Many of the elements, separately and accumulatively, of the management initiatives explored in this book carried this latent message, that is that there were viable alternatives to the closely argued 'proceduralist' route to labour management. It was possible but not necessary, to bundle up these initiatives into a coherent package or programme. Some managers saw tactical advantage in so doing; others divined it otherwise. But, separately or together, the initiatives represented symbolic action in the
Pondy sense in that they carried meanings which extended beyond their 'intrinsic content'.