Alan Fox in the shadow of the labour process
| Date | 19 April 2024 |
| Pages | 1259-1274 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2023-0384 |
| Published date | 19 April 2024 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Niall Cullinane |
Alan Fox in the shadow of the
labour process
Niall Cullinane
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The 50th anniversary of Fox’sBeyond Contract and Man Mismanagement coincides with another
vital contribution to the sociology of work from 1974: Braverman’sLabor and Monopoly Capital. This article
analyses these two scholars’complementary approaches to job design and the extent to which Fox’s ideas
influenced subsequent labour process thought.
Design/methodology/approach –The article’s methodological approach is a historiographical reading of
Fox and Braverman’s thought in the context of their times and later scholarship.
Findings –The article demonstrates that despite some noteworthy overlap with Braverman concerning
scientific management, Fox’s insights were marginal to later iterations of labour process analysis. It delves into
the reasons for this relative neglect, providing an understanding of the dynamicsat play.
Originality/value –This paper’s value lies in its combined industrial relations and labour process
historiography. It offers a fresh perspective on Alan Fox’s relationship to the latter field of study.
Keywords Alan Fox, Harry Braverman, Industrial Relations, Labour Process Theory
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In 1974, Alan Fox published two complementary books in a bid to diagnose the intractability
of workplace conflict in industrial societies. Beyond Contract, on the one hand, and Man
Mismanagement, on the other, offered explanations of how biases in job design debilitated the
creation of high-trust employment relationships. As this special issue confirms, both books
would go on to be highly regarded, particularly in industrial relations (IR), where Fox had
established a reputation for labour history and studies of management ideology (Fox,
1958,1966).
However, 1974 is also notable for another significant publication: Harry Braverman’s
Labor and Monopoly Capital. Braverman, like Fox, sought to diagnose, as the book’s subtitle
indicates, the “degradation of work in the twentieth century”, focusing on similar issues of job
design. Labor and Monopoly Capital would have far-reaching influence, sparking
developments in Labour Process Th eory (LTP). “Bravermania”would d escribe the
and 1980s (Littler and Salaman, 1982). In contrast, Fox’s 1974 publications, despite
addressing similar themes, were overshadowed by Braverman. While Labor and Monopoly
Capital remains widely in print across several languages, Fox’s two works are confined to the
shelves of university libraries and are largely unavailable on the second-hand book
market [1]. Although Braverman’s legacy echoes in the annual International Labour Process
Conference and persists in finding adherents (Carter and Choonera, 2022), it is not
unreasonable to say that knowledge of Fox’s 1974 works confines to a more select academic
community of IR scholars and sociologists of work (Ackers, 2014;Edwards, 2014;Heery,
2016;Cradden, 2017;Gold, 2019).
Considering the special issue, this article provides a comparative analysis of Fox’s
contributions in the context of Braverman and LPT. While Fox and Braverman were very
Alan Fox in the
shadow of the
labour process
1259
I wish to acknowledge Andy Hodder and Michael Gold for their guidance, alongside the two helpful
anonymous reviewers.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 28 July 2023
Revised 6 November 2023
15 March 2024
19 March 2024
Accepted 20 March 2024
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 46 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1259-1274
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-07-2023-0384
different scholars, the article finds similarities in their 1974 works on the nature and limits of
scientific management, its implica tions for white-collar work and the tend ency for
contractual and commodified societies to generate distrust. Yet the article shows that
despite thematic overlap and Fox’s embrace of radical sociology, major differences with LPT
remained. Indeed, despite his nuanced arguments on scientific management and labour
control generally, the article outlines how Fox’s influence within LPT was very limited.
The review presents as follows: Section 2 summarises Fox’s central sociological position
from his 1974 works. Section 3 compares similarities in Fox’s thinking with that of
Braverman. Section 4 outlines the significant differences. Section 5 demonstrates Fox’s
relative lack of influence in LPT, while Section 6 evaluates whether that was merited. The
article should be read in the context of this special issue commemorating Fox’s legacy and as
a contribution to the historiography of IR and LPT, of which there have been several analyses
of this type in recent years [2].
2. Beyond Contract and Man Mismanagement in outline
In 1974, the vagaries of printers’timetables resulted in my publishing two books in the same year –a
circumstance arousing almost as much suspicion in the academic world as publishing nothing at all.
Fox (1990, p. 240)
Despite Fox’s considerable academic achievements that year, his autobiography only
provides a brief commentary on these contributions. In Beyond Contract, he examines
“different ways of designing and organising work and the consequences of the various
choices”(Fox, 1990, p. 240). Man Mismanagement offered “an analysis of the broad field of
industrial relations, written somewhat provocatively in the hope that it would serve as a
lively instrument in teaching”(Fox, 1990, p. 240). Although Fox presents the two works as
self-contained, there is much overlap. Both books crystallise his radical outlook heralded by
the 1973 critique of institutional IR pluralism (Fox, 1973;Brown, 1992, p. 169). The books
revolve around mutually reciprocating interactions between the putative structure of
industrial society, associated employment patterns, the division of labour and job design,
discretion, and sentiments of trust, or lack thereof. Fox is interested in how trust becomes
embodied in “institutional rules, roles and relations”(1974a, p. 14), its effects on the attitudes
of workplace actors and its implications for generating cooperative employment relations.
Fox premises analysis in both books with the position that sitting atop the social hierarchy
are the owners and controllers of productive enterprises who are structurally induced to rely
on hired labour in pursuit of economic objectives (1974b, p. 15). Fox (1974a, p. 183) emphasises
the indeterminate quality of the employment contract: the contract cannot fully regulate
workers on the shop floor, where discretion, trust, ideologies and power define conduct. To
minimise dependence, employers use power to minimise the discretion of the many in making
decisions by the few (Fox, 1974a, p. 14). That process manifests in “institutionalised distrust”
(Fox, 1974a, p. 104), wherein employers impose roles, rules and relations on subordinates.
Tight division of labour, simple, repetitive prescribed routines, checks on performance and
harsh discipline for non-conformance are defining elements of institutionalised distrust.
Driving such trajectories are the impulses of industrial society –which seem to range from
profit-making to growing organisational size and technological change (Fox, 1974a,
pp. 108, 228) –and the dominance of transactional economic exchanges associated with
the rise of contract (Fox, 1974a, pp. 71–72, 152). Fox also intersperses such drives to control as
stemming from the ideological prejudices of a class society, where the privileged distrust the
instincts of the “lower orders”(Fox, 1974a, p. 59). A “low-trust syndrome”emerges from low-
discretion job design: those subjected to low-discretion jobs perceive their employers as not
demonstrating trust. Workers respond with low-trust responses in kind. The result is
ER
46,6
1260
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