|
Candidate:
Georgios Paris Loizides
Degree
of: Doctor of Philosophy
Department: Sociology
Title: Deconstructing Fordism: Legacies of the Ford Sociological Department
Date: Friday, May 21, 2004 1:00-3:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren
Committee:
Dr. Vyacheslav Karpov, Chair
Dr. David Hartmann
Dr. Gearald Markle
Dr. Subhash Sonnad
Dr. Kristin Szylvian
Abstract:
One of the key ideas of institutional theory on organizations is that organizations reflect society's wider values and norms. However, much less attention has been placed on the questions of whether and how private interest organizations influence wider societal values and norms. We are used to seeing Henry Ford and his Ford Motor Company as makers of automobiles. In at least its early history though, there was another project occupying the efforts by the Ford Motor Company in the late progressive era to instill their workforce with a set of norms and values, which were seen healthy, and appropriate. This story is about the company's efforts, through its Sociological Department, to engineer American, working-class (family) men out of the thousands of mainly Southern and Eastern European immigrants that flocked to Detroit. The questions that this research attempts to answer revolve around what may be called the social dimensions of early Fordism. These questions are answered through and examination of the discourse and actions of the Ford Motor Company as a case study, under the light of institutionalization and structuration theories.
|
Related Topics
Main
List of Archives:
Dissertation Defenses
Current
Dissertation Defenses
|
