The theory of McDonaldization of the society was first coined by sociologist George Ritzer in the year 1993. His simple idea pointed towards the fact that most organizational systems today have adopted the methodology and principles of a fast food restaurant (Ritzer, 2009). The reason the term was called McDonaldization was because of the wide spread presence and accessibility to McDonalds in the entire world.
There are numerous aspects to this theory. To begin with, it is important to understand the characteristics that our society has adopted from the fast food industry. Every visit at McDonalds ensures fast delivery of food, standardized menu similar taste across the globe, standardized procedures and immense control of the brand on the product. When the same logic is applied to organizations, it is clearly evident by their emphasis on reduced cost and time, laying importance on quantity, replacing humans by non-human technology and highly repetitive, routine and predictable tasks performed by employees (Ford, 1994).
Even though, these changes have been visible in most organizations, it is difficult to agree with Ritzer in entirety. There are various organizations which foster innovation through different tasks, lay emphasis on quality over quantity and employ skilled workers with minimum outside control.
This report throws light on the details of Ritzer’s theory and the four principles of McDonaldization stated by him. Efforts have been put in to critically analyse the theory and both sides of the coin have been considered and researched without any biasness. The idea of McJobs and its visibility and acceptability has also been discussed in the report.
Ritzer has given four important principles to establish and prove the McDonaldization of the society. These four principles help to establish how our society and its various aspects including education, workplace and lifestyle have changed overtime.
Efficiency refers to choosing the optimum means to reach a given end. Every visit to McDonalds depicts its focus on efficiency of its service. Customers are able to get procure food at a less cost, the food tastes just the same irrespective of geographical boundaries and entire time taken between reaching McDonalds and getting food is much lesser as compared to a fine dining restaurant. The same concept is adopted by our organizations. Maximum utilization of resources in the least amount of time is the motto of workplaces across the globe.
Efficiency of McDonald’s requires customers to do a lot more work like getting their own beverage, self-service, disposing their trays by themselves and getting their own condiments. Let us take examples to elaborate the same:
The society depicts an era of mass education. The number of students per teacher has massively increased. This is a perfect example of efficiency which means optimum utilization of resources. College education is simply considered as a means to a successful career and the focus on learning is almost negligible. Colleges are under immense pressure from the state legislature to reduce cost and increase efficiency. Students are simply considered customer and little focus is given to teaching them things apart from the curriculum (Nicholson, 2015).
The world’s largest furniture store IKEA does not sell assembled furniture. It provides furniture at a lower cost but expects its customers to do this work. Their products are flat packed so that most customers can carry it in their cars (Lofgren, 2015). Their furniture is similar across the globe irrespective of the geography. Various other furniture stores are adopting the same ideology and increasing the work done by customers to reduce time and cost for the firm.
This aspect refers to the incessant focus on quantity rather than quality of products manufactured and sold. Each burger at McDonalds tastes the same. The customer can order according to how hungry they are. They have options like Mac, Big Mac and double big Mac. The focus on portions and size is quite significant (Ong, 2017). People assume a big Mac would be better than a Mac. Examples in our society focusing on the calculability are as below:
Education sector has seen numerous students getting filled in a single classroom under a single teacher because the focus is on the number of students that enrol with the university. The focus on the quality of education provided to students is barely existent. Students are hardly taught anything besides the university curriculum. For any extra learning they are expected to take further coaching outside the university. Qualities like gratitude, honesty, simplicity; learning is not paid attention to. Even students tend to work on scoring better marks and acquiring a better job rather than focussing on their learning.
Even in an industry as critical as healthcare, it has been noticed that most doctors are working overtime due to the increasing number patients the hospital wishes to cater to. Hospital staff offers the most expensive treatment to the patients in order to earn more money and little focus is paid on the quality of patient care (Dorsey, 2016).
Many times it has been observed that the construction industry focuses on the quantity (Number of flats and office spaces sold, height of the building and how fast is it constructed) and not on the quality. The construction industry is under immense pressure to build the tallest building in the least cost. This leads to employees using bad quality material. Importance is given to selling the flats to most number of people rather than the quality of the building they live in.
McDonalds’ burgers taste the same irrespective of which part of the globe is it consumed in. Every customer knows exactly what to predict when they enter a McDonalds’ outlet. In a rational setting, people are more comfortable when they are aware what might happen in the future. They like to know what they can expect and this leads to similar outputs. Our society offers various examples of predictability in its natural setting, some of these are as below:
Employees across different industries are performing routine and repetitive tasks. Although this helps them get jobs in the same industry even in different geographic locations, it restricts their creativity and innovation. Organizational structures and cultures are such that any employee willing to change his or her department will have to start from scratch in the new department. Promotions and rewards are given to employees who master one art and work in the same.
Online education is the trend which is catching up fast. A student can be sitting many miles away in a different continent and get the same education which others are getting. The teachers are remotely located and contact the students via video conference calls (Carroll, 2013). Reading materials are sent via online sources and tests are taken using various internet applications. The degrees are awarded to students online. These classes are conducted in such a real time manner that they are as effective as offline education (Ritzer, 2013).
McDonalds has managed to have a strong control on its burgers by replacing humans with non-human technology. Tasks performed by technology ensure standardization and leave no room to customize products as per the desires of individual customers. This advancement of technology is seen in every aspect of the society. Technological errors are always lesser than human errors and this has led to increased dependency on machines. This is also led to reduction in value of human employees unless they can continue to improvise. Examples of this control setting in our society are as below:
Retail stores depict very efficient usage of technology. Wal-Mart has self-checkout stores where products purchased by customers are read on barcode and the respective amount is automatically deducted from their credit cards. This helps save time and increases control by reduction chances of error by outlet staff.
In the era of advanced technology even people’s social relationships are built via social networking websites. People make profiles on these websites and connect with others. These friendships are solely based on remaining connected over the internet. Every individual on an average has over 1000 friends on Facebook. This feature also associates well with efficiency. As the idea is to increase the number of friends rather than fostering friendships into meaningful relationships.
McJobs is a slag used to low paying, low prestige and dead end jobs that require few skills and offers little growth or learning for the employee. The culture of increasing McJobs is highly disturbing. There are three predominant reasons behind the rise of McJobs in the society today. Firstly the increase in technology reduces the demand for employees as the same work can now be done by machines (Noppeney, 2014). Secondly, universities are not paying enough attention to develop and grow skills in their students. Most students complete university education to get a job rather than to learn anything substantial (Altbach, 2013). Lastly, the job market is significantly reducing in size. Employee attrition is high and hence little efforts are put behind training and development of employees in an organization (Kennedy, 2017).
Many organizations are realizing the problems associated with McDonaldization in the society and are hence actively working towards De-McDonaldization or reducing its impacts. The focus on quality products has increased for example the airline and hotel industry consistently works to ensure their customers have a satisfying experience. Even if there are four passengers in a flight or there are 2 customers in a movie theatre, the show goes on and they are provided impeccable service.
Routine jobs are now slowly getting shifted and organizations are working to foster innovation and creativity. This is done by conducting training and development seminars, conducting team building activities and decentralized decision making.
Even product customization is now being focussed upon. The ideal example is shopping applications like myntra, flipkart and amazon sell clothes. They are selling standard clothes which are available for everyone across the globe. However the customers are given an option to select size, colour and delivery options.
McDonaldization offers various benefits to the society:
Due to McDonaldization it is easier to increase efficiency and serve more number of people at the same time. Education centres take up many students and they are all taught by the same teacher. Hence a single teacher can now teach many students at the same time (Nadolny, 2015).
Procedures in various organizations are standardized and hence no distinguishing is done on the basis of caste, creed, sex etc. Standard procedures also reduce chances of error and help save time.
McDonaldization saves time of teachers, doctors, salesmen etc. McDonaldization focuses on increased efficiency and hence helps in saving time. More students are catered to by the same teacher in the same time. More patients are treated in the same time and more customers are able to efficiently check out at the same time (Archer, 2017).
McDonaldization creates standardised tasks which the employees are supposed to follow and work accordingly. This reduces innovation and leaves the employee with less room for improvisation and developing personal skills (Dodgson, 2013).
As a customer, the biggest disadvantage of McDonaldization is reduced customization. Every customer, in every industry is treated the same. Students do not receive education based on their skills and areas of interest (Hayes, 2017). This reduced customization may lead to customer dissatisfaction and hence they may switch to better options.
Once the technological advancements are made, the value of skilled labour significantly reduces and hence they are offered lower wages. A machine is usually much faster than an individual. This replacement of labours in a workplace with technology has reduced employee efficiency, employee demand and hence their wages (Moore, 2014).
Conclusion
McDonaldization was a term coined by Ritzier in 1993. It refers to the society, its institutions, its organizations and its people adopting the features and characteristics of a fast food restaurant. McDonaldization has four factors Predictability, Control, Efficiency and Calculability. Like both sides of a coin, McDonaldization comes with a set of pros and cons. Improved and faster service to customers, efficient mechanisms and increase in saved time are key positives of McDonaldization whereas lower wages, less customization and reduced innovation are major drawbacks of the same.
References
Altbach, P.G., 2013. Franchising—The McDonaldization of higher education. In The International Imperative in Higher Education (pp. 111-113). Sense Publishers.
Archer, J., Nunn, S. and de Bere, S.R., 2017. The McDonaldization of appraisal? Doctors’ views of the early impacts of medical revalidation in the United Kingdom. Health Policy, 121(9), pp.994-1000.
Carroll, N., 2013. E-learning–the McDonaldization of education. European Journal of Higher Education, 3(4), pp.342-356.
Dodgson, M., Gann, D.M. and Phillips, N. eds., 2013. The Oxford handbook of innovation management. OUP Oxford.
Dorsey, E.R. and Ritzer, G., 2016. The McDonaldization of medicine. JAMA neurology, 73(1), pp.15-16.
Ford, R., 1994. The McDonaldization of Society: An investigation into the changing character of contemporary social life. Clinical Sociology Review, 12(1), p.25.
Hayes, D. ed., 2017. Beyond McDonaldization: visions of higher education. Taylor & Francis.
Kennedy, P., 2017. Living with Twenty-First-Century Capitalism. In Vampire Capitalism (pp. 99-129). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Löfgren, O., 2015. Design by IKEA. A Cultural History.
Moore, M.J. and Viscusi, W.K., 2014. Compensation mechanisms for job risks: wages, Workers’ Compensation, and product liability. Princeton University Press.
Nadolny, A. and Ryan, S., 2015. McUniversities revisited: a comparison of university and McDonald’s casual employee experiences in Australia. Studies in Higher Education, 40(1), pp.142-157.
Nicholson, K.P., 2015. The McDonaldization of academic libraries and the values of transformational change. College & Research Libraries, 76(3), pp.328-338.
Noppeney, C., Endrissat, N. and Kärreman, D., 2014, January. Branding McJobs: The Art of Symbolic Compensation. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2014, No. 1, p. 11496). Academy of Management.
Ong, B.K., 2017. Thinking Empirically about the McDonaldization Thesis in Penang. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 25(1).
Ritzer, G. ed., 2009. McDonaldization: the reader. Pine Forge Press.
Ritzer, G., 2013. MOOCs and the McDonaldization of education.
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