Suchergebnisse

Abstract
It has been proposed, and accepted, commonly, often as part of a whiggish tale of humanity breaking the shackles of the past, that an Early Modern Europe paved the way, with its Scientific Revolution, for an 'industrial condition' to come. Yet interpretations of that 'revolution' have involved making some suspect general conclusions about a new, standard 'rationality' of conduct and a new norm suitable for constructed science. Furthermore, commonly‐accepted generalizations about the advent and spread of Industrial Revolution are not well supported by the available evidence, especially where the case has been linked to an indistinct 'science.'

In an earlier paper the professions were identified as a primarily Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, and associated with economic under-performance. The present paper goes further by questioning the theoretical interpretations of professionalism in the writings of some of the founding fathers, and occasionally of their translators. We variously question here Weber's restricted concept of the entrepreneur, Parsons's rendering of these ideas in English, the assumption that science in general has had a Newtonian character, and that association with science produces a rational disposition in human actors. The view expressed here is that these various misapprehensions - about entrepreneurialism, professionalism, rationality and science - derive from a desire to impose order, to oversimplify phenomena as systems, and to focus on that which may be described and codified, to the neglect of voluntaristic and problematic dimensions.

There tends to be more extensive occupational specialization outside the core production area in British manufacturing companies than in German ones. This appears to be associated with the emphasis in Britain on professionalism in industry, a concept which is largely absent in Germany. The British approach is seen to have unfavourable consequences for the status of production and of manufacturing industry in general, with quite likely depressing effects on its performance. The origins of the contrast between Britain and Germany are explored by reference to the development of post-school vocational education in the two countries, and this leads to the conclusion that strategic choices about contemporary work organization were in effect made at a societal level a century ago. The analysis indicates that industrial policy cannot be confined to changes within the industrial sector alone.