Search results

This chapter provides an extensive review of literature on the interaction between and interdependence of informal and formal working practices in various workplace settings. The aim of the chapter is to elucidate the organisational, managerial, human relations and social factors that give rise to informal work practices and strategies, on the shop-floor not only at workers and work group levels but also at supervisory and managerial levels. This chapter helps the reader to understand the informal work practice of making a plan (planisa) in a deep-level mining workplace.

The sociology of education has various traditions which examine the connections between education, culture, and inequality. Two of these traditions, symbolic interactionism and critical theory, tend to ignore each other. This paper creates a dialogue between these traditions by applying symbolic interactionist (SI) and radical interactionist (RSI) sensibilities to an important study for resistance theory, Paul Willis’ classic ethnography Learning to Labor (1977). The SI reading of Learning to Labor emphasizes the importance of group interactions and the creation of meaning, while the RSI reading highlights how domination unfolds in social interaction. We argue that SI and RSI have much to offer Learning to Labor, as these readings can avoid some of the critiques commonly leveled on the book regarding the linkage between theory and data, structure and agency, and the book’s conceptualization of culture. Likewise, we argue that the data in Learning to Labor have much to offer SI and RSI, as the material provides grist to further understand the role of symbols in domination while identifying escalating dominance encounters that create a set of patterned interactions that we describe as a “grinding” social order.

The purpose of this paper to examine the impact of shop floor (SF) culture (organizational culture (OC) perceived by workers) and SF subcultures assessed by the competing values framework (CVF) on the perceived use of lean production (LP) practices.

The authors analyse questionnaires completed by workers at the single case company undergoing a commonplace lean transformation. The survey items cover both LP items and CVF statements. The propositions are analysed applying cluster analysis and regression.

At the case company, the multidimensionality of SF culture only partially exists, and the perceived use of LP practices shows little connection to OC. The considerable differences between SF culture and SF subcultures on the one hand and among SF subcultures on the other hand indicate the existence of a special multidimensional SF culture. Altogether, SF culture’s impact on LP is weak.

Managers should rethink the usual lean implementation pathways and understand how values pervade SF culture and how culture types impact the perceived use of LP practices at the SF. Managers could face a trade-off: smoother lean transition by engaging in SF subculture-specific transitions and reinforcing it or by developing a homogenous lean SF culture.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical attempt to understand the impact of SF culture on the perceived use of LP practices by adopting a validated OC measurement tool. Furthermore, the study provides insight into workers’ subcultures.

The manufacturing industry is presently experiencing technological disruption on a global scale. Consequently, to tackle such disruption, firms are identifying a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) scenario and seeking ways to counter it. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the employee performance through assessing organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among the shop floor employees of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry where a high-performance work system (HPWS) has been implemented.

A descriptive research design was used in the study, and 395 shop floor employees working in leading multinational firms, with a minimum global turnover of US$1bn, were interviewed. These manufacturing firms were located in three industrial clusters in the northern part of India.

The results indicate that HPWS influences OCB. Most of the dimensions of HPWS and OCB were found to be positively associated. The findings also disprove the labour process theory in the context of the study.

The findings report a broad view of the relationship between HPWS and OCB in the Indian manufacturing context. The study offers the practical insights that HPWS is a universally accepted framework and that organizations should focus on the effective implementation of HPWS in a VUCA scenario, which is in line with past studies. The study also provides future directions for research.

This paper has established the relationship between HPWS and OCB in the manufacturing sector, especially for shop floor employees.

There is compelling evidence that demonstrates that organisations are failing to reap the full benefits of lean initiatives. While much work has been conducted on what factors are critical to the success of lean initiatives, there is a dearth of empirical evidence relating to whether team leaders implement critical success factors (CSFs) in practice. Therefore, this study aims to explore the extent to which functional team leaders implement lean practices focussing on the role of leadership, empowerment and culture.

The research analysed team leaders in a single-site manufacturing organisation. A state-of-the-art analysis was conducted to isolate relevant themes and an instrument was developed to capture data. Empirical data was collected and analysed from 34 team leaders in engineering, quality and manufacturing.

The study found that while many good managerial practices to support lean is implemented, there remain significant challenges relating to cultural issues which must be addressed. The findings illuminate a latent gap in commitment and communication from senior management, as well as an underlying discrepancy in time and resource allocation.

The study’s findings provide new knowledge concerning the extent to which CSFs are implemented by functional team leaders in a real-world environment. The enquiry makes a valuable departure from previous research that focusses on leadership at a senior and middle manager level. It bridges the gap between academia and practice and provides tangible and concise results to management on how CSFs relating to leadership, empowerment and culture impact team leaders to drive lean methodologies.

The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of high-performance work systems (HPWS). HPWS promise workplaces that are both highly productive and offer employees high levels of job satisfaction. The existing literature tends to see HPWS as outcomes of planned change initiated by management as part of an human resource management (HRM) strategy. We question this assumption and show that under favourable conditions, HPWS may emerge from workers’ self-organization.

A qualitative case study of a department producing automotive components was conducted. Empirical material was collected through participant observation. The material was coded for recurring themes and used to construct an explanatory model.

HPWS may emerge in the absence of managerial or HRM interventions. The emergence and reproduction of HPWS can be explained by a shop-floor culture of craftsmanship, worker solidarity and jobs with high levels of task significance and task identity.

Future research is encouraged to explore and more carefully theorize the antecedents of HPWS. Of particular interest is the relationship between planned HPWS initiatives and elements of the informal work organization, which may also promote autonomy, flexibility and commitment.

Planned implementations of HPWS would benefit from appreciating and building on existing norms of craftsmanship and solidarity. Reinforcing and officially endorsing these norms may be preferable to introduce novel normative ideals of “teamwork”, “empowerment” or “quality”.

Few studies have systematically explored the antecedents of HPWS. The proposed concept “emergent HPWS”, captures largely unacknowledged organizational dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to chart the process of culture change within Durham National Savings, both before and after the public‐private partnership (PPP) of the organisation, and to examine dissent – in its many forms – as a dimension of employee resistance.

In‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with trade union representatives and shop‐floor employees. Senior management declined all offers to participate in the research.

Despite managerial attempts to generate a homogenous culture, the organisation consisted of an array of subcultures. Yet dissent became more pointed and political after the PPP of the organisation. In combination with trade union resistance, workplace dissent challenges and destabilises managerial efforts at usurping organisational cultures.

The theoretical contribution of the paper is important as it moves beyond traditional forms of resistance to examine opaque and emergent forms of dissent at the subterranean level. The changing nature of such actions and attitudes are examined in the context of managerial attempts to transform the culture of the organisation. Whilst there are overlaps around the notions of misbehaviour, dissent and resistance, a fresh and extended definition of workplace dissent is offered.

This paper aims to examine the interaction between formal and informal organisation of work inside the pit, with reference to the informal working or coping strategy of “making a plan” (planisa).

The research for this paper was ethnographic in nature and the participant observation was the main research technique used in the field.

The underground gold miners make a plan or engage in planisa to offset the production bottlenecks which affected their capacity to achieve their production targets and increase their bonus earnings. They “get on and get by” underground in order to cope with organisational constraints and management inefficiencies.

The paper highlights the limits of formal organisation of work and the significance of gold miners’ informal work strategy of making a plan (planisa) as an existing and alternative working practice that shapes their subjective orientation, agency and resilience to work structures and managerial strategies. Any strategy designed to improve the health, safety and productivity of underground miners must recognise, elaborate and systematically articulate the workplace culture of planisa as an existing work practice in the day‐to‐day running of the production process down the mine.

There has been a steady growth in courses for shop stewards in the United Kingdom in the last decade, much of which is a direct consequence of the increased involvement of the TUC. This growth has been paralleled by two other developments, the first of which is the position of skills training as a central element in union education, while the second is the emergence of a group of tutors who are employed to teach almost exclusively on courses for shop stewards and other representatives.

The purpose of this paper is to advance ongoing debates on the organizational impact of wider public sector reform in the field of organizational change management by presenting an analysis the regionalization of the fire service in the Netherlands. How regionalization has impacted the work floor of local fire stations, where the workplace majority comprises volunteers, requires further empirical investigation.

The authors apply an interpretive approach and qualitative methodology to study how volunteer firefighters and public management make sense of public reform and the ensuing organizational change.

Findings indicate that while the fire service has professionalized, notable tensions have emerged between public management and volunteers, the regional and local level of fire service and between professionalism and volunteerism which are problematised in the paper.

The originality of the paper is found in the insight it provides in the sensemaking of volunteer firefighters and public managers of diverse of change regions and fire stations during the regionalization process by applying an emergent perspective to change.