management is getting more production and people

are getting more money.

Drawbacks:

(i) As this model is based on the classical organisation theory, it suffers from the

shortcomings inherent in that theory and do not suit the present day organisation.

(ii) The economic incentives can work till the man is not reasonably satisfied by the

need of money.

Though, the need of money is inexhaustible and the man will never have enough, but

after a certain stage, only money will not be sufficient for him. He will have some

psychological needs also, which cannot be fulfilled by the organisation in this case.

Therefore, it can be stated that the whole assumption of Rational Economic man are not

sufficient in understanding and predicting human behaviour.

2. Social Man:

With the passage of time, the advocates of human relations school recognized that there is a lot

more to human behaviour than just being economic and rational man. Advocates of this school

considered the worker as a social man. They recognized that man is a part of the social group he

is influenced by the social forces and seeks satisfaction of the needs which are related to the

maintenance of his social relationships. Elton Mayo conceived the concept of the social man

when he carried out Hawthorne studies during 1927-32.

From the reports of Hawthorne experiments the following assumptions about human beings can

be drawn:

(i) Human beings are basically motivated by social needs and all their efforts are

directed towards getting this satisfaction by maintaining relationships with others.

(ii) A human being is more responsive to the pressures and sanctions of his social

group than to the incentives and controls of the management. The reason is that he values

social relationship higher than his economic motives which are directly under the control

of management.

25 | P a g e

(iii) The amount of work to be done by a worker is not determined by his physical

capacity or by the management but by the social norms.

(iv) Generally people do not act or react as individuals but as members of a group.

(v) Informal leaders play an important role in setting and enforcing the group norms.

(vi) Management should change and organize work in such a way that it provides more

belongingness not only in terms of interpersonal and group relationships, but also man’s

relationship with his job.

The type of managerial strategy that is to be applied in the case of social man is quite

different as compared to the strategy to be applied in case of Economic-Rational man.

The total system of social man is directed towards people.

The following changes were required in the managerial strategy.

(i) Earlier the management was conceived only with the output given by the workers.

In this approach, the management had to pay attention to the workers also as human

beings.

(ii) Earlier, the only concern of management was to provide economic incentives to

the workers or in other words to look after their economic needs, but under this concept,

the psychological needs were also to be considered.

(iii) Another required change was to analyse and motivate human behaviour in terms

of groups rather than on individual basis.

(iv) Another change which was required was in the behaviour of the manager instead of

being the controller of behaviour he was supposed to act as the supporter of workers.

The social man approach was also considered somewhat simplistic.

As time passed by, organisational behaviour theorists such as Argyris (1957), Likert

(1961, 1967) and McGregor (1960) argued that people in organisations need

opportunities to use their individual creativity and must have their growth needs met in

order to function effectively.

3. Organisational Man:

Organisation man is an extension of social man. The concept of organisation man was introduced

by William Whyte. He believed that it is very important for a person to be loyal to the

organisation and cooperative with the fellow workers. Any person who believes in this value

26 | P a g e

system and acts in this way is an organisation man. The basis of this concept is and that every

individual should sacrifice his individuality for the sake of the group and the organisation.

This idea was initially suggested by Henry Fayol, when he suggested that individual interest

should be subordinated to the general interest. Whyte had explained three major propositions, on

which this concept of organisation man is based.

These propositions are as follows:

(i) The first proposition is that individual by himself is isolated and meaningless. The

group is the source of activity. Individuals are creative only when they move in a group.

A group helps to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

(ii) The ultimate need of every individual is belongingness. He wants to belong to his

families, friends, relatives, colleagues and other members of the society as a whole.

Whyte says that there should be no conflict between man and society.

(iii) The goal of belongingness is achieved with the help of science. Whenever there

is a conflict between the needs of the society and the needs of the individual, an

equilibrium can be created by applying the methods of science. Science can help in

removing all the obstacles to consensus.

The organisation man concept emphasis, that there is no conflict between the individual

interest and the interest of the organisation. Even if there is any conflict, individual

interest will be sacrificed in favour of the group interest to remove the conflict. However,

there is a basic assumption behind this concept.

The assumption is that management will take care of the individual interests. It would be

the duty of the management to satisfy the needs of the individuals. People will be willing

to sacrifice their interests for the organisation only if they are positive that the

organisation would take care of them.

4. The Self Actuating Man:

The concept of self-actuating man is a further extension of social man and the organisation man

models. The social man concept assumes that the formation of social groups is the basis of

satisfaction for the individuals. But as against this the self-actuating man assumes that man’s

27 | P a g e

inherent need is to use his capabilities and skills in such a way that he should have the

satisfaction of creating certain things. The earlier models do not allow him to satisfy his self-

actuating needs.

Following are the main assumptions about the self-actuating man:

(i) The basic assumption about this concept is that the various needs of a man can be

put in the order of priority. For example, MASLOW has put various needs in a hierarchy:

Every unsatisfied need is a motivational factor for him. Self-actualization according to

this diagram is the ultimate goal, because it is last in the hierarchy and by the time his

goal is achieved, all the other needs of the man are also satisfied.

(ii) In the process of self-actualization, there are various changes in the behaviour of

the individual and he moves from immaturity to maturity.

Hierarchy of Needs

(iii) Another assumption is that a man is primarily self-motivated and self-controlled.

Any incentives given by the management cannot motivate him after a certain level and

any control imposed on him cannot threaten him.

(iv) The earlier models were based on the assumption that a man has got immature

personality. However, the reality is that if a man is left free, he will put in his maximum

efforts.

These assumptions are generally based upon McGregor’s theory Y and Argyris’s

immaturity-maturity theory. To satisfy a self-actuating man what are required are all the

managerial actions meant to satisfy the social man with some additional features.

5. Complex Man:

Complex man presents the real picture of human picture of human behaviour. All the

previous models make very simplistic assumptions about people and their behaviour.

Researchers have proved that these assumptions are not correct as explained below:

(i) The earlier models assume that man will always behave according to certain set

patterns. But research has indicated that there are many complex variables, which

determine the human behaviour. These variables are quite unpredictable. So the human

behaviour which is based on these variables cannot follow a set pattern.

28 | P a g e

(ii) The behaviour of man can be understood and predicted in the given conditions,

depending upon the assumptions made. But research has indicated that even if cause-

effect relationship is established between the variables and behaviour, it is not easy to

understand and predict the individual behaviour because of the individual differences. It

is not necessary that everyone will behave accordingly. Most behaviour in the

organisation can be understood by taking assumptions of complex man.

Following are a few assumptions about the complex man:

(i) People are not only complex but are also highly variable. Though their needs can

be arranged in a hierarchy, but this hierarchy is also not universal. Different people may

have different hierarchies.

(ii) People are capable of learning new motives through their organisational

experiences.

(iii) People’s motives in different organisations or different sub parts of the same

organisation may be different.

(iv) People can respond to many different kinds of management strategies.

Though this model is quite complex, it indicates the real situation and lays emphasis on

the fact that human behaviour is not as simple as assumed in the previous models. Hence

current thinking on the subject is to take a ‘complex man’ approach and recognize that

different individuals have different needs and personality traits and if there is a proper

match between these and the environment they operate in, functional behaviour will

emerge.

29 | P a g e

TOPIC 2: SCHOOLS OF MANAGEMENT

(i) THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STRUCTURE

The theories provide a framework within which we can understand management

Fredrick Taylor and the scientific management

Born in Germantown, Pennyslvnia in 1856. He proposed the need to introduce science

into managing organisations in order to bring objectivity, precision order and

predictability as opposed to using the “rule of thumb” which was prevalent when he

wrote his works in the 1900 and 1910s. He published “The Scientific Management” in

1911. The worker was supposed to function as part of the machine to maximize

productivity.

Determination of standards of performance- there is a rational way of determining what

an average person should do in any particular work. This has to be done for all jobs.

Functional foremanship-means the need to introduce foreman for each functional

area such as plumbing, welding who should plan the work of others and supervise

them carefully. The worker should only do the work planned by the foreman. It

was a way of separating planning and doing, ie mental (managerial) and manual

(workers)

Responsibility of management- the role of managers should be planning, training

directing and organizing for the operations of workers who have to be properly

selected and trained scientifically,

Different piecework system of wage payment- this was an attempt to motivate

workers to put in extra effort. He introduced the differential piece work system of

wage payment

Taylor’s four principles of management

1) Developing a true science of work to determine the most efficient method of performing each 30 | P a g e

specific task. To him work has to be analysed to identify smaller tasks of components because

we do not know what constitutes a fair day’s work. Therefore a job description is the foundation

of scientific approach to management.

2) Selecting workers carefully and scientifically so that workers should be given responsibilities

for performing the tasks for which they are suited. This was an attempt to avoid the unsystematic

selection of workers.

3) Educating and training workers to perform tasks in the best prescribed manner.

4) Closer supervision to ensure that all work is performed according to the principles derived

from scientific analysis.

Limitations of scientific management theory

Although Taylor's method led to dramatic increase in productivity and higher pay in

number of instances, workers and unions began to oppose his approach because they

feared that working harder or faster would exhaust whatever work was available Causing

layoffs.

Moreover, Taylor’s system clearly meant that time was of the essence. His critics

objected to the speed up condition that placed undue pressure on employees to perform at

faster and faster levels.

The emphasis on productivity and by extension profitability led some managers to exploit

both the workers and customers.

As a result more workers joined unions and thus reinforced a pattern of suspicious and

mistrust that shaded labor relations for decades

Henri Fayol (1841-1925) and the principles of management

He sought to systematize management as an organized activity.

Unlike Taylor who concentrated on worker productivity at the operational level, Fayol

was interested in the overall management of the entire organization

31 | P a g e

He defined management as comprising 5 interrelated element planning, organizing,

coordinating, commanding and control.

He came up with 14 principles of management :

Division of work - Same as Adam’s Smith’s “division of labour”. Specialisation

increases output by making employees more efficient.

Authority- Managers must be able to give orders. Authority gives them this right.

Along with authority, however goes responsibility. Wherever authority is exercised,

responsibility arises.

Discipline- Employees must obey and respect the rules that govern the organisation.

Good discipline is the result of effective leadership, a clear understanding between

management and workers regarding the organisation’s rules, and the judicious use of

penalties for breach of the rules.

Unity of Command- Every employee should receive orders from only one supervisor.

Unity of Direction. Each group of organisational activities that have the same objective

should be directed by the manager using one plan.

Subordination of individual interests to those of the organization- The interests of any

one employee or group of employees should not take precedence over the interests of the

organisation as a whole.

Remuneration- Workers must be paid a fair wage for their services.

Centralisation- Centralisation refers to the degree to which subordinates are involved in

decision making. Whether decision making is centralised (to management) or

decentralised (subordinates)is a question of proper proportion. The task is to find the

optimum (most favourable) degree of centralisation for each situation.

Scalar Chain- The line of authority from top management to the lowest ranks represents

the scalar chain. Communication should follow this chain. However, if following the

chain creates delay, cross-communication can be allowed if agreed to by all parties and if

superiors are kept informed.

Order- People and materials should be in the right place at the right time.

32 | P a g e

Equity- Managers should be kind and fair to their subordinates.

Stability of tenure of personnel- High employee turnover is inefficient. Management

should provide orderly personnel planning and ensure that replacements are available to

fill vacancies. Workers perform better when job security and career progress is high.

Initiative- Employees who are allowed to originate and carry out plans will exert high

levels of effort.

Esprit de Corps- Promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity within the

organisation.

Unity of direction- each employee and section need to function towards the common goal

the organization set to achieve.

Although critics have pointed that they cannot be called principles because they are contradictory

in many ways and that they cannot be universally applied everywhere, they however provide

insights into how managerial behavior can be modified to achieve goals in an effective and

efficient manner.

Max Weber and bureaucracy

A Germany sociologist is the chief advocate of bureaucracy.

He made a distinction between power-the ability to force people to obey regardless of

whether they are willing or not, and authority where orders are willingly obeyed by those

receiving them.

He attempted to prescribe an ideal organization structure, which would meet the needs of

urbanizing and industrializing society.

He identified several important features which would ensure that organisations were

efficient and effective.

Division of Labour- Jobs are broken down into simple, routine and well defined tasks.

Hierachy of Authority.- Office or positions are organised in a hierarchy, each lower

one being controlled and supervised by the higher one.33 | P a g e

Formal communication- which is mostly written which gurantees accountability,

continuity and records.

Formal rules and Regulations- To ensure uniformity and regulate the actions of

employees, managers must depend heavily on formal organisational rules.

Impersonality and rationality- Rules and controls are applied uniformly, avoiding

involvement with personalities and personal preferences.

Employment through technical competences and official qualifications- Weber

endorses the need to ensure that people are not employed by the back door.

Obedience to the office and not the individual-subordinates should give due respect to

the office and not the person in the office

Criticism Of Weber’s bureaucracy

1. In reality there is so much overlap of responsibility- there are no clearly defined

responsibilities.

2. Communication is not always hierarchical from top to bottom but can also be influenced

by kinship relations and informal relations.

3. In some cases rules are just an appearance, they can be bent, broken or ignored.

4. Impersonality is impossible in our African context.

5. Bureaucracy is a threat to human freedom by over reliance on rules. This creates an iron

cage.

6. It stifles creativity and initiative because it encourages uniform behaviour.

7. It creates specialists without spirit (without morality feeling for self and others) see

bureaucrats in government offices in Zimbabwe.

8. Some critics, notably Marxists argue that bureaucracy is a characteristic of capitalist

societies. Therefore in communist societies bureaucracy is not necessary. It can only be

34 | P a g e

understood in terms of the ownership of means of production; therefore bureaucracy is an

instrument of control and coercion by those who own the means of production.

Bureaucracy is a means of controlling labour by the ruling class.

The ideas of Robert Michels as a critique to bureaucracy

He wrote a famous book called Political parties (1962). He is best known for his saying that who

says organisation says oligarchy. He was concerned with the relationship between bureaucracy

and democracy. He wrote about political parties and trade unions with an emphasis on the

German Socialist Party. Democracy can be defined as self-rule. Today self-rule is through

representatives in parliament. Michels argues that democracy is inconceivable without

organisations. People have to come together to form an organisation in order to advance their

interests for example, through trade unions, student unions. However, there is a paradoxical

situation created. The paradox is that as soon as people try to organise themselves bureaucracy

steps in. As soon as bureaucracy sets in democracy disappears. According to Michels

bureaucracy brings with it oligarchy (rule by a few) which kills democracy. As the organisation

grows bigger and complicated it becomes difficult for everyone’s views to be heard. The more

representation there is the less democracy there is. The few representatives chosen as servants of

the people end up being masters of the people and they become difficult to remove. The

following are the reasons why democracy is impossible in organisations as given by Michels in

Zeitlin (1996):

The nature of the human being – it is man’s inherent nature to crave power and once

having attained it seek to perpetuate it.

The nature of the political struggle- it is such that people must choose representatives

with expertise, specialisation and objective knowledge to advance their cause. This

creates the perennial incompetence of masses that are ignorant of most issues. It however,

creates a gulf between the leaders and the followers.

35 | P a g e

The tendency of leaders to develop interests peculiar to themselves and a creation of a

cult where leaders are viewed as heroes. Leaders create an impression that they are

indispensable and whenever their views are challenged they threaten to resign.

The enormous populations in modern organisations render it technically impossible for

all members to govern or administer directly their common affairs.

Therefore while organisations are positive they have a natural tendency to kill

democracy as they become more and more bureaucratised

Robert Merton’s (1940) study

Merton was concerned with examining the dysfunctions of bureaucracy, discovering the manifest

and latent functions of organisations and suggesting the functional alternatives of organisational

arrangements. Merton argued that bureaucratic structures have certain characteristics that

transform the personality of members of organisations. This is due to the emphasis on the

reliability and predictability of behaviour in bureaucratic organisations. This results in the

reduction of personal relationships where individuals are treated as cogs of a machine and as role

actors. Such treatment creates friction between the bureaucrats and the public. The public view

these officials as cold and unfeeling. There is also excessive internalisation of rules for their sake

such that there is goal displacement where the goal becomes doing something according to the

rulebook and not according to organisational needs. Such action could lead to organisational

inefficiency and ineffectiveness. There is also lack of innovativeness in such organisations

because no one is prepared to try out new ways of doing things.

Limitations of the classical theories

Viewed an organisation as a machine subject to certain immutable laws

Assumed employees can be motivated by financial incentives alone

Based on the assumption that productivity is the only criterion of efficiency

36 | P a g e

(ii) THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE SCHOOL: PEOPLE IN ORGANISATIONS

The behavioral science school puts much emphasis on the importance of people in

organizations.

They have argued that while structure is indeed important and in effect forms the

backbone of group effort, the functioning of organisations is to a greater extent

influenced by human beings who work in them.

Elton Mayo and the human relations school

Focused on the human element

This grew out of the findings of the Hawthorne experiment he carried out in the USA to

determine factors that affect productivity.

The experiment included: changing the rest periods of workers, variations in the timing of

meals, the intensity of light, dealing with individuals and groups.

The continued productivity within the group was explained in terms of the high degree of

morale imdividuals employed in their groups.

Inspite of late lunches, varied degrees of light in their workroom and other huddles before

them, workers performance increased,

Mayo observed that social factors are responsible for high production not physical

conditions and economic incentives.

Abraham Maslow and human needs

Maslow focused on the psychological needs of employees.

Maslow put forward a theory that there are five levels in a hierarchy of human needs that

employees need to have fulfilled at work.

All of the needs are structured into a hierarchy and only once a lower level of need has

been fully met, would a worker be motivated by the opportunity of having the next need

up in the hierarchy satisfied. For example a person who is dying of hunger will be

37 | P a g e

motivated to achieve a basic wage in order to buy food before worrying about having a

secure job contract or the respect of others.

A business should therefore offer different incentives to workers in order to help them

fulfill each need in turn and progress up the hierarchy.

Managers should also recognise that workers are not all motivated in the same way and

do not all move up the hierarchy at the same pace. They may therefore have to offer a

slightly different set of incentives from worker to worker

Key summary for Maslow:

Workers motivated by having each level of need met in order as they move up the hierarchy

Levels of needs are: Physical, Security, Social, Self-esteem, Self-fulfilment

Workers must have lower level of needs fully met by firm before being motivated by next level.

38 | P a g e

N.B Read on

William G Owuchi Theory Z

Fredrick Herzberg: Motivator and Hygiene factors

Edwin Locke- Goal setting

TOPIC 3: THE LABOUR PROCESS

The labour process revolves around how employers have sought to control employees at work in

order to maximise productive work effort. It has its roots traced to the ideas of Karl Marx and

was later developed by people such as Braverman and Buroway. According to Marx, labour

process refers to the process whereby labour is materialized or objectified in use values. Implicit

within this analysis is an interpretation of the capitalist employment relationship as inherently

open-ended, in that while employers hire workers for a wage, the amount of productive labour

actually expended by employees will vary. Labour process theorists stress how unlike other

components of the production process, labour is composed of people with their own aspirations

and needs, and who retain the power to resist treatment as a simple market commodity. Labour

process writers therefore argue that management develops strategies or practices in order to

better control the transformation of the workforce’s potential to work (labour power) into actual

work effort (productive labour). Labour is here an interaction between the person who works and

the natural world such that elements of the latter are consciously altered in a purposive manner.

Hence the elements of labour process are; three-fold: first, the work itself, a purposive productive

activity; second the object(s) on which that work is performed; and third, the instruments which

facilitate the process of work

KARL MARX AND ALIENATION

Karl Marx(1818-1883) argued that capitalist labour processes inherently produced alienated

labour. Due to polarised class relations within a capitalist system, work becomes an objectified

and degraded activity resulting in alienation. Alienation can be understood as a process whereby

39 | P a g e

the worker becomes detached or alienated from the capitalist system. According to Marx, the

worker becomes alienated from,

1. The objects that he produces

2. Process of production

3. himself

4. community of his fellows

The worker denies himself in his work; he is demotivated and dejected because he cannot

identify with the fruits of his labour. Labour thus becomes less fulfilling and degrading because

the employer by virtue of his ownership of capital controls the product and the manner in which

work is performed. He criticised the dominance of capital, the huge accumulation and ownership

of private property, cultural and artistic projects because these took place at the expense of the

mass of working people who lack control over their own labour and life choices. These labourers

have therefore become subject to the industries and technological systems that others have

designed and built and are powerless in the face of market forces. This alienation characterises

the unequal relations found within capitalism.

The labour process

At the heart of Marx’s theory of the labour process was the emergence of the wage relationship

and of labour as a commodity. When labour is bought and sold on a market of exchange it

becomes an object of commercial investment and this dehumanises work. Thompson (1986)

proposes the following as features of the analysis of the labour process:

1. The employment relationship as a basic producer of wealth occupies a privileged position

in the analysis.

2. The employment relationship is highly dynamic. Competing capitalists have to seek even

greater profit and hence the labour process will continuously be transformed in the

pursuit of greater productivity.

3. Capital is compelled to increase its control over labour. The means of control are often

very complex and some forms of controls exist outside the labour process and the degree

of control is never total.

40 | P a g e

4. The employment relationship is both of production and exploitation hence although it

contains aspects of cooperation; conflict remains an endemic and structural feature of the

labour process.

BRAVERMAN AND DESKILLING

Braverman's achievement was to understand the objective nature of the organization of the labor

process and the relation between production process and valorization process and to describe

how the deskilling tendency was developing at his time. For those reasons Braverman became an

unquestionable reference of Marxist labour process.

Braverman argues the transition to monopoly capitalism and the market dominance of large,

coordinated corporations resulted in the real subordination of labour through a far more detailed

control of work. He argued that employers, in seeking to gain greater control over the labour

process, had separated the conception (management) of work from its execution (labour). The

increase of labor productivity is the aim of all productive changes: the businessman who has

bought labor power (and not labor) seeks to obtain the maximum amount of work from it. To that

end, this labor power must be controlled. Thus such control does not emerge as an end in itself,

but a means for further exploitation.

The concentration of knowledge and expertise on managements robes the shopfloor workers of

the potential to improve their knowledge and skill base. They are made to improve on speed and

dexterity at the expense of skill- speed becomes skill. This specialisation and polarised

separation of management and shop floor workers leads to deskilling, job fragmentation, and the

transformation of work from the craft system to modern forms of labour control based upon

techniques of scientific management and mechanisation. Mechanisation would eventually

eliminate some workforce and create surplus capital in the process. Braverman clearly points out

how the relative surplus population is functional to the capitalist system. Again, he makes clear,

through a theoretical analysis, that unemployment is a natural consequence of mechanization,

and that it is, therefore, a problem inherent to capitalism.

He also notes how new forms of labour attempted to deskill and exploit the workers. These

included casualisation of labour, office computerisation employment of ethnic minorities and

41 | P a g e

women. There also exists a group of an intermediate grouping or middle layer of employment -

the clerical, technical and management labour that enjoys a privileged market position these

include teachers, nurses, petty, lower level managers, supervisors, accountants, clerks,

foremen.etc. These workers cannot be identified with senior management which personifies

capital. They are continuously subjected to fragmentation, control and degradation such that they

will eventually join the masses of the working class. They will be equally alienated.

GOSPEL

Moreover, labour control strategies might involve combinations of practices at a variety of levels

which could prove complementary but also contradictory. Gospel distinguished between labour

management practices at three levels.

1. ‘employment relations’ which included the recruitment, selection, training, and reward of

employees.

2. ‘work relations’, that is, how management chooses to organise the technical and social

features of work.

3. ‘industrial relations’, which referred to the management of trade unions and the nature of

collective bargaining.

While management might adopt a particular practice, its effect could well vary depending on

which level of labour management is examined.

BURAWOY

Another model of labour process development was presented by Burawoy, who explored both

the role of the state as well as the ways in which employees often consented to management’s

workplace authority. Burawoy identified three periods of labour process development, which he

termed ‘despotic’, ‘hegemonic’, and ‘hegemonic despotism’. Despotism, he argued, was a

common feature of nineteenth century competitive capitalism, where employers through

mechanisation and the subdivision of jobs undermined workers’ bargaining power and

maintained discipline through the threat of dismissal. With the shift to monopoly capitalism, the

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decline in competitive pressure as well as an increase in state intervention limited the application

of despotic forms of control. Within this hegemonic period, the state by providing welfare

benefits and legislative recognition of trade unions, forced employers to adopt practices aimed at

gaining worker consent. This was achieved by management establishing rules governing

production. Burawoy argued the last and most recent phase, hegemonic despotism, resulted from

the internationalisation of capitalism, in which labour made concessions to management in order

to prevent capital from moving overseas. Burawoy's theory begins with some basic premises and

concepts borrowed from Marx (Burawoy 1979: 14-18). The key role of the capitalist labour

process is to translate the delivery of labour power into useful labour by controlling worker's

expenditure of effort, thus creating surplus. However this imposed control of labour generates

struggles on the shopfloor. In order for the profitable functioning of the labour process to be

guaranteed on a continual basis, there must exist a set of mechanisms that allow for its

reproduction.

Consequently the essence of the capitalist labour process is the continual obscuring and securing

of surplus value. At this point Burawoy diverges from the original formulation of Marx. For

Marx, the chief mechanisms for the reproduction of relations of production were the use of

economic compulsion and outright coercion. In contrast, Burawoy stresses that the increasing

divergence between wages and the level of effort on the job, due to seniority rules, difficulties of

firing etc., in modern monopoly capitalism means that elements of voluntarism must underlie

labour-reproducing mechanisms. To understand the reproduction of modern relations of

production, one must analyze 'consent', In formulating a theory of consent an important

distinction for Burawoy is between 'coming to work' and actually 'working', between the delivery

of labour power and its transformation into useful labour. External ideologies, orientations to

work and the cash nexus certainly play a role in whether an individual comes to work, but for

Burawoy the expenditure of effort on the shop-floor is relatively autonomous from these external

influences. This proposition underlies his controversial stance that shop-floor consciousness and

culture are produced mostly autonomous from external influences, so that consent is generated

relatively independent of a particular individual's external consciousness, socialization, or

attributes. While the particular attributes of people may determine their placement into the labour

process it is their positions within production which then determine their workplace behaviour.

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Accordingly one must turn to internal structural factors to understand how consent is generated.

Three key internal mechanisms in the modern labour process operate to generate consent: the

experience of 'the game', internal labour markets and the 'industrial state'. A worker's lack of

control over their own labour creates an inherent experience of deprivation.

Workers thus attempt to alleviate these deprivations via games on the shop-floor. Burawoy found

an entire subculture within his plant oriented to the game of 'making out'. This game was

characterized by the striving to achieve incentive-rate productivity levels. The combination of

pride and social prestige from reaching set goals, reduction of fatigue and boredom, and sense of

power and competence from mastery over a powerful machine, created strong relative

satisfactions. 'Consent' emerges as an outcome of the game because it provides rewards that

establish common interests between workers and management. Workers have an interest to

maintain the conditions that yield these relative satisfactions, while management receives high

productivity levels in return. Burawoy asserts that monopoly firms have an interest in creating

structures that will reduce worker turnover. Paired with this is worker's real interest in protecting

themselves from managerial arbitrariness and the anarchy of the open labour market.

As a result of the struggling and bargaining between these two positions, internal labour markets

become common in the structuring of monopoly firms. The effect of these internal labour

markets is to open up a limited choice for workers within the firm and to alter the direction of

conflict from vertical (management-workers) to lateral as workers compete among each other for

favourable positions within the firm. Internal labour markets thus break down collectivises,

promote individual autonomy and coordinate the interests of workers with management by

rewarding worker commitment and stake in the firm. Consent is generated by drawing workers

into this system of choice and competition. Burawoy refers to the 'industrial state' as the set of

institutions that organize, transform or repress struggle over relations of production and relations

in production at the level of the enterprise. Institutions such as unions, grievance procedures,

collective bargaining and universal rules of procedure create norms of 'industrial justice' that

must be followed by both unions and management. These rules displace conflict from the

immediate worker/manager realm and reconstitute it within a framework of negotiation and the

impersonal rule of law. Consent is manufactured as these rules operate to protect management's

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prerogative to fashion and direct the labour process by both imposing constraints on managerial

discretion and endowing workers with rights and obligations. Collective bargaining thus

represents the institutionalization of a created common interest between capital and labour,

resting on a common precondition of profitability. To summarize Burawoy's argument: due to

the relative autonomy of the labour process worker's interests are both constituted and

coordinated by the mechanisms of shop floor games, internal labour markets and the industrial

state, thus 'manufacturing' consent at the point of production.

Seifert

Labour process theories focus the worker problem on persistent relative low productivity and

labour performance (Seifert, 2011). These may be caused by employees’ failure to comply with

established contract terms, or by fear of unemployment, normally induced by at times, the

feeling of being exploited, alienated and being in a state of anomie. This becomes the central

aspect of labour management and control, which may be achieved through consent (using

ideologies, incentives etc.) or coercion (inducing fear or threats). Wages represent a cost to

employers, which should effectively be controlled is central to labour process theory, and various

mechanisms may be instituted to cheapen it while intensifying work (including weakening its

potential to mobilise). The imposed control of labour, however, generates struggles on shop-

floor, particularly on the issue of attempts to convert labour power into useful labour. Disposal of

surplus labour is a common feature of the labour process particularly when labour-market

performance is depressed, which explains why policies that support labour market flexibility are

common when an economy is in distress. Conditions of distress may cause organisations to

target labour as a soft spot for cutting costs as organisations adjust to changing business

environments. This reduces the power of labour, causing it to become even more vulnerable,

hence resistance.

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TOPIC 4: MOTIVATION AT WORK

Herzberg (1959) defines employee motivation “as performing a work related action because you

want to”. It is an entity that compelled one to action. Kreitner (1995, 168) defines motivation as

the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction a predisposition to behave

in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian & Lindner 1995, 31-

34); an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need . Motivation can be defined as a management

process which encourages people to work better for the overall benefit of the organization,

through providing them with motives which are based on their unfulfilled needs. From this

definition, one can notice that worker motivation can be difficult to achieve since needs are

relative to individuals. What motivates one employee can be different from the next employee.

Nevertheless, motivated employees can ensure productivity and efficiency within organisations

thus the need for motivating them. Some studies have attempted to establish a relationship

between employee motivation and job performance (Vroom, 1964). Conversely, unmotivated

employees may probably contribute little effort in their jobs, leave the organisation and perform

poorly. Managers therefore need to motivate their employees in order to accomplish both

organizational and employee goals.

THEORIES OF WORKER MOTIVATION

1. MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

1. Physiological needs: These needs are directly related to survival of individual or species.

These are typically concrete needs such as eating, dressing and sleeping. The lack of these needs

can cause bodily or make the human not to function up to capacity, physiological needs are

thought to be the most important and must be met first.

2. Security needs: This type of need is to protect against various threats, if a person’s security

needs are relatively satisfied, their safety needs take precedence and dominate behavior. In the

absence of physical safety due to war, natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse, people

may experience post traumatic stress disorder. The absence of economic safety due to safety due

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to economic crises and lack of work opportunities, these safety needs will manifest themselves in

ways such as preference for job security.

3. Affiliation-Social need of belonging to group: It discloses the need of social dimension of

the individual who needs to feel accepted by groups in his family, work, intimacy, friendship and

associates. According to Maslow, humans need to feel and have the sense of belonging and being

accepted among social groups in life they choose to belong or finds themselves in. These group

maybe large or small, some large groups may include, religion group, co-workers, professional

organisations, sports team or gangs, while small groups may include love relationship, members

of the family, mentor, colleagues and confidants.

4. The esteem needs, respect and trust: Humans have a need to feel respected, this includes the

need to have self-esteem and self-respect. Esteem presents the typical human desire to be

accepted and valued by others. People usually involve themselves in a profession or hobby to

gain recognition. These activities give the person a sense of recognition or value.

5. Personal development: According to Maslow, this need aims to get out of condition purely

material to reach fulfillment. This level of needs is the desire to accomplish everything that one

can and to become the most that one can be (Srivastava 2005, 69.) In 1943, Maslow argued that

human beings have an internal needs compelling them in the direction of self-fulfillment and

personal superiority. He then came up with an opinion that there are five unique position of

needs and once we to satisfy a need at one position of the hierarchy it will have an influence on

our attitude. At such stage our attitude starts to decrease, we now put more powerful influence

for the need at the next stage up the hierarchy.

2. Herzberg’s two factor theory (1923-2000)

This theory is commonly related to Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs and was conducted in

the late 1950’s. In his first steps of studying the redesigning of jobs, he looked at all the available

information at the time. From this data, he decided to conduct his own study which involved

two-hundred accountants and engineers. From his study he found that the subjects he surveyed

described satisfying events at work in terms of factors that were connected to the job itself

(Ramlall, 57). He believed that the mental health of an employee is directly related to performing

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meaningful work (“Motivation Theories”). Based on the study, he discovered factors that he

labeled as motivators, or job content factors, and hygiene factors, or job context. Motivators or

job content factors were those that focused on work. These included achievement, work itself,

advancement, recognition, responsibility, and growth. Likewise, hygiene factors or job context

are defined as factors that are related to job dissatisfaction. Examples of hygiene factors include

the company, organizational policies, administration, salary, status, job security, working

conditions, personal life, and interpersonal relations (Doyle, “Motivation Theories”). The

organization may have control over many of these factors, but some of them they do not, such as

personal life or interpersonal relationships. Herzberg found that the factors that lead to job

satisfaction are different and separate to those that may lead to job dissatisfaction. He found that

the growth needs, or the highest level of needs, are the only real motivators of employees.

Employees are motivated by the existence of the motivating factors, but are only dissatisfied, not

unmotivated, by the hygiene factors. One of Herzberg’s leading arguments was, “for an

employee to be truly motivated, the employee’s job has to be fully enriched where the employee

has the opportunity for achievement and recognition, stimulation, responsibility, and

advancement” (Ramlall, 57). Herzberg found that for the employee to be motivated, they must

feel personally responsible for the products produced from the job. This will have them working

harder to achieve their own personal goals, as well as the goals of the organization. The

employee also needs to feel like the work that they are doing is meaningful and enriching. In

order to do this and to address the different types of factors, a manager might want to consider

the following (“Motivation Theories”):

• Remove some job controls.

• Increase worker accountability for their own work.

• Give workers complete units of work to produce.

• Give greater job freedom or additional authority to workers.

• Make periodic reports directly to the workers (not through the supervisor).

• Introduce new and more difficult tasks.

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• Assign specialized tasks to workers so they can become experts

TYPES OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

Employee motivation can be divided into intrinsic or internal motivation and extrinsic or external

motivation. Individuals are intrinsically motivated when they seek enjoyment, interest,

satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in their work. Individuals are

extrinsically motivated when they engage in their work in order to obtain some goal that is apart

from the work itself (Amabile 1993, 185-201.)

Intrinsic motivation

This type of motivation comes from an individual pleasure or interest in the task and it does not

involve working on activities for the sake of external rewards, it instead necessitates the feeling

of inner pleasure in the activity itself. Intrinsic rewards are those that come from within a person.

The reward is not tangible and is important to the individual, such as pride. It can be seen as a

force that involves doing activities without external incentive. According to Amabile (1993),

individuals are intrinsically motivated when they seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of

curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in the work. It is also important to point out that

not every person is intrinsically motivated for every single task. Intrinsically motivated behaviors

in turn feed the psychological needs of a person, such as competency or self-worth.

Extrinsic motivation

This is whereby employees carry out an action in order to achieve external rewards. There are

also extrinsic rewards which are those that are given out by another person. These rewards are

tangible and the individual must prove themselves to someone in order to obtain the reward.

Reward for extrinsic motivation includes more job benefits, higher salary, incentives, a bonus

and job promotion. Deci (1972, 217-229) describes extrinsic motivation as money and verbal

reward, mediated outside of a person, on the other hand intrinsic motivation is mediated inside

the person. “…because extrinsically motivated behaviors are not inherently interesting and thus

must initially be externally prompted, the primary reason people are likely to be willing to do the

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behaviors is that they are valued by significant others to whom they feel connected, whether that

be a family, a peer group or society” (Ryan and Edward, 64).

Employees can either be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated or even both. It is obvious that

intrinsic and extrinsic motivators apply differently to persons. According to Story et al. (2009),

individuals high in intrinsic motivation seem to prefer challenging cognitive tasks and can self-

regulate their behaviours, therefore offering rewards, settling external goals or deadlines, might

not be much motivating foe them unless they are also high in extrinsic motivation. For

employees that are high in intrinsic motivation, emphasis could be placed on encouragement of

self-set goals and deadlines (Story et al 2009). Furnham et al (1998) argue that introverts are

more extrinsically motivated and extroverts are more intrinsically motivated. However, it does

not only seem that persons are differently motivated but intrinsic and extrinsic motivation also

have effect on each other. (Story et al 2009, 391-395)

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TOPIC 5: EMERGING TRENDS IN LABOUR MANAGEMENT

NON-STANDARD FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT

According to ILO, "Non-standard forms of employment is an umbrella term for different

employment arrangements that deviate from standard employment”. Examples include

temporary employment; part-time and on-call work; temporary agency work and other

multiparty employment relationships; as well as disguised employment and dependent self-

employment.  They include temporary employment, part-time work, temporary agency work and

other multi-party employment relationships, disguised employment relationships and dependent

self-employment”. On the other hand, standard employment can be “defined as a job that is

continuous, full-time, with a direct relationship between employer and employee.”

The increase in non-standard forms of employment in the past few decades has been driven by a

variety of forces, including demographic shifts, labour market regulations, macroeconomic

fluctuations, and technological changes. In some instances, non-standard forms of employment

accommodated such changes and allowed more workers to get integrated into the labour market,

in others, they posed challenges for working conditions and for performance of companies, as

well as for the overall performance of labour markets, economies and societies. Non Standard

employment impacts on worker’s employment opportunities, job security, working hours,

collective bargaining, earnings, social security benefits and safety at work and the impacts are

usually in the negative on the part of employees.

EXAMPLES OF NON-STANDARD EMPLOYMENT

Part time

Workers in part-time employment work fewer hours than people in comparable full-time

employment. Part-time employment can allow certain workers to combine work with child

rearing, studies or training. However, working hours can sometimes be very short and

unpredictable.

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Temporary employment

This is when a worker is engaged only for a finite length of time. Temporary work includes

fixed-term, project- or task-based contracts, seasonal work and casual work, including day

labour.

Multi-party employment

This is when a worker is paid by one company – a temporary work agency or subcontractor – but

performs work for another company at its place of business. There is usually no employment

relationship between the worker and the company to which he or she provides their services.

Disguised employment

Disguised employment is when workers are hired as independent contractors but their work is

monitored by their supervisors as though they were employees. The real nature of the work

relationship is hidden to bypass labour regulations.

Dependent self-employment.

Dependent self-employment is a grey area. It is when workers perform services for a business

under a commercial contract but depend heavily on a small number of clients for their income.

They are legally independent, but economically dependent

EFFECTS OF NON-STANDARD EMPLOYMENT

NSE, particularly when it is not voluntary, may increase workers’ insecurities in different areas.

While insecurities can also be present in standard employment relationships, they are less

prevalent than in the different forms of NSE. Key findings include:

Loss of employment security.

Reduction in earnings.

Employees have no control over working hours since they depend on employees’ need

for their services. However, some studies reveal that workers are more flexible since

they can work as and when they want to. Workers in on-call employment and casual

arrangements typically have limited control over when they work, with implications for

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work–life balance, but also income security, given that pay is uncertain. Variable

schedules also make it difficult to take on a second job.

Exposure to Occupational safety and health risks.

Social security. Workers in NSE are sometimes excluded by law from social security

coverage.

Training. Workers in NSE are less likely to receive on-the-job training, which can have

negative repercussions on career development, especially for young workers.

Representation and other fundamental rights at work. Workers in NSE may lack access

to freedom of association and collective bargaining rights either for legal reasons or

because of their more tenuous attachment to the workplace. They may also face other

violations of their fundamental rights at work, including discrimination and forced

labour. (ILO, 2015)

LABOUR CASUALISATION/INFORMALISATION

Labour is losing its old stable forms. Flexible labour practices, subcontracting, outsourcing and

homeworking, variable pay and the loss of permanent contracts, all leave it moving uneasily

between work and under or unemployment. Labour casualisation/informalisation thrives most in

manufacturing and the service sector, where a growing ‘infoproletariat’ performs its virtual

labour. The increasingly knowledge-based nature of modern production is expanding the forms

of labour degradation, cognitive labour being employed and its powers appropriated into the

productive machinery, as the spur to further exploitation, through the ‘continuous improvement’

techniques of lean production. What results from all this is a familiar paradox: the age of

scientific progress and digital accumulation is also an age of labour informalisation, insecurity

and its fracturing into a massive variety of forms, social regress in place of social progress.

According to ILO (2016, 7), “Casual work is the engagement of workers on a very short-term or

on an occasional and intermittent basis, often for a specific number of hours, days or weeks, in

return for a wage set by the terms of the daily or periodic work agreement”.

Company managers are systematically excluding experienced older workers – through voluntary

retirement schemes and outsourcing of various functions – to clear the way for the introduction

of new forms of standardised managerial control over a younger workforce, based on individual

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targets and remuneration, behavioural monitoring et al. Workers themselves are then divided

between those retained as direct employees and those facing a more precarious existence in

outsourced firms. This results in weakens organised worker opposition, even where trade unions

have an active presence in the company. Labour is undoubtedly worse off as a result – worked

and monitored more intensively, with less security of employment.

Job casualisation is characterized by non- standard employment. Generally speaking, the term

‘casual’ has positive connotations – relaxed, informal, easy-going. Applied to the world of

labour, though, the reverse is true. It describes a situation of increasingly insecure, pressure-

driven employment, at the whim of employers whose demands may chop and change, forcing

millions of workers to realign their lives, routines and other commitments in their struggles to get

by: less casuals than casualties.

Labour casualisation is formed against the backdrop of the regulated post-war economy of the

West and its model of employment which are characterized by permanent jobs, collective

bargaining on pay and conditions, and a supporting welfare state. The opposite is true of casual

labour. Casual labour characterizes much of present day work arrangements. Casual labour boom

has been a major trend in the last thirty years and has been accompanied by different dynamics

such as globalisation, corporate restructuring, economic recessions and global financial crisis.

These have undermined established employment patterns and national accords between capital,

labour and the state around the world.

Due to globalization, Transnational Companies (TNCs) are increasingly relying on armies of

“reserve labour” around the globe, attracting migrant labour or offshoring work to staff its value

chains, for both primary and secondary functions. Pemanently employed labour is now itself

under pressure due to outsourcing, bringing casualisation into the heart of the modern formal

economy. All this has resulted in retrogressive effects on labour, which now faces a far more

diverse and fragmented working experience across the globe, bringing new challenges for

workers and the organisation and power of labour movements.

PRECARIOUS WORK

Your main source for this section is Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat HD5854STA.

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Introduction

Modern society is generally characterized by an uncertain environment which is composed by

risk and lack of stability. Beck (2000) calls it the risk society. We can agree that our lives are

characterised by precarity at every level. We live in a precarious society. That precarity is also

found in the world of work, where company closures, downsizing, rightsizing, create uncertainty

for workers, families etc. Vulnerability to precarious work depends on many variables such as

age, educational level, gender type of occupation and the level of development of a country.

Kalleberg (2009) argues that in developed countries precarious work is associated with different

jobs in the formal economy such as earnings inequality, security inequality and vulnerability to

dismissals and non-standard work arrangements. In the developing countries PW is often the

norm and is linked more to the informal economy than the formal one and to whether jobs pay

above poverty wages. Young (2010) posits that precariousness exists in a continuum from high

precariousness to low precariousness, with high precariousness found in nonstandard work

arrangements. PW has always existed in the form of the secondary labour market. The problem

currently concerns the contraction of the standard employment relationship and the growth and

pervasive nature of precarious work such that even professional and managerial jobs have

become precarious (Kalleberg 2009; Fudge 2012).

Definitions

The concept of precarious work is from the French term precarite/ precarity which refers to

vulnerability, instability, insecurity and the feeling of being devalued by business, and

powerlessness due to the assault on unions and struggling with a shrinking welfare system

(Kalleberg 2009). European workers became increasingly vulnerable to the labour market and

began to organise around the concept of precarity as they faced living and working without

stability or a safety net.

There are various definitions of precarious work. “It is work performed in the formal and

informal economy and is characterized by variable levels and degrees of objective (legal status)

and subjective (feeling) characteristics of uncertainty and insecurity. Although a precarious job

can have many faces, it is usually defined by uncertainty as to the duration of employment,

multiple possible employers or a disguised or ambiguous employment relationship, a lack of

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access to social protection and benefits usually associated with employment, low pay, and

substantial legal and practical obstacles to joining a trade union and bargaining collectively”

(ILO 2011).

In Zimbabwe according to the LSCLS (2014) persons in precarious employment are those whose

contract of employment whether verbal or written is of a relatively short duration or whose

contract can be terminated on short notice, examples are casual workers, seasonal workers and

short-term workers. The 2014 LFCLS revealed that of the 6.3 million currently employed

population, 13 percent were in precarious employment and there were more males (17.1 percent)

than females (9.4 percent). A majority (8.9 percent) were in the broad age group 15 - 34 years.

Five percent of those in precarious employment are in agriculture, forestry and fishing sector

followed by those employed in the activities of households as employers undifferentiated goods

sector at around two percent.

*note that the Zimbabwean definition is rather conservative as it leaves workers who earn below

poverty salaries (low income levels).

Gerry Rodgers (1990) has identified four dimensions of labour market insecurity that make a

particular employment arrangement precarious: (1) the degree of certainty of continuing

employment; (2) control over the labour process, which is linked to the presence or absence of

trade unions and professional associations and relates to control over working conditions, wages,

and the pace of work; (3) the degree of regulatory protection; and (4) income level, (Fudge

2012).

Characteristics of precarious jobs as identified by Tucker (2002)

1. The job can be terminated with little or no prior notice by the employer.

2. Hours of work are uncertain or can be changed at will by the employer.

3. Earnings are uncertain or irregular.

4. Functions of the job can be changed at will by the employer.

5. There is no explicit or implicit contract for ongoing employment.

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6. There is, in practice, no protection against discrimination, sexual harassment,

unacceptable working practices.

7. The job is low income – at or below the minimum wage.

8. There is little or no access to ‘standard’ non-wage employment benefits such as sick

leave, domestic leave, bereavement leave or parental leave.1

9. There is limited or no opportunity to gain and retain skills through access to education

and training.

10. The task performed or the health and safety practices at the workplace make the job

unhealthy or dangerous.

There is consensus in literature that precarious work has been associated with nonstandard or

atypical/contingent forms of work. Non-standard work is work that is not fulltime and

permanent. Examples include; casual, temporary and fixed term employment. We must

acknowledge that in some cases non standard employment is so prevalent that it is the ‘standard’.

It must also be acknowledged that it is the interaction of the nature of jobs and worker

preferences that determine what constitutes precarious employment.

Location of precarious work

Research indicates that the highest concentrations of nonstandard jobs are to be found in

agriculture and unskilled, predominantly manual, jobs (conventionally held by men although in

Zimbabwe women dominate agriculture), and in the less skilled service jobs (conventionally held

by women). Tucker (2002) claims that workers in precarious sectors are more likely to be

women, young, belonging to an ethnic minority, and be less skilled and educated. Young (2010)

and the ILO (2011) claim that precarious work has a gender dimension and largely affects

women because women have traditionally dominated precarious sectors such as domestic work,

homework, food processing, electronics industries and the garment sector. For example, In

Spain, one third of women are employed on fixed-term contracts. In Korea, two thirds of women

workers are on precarious contracts, with their salaries reaching about 40 per cent of the regular

male worker’s pay (ILO 2011).

The standard employment relationship57 | P a g e

It developed fully as part of the post World War II settlement. It was build around the image of a

male fulltime worker who had an economically dependent housewife and children. “It

engendered and sustained social norms and regulatory mechanisms organized around employee

status, full-time permanent work, and the performance of work at the employer’s worksite under

his or her supervision. Workers in situations characterized by these features could expect “a

degree of durability and regularity in employment relationships” (Rodgers 1989, 1), protection

from the ills of unemployment, and a social wage or a bundle of social benefits and entitlements

beyond earnings enabling them to reproduce themselves and support their households” (Vosko

2004). The post World War II settlement basically boiled down to a triple promise: capital shared

some of the wealth produced, workers in return no longer challenged the system, and the State

corrected market outcomes through progressive taxation and welfare provisions (ILO 2011). This

was the situation which changed with globalisation leading to precariousness.

Factors leading to precarious work

In the west, precarious work seemed to have grown in the 1970s following: the increase in

spatial restructuring of work on a global scale (mobility of capital) and global price competition,

technological advances which enable this spatial restructuring, union decline, deregulation of the

economy by governments (neo-liberalism), management attempts to achieve flexibility (which

led to various types of restructuring and transformations in the nature of the employment

relationship; e.g. layoffs and involuntary terminations becoming the norm) (“flexibilisation

generally refers to shifts in production processes way from large integrated factory work sites,

unionised workers and mass production of standardised consumer goods to spatially dispersed

[global] production networks, increasingly casualised and informalised workers and small batch

‘just in time’ procurement and production”, Figart, and Warnecke 2013), growth and expansion

of the information based economy and service sector which is organised around flexible

production (Kalleberg 2009). The causes of precarious work are summarised in the quotation

below:

“The making of the ‘precariat’ is a multilevel process. It is an interaction between abuse of economic power, economic liberalization, global capital mobility, fierce lobbying against protective labour laws and a whole range of state policies guided by economic thinking that believes in the efficiency of free markets. It is this interconnectedness that creates the impression of inevitability, where each single measure looks like an

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adaptation and reaction to forces deemed beyond control of any actor. In this context, precarious employment is as much a consequence of increased competition as it is a powerful driver of increasing competition” ILO 2011:21).

Evidence of precarity (Kalleberg 2009)

1. Decline in attachment to employers.

2. Increase in long term unemployment.

3. Growth of perceived job insecurity.

4. Growth of non standard and contingent work arrangements

5. Increase in risk shifting from the employer to employees.

Consequences of precarious work- [See Kidder and Raworth (2004) on hidden costs

especially for women]

1. Growth of inequality (fortification of the divide between the rich and poor), insecurity

and instability.

2. Rise in two earner households

3. Inability to have a coherent life plan- Uncertainty about the future affects couples timing

of marriage and number of children.

4. Lack of social engagement, trust and decline in voluntary associations- lack of social

cohesion leading to social unrest and resentment.

5. Negative feelings towards immigrants.

6. Negative effects on health (occupational safety and health issues- exposure to hazardous

work); psychological- stress, work overload, multiple jobs in different locations; poor

emotional and mental health.

7. Threat to union movement – workers in precarious situations are by definition in an

unstable position, so that even if they are being exploited, few feel confident enough to

organize and bargain collectively at the risk of losing their jobs, (ILO 2011).

Solutions to precarious work

1. Create more secure jobs and government must encourage businesses to invest in

employees by providing incentives to organisations.

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2. Revising national labour laws to cover and be applied to all workers (define clearly who

is regarded as an employee and an employer [especially critical with the proliferation of

agencies and labour brokers]). Strict enforcement of labour law and limiting the abusive

use of temporary workers – e.g. in France temporary workers can only be used to (i)

replace absent employees; (ii) meet the needs of a temporary increase of activity; and (iii)

fill intrinsically time-limited posts. The duration of temporary work is also limited to 18-

24 months, after which the contract must become permanent (ILO 2011).

3. Ratification of ILO conventions; e.g. convention number 131 of 1970 on minimum wage

fixing, convention number 175 of 1994 on part-time work and convention number 181 on

private employment agencies. The ILO is currently pursuing the agenda of decent work

for all.

Case studies: Women in Export Processing Zones There are generally two views on women in

EPZs. The first is that EPZ employment benefits the social and economic status of women. The

second is that EPZ employment intensifies women's subordination (looking at the quality and

status of jobs). This view stresses that women get poor quality jobs and have few alternatives for

better jobs elsewhere. These jobs provide low wages, poor job security and a low level of skills

transfer, while supervisory and managerial jobs in the same EPZs go to men. There are also poor

environmental and living conditions.

Export processing zones are state sponsored foreign investments whose products are

characterised by minimum import and export duties. Part of the regulation is that 80% of what is

produced must be exported. EPZs have multiplied since their first establishment in 1945 in

Ireland. In Zimbabwe they started in 1996. The EPZs were particularly attractive to developing

countries where it was argued that they would create employment. They are known for

employing young females (18-25 years old) of rural origin who would be entering the salaried

labour force for the first time. This is especially true for Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Females are

considered a more docile and compliant labour force therefore less likely to be involved in

militant activities such as trade unions. They are also viewed as having nimble fingers and

dexterity and more tolerant of repetitive jobs that men shun (Hungwe, 2017).

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NB// Students to research more on contingent workers*

The Emergence and growth of knowledge workers

Knowledge workers can be defined as employees who apply their valuable knowledge and skills

(developed through experience) to complex, novel and abstract problems in environments that

provide rich collective knowledge and relational resources (Swart, 2006). They are highly

educated workers, employees, and managers who rely more on their brainpower than manual

labor. According to Brinkley (2006), knowledge workers are those who (i) work in the top three

standard occupational classifications such as managers, professionals, associate professionals,

(ii) have high level skills, certified by a degree or equivalent qualifications, and (iii) perform

tasks that require expert thinking and complex communication skills with the assistance of

computers. Knowledge workers spend much of their energy and time creating, processing,

interpreting, and using information. The rise of the knowledge worker inherently influences the

role of middle managers as a key center of information and its dissemination throughout the

company's operations. Drucker also suggests that the rise of the knowledge worker forces senior

managers to find ways to "invest" in intellectual capital so that it will create value. Contrary to

Taylorism, knowledge workers are not confined to their internal environment, but they should be

also well informed about their external environment so that they make rational and well

calculated decisions. According to Drucker, such workers thrive in a highly technical and

information based environments. This role far exceeds mere adaptation to the external

environment; it requires visionary thinking about the state of things to come and taking

appropriate risks to capitalize on opportunities through innovation. This bridges the gap between

management and workers.

Table 1. The main skills and abilities of the knowledge worker (Leon, 2011,pp.212-213)

Author/-s (Year) Skills and abilities

Dunne et al. (1997) Communication skills;Study skills;Problem-solving skills;Political and economic literacy;Using ICTs;Networking;

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Coping with uncertainty.

Hargreaves (1999) Flexibility;Networking;Creativity;Learning skills

Jenks (2004) Critical thinking;Creativity;Sensitivity;Respect;Appreciation of other points of view.

Johnson (2006) Technology skills;Information problem-solving skills;Higher-order thinking skills

Lindberg (2008) Risk-taking skills;Teamwork skills;Flexibility;Strategic analysis

Uluorta and Quill(2009)

Flexibility;Risk-taking skills;Using ICTs;Innovation;Learning skills

Sahlberg and Boce(2010)

Broad cognitive learning;Communication and collaborative skills;Risk-taking skills;Creativity;Innovation

The growth of knowledge workers especially in high tech firms has left managers and employers

under pressure to retain their workers so that they stay and continue working for them. While a

few firms such as Hewlett-Packard institutionalized a famous policy that encouraged their

workers to leave and start their own companies, often with ideas gained from their employment

at Hewlett-Packard. Similarly, Google is reputed to be lenient with departing employees (Hvide

and Kristiansen, 2012). However some companies sue former workers who allegedly violate

intellectual property rights e.g a case in which workers from the electronics company Cadence

founded a company, Avant!, based on software programs and customer relations developed at

Cadence. Cadence sued the departing workers. Several of the workers received fines and prison

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sentences (Glynn and Mukherjee 1998, 2003) and were also required to pay a restitution fee.

Intel and Microsoft have a reputation for being uncooperative with leaving workers

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