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Alternatives to hierarchies

  • Book
  • © 1976

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ph G. Herbst

    1. Work Research Institutes, Oslo, Norway

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Part of the book series: International Series on the Quality of Working Life (IQWL, volume 1)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-IX
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  2. Alternatives to bureaucratic hierarchies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Strategies in the democratization of work organizations

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 3-15

    3. The logic of bureaucratic hierarchical design

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 16-28

    4. Non-hierarchical organizations

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 29-40

    5. Reflections on the work democratization project: the process of diffusion

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 41-56

    6. Directions of diffusion

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 57-66

  3. Human foundations of organizational logics

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-67
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    2. Totalitarian logics: the quest for certainty

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 69-83

    3. Foundations for behaviour logic

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 84-106

  4. Epilogue

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107
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    2. Types of social research

      • Ph G. Herbst
      Pages 109-109

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 110-111
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Keywords

About this book

Giving on occasions a talk on the subject of this book, one of the queries raised was, 'surely, what you mean are flat hierarchies'. This, I think, gives an indication of how difficult it can be to conceive of organizations which do not have a hierarchical structure. A rather similar response was obtained when, in the 1950's, an account was given to a manager of the British Coal Board of an autonomous composite team of more than 40 miners, who had taken over complete responsibility for a three-shift cycle, and divided the income obtained among themselves. His comment was that this could not possibly work. The new mode of work organization which had been evolved by the miners in several pits in the Durham coal fields was, at the time, well ahead of the prevailing concepts and philosophy of both management and the Trade Union. It did not help matters very much that the detailed accounts were presented in an academic and scientific form (Trist et aI. , 1963; Herbst, 1962). I think that we felt that all the backing of systematic research and data analysis would be needed to present the case for modes of organization, which deviated from conventional practice. However, something was learned from this experience. When at the beginning of the 1960's the Norwegian Work Democratization Project was started, a number of demonstration sites were set up which people could look at, and which could function as centers for diffusion.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Work Research Institutes, Oslo, Norway

    Ph G. Herbst

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Alternatives to hierarchies

  • Authors: Ph G. Herbst

  • Series Title: International Series on the Quality of Working Life

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6945-5

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: H. E. Stenfert Kroese b.v., Leiden, the Netherlands 1976

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4684-6947-9Published: 19 March 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4684-6945-5Published: 06 December 2012

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 122

  • Topics: Sociology, general

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