RESUMO
This article seeks to explore the emergence and development of a series of psychological and managerial discourses on worker motivation, organizational climate and quality of life at work in cities like Bogotá and Medellín. This sheds light on the rise and expansion of psychological knowledge applied to the world of work, aimed at optimizing productivity. Strategies for measurement and quantification were put in place that became tools for objectifying behaviors and encouraging a sort of social and labor re-engineering, within the context of growing labor instability and rising unemployment in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
RESUMO
Resumen En este artículo se pretende indagar la emergencia y desarrollo de una serie de discursos psicológico-administrativos sobre la motivación laboral, el clima organizacional y la calidad de vida en el trabajo, en ciudades como Bogotá y Medellín. Con ello se trata de dar cuenta del auge y expansión del conocimiento psicológico aplicado al mundo del trabajo y orientado a la optimización de rendimientos. La puesta en marca de estrategias de medición y cuantificación se erigieron en herramientas destinadas a objetivar comportamientos y fomentar una especie de reingeniería socio-laboral, en medio de un contexto caracterizado por la creciente inestabilidad laboral y el incremento del desempleo a finales de la década de 1980 y comienzos del 1990.
Abstract This article seeks to explore the emergence and development of a series of psychological and managerial discourses on worker motivation, organizational climate and quality of life at work in cities like Bogotá and Medellín. This sheds light on the rise and expansion of psychological knowledge applied to the world of work, aimed at optimizing productivity. Strategies for measurement and quantification were put in place that became tools for objectifying behaviors and encouraging a sort of social and labor re-engineering, within the context of growing labor instability and rising unemployment in the late 1980s and early 1990s.