Rethinking post-fordism: The meaning of workplace flexibility

Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or "Fordist" paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, "post-Fordist" structure of work. these claims have been much di sputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting th e post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theo retical weaknesses internal to the post-Fordist approach are identified, in cluding its uncertain handling of "power" and "efficiency" as factors that shape work organizations; its failure to acknowledge multiple responses to the crisis of Fordism, several of,which seem at odds with the post-Fordist paradigm; and its tendency to neglect the resurgence of economic dualism an d disparity within organizations and industries. Review of the empirical li terature suggests that, despite scattered support for the post-Fordist appr oach, important anomalies exist (such as the growing authority of "mental" over manual labor) that post-Fordism seems powerless to explain. In spite o f its ample contributions, post-Fordist theory provides a seriously distort ed guide to the nature of workplace change in the United States. Two altern ative perspectives toward the restructuring of work organizations are sketc hed-neoinstitutionalist and "flexible accumulation" models-which seem likel y to inspire more fruitful lines of research bn the disparate patterns curr ently unfolding within American work organizations.