Capitalism is a political, social and economic system subject to periodic instability, change and the like which influences the business world in many ways. The Post-Fordism era in broaden sense is generic description of Capitalism period which mainly is characterised by flexible production of non-standardized, better-quality goods embracing adaptability of production processes in harmony with the unpredictable nature of markets to meet customers’ satisfaction. The changes made in notion of improving the way things were done consequently changed organizations’ systems and how people are managed inorder to materialize efficiency.
Among commonly nominated factors that rationalize the shift towards Post-Fordism, the economic recession after Second World War, change of customers’ taste, globalized competition of market, diffusion of technology across countries and continuous improvement of efficiency are commonly mentioned.
In order to rationalize the notion of ‘change’ in Post-Fordism era, it worth to first deal with the preceding periods particularly on characteristics that differ from Post-Fordism principles. Then changes in Post-Fordism and the implications on how people are managed are explained followed by concluding remark.
World of Work ‘before Post–Fordism’ era.
Post-Fordism is the period that follows fordism era, which is named after Henry Ford, the founder of Ford vehicle. The basic ideology of Fordism revolves around ‘mass production’ and ‘mass consumption’ industrial organization through standardization of manufacturing processes. Ford has introduced continuously moving assembly line in which each assembler performs a single, repetitive task with the aid of electric machine that reconfigures the pattern of work flow. The idea of mass production is formulated to improve the ‘craft production’ era considering the concept of ‘scientific management’ which is pioneered by Frederick W. Taylor. Following careful study of individual craft
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