Control and Communication at Work

Regardless of the way control is administered, it is often communicated in some form. These forms can be depicted inside a framework that is however not sufficient to assess today’s workplace. The traditional and sequential view of control developed by Edwards (1979) is most widely used. This idea asserts that with the advanced development of capitalism and its subsequent restructuring of work, control of work also changed. Any extension of communication must go well beyond Edwards’ (1979) original concept of control. The three known forms of control no longer serve as a sufficient explanation of control at work. With advances in work organisations Edwards’ original model of control must also be advanced to reflect today’s workplace. This is shown in Figure 10.1: Figure 10.1 shows that as modern production and society have advanced from (i) accurately reflecting Edwards’ original stages of control (ii), indus- try has progressed towards post-industrial and eventually into an informa- tion-knowledge society (iii).415 Management has established new forms of control coinciding with these developments (iv). The developments strongly exposed the demand for an extension of the forms of control. The additions of new versions of control are shown in Figure 10.2 below. Somewhat overlapping and often mutually supporting control instruments at stages beyond Edwards’ (1979) traditional forms (A-C) are forms of control that appear in (D) and (E) in Figure 10.2 below.