Managerial Control of American Workers: Methods and Technology from the 1880s to Today by Mel van Elteren (review)

The twenty-first century workplace is driven by technological change that accelerates at a continually increasing rate. A desire to replace workers through automation while closely controlling and monitoring those who are still on the job is a key modern management objective. Frederick Winslow Taylor, former apprentice and stopwatch denizen, is with workers more than he was at the turn of the twentieth century. A bit of Taylorism is integrated into every gps monitor on vehicles driven by workers and the countless algorithms used to monitor organizational efficiency. Mel van Elteren describes the historical development of management and technology with the bulk of his analysis on the period since the end of World War II. He has provided readers with a revealing, yet often alarming analysis.

Van Elteren's narrative is often an overview of existing literature on workplace change, and the work that he includes covers a wide swath from Harry Braverman to Peter Drucker. He consequently does not limit himself to just focusing on automation and work rationalization as he proceeds through fourteen chapters of analysis. This book brings new insights to the existing literature on automation and managerial control. For instance, for all of the many books and articles that have talked about the studies done at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works in the 1920s under the ostensible oversight of Elton Mayo, there is comparatively little discussion of the Harwood studies done by Kurt Lewin in the 1930s and 1940s. Van Elteren shows how Hanover equaled Hawthorne in terms of how it informed the human relations movement. Lewin's work drew criticism, but it is important to note its importance, especially when considering the tendency of modern human resource management to continue to fawn over Mayo.

Van Elteren's main contribution is to build a narrative that spans a long time period. The tangled origins of Japanese management techniques are revealed through references to W. Edwards Deming and the way in which existing American practices such as Ford Motor Company's in-plant employee suggestion programs influenced visitors from Japanese firms. Indeed, van Elteren suggests that the 1980s fixation with Japanese management practices among American managers was misguided. Methods such as lean production were enthusiastically embraced, and not just in manufacturing. The idea of doing more work with fewer people found currency in a range of American industries by the end of the twentieth century, and usually to the detriment of workers.

Management theory was a topic that was principally confined to business and commerce departments prior to the 1950s, and some American corporate executives such as Chester Barnard wrote books and articles on management practice. Management theory became far more professionalized and prevalent after World War II, and thinkers like Drucker and Deming were discussed in popular media. As van Elteren illustrates, the theories promulgated by modern management thinkers appeared with increasing frequency as Management by Objectives (mbo) was supplanted in popularity by Total Quality Management (tqm). What was not immediately clear with the many management systems that were implemented was that they rested on sophisticated, invasive forms of workplace control. Van Elteren describes the rise in information technology jobs by the 1980s, and the profound impact of computer programming languages like Common Business-Oriented Language (cobol). His reference to the emergence of Big Data shows how computer systems can now produce unlimited reams of information that become part of the managerial control repertoire.

Van Elteren is clearly conversant with the subject of this book, but he sometimes hews too closely to an analysis of theories and the process of technological change. For example, much more could have been said about how technological change and managerial control were shaped by gender and race. Arlie Russell Hochschild's landmark book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling is referenced, but more such citations would have been welcome. Van Elteren provides examples of workplaces in which workers have a genuine voice...