Towards constructing the governable worker in nineteenth-century Britain

Edwards, John Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1526-8523 2018. Towards constructing the governable worker in nineteenth-century Britain. Critical Perspectives On Accounting 50 , pp. 36-55. 10.1016/j.cpa.2017.05.001

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Abstract

The governable worker, in Britain, is defined by the existing literature as a creation of the scientific management movement of the early twentieth century and, within the accounting domain, through standard costing as a disciplinary practice. This paper studies actions taken by the administrators and managers of Britain’s government military manufacturing establishments (GMMEs), from the 1850s onwards, to create a more governable workforce. This objective was achieved through the imposition of disciplinary practices, most importantly the use of time records to ensure attendance at the workplace and expert knowledge-based piece rates to monitor and control labour intensity. The absence of scientifically-established labour standards at GMMEs is acknowledged but, in other important respects, accounting is shown to have played a key role in the formulation of disciplinary practices designed to construct a governable labour force some decades before standard costing became the mechanism for rendering visible efficiency within the workplace.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Accounting, Foucault, Governable worker, Piece rates
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	1045-2354
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	4 May 2017
Date of Acceptance:	1 May 2017
Last Modified:	06 Dec 2024 02:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/100311

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