• Research Paper on:
    Work's Changing Nature

    Number of Pages: 5

     

    Summary of the research paper:

    In five pages Fordism and post Fordism perspectives are taken in this consideration of how work and the nature of work has changed. Three sources are cited in the bibliography.

    Name of Research Paper File: MH11_MHFordis.rtf

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    Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
    of Work Research Compiled by 11/2001 Please The perspectives on work and the "American work  ethic" are defined by particular social and cultural characteristics during any given era. In the pre-Civil War era, for example, the United States was marked by a distinct view  of the agrarian culture and by a work ethic defined by both individual action and the collective activities within the prevalent Southern plantation economy. The end of the American  Civil War and the turn of the 19th century was shaped by a work perspective defined by industrial development, increasing urbanization and the spread of an emerging labor force during  the period described by Fordism. Fordism is the term utilized to describe the type of industrial progress and mechanized production "regime" that shaped work perspectives in the early part of  the 20th century (Fordism, 2001). Prior to the onset of mechanized production, a substantial influence on individual work efforts and personal skills was a component even of the 19th  century plantation culture. Shifts in the view of work and the worker, though, occurred in alignment with Fordism, based on the fact that mechanized production methods required less skill  and longer work hours for an expanding and urbanizing workforce. Henry Fords offer to pay workers $5 a day for their efforts in mechanized production plants was an indicator  of the shift and this "good salary," and the belief that this would inherently lead to the ability to own an automobile became a substantive social phenomenon (Fordism, 2001).  In understanding the influence of Fordism, it is necessary to consider the impacts of industrialization in general, and the progress that occurred at the end of the 19th century, a 

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