Premium
High‐Performance Organizations and Employment Flexibility: a Case Study of in situ Change at the Powell River Paper Mill, 1980–1994
Author(s) -
Hayter Roger
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0064.1997.tb00928.x
Subject(s) - restructuring , flexibility (engineering) , workforce , labour economics , production (economics) , promotion (chess) , business , mill , fordism , industrial organization , economics , market economy , management , economic growth , political science , engineering , microeconomics , finance , mechanical engineering , politics , law
Throughout virtually all mass production industries in North America, including the Canadian newsprint industry, a significant theme of restructuring involves a transition from ‘Fordist’ to more ‘flexible’ methods of production and employment. In this paper, shifts towards smaller, more flexible employment conditions are assessed from the perspective of a model of ‘high‐performance organizations’. In this model, employment flexibility is defined in terms of the blurring of the boundaries between management and workers and by continual investment in skill promotion in the pursuit of a polyvalent workforce. In practice, such issues are subject to labour‐management bargaining, the outcomes of which are uncertain. Empirically, this paper provides a case study of bargaining over employment flexibility, specifically at the Powell River paper mill, to assess the extent to which the standards of the high‐performance model are being achieved.