Contracting, bonding, or exploiting? Reactions to the rise of organizational society in mid-twentieth-century USA

The rise of 'organizational society' in the USA was accompanied by major ideological battles concerning corporation-employee relationships. Management theorists such as Barnard, Drucker, and Mayo invoked a new ideal of a 'bond' between organizations and employees. Critics faulted this new ideal of a bond for being paternalistic, oppressive, and manipulative. William H. Whyte, Jr. stressed that the proper way to understand the relationship between organizations and employees was as a contract, an exchange of salary for work, not as the new social home or family for the individual. Others opted for a more pluralistic organizational society in which the power of corporations and their exploitation of workers would be curbed by unions and the welfare state. Revisiting these mid-twentieth-century debates shows how normative control of employees was intensely debated at the time, and brings a much needed historical perspective on contemporary struggles concerning organization-employee relationships.