PROFESSIONALIZATION AND BRITISH MANAGEMENT PRACTICEPROFESSIONALIZATION AND BRITISH MANAGEMENT PRACTICE: CASE EVIDENCE FROM MEDIUM‐SIZED FIRMS IN TWO INDUSTRIAL SECTORS*
通过四个中型企业的案例研究，考察英国管理实践在组织扁平化、灵活性和分权化等新理念下的实际变化，并分析这些变化对管理内部专业群体策略的影响。
High levels of occupational specialization, problems of cross‐functional integration and distinct bureaucratic tendencies have traditionally been seen as problems endemic to British management practice. Over the last decade, these problems are expected to have disappeared ‐ or at least diminished ‐ as major developments in management and organizational theory, as well as changing economic circumstances, have redirected management thinking towards ‘new’ ideas of flatter, simpler organizational structures, increased flexibility and decentralization, improvements in the quality of inter‐functional relations and the like. Yet, despite these developments, there is comparatively little research that has investigated actual patterns of change within management and, in particular, what is happening in what could be regarded as the mainstream of British industry ‐ namely, ‘ordinary’, medium‐sized firms operating in ‘traditional’ industrial sectors. Moreover, rarely does such research focus upon the implications of management change for the strategies of professionalization adopted by competing specialist occupational groups within management. This paper sets out to help fill these gaps, by reporting the findings from case studies of four such firms, taking into account the particular contexts and historical circumstances that have helped shape any such change and drawing out the key influences on changed management practice.