Lost Narratives? From Paternalism to Team-Working in a Lock Manufacturing Firm

Abstract

This article discusses a process of workplace change at a manufacturing company. The firm had sought to radically change traditional working practices, organizational culture and labour management relations. The article identifies a significant mismatch between management rationale for the changes and their subsequent behaviour, on the one hand, and workrs'views, objwtives and aspirations about their work lives, on the other. Explanations for this are grounded within the competing discourse of workers and managers. The article argues, in particular, that the relative failure of the change process derived largely from the unwillingness of management to recognize the way in which the workplace culture is embedded in a context of social and historical traditions. This analysis of 'paternalism'is situated within a disussion of the psychological contract.

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