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The Role of the British Government in the Spread of Scientific Management and Fordism in the Interwar Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Wayne A. Lewchuk
Wayne A. Lewchuk
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics and Labour Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada
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Abstract

The slowness with which British firms adopted Scientific Management and Fordism has often been noted.The paper argues that in Britain, management had difficulty controlling labor effort norms after 1870. The state intervened to resolve the issue and in the process became a major proponent of industrial democracy. It is argued that the early interest in industrial democracy retarded the adoption of American methods that assumed a greater degree of managerial control over factory organization.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 355 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1984

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