IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v1y1987i4p421-440.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Engineers, Management and Trust

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Armstrong

    (Industrial Relations Research Unit University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL)

Abstract

This paper argues that the characteristic lack of engineering representation in British senior management is partly a consequence of the prevailing conception of what management is actually about. As compared to certain other capitalist economies, British conditions have favoured such management activities as the search for longterm finance and strategic marketing over product and process improvement. This system of priorities, massively perpetuated in management writings and education, is now embedded in the British definition of what management is. Aspirants to senior positions, which necessarily involve considerable decision-making discretion, need to demonstrate their `trustworthiness' in such terms. Insofar as the managerial credentials of professional engineering rest upon its position of authority within productive labour, they are out of key with the conception of management dominant in Britain. For many years the profession has tried to overcome this by adding `managerial' subjects to engineering education. However, so long as management is conceived of as a distinct field of study in its own right, such a strategy can do no more than place engineers in the position of comparative amateurs competing with full-time `specialists'.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Armstrong, 1987. "Engineers, Management and Trust," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 1(4), pages 421-440, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:1:y:1987:i:4:p:421-440
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017087001004002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017087001004002
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017087001004002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leslie Hannah, 1982. "Engineers, Managers and Politicians," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-03446-8, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Allan, Grant & Eromenko, Igor & McGregor, Peter & Swales, Kim, 2010. "The regional electricity generation mix in Scotland: A portfolio selection approach," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-42, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    2. Roger Fouquet & Peter J.G. Pearson, 2006. "Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000)," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 139-178.
    3. Kikkawa, Takeo & 橘川, 武郎, 2012. "The History Of Japan'S Electric Power Industry Before World War Ii," Hitotsubashi Journal of commerce and management, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 46(1), pages 1-16, October.
    4. John Constable & Lee Moroney, 2017. "Economic hazards of a forced energy transition: inferences from the UK’s renewable energy and climate strategy," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 171-192, June.
    5. Danny MacKinnon & Stuart Dawley & Markus Steen & Max-Peter Menzel & Asbjørn Karlsen & Pascal Sommer & Gard Hopsdal Hansen & Håkon Endresen Normann, 2018. "Path creation, global production networks and regional development: a comparative international analysis of the offshore wind sector," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1810, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Feb 2018.
    6. Turnheim, Bruno & Geels, Frank W., 2012. "Regime destabilisation as the flipside of energy transitions: Lessons from the history of the British coal industry (1913–1997)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 35-49.
    7. Robert Millward, 2010. "The family silver, business efficiency and the City, 1970-1987," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(1), pages 169-185.
    8. Martin Chick, 2002. "Le Tarif Vert Retrouvé: The Marginal Cost Concept and the Pricing of Electricity in Britain and France, 1945-1970," The Energy Journal, , vol. 23(1), pages 97-116, January.
    9. Martin Chick, 2006. "The marginalist approach and the making of fuel policy in France and Britain, 1945–72," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(1), pages 143-167, February.
    10. Jim Tomlinson, 1993. "Mr Attlee's supply-side socialism," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:1:y:1987:i:4:p:421-440. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.