McDonaldization

McDonaldization is a concept brought to the core by George Ritzer in his book the McDonaldization of society in1993. The term indicates fast food restaurants which have mushroomed over the past few decades to make it easy for people. The culture keeps rationalizing and contradicting its own changes happening to the society carried by the time factor. One factor can be modernization which includes the components like traditional to rational modes of thought and scientific management.

Ritzer categorizes McDonaldization into four elements:

Efficiency - The optimum method of achieving certain task minimizing time, to reach from point A to point B using methods so as to be there within short time. And man has invented ideas from being hungry to being full utilizing this efficiency.

Calculability - Here the subjective criteria is neglected to pave way for the objective. The notion developed by this concept is that the amount of food reaching the people if quantifiable and quick that can compensate the high quality aspect. If the quantity is more and delivered quick enough then customers are to believe that quality is no matter.

Predictability – This means standardized and uniformed services for the customers. Wherever the customer goes buying the product, he will get the same amount of quantity and quality in the McDonaldized organizations. This applies to the workers employed in those organizations, in terms of their pay and service expected from them are also standardized and uniformed.

Control – Replacement of manual work by machineries, in other words replacing human with non-human technologies.

There are also disadvantages due to this rationalization which can bring about side effects and irrationality. Every time scientific technologies advanced and modernization when forced into the society they had certain negative impacts to offer. Likewise McDonaldization’s drawbacks are these side effects and irrationality. For instance workers trained and employed in one dimension is in the risk of burnout.  Though efficient, training them in a highly rationalized skill in fact affect their effective functioning.

Another drawback this concept has to offer is de-skilling. Often, it is comfortable to train employees in a particular field which relatively needs less skill. But on the long run, it deprives them of any career achievement which other jobs would have fetched them.

The final woe which can add to the above said drawbacks is consumer workers. In fact now consumers become unpaid workers carrying their own food and sharing by a large margin the work of employees. Earlier these services were offered by the company is now being shared. This is the worst part of McDonaldization and there are not only fast food restaurants but many others such as ATMs and automated telephones.

Questions:

• Define McDonaldization.
• List out the components of this theory.