The New Capitalism and Organizational Rationality: The Adoption of Downsizing Programs, 1979-1994

Since a new capitalism dominates economic life in America, we need to explain the development of the new economy's features. Although such work has begun, a core feature of the economy, downsizing has been understudied, even though this phenomenon has eliminated some ten million U.S. jobs and generally has had negative human and organizational effects. In particular little effort has been made to explore why firms downsize in the first place....