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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Post-Fordist High Road? A South African Case Study |
Author: | Hunter, Mark |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Journal of Contemporary African Studies |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | January |
Pages: | 67-90 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | labour industrial policy Politics and Government Development and Technology Labor and Employment |
External links: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/025890000111977 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=Q1PRXX32C3FXGM4T04JY |
Abstract: | The policy recommendations of the Industrial Strategy Project that developed postapartheid industrial policy during the democratic transition in South Africa came to be influenced by post-Fordist work organization methods associated with Japanese Management Techniques (JMTs). It was suggested that multiskilling, teamworking, and worker involvement initiatives could help chart a high road for industry, benefiting not just productivity but redressing a legacy of poor human resource development and a racially skewed labour market. In this article, a review of both the labour implications of post-Fordist work organization and the formulation of industrial policy in South Africa provides the context for a case study of working conditions in a firm that adopted JMTs (also, as a system, called Lean Production). The article questions whether a high-skill, more democratic era with greater worker control can be driven through Japanese-influenced work organization changes. Whilst industrial policy was over-optimistic, further research is necessary before detailed conclusions about JMTs in South Africa and their effect on labour can be drawn. The primary research for the article draws on a Human Resource Development Study conducted by the author for the KwaZulu-Natal Industrial Restructuring Project, University of Natal. The case study deals with an auto-components company in KwaZulu-Natal. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |