RIPHAH INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY FAISALABAD

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Department of Sociology
End Term Online Examination Spring 2020 Semester

Course Name Industrial Sociology

Semester 1st

Teacher Name Prof. Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad Maan

Student Name Mahmood ul Hassan Chopra

Roll No 16742

Total Pages 20

Signature

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 QUESTION 1:
SIX STRANDS OF THOUGHT IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIOLOGY

No. Strands of Thought Application and Development

01 Managerial–psychologistic Scientific management (Taylorism)

Psychological humanism
02 Durkheim-human- relations- Human relations
systems Systems thinking in organisational analysis
03 Interactionist-negotiated- Occupations and professions in society
order Organisations as negotiated orders
Ethnomethodology

04 Weber-social-action- Bureaucratic principles of work organization

institutional Orientations to work
Institutionalist organisation theories and social
construction
05 Marxian-labour-process Individual experiences and capitalist labour processes
Structural contradictions in society and economy
06 Poststructuralist and Discourse and human subjectivity
postmodern (Discursive) Postmodern organizations

1. MANAGERIAL–PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRAND

Managerial–psychologistic strand relatively individualistic styles of thinking about work and

is concerned to prescribe to managers how they should relate to their employees and
should organise workers’ jobs. It concentrates on questions of ‘human nature’ and fail to
recognise the range of possibilities for work organisation and orientation that people may
choose to adopt, depending on their priorities in life.

It has two applications or development

I. Scientific management (Taylorism)
II. Psychological humanism

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I. Scientific management (Taylorism)
Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its
main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the
earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes to management. Scientific
management is sometimes known as Taylorism after its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor.

II. Psychological humanism

Psychological humanists argue for achieving organisational efficiency not through the exclusion
of workers from task-related decision-making but by encouraging their participation in it,

2. DUKHEIM HUMAN RELATIONS SYSTEMS STRAND

It has two applications or development

I. Human relations
II. Systems thinking in organisational analysis

I. Human relations
To develop effective and scientifically informed managerial elite, managements should ensure
that employees social needs were met at work by giving them the satisfaction of working
together, by making them feel important in the organisation and by showing an interest in their
personal problems, then both social breakdown and industrial conflict could be headed off.

II. Systems thinking in organisational analysis

In systems thinking, social entities such as societies or organisations are viewed as if they were
self-regulating bodies exchanging energy and matter with their environment in order to survive.

3. INTERACTIONIST-NEGOTIATED- ORDER STRAND

The interactionist strand has its roots firmly in the sociology department of the University of
Chicago in America. Theoretically, the interactionist perspective, with its focus on the
individual, the small group and on meanings, is almost a polar opposite of the Durkheim-systems
strand described above.

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It has three applications or development
I. Occupations and professions in society
II. Organisations as negotiated orders
III. Ethnomethodology

I. Occupations and professions in society

Interactionist approach focuses on the social drama of work – the interaction which takes place at
work taking note of the problems or tensions which are created by the work itself and by its
social situation. How the individual copes with or adapts to those problems, and, especially,
relates them to the problem of maintaining their identity. It paid great attention to how members
of different occupations cope with the particular problems of their work

II. Negotiated order

Interactionism has also contributed to how we understand work organisations. Its most
significant contribution here is its conception of the organisation as a negotiated order (Watson
2001c). The concept was developed by Strauss et al. (1963) as part of a study of a psychiatric
hospital.

Negotiated order is the pattern of activities which emerges over time as an outcome of the
interplay of the various interests, understandings, reactions and initiatives of the individuals and
groups involved in an organisation.

III. Ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology might be seen as taking interactionist insights to their logical conclusion. It

combines the thinking of the Chicago school with ideas from the European tradition of
phenomenological philosophy and with insights from Weber’s methodological thinking.
Ethnomethodology is the study of how ordinary members of society in their everyday lives make
the world meaningful by achieving a sense of ‘taken for-grantedness’.

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4. THE WEBER-SOCIAL-ACTION-INSTITUTIONAL STRAND

Weber’s relevance to the sociology of work and organisation lies in his concern with the
interplay that occurs between the agency or voluntaristic aspects of social activity and the wider
cultural or structural patterns within society.
It has three applications or development
I. Bureaucratic principles of work organisation
II. Orientations to work
III. Institutionalist organisation theories and social construction

I. Bureaucratic principles of work organization

3. Framework of Rules
1. Division of Labour
4. Impersonality
2. Hierarchy of Authority
5. Formal selection
II. Orientation to work

The meaning attached by individuals to their work which predisposes them both to think and act
in particular ways with regard to that work.

III. Social construction of reality

The process in which people, through cultural interaction, give meaning to the world – a world
that exists beyond language but which can only be known and communicated by people through
language-based processes of cultural interpretation and sense-making.

5. MARXIAN-LABOUR-PROCESS

Marxian thought constitutes more than a sociological theory. It can be seen as providing a
method of analysis which does not divide polity, economy and society. Despite the fact that
Marx wanted to bring together theory and practice and encourage revolution, sociologists can
derive a great deal of analytical value from Marxian thinking.

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It has two applications or development
I. Individual experiences and capitalist labour processes
II. Structural contradictions in society and economy

I. Individual experiences and capitalist labour processes

According to Karl Marx, labour process refers to the process whereby labour is materialized or
objectified in use values. Labour is here an interaction between the person who works and the
natural world such that elements of the latter are consciously altered in a purposive manner.
Hence, the elements of labour process are three-fold: first, the work itself, a purposive productive
activity; second the object(s) on which that work is performed; and third, the instruments which
facilitate the process of work.

II. Structural contradictions in society and economy

The key contradictions of capitalism are the clash between labor power and capitalistic relations,
between a productive force connoted by rapidly increasing entrepreneurial skills and production
relations invariably shaped by the power of capitalists to make all the decisions concerning
production. From this, it clearly follows that the only way to attain socialism is to reverse the
current capital-labor relation and establish a system in keeping with the principles of market
socialism.

6. POSTSTRUCTURALIST AND POSTMODERN STRAND (DISCURSIVE)

It has two applications or development

I. Postmodern organizations
II. Discourse and human subjectivity

I. Postmodern organizations

Postmodernism as a way of looking at the world has been received with varying degrees of
acquiescence and disdain by industrial and organizational sociologists. Early on, Thompson
(1993), for example, characterised it as a ‘fatal distraction’ and a retreat by sections of the
intelligentsia from engagement with important issues in the world. He described postmodernism
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as a reactionary trend. Although there are progressive dimensions to postmodernist thinking – the
decentring of the sovereign subject, the exploration of multiple identities and the challenge to
traditional hierarchies of knowledge – the interest in ‘multiple realities’ and the making of
multiple interpretations of the world leaves a situation where, in effect, the world becomes ‘all
things to all people’. If we let this become the case, Thompson argues, it would allow us no
opportunity to take action to change that world.

II. Discourse and human subjectivity

The concept of discourse and the analysis of discourses have become central in studies of work
and organisations. Organisational discourse analysis involves the study of ‘the structured
collections of texts embodied in the practices of talking and writing that bring organizationally
related objects into being as these text are produced, disseminated and consumed, and such work
has produced valuable insights, from researchers working within critical realist principles as well
as the interpretive/constructionist tradition. However, it can be argued that a concept of discourse
can also take its place in sociological analyses where language, as such, is not the main focus.
The discourse concept can fill a serious conceptual gap in sociology. It is a device which helps us
deal with the level of social reality that mediates between culture at the relatively ‘macro’ level
and the social interactions and interpretive actions of individuals and groups at the more ‘micro’
level. In our lives we are influenced by a wide range of different discourses that surround us,
rather than by a single overarching ‘culture’.
_______________

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 QUESTION 02:

Taylorism

Taylorism, also often known as scientific management theory is a theory of management, first
advocated by Frederick W Taylor. This theory analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main
objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the
earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes to management.

Four Principles of Scientific Management

Taylor’s ideas set the basis for laying down the principles of scientific management that aimed at
maximizing production and efficiency of every worker and design a system that enabled
maximization of operations between employees and employers.

These principles are discussed below:

Principle # 1. Science, not Rule of Thumb:

Rule-of-thumb methods are traditional approaches that suited organizations in the past. Under
mass production, the volume of work had expanded that required scientific methods to manage
and control work easily. Accordingly, Taylor suggested that methods of a particular business
activity should be scientifically studied prior to their application to avoid mistakes. He suggested
introducing standardized and guaranteed approaches that led to efficiency in operations.

Example, a textile factory consists of 150 workers and there are five different units within this
factory (spinning, weaving, stitching, adding buttons and embroidery). Each of these units was
assigned with a specialist foreman who has knowledge and experience regarding that particular
activity. There will be five specialist foremen who will be assigned with 30 workers each
distributed among five business units.

Principle # 2. Harmony, not Discord:

Under this principle, workers and management should work in harmony with mutual cooperation
and coordination. Workers should not be overburdened with work, while should not feel
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dissatisfied with their investment of time and money in an organization. According to Taylor a
firm can achieve maximum prosperity if workers and management work with each other leading
to development of a cordial relationship with each other and team spirit, and organizational goals
can be achieved easily.

Example, workers are assigned with work by one superior (like a functional foreman). These
superiors are allocated separate bureaucratic powers and can divide the particular activity into
several tasks depending upon the complexity of the activity. They act as disciplinarians,
mediators during disputes and review workers’ performance. Such relationship between workers
and superiors is necessary as it creates harmony and avoids confusion along with conflict.

Principle # 3. Cooperation, not Individualism:

In continuation with the earlier point, it is coordination and not individualism that will assist in
achieving organizational goals. Cooperation is an action of working together and Taylor states
employees and manage-ment should cooperate with each other that could lead to high morale
and team spirit. In the earlier example on harmony between workers and superiors, workers are
expected to cooperate and undertake responsibility and accountability for completion of work.
As soldering led to under work and individualism, Taylor observed that factories endured
excessive costs and wastage of resources.

Principle # 4. Development of Each and Every Person to His or Her Greatest Efficiency
and Prosperity:

Taylor suggested that all possible human efforts should be utilized maximally leading to
efficiency and prosperity for the workers and the business. This means that workers with suitable
skills and capabilities should be fittingly considered for certain activities in an organization. This
also means that workers should be employed for specific and specialized activities that possibly
requires minimal efforts and eliminates errors and wastage of resources.

Example, well-built worker who can carry a certain load or weight should be given the
responsibility to carry gunny bags of products into the firm. A weak-built with no experience or
idea about carrying any load but relevant experience in a certain field (like accounting) is given a
specific job (like an accountant) that involves minimal manual work.
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Some More Important Points of Scientific Management Are:

• The scientific analysis by management of all the tasks which need to be done in order to
make the workshop as efficient as possible.
• The design of the jobs by managers to achieve the maximum technical division of labor
through advanced job fragmentation.
• The separation of the planning of work from its execution.
• The reduction of skill requirements and job-learning times to a minimum.
• The minimizing of materials-handling by operators and the separation of indirect or
preparatory tasks from direct or productive ones.
• The use of such devices as time-study and monitoring systems to coordinate these
fragmented elements and the work of the deskilled workers.
• The use of incentive payment systems both to stabilize and intensify worker effort.
• The conduct of manager–worker relationships at ‘arm’s-length’ – following a
‘minimum interaction model.

Drawbacks of Scientific Management

While scientific management principles improved productivity and had a substantial impact on
industry, they also increased the monotony of work. The core job dimensions of skill variety,
task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback all were missing from the picture of
scientific management.

While in many cases the new ways of working were accepted by the workers, in some cases they
were not. The use of stopwatches often was a protested issue and led to a strike at one factory
where "Taylorism" was being tested. Complaints that Taylorism was dehumanizing led to an
investigation by the United States Congress. Despite its controversy, scientific management
changed the way that work was done, and forms of it continue to be used today.

________________________

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 QUESTION:03

CHOICES, CONSTRAINT AND OPPORTUNITIES IN WORK AND SOCIETY

Working arrangements and social patterns

Sociology’s potential as a resource for informing human choice is something to which we will
return shortly. First, however, we need to reinforce the point about working arrangements and
social patterns being both the outcomes of human actions and factors helping shape those
actions. Sociology has been defined here as something that looks at how human beings organise
both themselves and each other. In looking at how people think and behave it looks for cultural
patterns and ‘structures’ in social life. These patterns are seen as both the outcome of the
activities of individuals and as things which, in turn, influence, encourage and constrain the
individual. If, for example, we see the following box

Two people arriving at work: a simple case of thinking sociologically

A man and a woman get out of a car and walk into an office block. One of them goes into a
large private office and closes the door. The other sits at a desk outside that office alongside
several other people. The person in the private space telephones the one in the outer office and a
few minutes later the latter individual takes a cup of coffee and a biscuit to the person in the
inner office. If we were viewing this scene as strangers to this work organisation, whether or
not we were formally trained as sociologists, we would be thinking about both the personal and
the work relationship between these people: were they a married couple, lovers or simply
people sharing a lift to work? We would wonder how this aspect of their relationship related to
the authority relationship between them: presumably one of them was ‘the boss’, was the more
highly paid, the more highly trained and had the right to give instructions to the other. We
would here be drawing on our knowledge of ‘sociological’ matters such as social class,
educational and career opportunity structures, bureaucratic authority structures, culturally
normal patterns of workplace layout and the patterns of behaviour, rules, assumptions and
expectations associated with work activities in this particular society and culture at this
particular time in history. If it were the man that entered the private office, we might note that
standard ‘norms’ were being followed with regard to gender relationships. But if it were the
woman who ‘played the role’ of the senior person – the presumably higher paid, more qualified
individual with greater authority – we might begin to reflect on how this individual has come to
challenge established patterns. How had she come to break established norms? What
opportunity structures had she used, what barriers had she overcome? To what extent were her
actions and her relatively unusual position in the workplace part of a broader pattern of social
change?
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It was the man, who was the more senior of our two social actors, he might tell us in an interview
that his current role as the organisation’s head of information technology was the outcome of a
series of choices that he personally made in his life. The woman, to whom he gives a daily lift in
his company car, might talk to us about how she chose to train and work as an office secretary.

Choice or ‘agency’

As sociological observers we would not want to discount these claims to choice or ‘agency’ in
these individuals’ career patterns. Nor would we say that there were no individual choices behind
the pattern whereby the great majority of the important ‘decision-makers’ in this organisation are
currently men and most of the secretarial and ‘personal assistant’ workers are women. Choices
have clearly been made. Nobody forced these people into these jobs. Each human individual is
an agent, with wants, aspirations and a sense of identity which they bring to any decision to
speak or act. But, at the same time, we are likely to be aware that the pattern we have observed
is, in some sense, an outcome of the way the ‘society’ in which these people grew up channeled
male and female children into different spheres of activity. There were clearly pressures on each
child from the world around them: ranging from role examples observed as they grew up, to the
opportunities made available to boys and girls in both education and initial employment.

Voluntarist and structural frames

It is easily possible to see two mutually exclusive alternative types of explanation emerging here:
agency and choice on the one hand and structural ‘channeling’ on the other. Sometimes
sociologists talk of making a choice between voluntarist and structural frames of reference, and
modern sociological thought is characterised, says Swingewood, ‘by a continual tension between
a voluntarist model which emphasises the creative and active role of agents, and a structural
model which focuses on institutions and processes which constrain and determine the course of
action’.

To use terms which have been around as long as there has been social thought, we can speak of
explanations which emphasise free will and explanations which stress determinism. This is
something that sociologists try to go beyond. To develop an explanation of the patterns observed
we need an analysis which considers the way these individuals came to shape their career
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interests and ‘choose’ their aspirations in the light of their previous experiences in life and what
they have learned from the cultural and parental influences upon them to be the appropriate and
possible types of work for them to enter. There is an interweaving of individual and social
factors, of free choice and of constraint. We might simplify this, as in the box does, by saying
that individuals make society and society makes individuals.

The analytical distinction between individual actions

The analytical distinction between individual actions, on the one hand, and ‘the social’ on the
other does not fully parallel the free will and determinism distinction, however, because it is
possible to talk of an individual’s actions being severely constrained, if not determined, by
factors such as their individual genetic make-up. Equally, it is possible to see social structures as
providing opportunities for individuals to realise their individual interests (‘climbing the ladder’
of the class structure, say), as well as seeing people constrained by such structures (being
excluded from an activity because of one’s gender or race, for example).

Human beings are makers of social patterns and are also made by them. These patterns
both constrain us and enable us to achieve our purposes. But these patterns or ‘structures’
are not objectively existing entities outside of human patterns of interaction, even though
it may at times feel as if they have this kind of forceful presence.

Sociology is not simply the study of ‘the social’, of societies, of social structures. Neither, of
course, is it a study of individuals’ activities, aggregated in some way to give us a view of
societies as little more than the sum of their parts. It is, rather, a study of the interrelationships
between the individual and the social whose greatest potential lies in examining the processes
whereby human initiatives and choices shape and are shaped by patterns of human interaction
and power.

Individual actions Social processes,

cultures and structures

Figure: Individuals makes society and society makes individuals

_____________________________
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 QUESTION:04

PEOPLE, WORK AND SOCIETY

Work is something in which everyone is involved in one way or another. This applies to people
across the whole world. And it has applied to the human species across its whole history. People
may work in their own small field, growing food to keep themselves alive. They may work in an
office or a factory and, after a day working in an employer’s premises for a wage or a salary,
they may return to do their housework or to work in their garden. Even those who do not
themselves perform any of these labours are nevertheless involved with work; as owners of land
on which other people work, as investors in industrial enterprises or as employers of servants. To
understand the way of life of people living in any kind of society we therefore have to pay close
attention to work activities and to the institutions associated with those activities.

Systematic Study of Work

If we intend to study work activities and the institutions associated with them systematically, we
need to decide first just what we mean by ‘work’. This is not a matter of producing a final and
absolute definition of work. Sociology, like all scientific and other forms of systematic study,
proceeds by deciding what is likely to be the most useful way of characterising the topics being
studied. Certain types of economic inquiry in a modern industrialised society might best be
conducted by defining work in terms of task-based activities for which people are paid by an
employer, client or customer. However, this would exclude all those tasks that we refer to as
‘housework’ for example. This would be a serious omission given that, in Brown’s words,
‘without the enormous volume and unremitting cycle of domestic labour the formal economy of
jobs and pay packets would cease to function’. It is argued by Pettinger. that feminists in the
1970s crucially challenged traditional conceptual boundaries when they ‘questioned the taken-
for-granted assumption that work undertaken in the private sphere of the home was not “work”’.
And Pettinger build on this new tradition to propose what they suggest might be a ‘new
sociology of work’. At the heart of this is Glucksmann’s notion of the ‘total social organisation
of labour’. This involves emphasising what Pettinger call the ‘blurry line between work and not-
work’ and Glucksmann herself illustrates how far this approach might be taken by proposing a

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‘new’ area of study, that of ‘consumption work’. Sociologists traditionally put a boundary
between work and consumption but Glucksmann observes that engaging in consumption
practices ‘often relies on the “work” of knowledge acquisition and learning specific practical
skills, so raising the question of whether, or in what sense, the acquisition of skills necessary to
undertake consumption constitutes work’. Although one can see the value of suggestions such as
Glucksmann’s one that ‘cooking and preparing meals could be a fruitful example to investigate
for a complex fusion of work, non-work and skill acquisition’, we need to be careful. If we
include in the scope of the sociology of work all task-oriented activity in which effort is
expended, then we risk extending our study to such activities as walking across a room to switch
on a television set or packing a bag to take for a day on the beach. We need a compromise that
gives sufficient focus to our studies without limiting them to activities with a formal economic
outcome. There are two main aspects of work that a sociological concept of work needs to
recognise. The first is the task-related aspect of work and the second is the part played by work
in the way people ‘make a living’.

This way of thinking about work associates it with the expenditure of effort to carry out tasks but
it limits it to something that has an economic element – in the very broad sense of dealing with
problems of survival in a world of scarce resources. But the notion of ‘making a living’ implies
much more than just producing enough material goods to ensure physical survival. People do not
simply extract a living from the environment. Work effectively transforms environments in many
ways, and, in the process, creates for many people a level of living far in excess of basic
subsistence. But it does more than this. It also relates intimately to how people shape their very
lives and identities. And people’s lives are significantly shaped by the circumstances in which
they have to work. The work people do becomes closely bound up with their conception of self.
In looking at how people ‘make a living’ we are looking at how they deal with both the
economic and the social or cultural aspects of their lives. Work is a social, economic and social
phenomenon. It is not simply a matter of behaviour. Work occurs in societies and, as with work,
we have to conceptualise society before we can examine systematically the role of work in
human societies. Each society has its own set of economic and legal arrangements and dominant
values, and its members are often pressed to share a degree of communality of identity. Each
society also has its own pattern of power and inequality. Precisely where each individual and
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family fits into that pattern will be fundamental to how they experience work and how well they
share in whatever human benefits derive from the work carried out in that society. Nevertheless,
in spite of the fact that we typically identify societies with nation states, it is vital to note that it is
sometimes more realistic to talk of, say, a ‘society’ of small farmers to be found in a remote part
of a large nation state such as India, and sometimes it is more helpful to think about, say,
managerial workers in ‘modern industrial capitalist society’ as opposed to looking separately at
the lives of British, Swedish or American managers. There are significant patterns to be observed
within and across nation states. Thus, when we think about ‘society’ as the subject matter of the
discipline of sociology, it is wise to think of it broadly in terms of ‘the social’ in people’s lives –
‘social’, that is, at the level of the larger patterns of culture, community and political economy
within which the smaller scale social interactions and, indeed, individual efforts to ‘make a life’
and ‘make a living’ occur. Sociological study looks at all these levels of human existence but, as
we shall now see, its characteristic feature is its relating of the small scale, the local, the intimate
in people’s lives to the bigger social scheme of things – both within and across particular
societies.

Industrialization brought in a new concept of work, i.e., work for wages. The question 'why
work' has received attention ever since humans went in search for food, to quell hunger. Work is
a universal activity and natural to human beings. It is one of the major factors of production,
consisting of manual or mental exertion for which wages, salaries or professional fees are
received. Work is an activity, physical or mental, which one engages in to earn a living. It can be
measured, says Cottrell,' in the same terms as any other physical act. Ernst Fischer sees work as
activity engaged in for a human being's survival, but physical survival is interwoven with the
idea of social survival and a rewarding social status. Psychologically, work identifies man with
his fellows, and their values. People are known by what they do, to do no work is to be nothing
as we are defined privately and socially by our work. Whether pleasant or painful, work helps
define individual identity. We often introduce ourselves by naming skills or places of
employment, we relate occupation to race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and region. Workers
uncomfortable with abstract discourse assert, "I am a workaholic.' or "hard work is my middle
name." Philosophers may translate such vernacular lines into "I work, therefore I am" .2 In the
Western countries, men wore their occupation as their names. So, you have Baker, Butcher,
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Cook, Cooper, Clark, Fletcher, Porter, Sheppard, Shoemaker, Smith, tailor, Tanner, Weaver, etc.
all identified by their occupations. Similarly, other cultures also have such examples.

DEFINITION AND CATEGORIES OF WORK

Applebaum (1992, p. ix), the historian of work, said: "Work is like the spine, which structures
the way people live, how they make contact with material and social reality, and how they
achieve status and self esteem...work is basic to the human condition, to the creation of human
environment, and to the context of human relationship... In modern society, paid work has been
found to be important for well being. Work relates to all human activities.

The famous anthropologist, Raymond Firth defined work as 'an income producing activity'. An
oversimplified definition is that work uses the things and materials of nature to fashion tools to
make objects, grow food, and control the living creatures and forces of nature to satisfy human
needs and wants.

Economists take a limited view in defining work. To them, it is an economic activity of a

particular kind identified as labour, and it must be detached like the performance of machines
from social values.

Dubin' defines work as: "By work we mean continuous employment in the production of goods
and services for remuneration. This definition has three elements (a) work is continuous: (b) it
results in production and goods: (c) work is performed for pay. These three elements in the
definition of work are necessary to differentiate work behaviour from other kinds of human
activities?

Sociologists define work as 'productive human activity that creates something of value, either
goods or services'.

There are two main categories of goods created by work,

(a) Things such as food, which sustain life and are used for providing sustenance

(b) Objects such as tools, shelter, roads and machinery which are used for long periods of time.

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In a strict sense, 'work' refers to the activities people perform based on their position in a work
organization and which entitle them to an income or another financial recompense. This context
applies to most topics in Industrial Sociology. The relationship between work and industrial
sociology is shown in Figure

Behavior of People
(individual) Results

Mutual Impact on
Relation Society
Work task Work Organization

Figure: Work and Industrial Sociology

What Work Provides?

Work provides people with the following:

(a) Identity When we meet people, we ask, -What do you do?" People are identified by the work
they perform.

(b) Relationship outside the family Our relationships with our colleagues and supervisors define
us and shape our views and social roles.

(c) Obligatory activity The obligatory activities and time constraints of work provide a structure
to our everyday lives. Without work, the whole day may look as a time-filler without purpose.

(d) Source of autonomy In individualistic cultures autonomy is among the most cherished
values; on it, rests the foundation of a job, the money it provides, the goods that can be
purchased with that money, and the tangible values of "standing on one's own fret."

(e) Opportunities to develop skills and creativity Apart from genetically influenced general
cognitive abilities, the important skills and abilities we have, are either developed or honed in the
performance of a succession of jobs. We establish the base of these skills in the classroom but we
hone and develop them on the job.

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(f) Purpose of life The importance of family notwithstanding work provides most of us with a
sense of purpose.

(g) Feelings of self-worth and self-esteem Accomplishments at work give us a sense of self-
worth and self-esteem.

(h) Income and security Work provides income that can be spent to acquire goods and services
needed or desired. No other value received for work can be exchanged for the things that money
can. Money is a nearly universal metric u.sed to measure accomplishment.

(I) Other activities like leisure Without a work routine, our other activities would have no
defining base. It provides the ambient structure against which other activities arc compared and
defined.

WORK ORIENTATION

Work tradition is classified as Western and Eastern Orientation. This orientation is used to
understand the ways in which different individuals and groups approach their work and believes
that work offers intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction to people (see the following figure).

Work that gives intrinsic satisfaction Work that gives extrinsic satisfaction

• Work is enriching experience It provides livelihood

• It provides challenges It is a means to an end—strategy for

survival
• It brings in self-esteem
Human social needs are met
• It develops and grows
It develops and grows

Work has a personal or expressive Work has a personal or expressive

meaning meaning
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 NATURE OF INDUSTRIAL WORK

Work in an industrialized civilization differs from pre-industrial work. Work has diverse
meaning, just like widely-used terms such as community, residence, society, leisure. Work
means different things to the literate labourer and the scholar: to the housewife and the career
woman, or to the farmer and the industrial worker. Values differ from one level of work to
another such as from unskilled to white collar, or from technical to administrative. Sometimes,
work is associated with burdensome activity or with suffering: a woman in childbirth is 'in
labour': in English, labour is also used heavy routine work bringing little reward.

Stanley Parker' notes that we tend to speak of 'work, labour and employment' in one connotation.
However, he adds: "Only the last of these implies a social relationship, although it is sometimes
used in the same non-social sense as work, for example, when we say someone is 'self-employed.
The most common form of employment consists of an employer... hiring the working abilities of
an employee during set hours. For the employee, this is the equivalent of working time, and it is
relatively easy for him to distinguish this from non-working time, a part or the whole of which
may be defined as leisure.

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