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Modernity, Modernization, and Management: Comparative, Historical, Theoretical and Policy Perspectives

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Modernity, Modernization, and Management: Comparative, Historical, Theoretical and Policy Perspectives
Author(s)Hoffman, Erik
AbstractThis essay explicates, develops, and assesses the basic argument in Rudra Sil’s Managing “Modernity”: Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia. Sil presents “a flexible, integrative theoretical framework” and an interdisciplinary, comparative historical narrative. He hypothesizes that a “syncretist” strategy, when founded on durable legacies and when filtered through “congruent” intrafirm relationships, is much more likely than “modernist,” “revolutionary,” and “traditionalist” strategies to strengthen “managerial authority” and economic performance in large industrial enterprises. Four case studies (pre- and postwar Japan and Russia) attest to the benefits of “synthetic institutionalism” as a theory-building strategy and of syncretic incrementalism as an institution-building strategy. Sil’s book focuses on the sources of managerial authority and the patterns of shop-floor behavior, not on system dynamics and interinstitutional interactions. Nonetheless, Managing “Modernity” is a major work for multiple audiences and for multiple reasons.
IssueNo1
Pages138-151
ArticleAccess to Article
SourceSlavic Review
VolumeNo65
PubDateSpring 2006
ISBN_ISSN0037-6779


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