Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other: The Gender Subtext of Taylorism and Team-based Work

This article analyses gendering processes in two distinct models of work organization. It is a widespread belief that, compared to hierarchical (Tayloristic) organizations, team-based work offers opportunities for a high quality of working life to a broader range of employees, both men and women. Our research, however, suggests that gender inequality is (re)produced in both settings and results from the so-called gender subtext. The gender subtext is the set of often concealed power-based processes (re)producing gender distinction in social practices through organizational and individual arrangements. We draw a comparison between the gender subtext of Tayloristic and team-based work organizations through a theoretical analysis, illustrated by empirical data concerning the functioning of the gender subtext in organizations in the Dutch banking sector. Taylorism and team-based work differ in their conceptualization of organization and job design, but, when it comes to the gender subtext, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. We argue that in both approaches a gender subtext contributes to the emergence of different but gendered notions of the ‘disembodied worker’. In both cases the notion of the abstract worker is implicitly loaded with masculine connotations. This gender bias is supported by two factors influencing the gendering of jobs: the gender connotations of care responsibilities and of qualification profiles. These implicit connotations produce and reinforce unequal opportunities for men and women to get highly qualified or management jobs. Our research, therefore, questions the self-evidence of stating that team-based work will offer opportunities for a higher quality of working life for women.     

Reproducing Gendered Hierarchies in Everyday Work: Contradictions in an Employment Office

This paper is concerned with the dynamics of producing gendered hierarchies in the workplace. While the focus is on the present day, developments over the past ten years are also examined. The term ‘doing gender’ is adopted as a method of outlining these dynamics within seemingly static gendered hierarchies. Within the case study organization, a Finnish employment office, the ways of doing gender have shifted from maintaining gendered hierarchic harmony towards women? s and men's separate but invisible cultures. However, men's practices are linked in a more direct way to the textual and official goals of the organization, whereas women's working methods show some implicit opposition to the organizational logic. Throughout gendered contradictions are emphasized: between inequality and equal opportunities; informal sociability and formal rules; and the invisibility and visibility of gender.     

The role of ‘workplace family’ support on worker health,exhaustion and pain

The goal of this study was to improve understanding of the potential health benefits of social support at work. We utilized 2002 GSS data to examine the relative influence of workplace support on self-reported health, exhaustion and experience of persistent pain in a sample of 1602 workers. Building on previous Demand-Control-Support models, we examined co-worker, supervisor, and organizational safety support (conceptualized as ‘workplace family’) in concert with job demands, job control and work-family conflict as predictors of worker health measures. We further tested the extent to which work-family conflict acted as a mediator between family and work characteristics and worker health outcomes. We found that increased co-worker support in the workplace was associated with better worker self-reported health, lower exhaustion and less pain. In addition, higher levels of perceived organizational safety support were associated with better self-reported health and lowered exhaustion. There is little evidence that work-family conflict mediates between work and family characteristics and worker health, and work-family conflict does not mediate the relationship between workplace family measures and worker health. We discuss results in light of workers’ changing and expanding definitions of family, with implications for changes in the organization of the workplace to improve workers’ health.     

BOOK REVIEWS

The authors argue that promoting gender equality without simultaneously promoting changes in capitalist workplace organization and capitalist cultural values systems will likely result in the unintended consequence of less meaningful leisure for mature women of the future. The current problem of declining leisure for both men and women, but especially women, is described, analyzed, and projected to the future. Certain assumptions are made about societal forces: liberal reform feminists continue to alter the system of gender stratification, male advantage continues to decrease, and capitalism continues to develop. The authors use a Marxist‐feminist interpretation to help explain the structure and dynamics of the leisure problem.     

Motivating Russian workers: analysis of age and gender differences

What motivates Russians to work? Two hypotheses govern this analysis. First, worker motivation is positively correlated with organizational commitment, where organizational commitment is captured by a series of statements related to the employee’s perception of their workplace and the satisfaction expressed about the workplace and job. Second, worker motivation is positively correlated to the expectation that a desired reward will be received in exchange for doing the job well. Using survey data collected in May/June 2000 from 1200 employees in three regions of Russia, this paper: (1) documents the nature and scope of organizational commitment among Russian workers as the transition process draws to a close; (2) identifies the relative importance of select job motivators, as well as the expectation that these motivators will be received in exchange for a job well done; and (3) analyzes the extent of gender and generational differences in organizational commitment and worker motivation. The results can be used not only to begin filling a gap in the motivation literature by extending previous analyses based on US workers, but also to inform Russian and foreign managers about monetary and non-monetary factors to include in designing an effective reward structure. The results also are suitable for use in management training programs in Russia and elsewhere which focus on developing ways to construct more effective teamwork at the workplace.     

Job Satisfaction in Higher Education: Examining Gender in Professional Work Settings

The concept of job satisfaction has been central to the study of occupations. However, the impact of gender on job satisfaction in professional settings is still under-represented as an area of inquiry. We use the notion of job satisfaction to introduce our organizational heterogenesis approach to understanding workplace satisfaction. Central to this approach is a concern with constructs of organizational interaction which combine the individualistic and structuralist approaches to understanding organizational life. Our analysis of 180 faculty at a large, urban university shows that gender affects the features of the workplace that affect job satisfaction. Our organizational heterogenesis approach frames these findings as an example of how dispositions are "made" important in the organization rather than locating dispositions as individual characteristics alone. We conclude by discussing the organizational heterogenesis approach as a viable theory that combines individualistic and structuralist approaches to organizational life.     

Toward a Theory of Worker Participation

This paper proposes that the emergence of shop-floor worker participation projects in many of the largest corporations in the United States has major theoretical interest because it points to a shift in the structure of American management from Taylorist forms of organization toward "post-Taylorist" systems based on "relative worker autonomy" and limited democratic organization on the shop floor. The postulated shift toward "relative worker autonomy" is explored, first, in terms of the contradictions and failures of Taylorism-specifically its failure to integrate workers or bind them effectively, either psychologically or ideologically, to their jobs and firms. While the costs of worker dis-integration have led management to initiate post-Taylorist labor control systems, an analysis of participative experiments suggests that these new systems produce new contradictions engendering worker expectations and entitlements for democracy in the workplace. The analysis suggests the need for a reformulation of current theories of the capitalist labor process that can explain both the emergence of "integrative" labor systems based on participation and democratic legitimations and also the new forms of contestation they produce.     

The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations

The state has a twofold relationship to gender change in society, through its overall steering capacity and through the gendered character of its constituent agencies. It is therefore important to understand the experience of gender change in state organizations. The findings from a study of gender relations in ten public‐sector worksites in New South Wales, Australia are presented. There is a widespread consciousness of gender change linked with new labour processes, restructuring and new patterns of management. These changes are uneven and limits to change are visible. Gender is recognized as an organizational problem in specific circumstances, most visibly where men’s resistance to change appears. A number of mechanisms limit the consciousness of gender as a problem. Several trends, including the current strength of neo‐liberalism, converge to make the gender‐neutral workplace the principal goal of gender reform in the public‐sector workplace. This, however, limits the state’s steering capacity in regard to societal gender relations.     

‘It's a Man's World!’: Restructuring Gender Imbalance in the Volvo Truck Company?

The paper seeks to analyse the relationship between teamwork and gender, in particular how far the new technical division of labour associated with teamwork holds out the prospect of lessening gender segregation in the capitalist labour process. Taking Volvo — a company at the forefront of ‘good work’ experiments — as the focus of the research one could reasonably expect that if teamwork was leading to a lessening of gender segregation in blue collar areas it would be in companies such as Volvo. The evidence suggests that in certain areas and under certain conditions teamworking can lead to more women being employed in blue collar environments on the same terms and conditions as men. However, on adding a normative and governance dimension to teamworking, the evidence is more complex and is suggestive of a strategy drawing upon the utilization of stereotypical images of women as a ‘civilizing’ influence over male workers in a de-layered organizational environment lacking direct first line supervision. The paper is divided into three substantive sections. The first section will sketch out the development of work organization in the Volvo organization to be followed in the second by a review of the gender segregation literature. The third section of the paper will, through an analysis of Volvo's Commercial Vehicle Division, assess how far teamwork has challenged traditional forms of gender segregation in the capitalist labour process.     

Re-inscribing Gender in New Modes of Medical Expertise: The Investigator-Coordinator Relationship in the Clinical Trials Industry

This article analyses the ways in which research coordinators forge professional identities in the highly gendered organizational context of the clinic. Drawing upon qualitative research on the organization of the clinical trials industry (that is, the private sector, for profit auxiliary companies that support pharmaceutical drug studies), this article explores the relationships between predominantly male physician-investigators and female research coordinators and the constitution of medical expertise in pharmaceutical drug development. One finding is that coordinators actively seek to establish relationships with investigators that mirror traditional doctor-nurse relationships, in which the feminized role is subordinated and devalued. Another finding is that the coordinators do, in fact, have profound research expertise that is frequently greater than that of the investigators. The coordinators develop expertise on pharmaceutical products and diseases through their observations of the patterns that occur in patient-participants' responses to investigational drugs. The article argues, however, that the nature of the relationships between coordinators and investigators renders invisible the coordinators' expertise. In this context, gender acts as a persistent social structure shaping both coordinators' and investigators' perceptions of who can be recognized as having authority and power in the workplace.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AS CONTESTED GROUND IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION: WORKER PERCEPTIONS AND SATISFACTION IN THE USPS

Many prior efforts have examined the personal characteristics of workers or the structural features of an organization that impact job satisfaction. By contrast, we examine organizational culture in the context of "high-performance work systems." We analyze the organizational culture of the United States Postal System, as it is presented in key organizational documents and perceived by workers. It is argued that a viable theory of job satisfaction in the modern workplace must treat worker perceptions, which spring from an organizational culture that is both prescribed and lived.     

The Norms of Conduct in Social Service Agencies:

The personal and professional situation of a Puerto Rican lesbian social worker is analyzed using feminist standpoint theory. Beginning within the circumstances of a specific group, this approach studies the effect of social structure on the lives of group members. Social service agencies claim organizational policies protecting lesbians and gay men from workplace discrimination. However, these policies are rendered void by cultural norms of conduct in the workplace supporting de-facto discrimination. This pattern of discrimination adversely impacts the professional development of social workers, the quality of service to clients, and the overall mental health of both.     

Change agents or defending the status quo? How senior leaders frame workplace gender equality

Senior leaders are usually understood to be ideally positioned to drive the organizational changes needed to promote workplace gender equality. Yet seniority also influences leaders' values and attitudes, and how they interpret evidence of inequalities, determine organizational priorities, and design and implement remedies. This article examines leaders' perceptions of workplace gender equality using system justification theory to explain survey data from Australia's public sector (n = 2292). Multivariate analysis indicates that male and female leaders more positively rate the gender equality climate in their agencies, compared with lower-level staff, and that male leaders show most propensity to defend the status quo. Findings call into question the effectiveness of change strategies that rely on leadership and buy-in of those whose privilege is embedded in existing arrangements, and problematize dominant organizational approaches casting senior leaders as effective change agents for gender equality. The article helps to explain gendered power dynamics, which produce and sustain organizational inequalities and make workplace equality so hard to achieve, and points to ways to strengthen practical approaches to promote equality in organizations.     

Labor organization and class alliance

Conclusion The analysis reported here helps to clarify the dual role played by craft organization in labor movement development. In the United States, as in France, community rather than industry was the more promising ground on which to build an inclusive working-class organization. Craft organization in the community always helped mobilize less-skilled workers, and the effect was strongest during the period when the labor movement was growing most rapidly. In contrast, craft organizations within a local industry may have impeded less-skilled workers' organization during the Knights' early years. Only later, when the Knights found themselves on the defensive - attacked by employers, the press, and the craft unions affiliated with the rival American Federation of Labor - did craft locals provide unambiguous support for the organizational efforts of less-skilled workers in their own industries.This dual role must be reckoned with if we are to understand class formation. Because labor historians and others who study working-class movements often pursue research agendas dictated by the dominant tendencies of a single country, their studies tend to exaggerate each country's peculiarites. This study pursued a different line of inquiry by asking its questions from a comparative framework, and by seeking out local variation. The results suggest that craft workers in all countries probably harbored both exclusive and solidaristic tendencies. We need to undertake other studies that might illuminate the conditions that lead to solidarity or exclusivity. Such information will go a long way toward elucidating the dynamics of labor-movement development, thus explaning how oft-mentioned factors such as state action and the pace of capitalist development had the effects they did.Finally, these findings support recent arguments about American exceptionalism put forward by Ira Katznelson and his collaborators. In two influential books, Katznelson argues that America's unique pattern of working-class formation stems, in large part, from the radical division between the politics of work and the politics of community in the United States. Katznelson believes that the institutional set that supported the divorce of workplace and community system (that is, political parties organized around community concerns and trade unions organized around workplace issues) was largely in place by the 1860s. After that the die was cast, except perhaps in small communities where the two spheres were not yet so radically divided. Based on this study I would argue that community remained the most important arena for labor organization even in large urban areas until 1886. But periodization aside, both the quantitative findings and the Trenton case study suggest that the divorce of the community from the workplace must have had a profound effect not only on working-class politics, but on the growth of the union movement as well.

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Once More With Feeling: Ethnographic Reflections on the Mediation of Tension in a Small Team of Call Centre Workers

This article explores the labour process of a team of call‐centre workers based in a multi‐client call centre in the West Midlands. Founded on the basis of a 13‐month ethnographic study into workplace resistance in call‐centre environments, this article provides insights into control in call centres, focusing on sexuality, internal team dynamics and discipline. It is argued that control is exerted through management and information technology but it is crucially exerted laterally in the team and sexuality is an important medium of such control. This article focuses specifically on how worker sexuality is deployed to regulate the tension between contradictory imperatives faced by workers. The article then considers the emotional content of the call‐centre labour process, arguing that the apparent resolution of potentially contradictory logic, in fact, depends upon the development by call‐centre workers, encouraged by more senior employees, of informal, pseudo‐sexualized client relations at the point of production. Crucially however the fieldwork reveals that the demands placed upon customer service representatives are subtly gendered.     

Non‐job work/unpaid caring: Gendered industrial relations in long‐term care

This article explores the operation of gender and industrial relations in long‐term care work or nursing home work, ‘from within’ the experience of the predominantly female workforce in seven unionized facilities in Canada. Drawing on qualitative case study data in non‐profit facilities, the article argues that the main industrial relations challenges facing long‐term care workers are that their workplace priorities do not fit within existing, gendered, industrial relations processes and institutions. This article starts from the experience of women and threads this experience through other layers of social organization such as: global and local policy directions including austerity, New Public Management, and social and healthcare funding; industrial relations mechanisms and policy; and workers’ formal [union] and informal efforts to represent their interests in the workplace. The strongest themes in the reported experience of the women include: manufacturing conditions for unpaid work; increasing management and state dependence on unpaid care work; fostering loose boundaries; and limiting respect and autonomy as aspects of care work. The article extends the feminist political economy by analysing the links between the policies noted above and frontline care work. Building on gendered organizational theory the article also introduces the concept of non‐job work and suggests a fourth industrial relations institution, namely the needs and gendered expectations of residents, families and workers themselves, operating within the liminal spaces in care work.     

WOMEN'S ACCESS TO PENSIONS AND THE STRUCTURE OF ELIGIBILITY RULES:

Because many older women lack access to private pensions and rely solely on social security income, they are significantly more likely than men to have incomes below or near poverty level. Liberal feminists attribute women's failure to attain pensions to their discontinuous work histories, which preclude them from meeting requirements for length and continuity of service. Such a conclusion ignores the invisible gender-based distinctions arising from the organizational logic of the workplace. The key issue is not why women fail to satisfy pension rules but rather why the rules are structured to penalize women for their reproductive labor. This historical case study of the pension negotiation process in two unions, the United Auto Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, indicates that the price women pay in the market for their domestic labor is a social construction that arises from specific decisions in the workplace. The analysis suggests that women can improve their status relative to men if they are able to reveal the hidden dimensions of gender in societal institutions but that they cannot attain full equality until the distinction between social production and reproduction is eliminated.     

When work hurts: A conceptual framework explaining how organizational culture may perpetuate workplace bullying

This work was motivated by research findings, suggesting that the prevalence of workplace bullying is increasing across the world. The workplace bullying research further suggests that the basic risk determinants of bullying lie in an organization’s work environment and that prevalence of workplace bullying may vary by occupation, sector, and country. Upon reviewing the existing literature, it becomes apparent that while organizational culture can be both indirectly and directly related to workplace bullying, references to the relationship between organizational culture and workplace bullying remain scant and what is available lacks substantive conceptual foundation. To address this apparent gap in research, the main purpose of this article is to present an integrated conceptual framework proposing the relationships between specific organizational culture dimensions and workplace bullying. The article was specifically written in accordance with previous studies which highlight factors that may perpetuate workplace bullying within organizations. While highly theoretical and conceptual in nature, this article is one that may be important in explaining how some organizational cultures may motivate, facilitate, perpetuate, enable, and precipitate workplace bullying, and thus offers insights into how to prevent workplace bullying by creating less enabling environments. The article concludes by offering theoretical arguments for how organizations should monitor, manage, and eradicate changeable organizational cultural practices that may otherwise enable workplace bullying.     

New dawn or end of labour?: from South Africa’s East Rand to Ekurhuleni

ABSTRACT

The question raised in this article is whether the key role played under apartheid by labour in the transition to democracy can be revived in the struggle against the persistent and deepening inequality of the post-apartheid period. We argue that the transition to a neoliberal state in the post-apartheid period has fragmented workers and weakened their capacity to build sustainable workplace organization. However, in spite of this, we identify the emergence of collective action and organization amongst these precarious workers. We show how in response to the degeneration of their traditional organizations, these workers are rebuilding worker organization still very much inscribed in the organizational traditions built on the East Rand over 40 years ago. We challenge the pessimistic ‘end of labour’ thesis that suggests that the informalization of employment has made collective organization impossible.     

新制度落实:单位内部的上下分际及其运作

本文试图在决策层与单位成员上下分际的组织结构中,讨论新制度落实的决策逻辑、行动特征以及合法性获得等内部运作问题。案例显示:新制度的落实首先是一个"台后决策"的运作过程,其基本的逻辑是"以特定的政策将特定的人放在特定位置上";由于缺乏"固定群体的稳定共识",单位成员的行动反应呈现出一种相互牵制的特征,从而降低了修改制度文本的可能性;新制度实施方案的合法性获得在一定程度上与仪式性组织活动所建构的情境压力及其对表决行为所施加的影响有关。概言之,新制度的落实是一个克服上下分际的组织结构的结构性张力的过程。