Search results

1 – 10 of over 15000
Book part
Publication date: 7 November 2018

Daniel B. Cornfield, Jonathan S. Coley, Larry W. Isaac and Dennis C. Dickerson

As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status…

Abstract

As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity. Our purpose in this chapter is to introduce and typologize what we refer to as “occupational activism,” defined as socially transformative individual and collective action that is conducted and realized through an occupational role or occupational community. We empirically induce and present a typology from our study of the half-century-long, post-mobilization occupational careers of over 60 veterans of the nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement of the early 1960s. The fourfold typology of occupational activism is framed in the “new” sociology of work, which emphasizes the role of worker agency and activism in determining worker life chances, and in the “varieties of activism” perspective, which treats the typology as a coherent regime of activist roles in the dialogical diffusion of civil rights movement values into, within, and out of workplaces. We conclude with a research agenda on how bureaucratic workplaces nurture and stymie occupational activism as a racially desegregationist force at work and in the broader polity.

Details

Race, Identity and Work
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-501-6

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2017

Anthony Lloyd

The purpose of this paper is to consider existing debates within the sociology of work, particularly the re-emergence of labour process theory (LPT) and the “collective worker”…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to consider existing debates within the sociology of work, particularly the re-emergence of labour process theory (LPT) and the “collective worker”, in relation to resistance at work. Through presentation of primary data and a dialectical discussion about the nature of ideology, the paper offers alternative interpretations on long-standing debates and raises questions about the efficacy of workplace resistance.

Design/methodology/approach

The design of this methodology is an ethnographic study of a call centre in the North-East of England, a covert participant observation at “Call Direct” supplemented by semi-structured interviews with call centre employees.

Findings

The findings in this paper suggest that resistance in the call centre mirrors forms of resistance outlined elsewhere in both the call centre literature and classical workplace studies from the industrial era. However, in presenting an alternative interpretation of ideology, as working at the level of action rather than thought, the paper reinterprets the data and characterises workplace resistance as lacking the political potential for change often emphasised in LPT and other workplace studies.

Originality/value

The original contribution of this paper is in applying an alternative interpretation of ideology to a long-standing debate. In asking sociology of work scholars to consider the “reversal of ideology”, it presents an alternative perspective on resistance in the workplace and raises questions about the efficacy of workplace disobedience.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Katherine Sobering

Collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives are known for requiring high levels of participation, striving toward community, and making space for affective relationships…

Abstract

Collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives are known for requiring high levels of participation, striving toward community, and making space for affective relationships among their members. The emotional intensity of such organizations has long been considered both an asset and a burden: while personal relationships may generate solidarity and sustain commitment, interpersonal interactions can be emotionally intense and, if left unmanaged, can even lead to organizational demise. How do collectivist-democratic organizations manage emotions to create and sustain member commitment? This study draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-run, worker-recuperated business in Argentina to analyze the emotional dynamics of a democratic workplace. First, the author shows how members of the cooperative engage in emotional labor not only in their customer service, but also through their participation in lateral management and democratic governance. An analysis of individual feeling management, however, provides only a partial picture of emotional dynamics. Drawing on the theory of interaction ritual chains, the author argues that workplace practices like meetings and events can produce collective emotions that are critical to maintaining members’ commitment to the group. Finally, the author shows how interaction ritual chains operate in the BAUEN Cooperative, tracing how symbols of shared affiliation circulate through interactions and are reactivated through the confrontation of a common threat. The author concludes by reflecting on implications for future research on emotions in collectivist organizations and participatory workplaces more broadly.

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

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Article
Publication date: 6 January 2012

Anu Järvensivu and Pasi Koski

The purpose of this paper is to look at workplace learning through research into sociology of work. It explores the “learning discourse” at work place level looking for…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to look at workplace learning through research into sociology of work. It explores the “learning discourse” at work place level looking for possibilities to oppose learning.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on case studies conducted at six workplaces. The data on the cases include interviews and observation and three of the cases can be characterized as being based on action research.

Findings

In light of the case studies, learning at workplaces shows up as action and discourse that is quite interest‐laden and contested. Employers demand learning but employees find ways to oppose these demands.

Practical implications

In the planning of measures that support workplace learning it is important to identify general structures and trends of working life, as well as the different interests at the workplace. In this way, a situation can be avoided in which adult educators and their activities are used as weapons in campaigning for some groups' interests.

Originality/value

The article's distinctive feature lies in its critical approach to workplace learning through in‐depth data sets. It explores further so‐called positive learning discourse and its implications at different kind of workplaces and to different kind of personnel groups.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Research in the Sociology of Work
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-405-1

Book part
Publication date: 5 February 2016

Steven P. Vallas

In recent years, scholars have engaged in an especially sharp debate about the structural and ideological arrangements on which business organizations rely in their effort to…

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have engaged in an especially sharp debate about the structural and ideological arrangements on which business organizations rely in their effort to control the workers they employ. A key issue is the degree to which workers have retained the ability to resist such controls. In this chapter, I develop a critical analysis of the scholarly debate over domination and resistance at work, in an effort to clarify the tasks facing this field. My argument hinges on three major points. First, I argue that scholars have approached the control/resistance binary largely as a class relationship, thereby neglecting intersecting inequalities such as race, gender, and sexuality, which inevitably complicate or over-determine the forms that worker resistance assumes. Second, I argue that scholars have increasingly fixated on symbolic or discursive influences, privileging them at the expense of the material or structural conditions that shape managerial control and resistance to it. Third, I contend that much of the literature has failed to acknowledge the duality of managerial control – that is, its tendency not only to limit but also to enable resistance from below. These problems, taken together, explain why the debate has so often seemed to pursue a circuitous path, as if it were chasing its own tail. The chapter concludes by discussing the conditions that resistance presupposes, and by speculating about the emergence of novel forms of resistance that might be well suited to an age of flexible accumulation.

Details

A Gedenkschrift to Randy Hodson: Working with Dignity
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-727-1

Book part
Publication date: 1 June 2007

Beth A. Rubin

The introduction to Volume 17 of Research in the Sociology of Work: Workplace Temporalities, reviews prior literature and issues in the studies of time at work. It provides a…

Abstract

The introduction to Volume 17 of Research in the Sociology of Work: Workplace Temporalities, reviews prior literature and issues in the studies of time at work. It provides a brief summary of the chapters in this volume and addresses some of the major themes, particularly those with which sociologists might be unfamiliar, since this volume is, quite deliberately, interdisciplinary. The chapters in this volume demonstrate the complexities of workplace temporalities in the new economy and suggest that incorporating inquiry about time will inform understanding not only of the contemporary workplace, but also of social life more broadly.

Details

Workplace Temporalities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1268-9

Article
Publication date: 14 November 2019

Raghunandan Reddy, Arun Kumar Sharma and Munmun Jha

The purpose of this paper is to examine perspective of “gendered labour process” to explore the aspectsof managerialism, which utilize gender as a control measure to achieve its…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine perspective of “gendered labour process” to explore the aspectsof managerialism, which utilize gender as a control measure to achieve its ends. The paper seeks to integrate gender and labour process theory and contribute to studies on gendering of organizations that focus on organization logic as well as integrated studies of labour process theory and gender.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper utilizes thematic analysis as the method for analysing the interviews of senior managers in an information technology service organization in India, to identify managerial ideologies and practices.

Findings

A gendered labour process perspective could reveal the institutional orders that systemically discriminate or exclude women in organizations, rather than gender ideologies alone.

Practical implications

Rather than focussing on gender sensitization alone, as is the case with the gender diversity initiatives, it may be fruitful to revisit work design and work organization, to identify and implement changes, so that women’s marginalization and exclusion from certain workplaces could be minimized.

Social implications

A view of gendered labour process could aid public policies aimed at enabling women to continue their employment without disruptions.

Originality/value

The paper attempted to integrate gender and labour process theory by delineating the organization logic that deploys gender as a means of managerial control.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 39 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 June 2019

Mareike Reimann, Charlotte Katharina Marx and Martin Diewald

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). Looking at job-related as well as family-related demands and resources, this research investigated to what degree these demands and resources contribute to differences in WFC and FWC, how their relevance in predicting conflicts varies between single parents and other parents and the role of compositional differences in work and family demands and resources.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional linear regression analyses were applied to analyze a random sample of employees in large work organizations in Germany. The sample included 3,581 parents with children up to the age of 25, of whom 346 were single parents.

Findings

The results indicated that single parents face more FWC, but not more WFC, than other parents. For all parents, job demands such as overtime, supervising responsibilities and availability expectations were associated with higher levels of WFC, whereas job resources such as job autonomy, support from supervisors and flexible working hours were associated with lower levels of WFC. In predicting FWC, family demands and resources played only a minor role. However, results provide only scant evidence of differences between single parents and other parents in terms of the effects of job and family demands and resources.

Originality/value

This study offers interesting insights into the diversity of WFC and FWC experiences in Germany. It provides first evidence of the impact of job and family demands and resources on both directions of work–family conflicts among employed single parents as a specific social group.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 39 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 5 March 2018

Karolina Parding and Anna Berg-Jansson

This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms.

Design/methodology/approach

This article is based on analyses of 30 interviews with Swedish upper secondary teachers focusing on their experiences of their conditions for learning.

Findings

This paper shows how teachers at upper secondary level identify their subjects as the most important to learn more within. Secondly, we also show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for subject learning, where the interviewees in many ways contrast their own view to how they describe their work being organised.

Research limitations/implications

Our findings may have currency for other professional groups with similar governance-contexts, and teachers in other similar governance-contexts.

Practical implications

These findings indicate the need to further develop workplace learning strategies founded upon the understanding of schools as workplaces, taking occupational values into account. Furthermore, these strategies should be seen as a core Human Resource Management issue, as they can potentially enhance the work environment, thus increasing the profession’s attractiveness.

Originality/value

We show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for the sought after subject learning, and that the teachers and the school management seem to identify with different and clashing ideals in terms of what, when, how and with whom to learn.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

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