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129 Int'l Lab. Rev. 573 (1990)
Work Organisation and Local Labour Markets in an Era of Flexible Production

handle is hein.journals/intlr129 and id is 587 raw text is: International Labour Review, Vol. 129, 1990, No. 5 Work organisation and local labour markets in an era of flexible production Michael STORPER and Allen J. SCOTT * Introduction n both the United States and Western Europe the old post-war patterns of industrial development and labour relations seem to be giving way to a new order. The central sectors of the production system are no longer focused to the same degree on the mass production of consumer durables. Instead, three very different groups of industries now account for a steadily rising share of employment and output growth in all the major Western economies: (a) high-technology manufacturing; (b) revitalised design- intensive craft industries; and (c) financial and producer services, especially those directed to the corporate sector. In these industries flexible production methods constitute a basic principle of organisation, in contrast to the mass production methods which characterised the dominant sectors of the post-war period. Flexible production methods comprise the variety of ways in which producers shift promptly from one process and/or product to another, or adjust their output upward and downward in the short run without strongly deleterious effects on productivity. The differences between flexible and mass production methods will be defined in greater detail later in this article, but it can be stated provisionally that flexibility may be attained within the firm through the use of general- purpose equipment and machinery (often programmable) or craft labour processes, and between firms through social divisions of labour. In the latter case flexibility is achieved by fragmentation of the production process into multiple units, often in separate firms, thus facilitating rapid change in the combinations of vertical and horizontal linkage between the units, and permitting rapid shifts between products and different output levels. Our overall objective in this article is to identify the principal forms of work organisation that are emerging in the context of this changing structure of production. * University of California, Los Angeles. Copyright 0 International Labour Organisation 1990

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