Webs of Resistence in a Newly Privatized Polish Firm: Workers React to Organizational Transformation

ISBN-13: 9780815333906 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 272 str.

Jennifer Lynn Roney

Opis

This work examines how the shared cultural values of employees in a Polish firm influenced managment attempts to transform organizational practices in a newly privatised factory. By introducing a foreign management approach, Total Quality Management (TQM), the management of this factory presents a potential conflict of values between the employees and the management philosophy. Tracing the historical and contemporary impact of traditional political and religious influences in Poland and using ethnographic techniques of observation, interviews and secondary data, the author indentifies feelings of insecurity and instability, distrust, reluctance to assume responsiblity and a struggle between individualism and collectivism which generate resistance to the successful implementation of TQM in the factory. This book examines the reasons for these results.

Spis treści

Exhibits; Preface; Chapter 1: Introduction; The Research Question; The Meaning of Culture in this Study; Webs of Resistance-Meaning Behind the Title of this Book; The Case; Research Approach and Assumption; Ethnographic Authority; The Organization of the Book; Chapter 2: Culture, TQM and Poland; Culture; Total Quality Management; Poland; Chapter 3: Concentric Circles of Polish Life; The Country; The Community; The Company; Chapter 4: Research Design and Methods; Research Design: Choosing Ethnography as Method; Data Collection Methods; Data Analysis; The Ethnographic Tale; Chapter 5: Social Organization; Spies with Television Sets; Influences on Social Organization; Cultural Values and Assumptions; Chapter 6: Patterns of Shared Mindsets; Insecurity and Instability; Trust; Distrust of Government; Distrust Within the Community; Distrust Within the Organization; Responsibility; Individualism and Collectivism; The Struggle between Opposing Cultural Tendencies; Summary-Patterns of Shared Mindsets; Chapter 7: Resistance to Change; The Quality Director and The Direction of Quality; Influences on The TQM Philosophy; TQM Values and Assumptions; TQM at the Lockem Factory; Summary Conflicting Values; Chapter 8: Conclusion; Contributions; Implication: Fatalism Interpretation? Reflections on the Process-Field Study Abroad; Endnotes; Appendices; A. Company Data; B. Research Protocol; C. The Researcher as Instrument; D. Information; Trust Question; F. Quality Wheel; References; Index

O autorze

Roney, Jennifer Lynn