“The money is just immaterial”: relationality on the retail shop floor

Abstract

Purpose – This paper considers the role of relationality as an interpretive strategy in the workplace, asking how one group of low-wage workers interpret their jobs in the service economy.

Methodology – Qualitative interviews with 25 female retail workers.

Findings – I argue that these retail workers use a relational ethic to interpret various aspects of their work. Relationality colors workers’ understanding of their job responsibilities, their own accounts of self-development in the workplace, and their strategies for resolving conflict on the shop floor.

Practical implications – These findings are particularly relevant for current labor union activities, and thus I conclude by discussing the implications of this relational ethic for attempts to organize workers in the retail sector. Workers who prioritize relationships ahead of material gains in the workplace may be particularly uncomfortable with more confrontational styles of labor organization.

Originality/Value of paper – Economic sociologists increasingly stress relational aspects of the economy, such as the role of networks in enabling market transactions; the significance of social ties in shaping economic exchange, and the importance of economic activity in constituting relationships themselves. This paper builds on that framework by arguing that workers also use a relational ethic to interpret their activity within the workforce itself.

Citation

Peeples Massengill, R. (2009), "“The money is just immaterial”: relationality on the retail shop floor", Bandelj, N. (Ed.) Economic Sociology of Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 185-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-2833(2009)0000018012