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Purpose – This study tests three theories of determinants of workers' subjective response to work situations – structural factors (measured by individual, organization, and job characteristics), general disposition, or informal work arrangements as constructed by Laubach's (2005) “consent deal.”Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from the Indiana Quality of Employment Survey, a survey of workers covering general working conditions. We constructed 10 models regressing worker perceptions and attitudes (e.g., satisfaction, relations with supervisors, meaningfulness) on structural determinants. We then used structural equation modeling to identify an underlying factor representing a general worker response from elements of the attitudes and perceptions. Finally, we regressed a scalar version of the general response factor on the structural determinants using the previous models.Findings – We identified a single second-order latent factor underlying the 10 attitudes and perceptions which represented the “general subjective response” of workers. This supported the concept of a dispositional effect. We then found that structural factors had a minimal effect on the subjective response, but that informal arrangements had a very strong effect. This undermined the first two theories and supported the third.Implications – Worker attitudes and perceptions are very resilient to different formal work arrangements but are highly influenced by the informal arrangements negotiated between workers and frontline management. Organizations can have the strongest effect on developing worker support by empowering frontline managers to make informal deals on workplace rules.Originality/value – This study offers a means to probe the relationship between formal and structural and the informal and subjective worlds of the workplace.

This paper aims to explore and analyse how shifting frontiers of control emerge and change the labour process so that restrictions to output become diminished, subsequently affecting organisational performance.

Multiple case study design. Interviews with 104 respondents. Analysis of productivity statistics in order to test for the statistical significance of the closedown effect. Single multiple regression analysis of the comparative strength, of the closedown effect, between cases.

Shifting frontiers of control arise during the closedown process, a control system characterised by markedly unrestricted autonomy for the workers as the management frontiers of control abate. This provides an operative space for informal work practices, innovation and emerging new industrial relations, accounting for the higher levels of output.

A multiple case study of three different manufacturing organisations, with comparably long closedown periods. The authors do not analyse the sustainability of the increase in output or the generalisibility of the closedown effect to other industries.

It is possible to anticipate improved productivity if shifting frontiers of control are rapidly replacing the old. If management abandons the old control mechanisms, previous to the closedown decision, and provides operative space for workers' initiatives and informal leadership during the closedown process, it is possible to expect good performance, enabling a scope for extended closedown periods.

This is the first study that analyses the comparative strength of the closedown effect and how restricted work practices change under the process of closedown.

Accounting’s definition of accountability should include attributes of socioenvironmental degradation manufactured by unsustainable technologies. Beck argues that emergent accounts should reflect the following primary characteristics of technological degradation: complexity, uncertainty, and diffused responsibility. Financial stewardship accounts and probabilistic assessments of risk, which are traditionally employed to allay the public’s fear of uncontrollable technological hazards, cannot reflect these characteristics because they are constructed to perpetuate the status quo by fabricating certainty and security. The process through which safety thresholds are constructed and contested represents the ultimate form of socialized accountability because these thresholds shape how much risk people consent to be exposed to. Beck’s socialized total accountability is suggested as a way forward: It has two dimensions, extended spatiotemporal responsibility and the psychology of decision-making. These dimensions are teased out from the following constructs of Beck’s Risk Society thesis: manufactured risks and hazards, organized irresponsibility, politics of risk, radical individualization and social learning. These dimensions are then used to critically evaluate the capacity of full cost accounting (FCA), and two emergent socialized risk accounts, to integrate the multiple attributes of sustainability. This critique should inform the journey of constructing more representative accounts of technological degradation.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of knowledge transfer within multinational corporations (MNCs), and how the imperatives of thought and action that constitute new knowledge are received in the terrain that constitutes the MNC subsidiary.

This study employs an ethnographic approach, and juxtaposes primary data collection with a variety of secondary data sources.

The data are analyzed in light of the theoretical construct of hegemony, and three themes theorized that underlie the process of knowledge transfer. These include knowledge loss at the local level, the coercive practices that ensure knowledge transfer, and the invocation of imperial subjectivities by the headquarters of the MNC when dealing with subsidiaries from poorer nations.

This paper goes beyond the mainstream approaches into organizational knowledge transfer, by analyzing these issues in light of political economy, and the changing landscape of industrial accumulation. It offers in some measure, the building blocks of a different organizational theory, one that is sensitive to those subjects who are consigned to the periphery of mainstream organizing.

In China, rural-to-urban migrant workers who are from the same place of origin tend to concentrate in the same workplace. If the concentration is sufficiently dense, it means that these migrant workers build up a social network which could be defined as native place enclave (NPE). In this paper, the authors discussed whether there are behavioral differences between enclave workers and non-enclave workers when they have conflicts with their employers.

The authors put two questions to empirical tests. First, do enclave workers experience less sense of deprivation than non-enclave workers? Second, compared to non-enclave workers, are enclave workers more willing to participate in collective action against their employers? Using data from a survey of migrant workers in Pearl River Delta and Yangzi River Delta in 2010, the authors made a comparison between enclave workers and non-enclave workers with respect to sense of deprivation and willingness-to-participate by using a propensity score matching method.

The authors found that the relationship between NPE and sense of deprivation was negative, so was the relationship between NPE and willingness-to-participate. Meanwhile, the two relationships were stronger than what had been found after the propensity score matching method was used.

The results implied that employers can reduce labor conflicts by using NPE to mitigate migrant workers’ sense of deprivation and by lowering the risk of their collective actions. In this way, NPE may contribute to the upkeep of workplace order and even social order.

There have been hot debates on how NPE would affect migrant workers’ collective action. Resource mobilization theory pointed out that NPE was positively related to workers’ collective action while production politics theory held an opposite view. Our findings provided empirical evidences for the debates.

The purpose of this paper is to use principles from Tzu's The Art of War to develop a conceptual framework for the exploration of brand persuasion and the manufacturing of consumer consent and consumption.

The conceptual framework is based upon formal theoretical links between Tzu's concept of engagement and the political economic aspects of Herman and Chomsky with regard to manufacturing consent and consumption engineering via use of the mass media.

Within the framework the consumer is simultaneously the enemy, the manipulated target for consumption engineering and the protected people in the sales “war”. The business culture and ethical considerations of such a position are examined and hence the paper offers a novel insight into how theoretical concepts link political, social and commercial paradigms in order to gain an insight into market interventions, consumption engineering and marketing leverage.

The paper contributes to the body of knowledge examining the relationship between Chinese and Western theoretical concepts whilst providing insight for executives seeking to leverage marketing strategy.

Post-fordist production systems emphasize the need to tap workers’ knowledge to enhance productivity and quality. Often overlooked, however, is the potential conflict in expecting workers to contribute to processes that may make their jobs harder. This article compares employee participation schemes at two General Motors assembly plants to illustrate the potency of this dilemma and the range of ways managers focus or limit employee participation to achieve the company's goals. In Silao, Mexico, General Motors carefully constructed a labor relations environment that cultivated broad employee participation. In Janesville, Wisconsin, local managers placed constraints on employee participation to ensure continuous production.

Labor process research has documented a shift in the nature of control – from techniques that aim to limit worker discretion to consent-oriented controls that are believed to generate greater effort by increasing intrinsic rewards or bonding employees to managers and/or the firm. Over the past several decades, however, growing pressure to increase profits has prompted firms to adopt cost-cutting strategies that have eroded job security, relationships with management and commitment to organizational goals. This study investigates how a changing labor process and rising job insecurity shape workers’ orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and in turn influence workplace behavior. Analyses of content-coded data on 212 work groups confirms that discretion-limiting controls (supervision, technology and rules) are associated with more negative orientations and/or reductions in effort (with variations across distinct forms of control), while investment in workers’ human capital (but not involvement of workers in decision-making) has the reverse effect – ­generating more positive orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and (in turn) promoting discretionary work effort and limiting covert effort restriction. Implications of insecurity are more complex. Both layoffs and temporary employment reduce commitment to the organization, but layoffs generate conflict with management without reducing effort, whereas temporary employment limits effort without producing conflict. We illuminate underlying processes with evidence from the qualitative case studies.