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From Bureaucracy To Enterprise? The Changing Jobs And Careers Of Managers In Telecommunications Service, Rosemary Batt
From Bureaucracy To Enterprise? The Changing Jobs And Careers Of Managers In Telecommunications Service, Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
[Excerpt] In response to technological change and product market deregulation, longstanding U.S. telecommunications firms are radically restructuring their business strategies and organizations to improve competitiveness. While the popular and business press as well as academic researchers have focused attention on the dramatic changes occurring in the collapse of industry boundaries, megamergers, and the rise of new strategic alliances, they have largely ignored how these structural changes are profoundly altering the employment and careers of employees. In the Bell operating companies, where bureaucracy is seen as the major obstacle to competitiveness, managerial workers have become a significant target of reform because …
Human Resource And Employment Practices In Telecommunications Services, 1980-1998, Rosemary Batt, Jeffrey Keefe
Human Resource And Employment Practices In Telecommunications Services, 1980-1998, Rosemary Batt, Jeffrey Keefe
Rosemary Batt
[Excerpt] In the academic literature on manufacturing, much research and debate have focused on whether firms are adopting some form of “high-performance” or “high-involvement” work organization based on such practices as employee participation, teams, and increased discretion, skills, and training for frontline workers (Ichniowski et al., 1996; Kochan and Osterman, 1994; MacDuffie, 1995). Whereas many firms in the telecommunications industry flirted with these ideas in the 1980s, they did not prove to be a lasting source of inspiration for the redesign of work and employment practices. Rather, work restructuring in telecommunications services has been driven by the ability of firms …