Mapping the Contours of Work

Source: Stephen Sweet & Peter Meiksins (2013). Changing contours of work. Los
Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.
 Terrains of opportunities
• Work can be liberating but also enslaving
• How work can be organized to ‘make sense’
• What dominant forces shape work
opportunities
– Culture
– Structure
– Agency
• EXERCISES
 Culture and Work
• Labor as a noble endeavour (classic theory)
• Work is what distinguish humans from other
species (Marx)
• Work is a socially acceptable means of achieving
satisfaction (Freud)
• Work and the complex division of labor in society
offers a means to create social cohesion
(Durkheim)
• Commonality: cement social bonds and advance
the development of civilization
 Question: Why work plays a central role in
some societies but not in others?

• Day-to-day survival (subsistence)

• A means to an end...
• However,

American culture moral weakness &

threat to social order
 Work and religion...

• Weber: societies during the Industrial

Revolution were swayed by religious doctrines
• Protestant reformation: fate in the afterlife
• Western Europeans and American culture: work
is a God-given purpose in life
• A life of virtue reflects grace
• Work ethic defines labor as a virtue
• So...it was Protestant Reformation that was
responsible for the emergence of capitalism
 Pathological dimension of work...
• Some work less, some work more
(workaholics)
• People who work long hours  are driven by
organizational cultures  reward system to
motivate people to work
• Attitudes to work are bound up w/
materialistic values (American culture)
• Theory of the leisure class (Thornstein Veblen,
1899)
 Conspicuous consumption
• Is a function of social class consumerism
• Materialistic values
• ‘affluenza’ – compulsion to buy beyond one’s
capacity
 Culture and attitude...

• Culture shapes attitudes of workers and

employers towards each other
• Gendered groupings and social divisions 
have different capabilities
• Culture extends into the design and management
of jobs and technologies (Taylorism)
• Why? A response to ‘unwillingness’ to work the
right way.
• But Taylor responded using ‘science’, a solution to
society’s problems
 Taylorism .. A managerial philosophy

- Need to work in the right way

- Need to manage work processes, pacing, output
(scientific way)
- Hence, a divide into managers and workers
- Managers’ work more valuable than workers

- Questions: Have cultural attitudes about work

changed?
- Have workplaces changed with them?
 Work and structure – an intersection

• Structure is not independent of culture

• Social structure reflects cultural attitudes
• People tend to create institutions consistent
with their beliefs
• If contradictory; creates tensions
• Capitalist/employer vs. Workers/ employees
or in between
 Social class and work

• Social Class affects people’s access to work

• Ascription: inheriting the line of work
• Women’s roles are ascribed (stereotyping)
• Class affects structures of workplaces; access
to resources
• Job markets and job demands
– New technologies, new skills
– Demography and labor force
• Work dispersion affects employment
opportunities
– Production has become global
– Technologies has affected work organizations/
structures
– Demographic changes; composition of workforce
(more women, child labor,
 Agency and careers
Ability to direct their own lives and those of
others
• Agency depends partly on resources
• Shape the way work is performed
• Operates at collective level
 New economy; post-industrial society

• End of mass production

• A new mix of industries and jobs  new skills;
knowledge economy
• More interactive service work
• High tech work
 New form/s of control?

• Higher sense of accountability

• Re-creation of craft communities; ex. Silicon
valley
• Flexible work arrangements to suit the needs of
workers, and management
– Move work (compression of work weeks, work at
home, work sites)
– Reduce work (less hrs, sharing
– Pause work (career breaks, sabbatical
 Is this the end of organized labor?
• New strategies

• But old economy continue to shape new

economy
– New jobs but low skilled labor
– New manager-worker relationships but no true
enhancement of job quality
– Work flexibility but availability is limited, uneven
– Global shifting but extensions of usual work
“old wine in new bottles”
 References
• Sweet, Stephen, The Contours of Work.

• Colquitt, Jason A., Lepine, Jeffery A., Wesson,

Michael J. (2013). Organizational behavior:
Improving performance and commitment in
the workplace. New York: McGraw-Hill/ Irwin.
End...