Barley, S. R. (1992). "Design and Devotion: Surges of Rational and Normative Ideologies of Control in Managerial Discourse." Administrative Science Quarterly, 37: 363-399.

This paper challenges the prevalent notion that American managerial discourse has moved progressively from coercive to rational and ultimately normative rhetorics of control. Historical data suggests that it has moved in waves that alternated between normative and rational rhetorics. The tendency for innovative surges of managerial theorizing to alternate between rational and normative rhetorics is rooted in the opposition between mechanistic and organic solidarity and between communalism and individualism. The timing of each new wave parallels broad cycles of economic expansion and contraction.

They see the following phases:

Industrial betterment 1870-1890 Normative

Scient. Mgmt. 1900-1923 Rational

Welfare/Human Rel 1923-1955 Normative

Systems Rationalism 1955-1980 Rational

Organizational Culture 1980-present Normative

In industrial betterment there was a drive to remake the worker, and provide some welfare for the growing numbers of people working in industries such as the railroads. Systems based on cooperation were more advanced than systems based on confrontation. The railroad magnates established the YMCA to cater to the railroad workers. Later people began to attack the industrialist's efforts as a sort of economic feudalism.

Scientific management attempted to apply the discipline of engineering to the organization of production. It had a unshakable belief in the utility and morality of scientific reasoning, an assumption that people are primarily rational and view work as an economic endeavor. Over time parts became institutionalized and people came to realize it wasn't a panacea to industry's ills.

Human relations came with the depression and the welfare system. It assumed that workers are primarily social beings driven by a need for belonging and acceptance. Social interaction and group affiliation were deemed necessary for human fulfillment and harmony in the workplace. Managers needed to affect social norms to enhance integration. It later was attacked for being too "communistic" and causing inflexibility to respond to environmental changes.

Systems rationalization came with the advent of computers and systems thinking in the 1950's. Management began to be seen as more orderly, and focused on the setting of proper objectives. They focused on principles that would help managers plan, forecast and act more effectively. But instead of mechanistic thinking they based their ideas on more electrical engineering principles (feedback, etc.)

Organizational culture grew as a reaction to systems rationalism, especially in times of scarcity. They claimed that economic performance in turbulent environments requires the commitment of employees. They also believed that cultures can be consciously designed and manipulated.

There are several explanations for the cycling between rational and normative discourse. Levels of labor activity, economic expansions and contractons are main ones. Rational rhetoric occured during expansion, and normative during contraction.