Rationalization and the Behaviour of Workers Conceptual Ideas and Hypotheses for New Research

Abstract

From 1964 to 1968 Horst Kern and Michael Schumann carried out a rather voluminous empirical survey published under the title Industriearbeit und Arbeiterbewuzfltsein (Ist edition 1970). This study was very intensively discussed in West Germany from both sociological and political points of view. The paper now published includes conceptual ideas and hypotheses of the authors for a new research project. This new project is connected with the previous survey in the form of a follow-up study. The first part of the paper gives an interpretation of the process of rationalization characteristic of West German industry in the last fifteen years. The second part is an attempt to describe the implications of this technological and organizational change for the forms and structure of industrial work. In both parts it is the aim of the authors not only to describe the ongoing developments but also to find a new approach for an adequate analysis of the problems.