Beyond the Skills: Scientific Administration, Business Networks and Circulation of Psy Knowledge on the World of Work in Chile (1956-1970)

This article analyzes the Psi knowledge that accompanied the development of the Scientific Management Movement in Chile. For this purpose, the publications of the magazine Empresa, a bulletin edited by the Institute of Rational Business Administration (ICARE), were used, as well as government and academic documents. The analysis was oriented to identify the networks and problems around which the psychological discourses on work were mobilized between 1956 and 1970; revealing the important role played by the business associations and the American intellectual centers. Finally, it is concluded that the study of "skills" was insufficient to respond to the problems arising from the deterioration of worker subjectivity, incorporating new knowledge that appealed to the psychologization of the work space as a way of guaranteeing worker-employer cooperation and that forced to redefine the programmatic bases of industrial psychology that had been developing in Chile.