Components of McDonaldization

1

• Components of McDonaldization
•  
• Efficiency the optimum means to a given end
•  
• Calculability- the replacement of quantification
  for quality as value
•  
• Predictability- the replacement of sameness and
  consistency for value

2
Chapter 2

• The history of MCdn
•  
• Bureaucratization-
• -the process of establishing hierarchical
  large-scale organizations with offices with
  clearly defined rules and duties
•  
• -tasks are broken up into components and
  delegated to offices in exactitude

3

•  Control- exactitude of production, highlighted
  by the replacement of human technologies by
  non-human technologies
•  
• The irrationality of rationality- the situational
  conditions where overly rational systems prove
  inflexible and unable to deliver efficiently, or
  at too great a human/environmental cost
•  
• Why might a rational system spawn
  irrationalities?
•  

4
irrationality

• -uniformity is not a characteristic of nature
• -setting is built for speed
• -limits the potential of workers
•  

5
Max Weber and the theory of Rationalization

• -his theory of rationalization describes how the
  Occident (the west) thoroughly bureaucratized and
  streamlined its economy and government, while
  other sectors of the world did not -Ritzer
  thinks McDn is the paradigmatic model for
  rationalization 

6
formal rationality

• -people adopt the philosophy that structures,
  rules and regulations govern the search for
  optimum means to a given end
•  
• the iron cage
•  

7
Fredrick Taylors Time-and-motion management
techniques

• -non-human technologies of breaking down work in
  to constituent parts
• This was followed by the Assembly Line
• -highly bureaucratized and streamlined
• -dehumanizing and underutilizing the potential of
  employees

8
(No Transcript)