Joan Woodward: Firm

Joan Woodward was British sociologist. Explore interesting quotes on firm.

Joan Woodward: 14 quotes1 like

“In some firms role relationships prescribed by the chart seemed to be of secondary importance to personal relationships between individuals.”

Source: Industrial Organization: Theory and practice, 1965, p. 24

“Those responsible for marketing had to sell, not a product, but the idea that their firm was able to produce what the customer required. The product was developed after the order had been secured, the design being, in many cases, modified to suit the requirements of the customer. In mass production firms, the sequence is quite different: product development came first, then production, and finally marketing.”

Source: Management and technology, Problems of Progress Industry, 1958, p. 23

“A breakdown of management into its basic functions — development, production and marketing — revealed that the character of the functions, their chronological sequence, the closeness with which they had to be integrated and their relative importance to the success and survival of the business, all depended upon the system of techniques in the firm concerned.”

Source: Management and technology, Problems of Progress Industry, 1958, p. 21-22

“As technology advances the entire concept of authority in industry may have to change. In process firms the relationships between superior and subordinate was much more like that between a travel agent and his clients than that between a foreman and operators in mass production. The process foreman's job was to arrange things within limits, set by the plant, which both he and the operators accepted.”

Source: Management and technology, Problems of Progress Industry, 1958, p. 30