The Role of Professional Engineers in the Diffusion of 'Best Practice' Production Concepts: A Comparative Approach

This paper argues that engineers are a central yet largely neglected agency within the labour process, and that their different pattern of formation influences the opportunities for work reform within advanced capitalist economies. It explores the making of engineers in several capitalist societies, and highlights four primary models of integrating engineers into the firm. The paper then goes on to explore the effects of these cross-national differences in the formation of engineers on the generation and diffusion of 'best practice' production concepts within global capitalism. It suggests that some societies and systems of engineer formation are more in keeping with modern trends in manufacturing organization, while others offer more radical or societal-specific recipes for work organization. The paper argues that by inserting the different ways in which engineers are produced into the debate about the global impact of new production methodologies, we are in a stronger position to evaluate their differential impact, and better able to criticize the assumed universal or essential influence these ideologies will have.