Fairy tales and magic wands: new employment practices in perspective

It is now commonplace to hear about the re‐forming potential of new employment practices such as employee involvement, TQM, empowerment,teamworking, and HRM. There are arguments that these have contributed to organizational success, and a feeling that these are all things to be welcomed. But not all analysts agree that these are as widely practised as the glowing reports would have us believe, and there is a contrary view that these approaches lead to greater work intensification and less satisfied employees. Many of the gurus who write about these issues implicitly assume that all can be improved by a wave of the magic wand and the slaying of a few “evil” characters along the way. Reality, of course, is much more complex. The argument here is that there are no instant solutions, but the process and achievement of change are difficult since so much depends on the quality of employee‐management relationships at the workplace.