Managing "modernity": Work, Community, and Authority in Late-industrializing Japan and RussiaIn Managing "Modernity," Rudra Sil examines how institution-builders respond to the competing influences of institutional models and inherited social legacies as they attempt to generate and sustain authority in late-industrializing societies. Through a historical and comparative study of large-scale enterprises in Japan and Russia, the book examines the impact of different institution-building strategies on managerial authority, invoking the experience of postwar Japan to highlight the benefits of a syncretic approach that selectively integrates adaptable features of borrowed institutions with portable norms inherited from preexisting communities. Managing "Modernity" engages a variety of intellectual perspectives in the social sciences. The theoretical approach represents a conscious effort to overcome the contentious debates in political science and sociology among proponents of historical institutionalism, cultural analysis, and rational-choice theory. The substantive argument draws on, and partially integrates, concepts and findings from comparative politics, economic sociology, industrial relations, organization theory, business management, and the political economy of Japan and Russia. In light of ongoing debates over the significance and impact of "globalization," the eclectic and integrative approach in Managing "Modernity" offers a fresh and provocative contribution that will interest scholars and graduate students across a variety of disciplines and subfields. It offers compelling insights to anyone generally concerned with the social forces that facilitate or hinder the diffusion of ideas and institutions across national boundaries. Rudra Sil is Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania. |
Contents
An integrated view of institutional life | 12 |
Idealtypical institutionbuilding strategies | 16 |
Models legacies and institutionbuilding in NWLIs | 20 |
Schematic representation of the hypothesis | 32 |
Universalist logics in the analysis of modern institutions | 62 |
Sources of variation across firms and organizations | 75 |
Inherited legacies and managerial strategies | 107 |
Dimensions of congruence in the industrial enterprise | 118 |
Sources of managerial authority in postwar Japan 195080 | 192 |
Ideology practice and managerial authority in Russia 191740 | 269 |
Quiescence without commitment in postStalin Russia 195685 | 271 |
Chapter 5 | 277 |
Summary of case studies and key comparisons | 284 |
Appendix | 301 |
Notes | 323 |
| 423 | |
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agerial approach aspects assumptions Berkeley blue-collar workers Bolsheviks California Press Cambridge University Press chap collective collectivism Comparative conflict context cooperation cultural differentials discipline distinctive economic egalitarianism emphasized employees employment enterprise evident factory family firm Fordism formal hierarchies historical households human relations human relations movement ideal-typical ideals ideology individual industrial relations institution-building institutions interpretation invoked Japan Japanese labor relations large-scale late industrializers lean production legacies Lenin management practices managerial authority managerial elites Meiji ment models modern mura Nihonjinron norms and practices NWLIs official organization organizational participation peasant percent perspectives political postwar Japan prewar Japan Princeton problems rational Rational Choice Theory regime Revolution revolutionary role Russia scientific management shopfloor significant socialist socialist competition Society Sociology Soviet Stakhanovite Stalin Stalinist strategies structures studies subordinates suggest syncretism syncretist tasks Taylorism Taylorist technologies Theory tion trade union traditional turnover village wage Weber Western worker commitment workplace York