Einar Thorsrud

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Einar Thorsrud (1923–1985) was a Norwegian psychologist and professor on the Technical University in Oslo, who is known for his work in the field of Organizational development (OD), particularly in the development of theory around participative work design structures. [1] Much of his work was done in collaboration with Eric Trist and/or Fred Emery. Thorsrud has been Research Director of the Work research Institute in Oslo, Norway.

Contents

[edit] Work

Einar Thorsud has been closely connected with the use of social science in non governmental areas and the associated impact over policy-making in these areas.[2]

Apart from his scientific contributions, Thorsrud appears to have been a popular TV personality with wry type of humour, contributed to several low-brow situation comedies with strong parallels to his scientific work, i.e. focusing on "participatory design" in organizational development.

[edit] Critical Psychology

In the decades following WWII social psychology was established in Norway as critical disciplines aiming at resolving societal problems. Various social science disciplines were established as modern research oriented disciplines at the "Institutt for Samfunnsforskning", the Institute of Social Research. Resolution of real societal problems in the post WWII Norwegian society set the agenda for research.

Pioneers in this clearly critical psychology orientation at that time included Harriet Holter, Per Olav Tiller and Einar Thorsrud. Holter (1966) undertook societal level research of the oppression of women in the post WWII Norwegian society. Tiller (1969, 1973) adopted the ecological metaphor and demonstrated how macro factors such as working life and gender roles strongly influenced children’s social and personality development.

In the organizational field, action research and employee participation in the workplace was advocated by Thorsrud (see e.g., Thorsrud & Emery, 1970). For a review of this embryonic period of Norwegian social psychology, see Nafstad and Blakar (1982)3. The critical enthusiasm of the post-war period, however, faded, and conditions of ‘normal’ mainstream science emerged.[3]

[edit] Sociotechnical approach

Sociotechnical systems theorists have largely ignored the role of unions both in their theoretical framework and in implementation. In this field in the 1960s Thorsrud invited Emery and Trist to participate in the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project, which developed as a joint labor-management response to pressure within the trade union movement for workers' control. As Emery and Thorsrud were to demonstrate, worker directors had little impact on the feelings of alienation on the shop floor and, therefore, direct participation ought to be tried as well. The insights of their field experiments in participatory work redesign were diffused to Sweden later in the decade, as well as to selected companies interested in how new approaches to work organization might be particularly suitable to advanced technologies and continuous process production.[4]

[edit] Human development

Thorsrud had a specific vision on human development. For him participation was a means to human development, and union membership on boards by itself did not guarantee a change in the experience of the worker on the shop floor. He argued that unless the worker was fully engaged by work, unless he or she had a positive future, proper training, social support, and influence over decisions that directly affected him or her, no amount of representational democracy would overcome a sense of alienation that fed divisive political movements and sapped motivation at work.[5]

[edit] Publications

Einar Thorsrud wrote several books:

  • 1976, Democracy at Work, with Fred Emery. Leiden: Martinus Nijoff.
  • 1983, Teori I Praksis: Festskrift Til. with Thoralf Ulrik Qvale and Jon Frode Blichfeldt. ISBN-10: 8251818362 (in Norwegian)
  • 2003, Form and Content in Industrial Democracy: Some Experiences from Norway, with F. E. Emery, Routledge,

ISBN:0415264383.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Heidi von Weltzien Høivik, Ph.D.(200), Developing, managing and sustaining moral values in organizations: a case study. Paper submitted to ISBEE Congress. Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 2000.
  2. ^ Albert Cherns, Ruth Sinclair, William Ieuan (2001). Social Science and Government: Policies and Problems. Routledge. ISBN:0415264960. p.39
  3. ^ Blakar, R. M. & Nafstad, H. E. (2006) Critical Psychology in Norway: A brief review commenting on why critical psychology is currently virtually absent, in: Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 5.
  4. ^ Tavistock Institute Develops Practices of Contemporary Work Reform, retrieved April 2008.
  5. ^ Michael Maccoby (1995), What Have We Learned About Participation?, Pofessor Einar Thorsrud Memorial Paper, Oslo, 21 November 1995.

[edit] External links