Abstract:

In China's manufacturing sector, the labor outsourcing model has fostered a picture of employment that organizes free floating temporary workers in an orderly fashion. The question of how this seemingly paradoxical "controllable flexibility" occurs constitutes the research background of this paper. Applying the theory of network organization, the labor outsourcing model seems to break with the previous perception of a clear boundary between bureaucracy and market, and replaces it with a network organization form that combines bureaucratic control with market flexibility. This paper takes the standpoint of factories participating in labor outsourcing and examines by participatory observation how restructuring across bureaucratic boundaries occurs and develops. The research shows that factories and labor service companies are reorganized into a network organization of business docking, dual management and cross-crossing on the basis of open bureaucratic boundaries. The network responds to the employment uncertainty in two ways. On the one hand, the authorities open the vertical integration mechanism, set up labor coordination system of job matching from three aspects: mixing job placement, job adjustment, and personnel screening. While incorporating temporary workers into the assembly line, it opens up a coordination space that flexibly adjusts outsourcing jobs according to the actual situation of temporary workers. On the other hand, the bureaucracy opens up a horizontal extension mechanism to build an orderly temporary labor environment from three aspects: the paid opening of trial rights, the seamless operation of the position refill and the classification arrangement of the end of the construction period. While allowing temporary workers to freely enter and leave the factory, it ensures the stability and control of the factory production order. As a result, the manufacturing labor outsourcing model has the characteristics of controllable flexibility. Simultaneously, a controlled group of flexible workers is also produced as a tool for the manufacturing industry to cope with the uncertainty of employment environment.

Key words: laboroutsourcing, temporary employment, network organization, bureaucracies and markets, reorganization