SOCS2100

Week 1 – Introduction and Key Concepts

We are telling a story about the recent history of work and organisations, and where we fit
into it
So what was 'revolutionary' about it?
 Mechanisation
 A new division of labour within workplaces
 De-skilling of labour, widening of the workforce
 New industries
 Urbanisation
 A new worldwide division of labour
Developments following the industrial revolution
 Mass production
 Machine tools
 The assembly line
Revisiting the worldwide division of labour

A new international division of labour

In the 1970s several things happened:
 Wars and oil crises
 Productivity improvements met ceilings
 Wage growth and employer obligations to employees outstripped the profit margin in
many 'core' regions.
 Transport and communication developed enough to make a new, spatial division of
labour (Massey 1984) possible.
 Popularity of mass-produced goods declined.
The result?
 Movement towards multinational/transnational corporation which manufacture in
countries with low labour costs (and often poor conditions for workers).
  Movement towards more flexible forms of production that could adapt to consumer
demand e.g. fast fashion. Post-Fordist forms of manufacturing.
A second, third and fourth industrial revolution?
 The first industrial revolution – steam (coal) power – began 1760s, hit its peak in
1820-40s
 The second industrial revolution - electricity – 1870
 The third industrial revoluion – electronics, telecommunications, computers – 1969
onward
 The fourth industrial revolution – happening now! - according to the World Economic
Forum it is characterised by cyber-physical systems – AI, genome editing, biometrics,
renewable energy, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things.
Where were the women?
 Prior to the industrial revolution the home was the centre of production. This shifted
to the factory.
 New legislation restricted the participation of women and children in factory work by
the mid-1800s.
 The 'second industrial revolution' saved women some drudgery as household
appliances (I.e. washing machines) were developed and improved.
 For the early 20th century women were treated as a surplus workforce, especially
during WWI and WWII.
 Married women only began entering the workforce en mass in the 1970s. However,
even after their participation in the workforce was normalised occupational
segregation remained. It persists today.

Week 2: Classical approaches: scientific management, psychological humanism and the

Hawthorn studies
Recap of last week...
Remember, the industrial revolution radically changed society, and the way that people
worked.
Scientific management (Taylorism)
 The developer and leading advocate of what was named scientific management was
F.W. Taylor, an American engineer and consultant. Taylor’s importance to the modern
organisation of work has to be set in its historical context.
 Taylor's significance is rooted in the industrial revolution in which the economies of
colonial powers transitioned from agrarian to factory-based production. Essentially,
rather than working in the fields many people now worked in factories building and
processing things. This new organisation of work provoked questions about how this
new type of work could be organised in the most efficient way possible in order to
maximise production, and as a result maximise profit.
 Taylorism encouraged a view of the industrial worker as someone who was self-
interested and who would allow managers to do their job-related thinking for them.
  So he encouraged managers to work out the most efficient way of organising work.
He then encouraged them to offer monetary rewards tied to the worker's level of
output. He claimed that this system would reduce tension and remove the need for
trade unions.
Scientific management involves...
 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
labour 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 minimising 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 co-ordinate these
fragmented elements and the work of the deskilled workers;
 The use of incentive payment systems both to stabilise and intensify worker effort;
and
 The conduct of manager– worker relationships at ‘arms-length’ – following a
‘minimum interaction model’
(Littler 1982).
But what does it look like...?
So what might be some problems with this? If you imagine working in this way, what aspects
of it are not appealing to you?

But what about here and now?

There are numerous evidence to show that McDonald’s business operations consist of the
principles of Scientific Management and they are: a system that rewards employees for
meeting the objective goals, scientific education enforced in their workers and following a
uniform method of achieving each job. Taylor stated that if workers are given no incentives
despite putting in more effort, will in turn result to discouraged workers that produces low
productivity. McDonald’s uses a competitive wage and promotion programs where hard work
is recognized and rewarded. The rewards come in many forms – from a simple “Job well
done!” from the managers or a more broadly known form such as the ‘Employee of the
Month’. The second principle that McDonald’s use is the specialized training of staffs. In
1961 McDonald’s have even gone a step further and built a Hamburger University, located in
a 130,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility on the McDonald’s Home Office Campus in
Oak Brook with a faculty of 30 resident professors where management training, operations
developments, equipment familiarity practices and interpersonal skills courses are offered to
workers.. Lastly, McDonald’s developed a uniform method for each worker to perform their
individual job. McDonald’s have developed a sequence of thorough and precise working
procedures that ensures the food they send out to their customers has the same high level of
quality in every chain or franchise. For example, the layout of equipments and machineries
are measured and calculated to best maximize efficiency and are very similar in every outlet.
However, the most distinct demonstration of using a standard method is definitely in the
production line of food. The ingredients making up a burger is strategically placed for the
workers so as to reduce extra time for excess motion. The practice does not only stop at the
production of goods but is also applied in the service line. McDonald’s enforces workers to
follow a rigid script when they are speaking to a customer or offering their service to them.
Psychological humanism
Began to emerge as an influential approach in the 1960s
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 with, for example:
• non-managerial workers becoming involved in setting their own objectives;
• jobs being ‘enriched’ by reducing the extent to which they are supervised and
monitored; and
• more open and authentic colleague relationships being developed, particularly in
‘teams’.
McGregor (1960) characterized the scientific management type of approach, which is
adopted by unenlightened managers, as based on Theory X. This sees human beings as
naturally disliking work and therefore as avoiding it if they can. People prefer to avoid
responsibility and like to be given direction. They have limited ambitions and see security as
a priority. The manager therefore controls and coerces people towards the meeting of
organisational objectives. The effect of this is to encourage the very kind of behaviour which
managers wish to avoid: the employees’ passive acceptance of the situation may be
encouraged, leading to a lack of initiative and creativity on their part, or their resentment may
be fuelled and hence their aggression and lack of co-operation. co-operation. But Theory Y,
which McGregor advocated and which social science research was said to support, states that
people are not at all like this but would generally prefer to exercise self-control and self-
discipline at work. He believed this would occur if employees were allowed to contribute
creatively to organisational problems in a way which enabled them to meet their need for
self-actualisation (meaning to realise one's potential).
Some critiques of scientific management and psychological humanism
◦ Individualistic
◦ Top-down
◦ Focused on a notion of 'human nature'
◦ Psychologistic
◦ They both completely ignore social and cultural factors!
Although these approaches to management appear to be polar opposites, they are based on
very similar assumptions about human nature – it is just that one takes a positive view, while
the other takes a negative view.
• They are both individualistic.
• They are both top down – they focus on how managers should relate to
thier employees, and how they should organise their jobs.
• They both focus on a notion of 'human nature' rather than recognising a diverse
range of orientations towards work.
• They are both psychologistic. Psychologism refers to a tendency to explain social
behaviour solely in terms of the psychological characteristics of individuals.
What could we critique about psychologism?
Whether or not there is a human nature is a debate for another time – but we can at least say
that if there is, then it is much more complex than this and leads people to act very differently
in different circumstances.
The Hawthorn studies
Like Taylor, Mayo was anxious to develop an effective and scientifically informed
managerial elite. If managements could 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 avoided. For Mayo, managerial skills and good
communications were the antidotes to the potential pathologies of an urban industrial
civilisation.
The context of the contribution of the human relations group was the problem of controlling
the increasingly large-scale enterprises of the post-war period and the problem of legitimating
this control in a time of growing trade union challenge. The faith of the scientific
management experts in a solution which involved the achieving of optimum working
conditions, the ‘right’ method and an appropriate incentive scheme proved to be too blind.
Practical experience and psychological research alike were indicating the need to pay
attention to other variables in work behaviour. Here we see the importance of the Hawthorne
experiments.
The Hawthorn studies
 Started in Chicago by engineers of the Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne plant.
 In 1927, the Department of Industrial Research of Harvard University were called in.
 Over 5 years the researchers tested a range of working conditions on a group of 6
women, who were separated from the rest of the plant.
 No matter what they tried, they found that output rose.
 WHY?
 The Hawthorn effect...

The Hawthorne investigations had been started in Chicago by engineers of the Western
Electric Company’s Hawthorne plant. In 1927, the Department of Industrial Research of
Harvard University – Mayo's research group - were called in. Their enquiry started in the
Relay Assembly Test Room where over a five-year period a wide range of changes were
made in the working conditions of a specially segregated group of six women whose job was
to assemble telephone relays.
Changes involving incentive schemes, rest pauses, hours of work and refreshments were
made, but it was found that whatever changes were made – including a return to original
conditions – output rose.
The explanation which was later to emerge has been labelled ‘the Hawthorne effect’.. It was
thought that the close interest shown in the workers by the investigators, the effective pattern
of communication which developed and the emerging high social cohesion within the group
brought together the needs of the group for rewarding interaction and co-operation with the
output needs of the management. This type of explanation was also encouraged by the other
stages of the investigation. The employee interviewing programme was seen as showing that
many of the problems of management– worker relationships could be put down to the failure
to recognise the emotions and the ‘sentiments’ of the employees, and the study in the Bank
Wiring Observation Room was taken to show the part played by informal social group
pressures in worker restriction of output. The workgroup informally set their own ‘output
norm’ and subsequently found ways of punishing any member who performed at either a
higher rate or a lower rate than the norm.

The 'Mayo legacy' in Human Resource Management

 The Hawthorn studies led to a focus on organisational cultures that we still feel to this
day.
  HR managers now focus on workers adjusting to and becoming integrated into
organisations whose goals match their own.
 Have you ever wondered why demonstrating a fit with the culture and values of an
organisation is so important in job interviews, and while writing cover letters, key
selection criteria, etc.
 Wonder no more! It is the 'Mayo legacy' in action.

Week 3 - Organisational cultures

Last Wk:
• Classical approaches:
Scientific management and psychological humanism – both individualistic.
• The Hawthorn studies and the 'Hawthorn effect' - brought the issue of organisational
cultures and norms to the fore.
• This is what we will focus on today!
Belonging and common purpose
 Barnard (1938), a management writer associated with the Human Relations group
at Harvard in the 1930s (along with Mayo), promoted the importance of
developing a sense of belonging and common purpose within organisations.
 How might organisational cultures develop?
 While in the Hawthorn studies an organisational culture appeared to develop
relatively organically through the interaction between managers and workers, as
well as workers' interactions with each other, subsequent organisational and
management research has focused on cultivating organisational cultures.
The question of how we can create an organisational culture is essentially a question of how
to cultivate specific social norms

Let's take a step back first...

 Why do we want to cultivate an organisational culture, rather than just letting one
develop organically?
  One answer is that the influence of earlier approaches (scientific management,
psychological humanism) remained latent in this approach to organisations.
 Another is that the culture that develops may not fit with the demands of the
company.
In addition to having implications for organizational performance, organizational culture is
an effective control mechanism dictating employee behavior. Culture is a more powerful way
of controlling and managing employee behaviors than organizational rules and regulations.
For example, when a company is trying to improve the quality of its customer service, rules
may not be helpful, particularly when the problems customers present are unique. Instead,
creating a culture of customer service may achieve better results by encouraging employees
to think like customers, knowing that the company priorities in this case are clear: Keeping
the customer happy is preferable to other concerns, such as saving the cost of a refund.
Therefore, the ability to understand and influence organizational culture is important.
Levels of organisational culture

At the deepest level, below our awareness, lie basic assumptions. These assumptions are
taken for granted and reflect beliefs about human nature and reality. At the second
level, values exist. Values are shared principles, standards, and goals. Finally, at the surface,
we have artifacts, or visible, tangible aspects of organizational culture. For example, in an
organization, a basic assumption employees and managers share might be that happy
employees benefit their organizations. This might be translated into values such as
egalitarianism, high-quality relationships, and having fun. The artifacts reflecting such
values might be an executive “open door” policy, an office layout that includes open spaces
and gathering areas equipped with pool tables, and frequent company picnics.
Founder values become part of the corporate culture to the degree to which they help the
company be successful. For example, the social activism of Ben and Jerry’s was instilled in
the company because the founders strongly believed in these issues. However, these values
probably would not be surviving 3 decades later if they had not helped the company in its
initial stages. In the case of Ben and Jerry’s, these values helped distinguish their brand from
larger corporate brands and attracted a loyal customer base. Thus, by providing a
competitive advantage, these values were retained as part of the corporate culture and were
taught to new members as the right way to do business.
While founders undoubtedly exert a powerful influence over corporate cultures, the industry
characteristics also play a role. Companies within the same industry can sometimes have
widely differing cultures. At the same time, the industry characteristics and demands act as a
force to create similarities among organizational cultures. For example, despite some
differences, many companies in the insurance and banking industries are stable and rule-
oriented, many companies in the high-tech industry have innovative cultures, and those in
nonprofit industry may be people-oriented. If the industry is one with a large number of
regulatory requirements—for example, banking, health care, and high-reliability (such as
nuclear power plant) industries—then we might expect the presence of a large number of
rules and regulations, a bureaucratic company structure, and a stable culture. The industry
influence over culture is also important to know because this shows that it may not be
possible to imitate the culture of a company in a different industry, even though it may seem
admirable to outsiders.
Example of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Video – 7 mins.
Dimensions of organisational culture

What type of organisations would you associate with each type of culture?
Organisational cultures can be discerned by assessing what is important or emphasised within
each organisation.
How do you identify organisational culture?
• Mission statements
• Rituals
• Rules and policies
• Physical layout
• Stories and language
Note – organisational cultures, and efforts to change and shape them, implicitly mirror some
of the early approaches that we covered last week.
culture:
• artefacts, such as the tools, documents, building layouts, logos, badges and
furnishing;
• jargon, the linguistic terms that are peculiar to that organisational setting;
• stories about how people have acted within the organisation, and with what effect;
• jokes and humour generally;
• legends about events that might or might not actually have happened but that have a
sense of wonder about them and which point to activities that organisational members
are encouraged to admire or deplore;
• myths about events that are unlikely ever to have happened but which illustrate some
important ‘truth’ about the organisation;
• sagas about the organisation’s history and how it has become ‘what it is’;
 • heroes and villains that people speak of – inspirational figures that organisational
members are encouraged to emulate and ‘bad people’ illustrating types of behaviour
to be avoided;
• norms of behaviour, regularly occurring pieces of behaviour that become accepted as
‘the way things are done’ in the organisation;
• rituals, patterns of behaviour that regularly occur in particular circumstances and at
particular times in an organisation;
• rites, more formalised rituals that tend to be pre-planned and organised; and
• actions leading to rewards or punishments, behaviours that lead to positive or
negative sanctions because they accord with or clash with cultural values.
Physical layout: Open plan offices
Open plan offices – 70% of modern office workspaces.
Not so much about their functionality – we know that they're not helpful. More about what
they stand for. They symbolise a certain type of organisational culture, and are viewed as a
shorthand way to get to it.
BUT – do organisations have a single culture?
• Recent human relations and organisational research has critiqued an 'integrative' view
of organisational cultures.
• In order to discuss cultures and subcultures we must determine the specific entity that
we are discussing – a multinational corporation? A national branch? A department? A
specific project team?
• We can then talk about organisational subcultures...
This is arguably a response to the top-down approach that a lot of organisations take to
cultivating a culture.
Remember, despite the amount of scrutiny on them, the women in the Hawthorn studies still
developed their own, internal culture – they dictated how much and how little work they
should do.
Why do you think it is difficult to prevent organisational subcultures from forming?
Because people have lives outside of their jobs!!!

Week 4 - Organisational structures: Negotiating order

Remember...
• From last week...
• Although organisations may strive towards a unified culture,
they are nevertheless comprised of diverse individuals who each have their
own aims, goals and interests.
• From the week before...
 • Organisational norms are created through a combination of intended and
unintended effects.
Structure and culture
• Structures and cultures are overlapping – not easily distinguished.
• However, we can think of structures focusing on activities and processes – what we
do – and cultures as focused on meanings and values (mission statements, the
meanings/significance of myths and rituals, etc.)
Defining/characterising organisations
• All of social life is based on patterns and norms that develop over time. Many social
grouping can thus be considered organisations.
• However, work organisations can be best distinguished by the fact that they have a
central purpose or goal (to sell/provide a good or service).
• They rely on cooperation.
Organisational Structure Example

This view of organisations as a negotiated order also helps us to tease out the tension
between organisations and the people who work for them.
• Organisations are best understood not as pre-given structures into which people are
slotted, but as the outcome of the interactive patterns of human activity.
• In summary, organisations are a negotiated order.
 • Such a view focuses on processes, rather than systems or things.

Organisational structures = outcome of processes through which official and unofficial ways
of doing things are established, and the interaction between them.
It is important to note that official and unofficial ways of doing things/structures are not
necessarily opposed to each other!
"The structure of any organisation, seen in this way, will partly be the outcome of the efforts
of managers and other organisational designers to structure tasks, activities and establish a
controlling hierarchy of command. And it will partly be an outcome of the efforts of
members of the organisation to find their own way of doing things, to establish their own
coalitions of interest and, to some extent, to develop their own power hierarchies. Those
involved in particularly strategic roles are especially likely to shape the organisation to fit
with their own life projects."
(Watson 2016, Sociology, Work and Organisation, p. 134).

The micropolitics of power in organisations

Power is a multidimensional phenomenon:
• An interpersonal level – people have power over each other for various reasons.
• A societal level - power as structural, embued in certain groups and roles.
• An organisational level – rules, hierarchies and norms that make some practices
acceptable.
All of this being said, it is crucial to keep in mind that organisations are imbued in power
structures. This has a significant impact on the ways in which official and unofficial
structures play out.
In turning to organisational micropolitics, we are focusing on the ‘upper’ part of
organisations. And we are looking at everyday aspects of how power is exerted and
experienced within the bureaucratic hierarchy. ‘Politics’, Buchanan and Badham (1999)
suggest, can be seen as ‘power in action’ with power itself being viewed as a ‘latent capacity,
as a resource, or a possession’. But power is a multi-dimensional phenomenon:
 At an interpersonal level, some individuals have power over others to the extent that
they can get those others to do things they would not otherwise do.
 At a societal level, power is more a matter of a pattern of relationships and
understandings – a ‘structure’ which enables certain social groups to exert pressures
on others (through the wealth or the armaments they possess or through the authority
that the culture vests in them).
 At an organisational level, power structures involve rules, hierarchies and cultural
norms that people agree to comply with by joining the organisation, and which make
it ‘reasonable’ and normal for some people to get others to do what they would not
otherwise do.
What runs through all these three dimensions of power is the capacity of groups or
individuals to affect outcomes of situations to their advantage. Those in charge of large
modern corporations have, from the time of the British East India Company through to the
lobbying undertaken by contemporary corporations, made considerable efforts in an
interlinked or ‘institutional field’ manner, to exert considerable power in their relationships
with governments (Barley 2010).
And, within organisations, power is exerted and resisted through ‘micro political’
processes. whereby competition occurs for the ‘good things’ of life in any particular
organisation at a particular time: salaries, promotions, company cars, smart offices, status
or simply opportunities to influence other people.
Studies of micropolitics tend to see organisations as political arenas in which people both co-
operate and compete with each other to further and defend their interests. Micropolitics are
part of the unofficial ‘side’ of the organisation and involve individuals, groups and members
of organisational ‘sub-units’ (departments, functions, divisions and so on) forming coalitions
and alliances, helping friends and defeating rivals and bringing about the organisation’s
negotiated order (pp. 49– 50). This power, as McCabe (2009) stresses and illustrates with
research in a financial institution, is ‘exercised in ambiguous and contradictory ways’ – ways
that both support and thwart efforts to direct the organisation in a particular direction.
It is essential to recognise that in establishing the structure and culture of an organisation,
we are concerned with trying to understand people operating with very diverse motivations
at all levels of the organisation (from management to workers).

The micropolitics of power in organisations

• Burns (1961) in early and influential work on micropolitics pointed out
that organisational members are ‘at one and the same time co-operators in a common
enterprise and rivals for the material and intangible rewards of successful competition
with each other’.
• The bureaucratic structure thus has both an integrative and a disintegrative aspect.
• The fact that the career rewards available to individuals are necessarily scarce ones
means that those who are officially intended to work co-operatively are likely to find
themselves in conflict with each other.
Burns (1961) in early and influential work on micropolitics pointed out that organisational
members are ‘at one and the same time co-operators in a common enterprise and rivals for
the material and intangible rewards of successful competition with each other’. The
bureaucratic structure thus has both an integrative and a disintegrative aspect. The fact that
the career rewards available to individuals are necessarily scarce ones means that those who
are officially intended to work co-operatively are likely to find themselves in conflict with
each other.
Although a certain amount of competition between individuals may be ‘functional’ for the
organisation, it equally may create organisational problems. And individuals’ political
behaviour readily takes a group form as coalitions, cliques and cabals arise. Sectional
interests may be served at the expense of those of senior management. Burns (1955) notes the
tendency for two types of group to arise:
• cliques, which develop norms and values contrary to the dominant organisational
ones, especially among older managers who lack promotion prospects and feel a need
to act defensively, and
• cabals, which develop among younger managers whose individual interests may be
better served by compliance with dominant norms and values.

So ultimately we have official and unofficial structures – and the interaction with them and
between them is the way in which order is negotiated.
While unofficial structures can compete with official structures in a way that is negative for
the latter, they can also interact with them in a way that is useful to the official structures. In
a way that allows individuals to do their jobs and navigate inefficiencies and dysfunctional
parts of the official system.
A study of two government agencies by Blau (1963) revealed what he called the dynamics of
bureaucracy through observing the various ways in which employees avoid what could
become ‘dysfunctional’ aspects of official procedures. ‘Procedural adjustments’ constitute
one form of adaptation in which the officials, when faced with alternative courses of action
choose the one more congenial to themselves, typically justifying this choice as the one more
in the interests of successful organisational performance. Law enforcement agents, for
instance, justified their preference not to obey the rule of officially reporting bribes which
were offered to them on the grounds that keeping the offer to themselves gave them a
psychological advantage over the offender which would help them complete their
investigations. Another tactic is to redefine a rule or procedure in a way which ‘deliberately
sacrifices the original objective of a procedure in order to achieve another organisational
objective more effectively’ as in the case of the employment agents who more or less
abandoned counselling clients in order to concentrate on getting them speedily placed in
jobs. In reaction to this type of unofficial activity, Blau observes, managerial attempts are
made to elaborate or ‘amplify’ procedures. These, in turn, lead to further unofficial
adjustments. Here we see an ongoing dialectical relationship between the official and the
unofficial aspects of the organisation. In the end, all this helps the functioning of the
organisation through accommodating the interests and preferences of employees to the wider
purposes of those in charge of the organisation.

But if structures are negotiated orders, then why are so many organisations so similar,
at least in their structure?

The answer? Institutional isomorphism!

Coercive Isomorphism
 • Pressures from other organizations, i.e. governmental mandates, contract law,
financial reporting requirements, etc.
• Large corporations can have similar impact on their subsidiaries.
Mimetic Processes
• Uncertainty encourages imitation.
• Organizational models can also be diffused through employee migration or by
consulting firms.
Normative Pressures
• These are pressures brought about by professions. One mode the the legitimization
inherant in the licensing and crediting of educational achievement. The other is the
inter-organizational networks that span organizations. Norms developed during
education are entered into organizations.
• Inter-hiring between exisitng industrial firms also encourages isomorphism.
(DiMaggio & Powell 1983).
Predictors of Isomorphic Change
Organizational level predictors
A-1: The more dependent on another organization, the more alike it will become
A-2: The greather the centralization of resource supply, the more it will change to resemble
the organizations it is dependent upon
A-3: The more uncertainty the more an organization will model it's structure after successful
firms
A-4: The more ambiguous the goals, the more an organization will mimic a successful one to
establish legitimacy
A-5: The greater the reliance in using academic credentials to choose staff, the greater will
be similiar to other organizations. Also the greater the participation of members in
professional organizations, to more allike the ogranizations will be.

Field Level Predictors

B-1: The greater the extent the field is dependent upon a single source, the higher level of
isomophism.
B-2: The more interaction of the field with the state, the more isomorphism.
B-3: The fewer the number of organizational models, the quicker the isomorphism
B-4: The more technological uncertainty or goal ambiguity, the greater the rate of
isomorphism
B-5: More professionalism in the field, more isomorphism
Summary
• Although organisational structures are determined in part by the dictates of upper
management, it is crucial to remember that they are also shaped by the people
working within organisations.
• In this way organisational structures are always 'negotiated orders'.
• Although upper management may have more power and control than general
employees, it is important to consider the creative ways in which individuals interact
with and manage power structures.
• Organisations within the sample industry are likely to have similar structures due to
external forces rather than internal dynamics (isomorphism!)
Assignment 1: individual podcast (15%)
• Only 5 or so minutes long
• Not scary!
• Choose a job (paid or voluntary) that you have had.
• Reflect on it in relation to the content from the last three weeks of the course:
• Management styles that you encountered (do they align with any aspects of
those that we covered in the week 2 lecture?)
• Organisational culture (what was it like) and subculture (tell us about being
part of one!)
• Organisational structure – how did you negotiate order in this job?

Week 5 – Inequalities in the world of work

Remember:
Workplaces and organisations are not segregated from the wider social world. The same
inequalities and biases that play out in everyday life, the media, etc. are present in
workplaces.
The 'ethnic penalty'
 Concept developed originally by UK sociologist Anthony Heath (1983) who tried to
understand why the unemployment of black African men was twice as high as the
unemployment of white men.
 Refers to the economic and non-economic disadvantages that ethnic minorities
experience in the labour market compared to non-minorities.
 Why might this be the case?
Further research:
 Carmichael and Woods (2000) found that penalties varied between ethnic groups.
 Simpson et al. (2003) confirmed that this disadvantage is not tied to the concentration
of ethnic minorities in deprived areas. Those of an ethnic minority were still twice as
likely to be unemployed than their White counterparts even in areas that were
predominantly White.
Resume studies: what can they tell us?

Booth, Leigh & Varganova's (2012) resume study

Compared attitudes to Anglo-Saxon Australians with attitudes to:
 Indigenous Australians,
 Italian Australians (a relatively established migrant group),
 Chinese Australians (a more recent migrant group),
 and Middle Eastern Australians (another recent migrant group).
- From April 2007-October 2007 the authors sent 4,000 fictitious resumes
carrying ethnically identifiable names to job ads posted in Melbourne, Sydney and
Brisbane.
- Resumes were sent to positions in the following areas: hospitality (front of
house), data entry, customer service, and sales. Mixture of customer-facing, telephone
and non-customer facin
Overall call-back rate:
Anglo-Saxon sounding names: 35%
Indigenous sounding names: 26%
Chinese sounding names: 21%
Italian sounding names: 32%
Middle Eastern sounding names: 22%
Basically, in order to get as many interviews as an Anglo applicant, an
Indigenous person must submit 35% more applications, a Chinese person must
submit 68% more applications, an Italian person must submit 12% more
applications, and a Middle Eastern person 64% more applications.
Does anticipated customer discrimination play a role?
The greatest amount of discrimination against minority applicants seeking waitstaff
jobs. A Chinese and Middle Eastern person seeking a job as a waiter or waitress must
submit fully twice as many applications in order to get as many interviews as an
Anglo-Saxon applicant.
However, there is only slightly less discrimination in data entry jobs. This suggests
that relatively little of the observed discrimination can be attributed solely to
customer-based discrimination.
Location-based factors
The degree of discrimination that each minority group faced differed based on the
location.
The authors found that this was related to the local labour market (unemployment
rates and availability of jobs) but also contextual factors such as immigration
history, ethnic mix, social norms.
Ultimately this study shows that discrimination is complex and contextual.
Limitations of resume studies
 Relying on knowledge of names (some speculation that the Indigenous names were
not recognised as such).
 Only considers the first stage of hiring – what happens at later stages?
 So... should we remove names from resumes? To what extent could this be effective?
Removing names is only one step – lots of aspects of resumes tell us about an applicant's
identity. They also have to interview eventually.
But the point nevertheless remains...
..stereotypes
Unconscious bias in student evaluations?
 Several studies have found that female tertiary instructors (lecturers, tutors, etc.) on
average receive lower evaluation scores than male instructors.
 So are men just better teachers?
Unconscious bias in student evaluations?
To address this question MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt (2015) conducted an experiment
in which two instructors (one male, one female) each taught two discussion groups in
an online course. They each taught one group under their own identity, and one under
the other instructor's identity.
 The authors were therefore able to control for the material provided and the quality of
instruction. They ultimately found that the students gave the man's identity a higher
rating than the woman's.
Similar studies have been conducted with the random assignment of male and female
instructors to the same course, using the same material across time (Boring 2017).
How does this happen
Mitchell and Martin (2018) suggest that women are essentially evaluated on different
criteria.
Qualifications/competence - female instructors are more likely to be referred to as
'teachers' than 'professors', while the opposite is true for male instructors (Miller &
Chamberlain 2000).
Personality – research has consistently found that students expect more interpersonal
support from female instructors than they do from male instructors. Female professors
are also far more likely to receive comments on their appearance and personality than
their male counterparts (Mitchell & Martin 2018).
Additional, intersecting penalties
 Age
 Disability
 Religion
 Sexuality
 Gender expression
 Family composition/caring responsibilities (most commonly parenthood)
 Weight
Take the Harvard Implicit Association
Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/australia/selectatest.jsp
Summary
Our working lives, and the wider operations of organisations, do not occur in a
vaccuum. They are each subject to the forces that we observe and experience in the
wider social world.
Hiring practices and the evaluation of workers are subject to implicit biases based on
stereotypes.
So what do we do about this? Discuss it in the tutorials!!
Week 6 – Human Resource Management
1. What is human resource management?

• Important role of HRM in achieving these goals.

• HRM deals directly with people, but it contributes to the broader picture.
Human Resource Management (HRM)
• Plays a role in company’s survival, effectiveness, and competitiveness.
• Refers to the policies, practices, and systems that influence employees’ behavior,
attitudes, and performance.
• Ways to connect processes, systems, strategies with people in a very effective and
efficient way that drives values.

Approaches to HRM
 Instrumental (Hard)
Stresses the rational, quantitative and strategic aspects. Performance improvement and
competitive advantage are highlighted.
 Humanistic (Soft)
Emphasises the integration of HR policies and practices with strategic business
objectives but also acknowledges employee development, collaboration, participation
and trust.
Which approach are you most comfortable with? Why?
HR manager then, should be not just a people person but also someone who understands the
entire system and processes to drive value.
Differences between HRM and IR/ER
HRM scholars tend to focus…
• Within the organisation
• On what is of benefit to the organisation
• On relationships between individual managers and employees
• On prescription about how to do things
• Psychological and financial aspects of the employment relationship
IR/ER scholars tend to focus…
• On the organisation in context
 • On what happens to a range of stakeholders
• On collective relationships between management and employee representatives
• On description about how things actually happen
• Political and legal aspects of employment relationship
Table 1.7 Common Themes of Employee Engagement

2. What are some mega-trends in contemporary society that influences the HRM
practices?
HRM Challenges
 HR managers need to:
- be strategic contributors;
- show the true value of the HR function to the organisation;
- be the employees’ voice; and
- demonstrate professional competence.

 HR managers need to constantly demonstrate the connection between HR,

organisational performance and employee well-being.
Figure 1.8 Examples of How HRM Practices Can Help Companies Meet Competitive
Challenges
Global Challenges
 Migration trends
- Identifying the human resources?
- Fair recruitment and selection practices?
- Dealing with cross-cultural diversity?
- Minimising cross-cultural conflicts and creating encompassing environment?

 COVID19 Pandemic
Sourcing the human resources?

Sustainable Challenges
 Positive working environment and organisational culture
- Foster individual employee sustainability?
- Develop HRM systems to motivate employees?
- Work-life balance?

 Economic, ecological, social and human sustainability goals

- How to encourage contribution from top management team?
- How to work with NGOs and governmental organisations?
Technology Challenges
 Innovation!
- Selecting right people with right minds and right skills?
- Developing current employees skills?
- Identifying new technologies in the industry and market?
- Catching up or leading the market trends?

Week 7 – The rise of the gig economy