The Migration of Bureaucracy: Contracting and the Regulation of Labour in the Telecommunications Industry

Abstract

This is a study of the reconfiguration of bureaucracy, based on a case study of subcontracting within BT plc, the UK's largest telecommunications firm. The 1990s witnessed significant quantitative and qualitative changes in the utilization and management of subcontracting. The expansion in the use of subcontractors in this period was paralleled by reforms to the processes of negotiating, administrating and monitoring contracts. This article traces these developments and analyses their implications. The continuing process of reform saw a significant redrawing of the boundaries of responsibility between the patron firm and its supplier, as discrete elements of the production process were transferred to the remit of subcontractors. This migration of responsibility was, however, predicated upon the exportation of bureaucracy, from the patron to the supplier; the relocation of the bureaucratic mechanisms appropriate to the management of the widening range of tasks. The movement towards an increased reliance on external sources of labour could ostensibly bring greater exposure to market imperatives, but it is argued that, contrary to the theme of dismantling hierarchical employment structures, these reforms represented the reconfiguration of the bureaucratic organization of production.