Chapter 7: Markets, Organizations, Work

Pages 170-194
Stable organizations and individual careers inside these organizations that were so common
in the middle of the 20th century are now undergoing rapid changes
Most start-up businesses typically fail w/n first few years
Self-employment had been in decline in most developed economies throughout 20th
century
Self-employment predicted to be likely to disappear in face of markets
increasingly dominated by large companies
Surprise that self-employment is reemerging & beginning to grow in last quarter of 20th
century
Traditional self-employment (activity dominated by small shopkeepers,
restaurateurs, craftsmen) is declining
New forms of self-employment emerged to replace it
o Professional freelancers: artists, designers, writersvalue independence,
flexible job hours
o Low-income, marginal, informal forms of self-employmentin-home
childcare or day labor
Countries still defer on extend to which traditional forms of self-employment are
prevalent
Professional & unskilled forms of self-employment are increasing for both men &
women in most settings
Forms of self-employment that are growing are related to larger restructuring of
American economy
Companies are increasingly outsourcing work to self-employed people
Stable organizations & individual careers inside those organizations that were
common in the middle of the 20th century are undergoing rapid change
1. How do social factors impact markets?
Creation & functioning of markets
We live in what is sometimes called the age of the market
Markets: places where buyers, sellers, producers engage in exchange of commodities &
services
Foundation of economic life
Power of economic markets has not always been so clear
Central planninggovernment decided what kinds of goods & services would be
produced, how much goods/services cost
Employed by socialist economies of Eastern Europe
o Centrally planned economics appeared to be doing reasonable well
In 1960s-1970s, there were debates among economists & other
observers about whether capitalism or socialism was superior
o Long period of stagnation & decline in 1970scoupled w/ lack of
democracy, downfall in late 1980s (downfall in Soviet Union in 1991)

Capitalism: economic system based on private property & market exchange

Socialism: economic system where government owns property & controls production
Socialist alternative has been diminished as a viable alternative to market capitalism
All over world (including all of most developed countries), vast majority of
goods/services are provided via economic markets
o Government-run services as primary alternative
Almost every arena of social life today has market attached to it
o Can buy all of necessities of life for a price, even life itself
o Ex: babies & new organs can be purchased for a price, although usually
only in illegal markets
Can pay to have your dead body frozen until some future when (it
is hoped) that you can be brought back to life
Entrepreneurspeople who invest in & start businesses
Constantly inventing new markets to sell goods & services to potential buyers
Ex: human travel options have been expanding to include traveling to the South
Pole, climbing Mount Everest, traveling in space
Whole range of new services for pets have been introduced
o Doggie day caresdrop off pets to be watched & entertained by a human
staff while youre at work
o Dog-walking servicesdog-walking professional comes to your
house/apartment & walks your dog a couple of times a day
o Animal psychologistsoffer to help pet w/ emotional life
o Elaborate dog grooming servicesmake dogs look their best
Markets & market ideas are increasingly penetrating areas of social life
Most intimate spaces of individuals lives now have markets available
o Families can frequently hire others to take care of their children, prepare
their meals, clean their houses, take care of their yards, provide them w/
security from thieves
Specialists now exist to provide services
o Nameologistshelp people name their children
o Wantologistshelp people figure out what it is they want out of life
Important functions of governments that were previously handled by government
employees are increasingly being subcontracted to private entrepreneurs
Includes warmaking & variety of other government services & activities
o Ex: private military contractors hired by U.S. governments have
increasingly joined American soldiers on ground in recent wars
Local governments often sought to cut costs by using private firms to handle what
was formerly done by government employees
Markets are increasingly becoming a part of social structure that provides architecture of
modern societies
Markets are ubiquitous in our society
o Organize social behavior that we often dont give much thought to
o Taken-for-granted part of how we live our lives

Defining markets
How do sociologists define markets differently than economists?
Stock market is a market
People buy/sell shares in companies based on their assessment of whether the
value of a company will go up or down in the future
In classical economics, market implies exchange of goods & services b/w buyers &
sellers
Exchanges can happen in blink of an eye
Price of good or service being exchanged is determined by demand for whatever
is being sold
Both sides of transaction (buyer & seller) are assumed to have knowledge about
the good or service they are buying or selling)
o Both participants are thought to be making decisions that they think will
improve their individual (or their familys or companys) well-being
o Rational choice perspectiverelies on simple set of assumptions about
what motivates individuals & organizations as they enter into market
exchanges
Missing from rational choice perspectiveconcerns & considerations about social
factors that sociologists find important
Sociological definition views markets as repeated interactions that people (buyers,
sellers, producers) carry out according to formal & informal rules
o In order for market to exist, must be shared understandings about what
kinds of commodities will be traded, who can trade, how trades take place
Important societal institutions (governments, laws, norms of appropriate behavior)
come into play
o Market exchanges would be impossible or limited w/o these other forces
3 Key Social Factors in Markets: Networks, Powers, Culture
How do networks, power, & culture impact markets?
Social Networks
Social network is widely associated w/ concepts like Facebook, Twittertechnological
platforms that connect individuals & facilitate exchange of info, goods, services
Social networks: ties b/w peoplefamily/kinship relationships, relationships involving
friends, colleagues, classmates, friends of friends
Sociologists argue that connectivity b/w people is an important part of how market
exchange happens
Classical economic theories of markets view social networks as ruthless
impersonalset aside who people are & whether or not they know each other
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)gives example of why social networks
matter in retelling of Paul Reveres story

On night of April 18, 1775, 2 prominent men set out on horseback to0 warn
Boston area residents that British army was on its way & Revolutionary War was
underway
o William Dawes rode to South, where he knew very few people
Little came of his heroic effort & he was largely forgotten
o Paul Revere rode to North, where he was well-known
Alerted his friends & associates who alerted others, eventually
creating a small army to fight British forces
o Revere took advantage of his social networks in a way that Dawes
couldnt
Why Revere is remembered as a hero & Dawes is largely forgotten
People who study markets argue that economic activitiesincluding market activities
are often built on kinship & friendship, trust & goodwill, b/w people who know each
other
Markets need social ties in order to maintain levels of trust necessary to carry out
economic exchange
Ideas famously theorized by sociologist Karl Polanyi
o Argued that economic action is embedded in social interactions
o Economic exchange takes place w/n context of socialized life
o People often buy/sell from people they already know
o Knowing someone can influence preferences & market participation
Ex: shoe companies paying professional basketball players
enormous sums just to wear their shoesinfluencing potential
buyers
Large corporations may be able to court a number of banks to secure loans, but doing
business before often influences preferences
Many businesses will prefer to stay w/ the bank that they know & ask that bank
for lower rates
o Rather than have the business discover a lower interest rate from another
bank & immediately switch banks
Developing a relationship w/ a bank over time can have advantages on both sides
o History of trust builds certain level of wiggle room for business when it
comes time to negotiate terms of loan
o Bank has certain info about the trustworthiness of the business to repay the
loan
Social networks is important for exchanging info related to market
Ex: work by Mark Granovetter in 1970sshowed that someones chances of getting a
job are highly influenced by who they know
Someones second-degree connections (friends of friends) were most helpful for
securing jobs
o More beneficial than someones first-degree connections (people that one
knows personally)
Later research has found mixed results for this specific argument

Point that Granovetter was making: hiring doesnt simply involve employer
choosing from among the best available applicants
o Referrals & recommendations from friends/acquaintances play role
Sociologists sometimes tell their students that one of the most valuable things from
college: network of educated friends who may later in life provide info/opportunities of
which they wouldnt otherwise be aware
Social networks matter for how individual careers develop
Important whether inside single company or moving from one job to another
Moving from one job to another is often facilitated by who you meet in your
current job
o As people move to new companies & become involved in hiring, they
often look to people they knew at the previous firm
Networks create opportunities

Power
In classical economic view of markets, identity of market actors shouldnt matter in
predicting how markets function
Basis that markets are the great equalizer
Gary Becker (Nobel Prize-winning economist studying human behavior via lens of
market)argued that everyone in the market is the same
When sociologists observe how markets work, they tend to find inequality
Employers dont treat all potential applicants simply on basis of merit
o Also look closely at demographic characteristics like age, gender, race,
ethnicity
Being a white male at an appropriate age for the job helps in you being hired
Markets are affected by relative power & status in a wide variety of other ways
Importance of power relationships b/w firms operating w/n same market
o One party has relatively more power than the other
Relative advantage in power shapes how interaction b/w parties unfolds
Different articulations of power play a role
Larger firms can often get better deals on the same product than smaller firms
Example in auditing industry
o Auditing firms do due diligenceproviding what is understood to be a
disinterested review of a companys financial books
o Large, powerful firms often manipulate allegedly independent auditing
firms
o Auditing firms often face problems of conflict of interest & resource
dependency
o Auditors are paid by the very companies whose books they are required to
validate
Culture
Coordination of exchange would be difficult w/o common understandings about who can
participate in markets & how market interactions are to take place

Formal & informal rules help construct & coordinate markets

Many formal rules are set by governmentsrules of game
Essential for creating & sustaining markets
Many of the rules governing market behavior are not formal but informal/taken for
granted
We realize how powerful the taken-for-granted-rules are when they are broken
We have to know how to participate in any market we enter
Ex: dating marketunspoken rules have to be mastered
o How/when to express interest in someone
o Appropriate levels of enthusiasm
Ex: bargaining
o Knowing whether & how you can bargain for the best deal w/ someone
else in a market situation
Unwritten rules of market can be changed by participants to create new opportunities
Famous study of rise of life insurance industry by sociologist Vivian Zelizer
(2012)
o Life insurance industry took off after cultural norms about appropriateness
of putting a monetary value on life
o People in insurance industry had to justify/legitimize idea that human life
has some kind of economic & social value to friends & family
In order for market to emerge, important cultural shift has to occur

2. Why are organizations important for social & economic life?

Organizations in modern world
Contemporary markets contain w/n them a variety of organizations that determine &
shape the boundaries of that market
We encounter an organization in almost everything we do
Birth in a hospital
Day care centers
Schools, churches
Businesses we participate in
Government itself
Virtually every market has set of key organizations that operate w/n it in both competitive
& noncompetitive ways
Organization: group engaged in a specific activity that has an identifiable purpose or goal
that has an enduring form of association
Many different types of organization
Can be huge (U.S. Army) or as small as 2-3 people
Organizational persistence
Why do organizations persist?
Once established, organizations tend to persist
Holds true even in the face of importance challenges to the organizations
existence

Ex: Charitable organization March of Dimes

o Established in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt & others to fight
poliomedical condition that would cripple individual
Asked citizens to donate a dime to help the fight against polio
1955Salk vaccine was approved & successfully eliminated polio
o Organization looked for new medical conditions to fight by raising money
from the public
Changes mission to fighting birth defects & other childhood
diseases in 1958
Since expanded into an all-purpose health research organization

Why organizations persist even if its original purpose doesnt

People who are involved have strong interest in their survival
o People who work for an organization for a living want the organization to
survive so they can keep their jobs
o Organizations have a name & reputation known to others
o Name brand is usually valuablecan be survived by being absorbed into
or bought by another organization
Organizations tend to develop bureaucracies (rules are written down & defined
roles of members of the organization are made clear)
o Once a bureaucratic form of an organization emerges, an organization is
on the road to establishing a long-term presence
o In a bureaucratized organization, people can join & leave the organization
but the organization itself persists
Has established operating principles & procedures
Dont rely on any one individual to maintain them
o Organization has become more than the sum of all the individuals w/n it

From Start-up to Bureaucratic firm: case of apple

Apple Computerexample of how bureaucracies develop as organizations grow
Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak began designing first Apple personal computers in
garage in Los Altos, CA in mid-1970s
In 1977, company released Apple II computerone of 1st commercially
successful personal computers
o Apple was able to hire a number of outstanding young engineers &
computer scientists and expand range of products it could offer
Apples breakthrough in 1984company introduced first Macintosh computer
o When sales increased, Apple began to transform itself into a multinational
corporation w/ a board of directors & professional managers hired to
market & run the growing organization
o When Macintosh was released, Apples board forced Jobs out of company
Apple continued to market & sell Macintosh w/o its founders for over a decade
o Once small company morphed into bureaucratic organization

W/ several product setbacks in late 1980s and early 1990s, company brought Jobs
back as CEO
o Apple developed breakthrough products that would revolutionize
computer world: iPod, iPhone, iPad
Apple is a fairly typical story of an organization that evolved over time from a small
organization created by a couple of individuals to a larger, bureaucratic organization
Apples survival during its ups & downs in 1980s-1990s depended in large part on the
creation of the organizational structure that the resources & stability to cushion the ups &
downs of its computer business

Downside of bureaucracy
Process of bureaucratization of organization can provide strength & stability but can also
create complex new problems for how decisions get made
Bureaucracies are famous for red tape, being inefficient, being bloated & ineffective
Calling someone bureaucrat can often be an insult
Max Webers theory of bureaucracy
Why are decisions difficult in bureaucratic organizations?
Organizations rely strongly on rules & regulations in order to ensure stability &
predictably
German sociologist Max Weberafter observing German civil-service sector in early
20th centuryprovided most influential description & analysis of bureaucratic
organizations
Believed that moving an organization toward a bureaucratic form was a necessary
response to the complexities of modern large-scale markets & big governments
Organization that embraced bureaucratic means was attempting to find ways to
allocate resources & make decisions more efficiently than it otherwise would
Hallmark of bureaucracy was the existence of formal procedures & rules
Supposed to ensure consistency (same problem or task is addressed the same way
each time) & accountability (individuals in bureaucracy was accountable to those
above them)
Bureaucracy was inevitable feature of modern world
Negative aspects of bureaucracies:
Create stifling routines & boring jobs
Makes it difficult for organizations to respond to changes in the environment in
which they operate
Webers theory of bureaucracy emphasizes 3 central features:
Bureaucracies establish portions of authority that are hierarchically organized
o Higher up you go in a bureaucracy, the more authority is vested in that
position

o Bureaucracies are hierarchically organized so that there is a chain of

command
o Everyone working in that bureaucracy is responsible to the office above
him/her
President or CEO of organization is typically responsible to an
outside board of some kind
Written rules define scope & responsibility of each position w/n a bureaucratic
organization
Organizations may have volunteers but they are only properly considered
bureaucratic when the decision-making officers of the organizations are full-time,
salaried positions
o Officialsknown less charitably as bureaucratstreat jobs as calling &
have stake in overall functioning of organization
Webers classical theory captured any of the key features of the bureaucratic
organizations that were rising in the late 19th & early 20th centuries
Things that Weber missed:
Weber focused on formal aspects of bureaucratic organizations, didnt analyze
informal aspects of how bureaucracies actually work
o Formal aspects of bureaucracy dont function as they claim
o Rules are routinely broken or ignored
Often can only proscribe what someone does in an actual job in a
vague way
Bosses are only sometimes able to effectively supervise their subordinates
o Bureaucratic officials are self-interested in ways that Webers model didnt
anticipate
o Ex: bureaucrats often seek to increase amount of resources available to
their unit whether or not that is the wisest use of the organizations
resources
o Having a bigger budget under your control provides many benefits, even if
the money might have been better spent somewhere else on the
organization

Garbage-can model
In real world, bureaucracies are often messy places where rules & regulations are difficult
to define and implement
Both people & organizations have to make decisions & problems they face are not that
different
Individuals might come to important decision based on info to which they have access
Influenced by success of previous decisions, long-term goals, estimation of their
likely success
Can only make rational decisions when they have enough info to analyze all
possible options & implications
Difficult for organizations to accurately decide on a rational course of action

Many people involved

Often multiple options & multiple possible goals
Bureaucratic organizations seldom have ideal conditions to make precise decisions
Organizational decision making seldom follows a clear path
Decision making is similar to tossing a set of questions & answers to a garbage
can & then seeing what matches come outgarbage-can model
Legislatures have particular features of decision making that encourage garbage-can
approaches
End result is often much less than what was envisioned in the first place
Lot of guess work involved

Loose coupling
Loose coupling: attempt to decentralize decision making to allow for multiple approaches
to emerge
Evident in many different organizational environments
o Ex: diverse ways in which schools in America are organized
Local schools can operate w/ a significant degree of autonomy
At local level, school may comply in some ways w/ those
mandates most likely to be enforced but not others (based on its
own organizational interests & goals separate and apart from
federal agenda)
Education system in America is loosely coupled
Disentangle itself from the rules & regulations of the larger institutions w/n which
it operates
Loose coupling can be a negative thing, but it provides institutions w/ flexibility to
maneuver w/ regard to more local environmental concerns & changes
Can be a barrier to some institutional goals
Can improve adaptation & survival for some organizations
3. What is the relationship b/w organizations & their environments?
Organizations & their environments
Sociological imagination urges us to look at social contexts in which individuals &
groups interact w/ one another
Same idea can be applied to organizations
o Organizations operate in context of a larger environmentconsisting of
other firms, government policies, international competition, & many other
forces
o Organizations are impacted by environments that they live in
Evolutionary theory tells us that environment influences not only life & death of
organism as well as which organism grows & changes across generations
Like organismsorganizations depend on their environment to provide resources
necessary for survival
Animal might depend on its environment to provide food & waterorganizations
depends on its environment for economic, social, political resources

o Organization perishes w/o resources

Organizational structure
How can an organizations structure help or hurt its chances for survival?
Ecological framework of organizational structure raises question: whether successful
organizations continually adapt to the environment they operate in OR whether the
organizations that survive do so b/c they were uniquely suited to the environment from
the start
Organizations must have features that are suitable for their environment if they are to stay
alive & prosper
Might mean that organization has developed an impermeable shell that protects it
from environmental demands
Might mean that organization has maintained a fluid structure that can easily
mobilize to adapt to changing environments
Organizations that survive are generally those that have created a structure that is a good
match to an initial environment & then have made themselves difficult to change
Structural inertia: strong resistance to change
Better the initial match, stronger the inertia, greater the staying power of the
organization
Inertia can be terminal when environment dramatically changes
o Absence of adaptation organizational mortality
Structural inertia might prevent organization from surviving at some point
Organizations face threats from environment & their own inertia
Organizations must survive in arena w/ competition
o Competition varies for each organization
o All organizations have to compete for resources w/n their environment
Organizations that survive often successfully identified & fulfilled a niche (distinct
segment of a market or social process) for which organizations services or products are
in demand
Organization that is effective at servicing a niche usually survives
All the organizations in higher education (like NYU, University of California-Berkeley)
try to create for themselves a market niche
School limits the amount of competition it must face to survive in its environment by
identifying a particular market of students that institution can serve
Difference b/w state university & elite private university
State university limit the demands placed on it & its competition for survival
o Does not need to compete w/ private colleges for the same students
o May have much more specified array of majors than a private college
Private university may focus more on general subjects
Nonprofit organizations consist of private charities, churches, research & advocacy
groups
Every organization needs money to pay for its staff, office space, advertising
Heavily rely on donations for money
Nonprofit must pay attention to its environment in order to be successful

Source of funding could be individuals who donate to a cause b/c they have been
impacted by it or care about it
Make up part of organizations environment
Legislators & other individuals w/ access to large amounts of money might take
up the causeproviding significant economic resources to the organization
Entrepreneurial effort is required to identify & persuade potential donors to
support a nonprofit organization in the face of many competing & worthy
organizations also asking for funds
Existence of market for donation shows social dimension aspect of organizational
environment
Big donors might speak out publicly for cause, increasing reach of organization
By increasing its reach, organization might be able to gather more small donors,
increasing resource availability
Increasing renown of organization & its status among those w/ high social status
organization gains legitimacy
o Legitimacy ensures that organization has power to operate in areas where
it had no in past
Might provide legal pathway for actions which organization
advocates or even restrict actions of its adversaries
Becomes resource to organization

Organizational similarity
Why would an organization change to be more similar to others in its field?
1990: American w/ Disabilities Act (ADA)landmark legislation declaring that citizens
w/ disabilities should have same access to physical spaces (buildings, bathrooms) as their
non-disabled peers
Includes set of rules for physical buildings in which organizations operate
Rules & regulations mandate that certain facilities in every commercial & publicservice building be accessible to all individuals
Organizations have to modify physical structures to comply w/ rules
o Modifications include: adding additional wheelchair ramps, elevators,
handicap accessible bathrooms
o Can be expensive & time consuming
o Likelihood of being caught for failing to comply is low
Organizations still comply b/c of organizational isomorphism (organizations in same field
tend to change over time to become increasingly similar to each other over time)
Phenomenon of isomorphism has been found repeatedly in research across wide
range of organizations & industries
Constitutes one of classic insights of organizational sociology
Theories arise from fact that organizations in same field (or market or industry) tend to be
more similar over time
Occurs when organizations are pressured to comply w/ certain legal regulations or
requirements

Coercive isomorphismorganizations all do the same thing b/c they have been
compelled to take such actions
Applied to all organizations in the field
If they dont take actions, they face consequencessued by customer, fined by
government agency
2 other reasons organizations might adopt similar behaviors or policies
Normative isomorphism
o Organization responds to pressures that are exerted on its legitimacy
Makes organization appear fair, sensitive, responsive
o Normative: general feelings or expectations of people that the organization
serves (employees, customers, clients)
o Organization could potentially lose its legitimacy if it fails to address the
normative environment in which it lives
Mimetic isomorphism
o Process of imitating parts of other organizations visible in ones
environment
o Organization makes itself look like all the others to not attract negative
attention that might call its legitimacy into question
Isomorphism can be integral for organizations responding to changes in their
environment
Organizations that are able to mimic their peers give themselves protection
against threats to their survival that come in the form of legal, normative, &
structural pressures in everyday life w/n the environment
0Doing the same thing that the other guy is doing in the face of pressuressafest
approach

4. How are jobs structured?

Division of labor in modern societies
How is work organized in modern workplaces?
One of most important things that markets & organizations do: provide jobs & economic
opportunities for individuals
Most people below retirement age work in job that provides either wage paid by
employer or income from self-employment
Most people work a lot
In 1970, hours worked per person were similar in Western Europe & U.S.
Today, an American worker employed full time works an average of 46 weeks/year
Average full-time worker in America works about 150 hours more than the
average number of hours worked per year by full-time workers in other similar
countries
o Whereas French worker works 40.5 weeks & Swedish worker works 35.4
weeks
If average American sleeps about 8 hours a night & takes 2 weeks of vacation a
year, he/she is spending 30% of waking hours at work

Overall (aggregate) distribution of jobs across an entire society significantly defines the
economic system & what type of society it is
All societies have division of labor (some people do some things & other people do other
things)
Hunting-and-gathering societies or agrarian societies are defined by basic fact that
overwhelming majority of individuals are engaged in those activity
Rich contemporary societies like U.S. are defined by complicated division of
labor
o Hundreds of different kinds of jobs in a bewildering array of
organizational settings

Increasing specialization in division of labor

From mid-19th century onwardaccelerating in 20th centuryhas been explosion in
types of jobs people could work in
Continues right up to present day
Industrial Revolution: rise of large-scale production of goods & products for mass
markets
Centered on emergence of factory as an increasingly central place where
economic activity occurred
First factories used relatively simply technology
o Much of work had to be done by skilled craftworkers who were capable of
producing a finished product more or less by themselves
As technology advanced & more sophisticated forms of management &
supervision, jobs were subdivided into different specialties
o In late 19th & early 20th centuries in America & Europe, factories
increasingly became dominated by assembly-line production in which
each worker would perform 1 or a small number of tasks
Inside factories was increasing specialization & rapid growth of new & old professional
& managerial occupations
Increasing wealth required & supported creation of a large set of occupations that
provided services & support to the manufacturing sector
Colleges & universities (once primarily reserved for very wealthy or for religious
instruction) under mammoth expansion from late 19th century onward
Occupations like physician, lawyer, accountant, business manager, professor,
teacher expanded rapidly
o Became linked to educational credentials that provided a ticket to entry
into the field
Continuing growth of specialization in kinds of jobs people have continues to present
Census Bureau has detailed job classification system that identifies over 12,000
different job titles that people can have
Fine-grained distinctions b/w abrasive grader (someone who operates pebble
mill to grind emerge, rouge, & other abrasives and separate them according to
fineness) but also an abrasive grinder (someone who tends the machines that
grind specified radii on abrasive)

Seemingly endless variety of jobs in a modern economy

Labor process
What forces have shaped labor process?
Vast number of jobs might seem to imply that only specialists can perform their jobs
In actuality, most jobs are performed inside organizations & are controlled in a
variety of different ways by supervisors & managers who stand above individual
workers in any organization
Labor process: describes how most jobs are organized & controlled by managers from
above as well as relationship b/w workers & management
Study of labor process attempts to open up workplace by examining how workers
actually do their jobs, how managers try to control & direct them, & how the
relationships b/w the 2 unfold
Represents another way in which sociology f economy moves into areas that
classical economics paid relatively little attention to
Hawthorne studies: conducted in 1920s-1930s by Harvard industrial sociologist Elton
Mayo
Variety of experiments conducted w/ different teams of workers to see what
factors might induce workers to produce more output in the same amount of time
Researchers found that cooperation b/w workers was especially importance
Monitoring work increases productivity but also produces resistance
Since 1960s-1970s, questions about how to make work more efficient tended to fall to
engineers & business management scholars

Sociology of work has come to focus on very different set of questions about
organization of labor process
Importance shift marked by book Labor and Monopoly Capital (by Harry
Braverman, published in 1974)
o Argued that in order to maximize profits, capitalist firms & managers are
driven to reduce employees ability to control what they can do on the job
o Pointed to rise of scientific management: late 19th century movement
sparked by writings of Frederick W. Taylor (early industrial engineer);
central to modern management strategies
Based on idea that managers need to figure out how to understand
& control what the workers under them are doing
Effective management requires controlling all of the decisions &
keeping workers focused on precise tasks
Pinnacle of scientific management: assembly line system of
production
Every task a worker must perform is completely scripted
for him/her
First implemented by Henry Ford (founder of Ford
automobile company in Detroit) in early 20th century

Process of deskilling: management constantly seeks to ensure that workers arent able to
have upper hand b/c of their more detailed knowledge of what needs to be done
Ex: to mass produce shoes, shoe companies & their managers had to study &
break down each step in the process, assigning each to a different person on a
factory assembly line (usually in Vietnam or China today)
Modern factory workers probably dont know how to make shoe in its entirety, including
how to make the raw materials as well as how to assemble the entire shoe
Individual tasks at work are heavily routinized & fairly easy to learn
Workers in factory are easily replaceable, having a weak position to resist what
management wants
Bravermans thesis generated enormous amount of debate about the extent & depth of
deskilling in modern workplaces
Some sociologists argued that industrialization has a more complex pattern
o In some cases, deskilling jobs created new types of jobs that require more
skills
o Modern technology increased the amount of skill required in particular
jobs (ex: requiring knowledge about computers which direct robots)
Looking at overall pattern of job growth over time, there seems to be a long-term shift
towards jobs that require more skill & more education not less
Reason why theres income differences b/w college graduates & those w/o college
degrees
In 1960s, pattern of fastest growth was for most skilled job categories (8-10) &
lowest growth was at the bottom
o 1960s was a time of solid economic growth in U.S.
In 1990s, more mixed pattern about economic growth
o Fastest-growing occupations are those at the top (10) but second-fastestgrowing title is at the very bottom (1), followed by medium- to higherskilled categories (6-9)
o On balance, little evidence that workers are being pushed into the least
skilled (or most deskilled) jobs
Other research says that specific occupations or workplaces paints a much more nuanced
picture of the relationship b/w skills of workers & managements attempts to squeeze as
much out of workers as possible
Ex: many jobs are not easily measured but important
o Assistant can anticipate what boss needs ahead of time
o Restaurant cook learns how to substitute one ingredient for another when
supplies run short w/o ruining the dish
o Teacher can sense when student is not understanding some key point
Many jobs dont require or enable an individual worker to become a true
craftsmen, but it doesnt mean that the skills arent important & knowledge isnt
applied
Ongoing changes in organization of work & labor process are reflected in new
workplaces of 21st century

Large assembly-line factory (individual worker performs single task or set of

tasks) is increasingly being replaced by workplaces where cooperation among
workers is encouraged & jobs are more interchangeable & interconnected
Represents one of most important shifts in nature of work since advent of modern
assembly line in age of Ford

Sociological perspective: how have work organizations changed?

In last few decades, world of work changes the kind of work people do & the
physical/organizational environments in which work is performed
Traditional workplaces: factories, offices
Office work marked by sea of cubicles w/ rows of desks disconnected from each other by
privacy walls & doors
Known for orderliness
Stress employee conformity & sameness
o Same for classic assembly-line workplaces of large factories
Organized w/ emphasis on standardization & surveillance
o Little room for interaction among employees
U.S. workers often work in a store in the retail sector
Largest employer in U.S. is Walmart (over 1.5 million employees)
Those in professional jobs (computing, business, law, medicine, administration) have
increased attention devoted to designing alternative workplaces that stress cooperation
& interaction
Work campuses created by many high-tech companies like Google & Yahoo
Give new meaning to term world of work
Workplaces become worlds of their own: brightly colored, pet-friendly
complexes, child-care centers, massage rooms, socializing areas, gift shops
5. What makes a good job?
Good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs: work in America
We have no clear consensus about how to identify the best or good jobs in the United
States
What is a good job for one person may not be so great for someone else
Nonetheless, there is some universality
Some features of jobs that make them more or less attractive
In almost all cases, having a job is vastly superior to not having a job
Work Satisfaction
How do levels of autonomy & trust relate to job satisfaction?
Any job can be boring, repetitive, difficult, stressfulor in some casesphysically or
mentally dangerous
There are potentially positive aspects of work in almost any organizational setting
Work is place where you can meet new friends, acquire new skills, learn more
about yourself, develop connections, find a lover

Too much leisure time can be boring

People who are unemployed miss a paycheck & report missing structure in their
daily lives that having a job provides
Several aspects of jobs that appear to stand out that makes them good:
How well the jobs paypeople almost universally tend to rate jobs as better when
they pay more
Autonomy in a jobhow much a job allows a worker to control his/her activities
Status
Amount of trust it entailshow much trust from employer a job grants the person
in the job
Level of skill & importance of credentials in job
Amount of security job provideshow likely a worker is able to stay employed in
the job
Level of autonomy & discretion (trust) in a job is important
Satisfaction in work performed is invariably lower when every action is tightly
controlled or monitored
Having trust of ones employer (handling secrets, not being monitored or
supervised closely by anyone) is associated w/ greater responsibilities & higher
pay
In very low-trust workplaces, cameras may monitor workers every move & ability to
choose to take a break (or even to go to the bathroom)
Typically have access to Internet severely limited or blocked completely
In high-trust occupations (such as those in professional occupations requiring advanced
degrees & certification to practice or in management positions), people work w/o much
or even any direct supervision
Trusted w/ important responsibilities & company secrets
Generally able to control pace of their work efforts
For an increasing number of workers, flexibility where they work is common
Some of the occupations that people have the longest working hours are most
thoroughly professionalized & have most ostensible autonomy & discretion
o Workers have freedom to pick & choose how they structure their days &
where to fit in extra work hours
Amount of skill required in job & possession of supervisory authority round out main
components of what differentiates jobs from one another
Having authority in workplace is frequently associated w/ making a job more attractive
Supervising others means higher pay & ability to concentrate on more desirable,
challenging work tasks
Can assign more routine, less desirable tasks to someone else
Skill required to perform a job is important part of what provides security & ultimately
more pay
Some jobs can be learned in a matter of hours or days
o Ex: operating cash register, making hamburger (skills that can be mastered
easily & quickly by anyone)
Employee in such a job is easily replaceable

Some jobs require long apprenticeships or educational credentials

o Ex: lawyer (far more difficult to achieve, providing stronger foundation
for job security & claims for increased pay)
Possession of professional credential like law degree & experience
practicing law affords higher income, greater status, better working
conditions
Hard to secure a job when one doesnt know whether or not job will still be there 6
months or a year from now
Few jobs provide exceptionally high security
Tend to be government jobs, teaching jobs (college professors may even possess
tenuregranting that provides guarantee against being fired for almost any
reason), many experienced & in-demand professionals
Vast majority of jobs provide considerably less security
o Small businesses frequently fail
o Medium & large firms can go out of business or lay off large numbers of
workers when business declines
Evidence that in recent years job insecurity has risen
Americans are more likely to have an uneven flow of income from year to year
than 30-50 years ago

Comparing work in America w/ similar countries

How does work in America compare to work elsewhere?
Capitalist market economies like U.S. organize work in these ways:
Role of unions
How much (& what kind) of government laws or regulations exist that protect
workers in their jobs
Some countries tend to have stronger government regulations, making it easier for
employees to create unions
Unions: organizations representing workers as a group in their negotiations w/
employers
o Provide workers w/ power to negotiate more effectively w/ employers
o Help monitor & protect working conditions
Other countries let the free market decide more of how work is organized
U.S. has fewer government regulations of employment & relatively weaker labor
movement to negotiate w/ employers over conditions of work
Unions in America have been going through decline in recent years
Many large American companies have been free to develop strategy of trying to
compete in a competitive global marketplace through development of company
policieslean production
Aim is to continually identify & constantly reduce costs of production
Involves reducing waste in production process
Has harmful side to workers
Eliminating job perks & forms of security that workers once took for granted

Can take off perks of jobshealth/pension benefits, regular breaks, set work
schedule, job security
Employers found that they can shave costs by eliminating traditional 9-5 job (that was
customary in 20th century)
Replacing full-time workers w/ part-timers who accept lower wages & no (or few)
benefits
Part-time work is beneficial to employers b/c it cuts costs in terms of wages &
fringe benefits
o Part-time workers often dont qualify for benefits like health care &
pensions
Shift toward part-time work & temporary work
In 2000, almost 1/5 employees in U.S. worked part time
Since 1970, most of growth in part-time work occurred among employees who
would prefer to work full time
Since 1970s, service, retail, finance industries have taken up larger share of
workface while manufacturing has declined
Significant increase in outsourcing over past 30 years, which is continuing up to present
Outsourcing: firms turn over execution of tasks (like payroll, administration,
janitorial services, food services) to third parties
Common type of outsourcing occurs when company or organization (state, local,
federal governments) concludes that it can save money by firing some of its
current workers & hiring a private contractor to perform the same job
o While paying its workers lower wages & benefits than the larger
organization was providing
American workers are heavily dependent on their employers for nonwage needs
American workers are reliant on their jobs for health & retirement benefits
Many Americans secure health care & retirement benefits through their work
o About 50% of retirement income received by individual workers when
they retire comes from private savings accounts & employer pension plans
Far above average of other rich countries (closer to 20%)
System that relies on employer-provided healthcare has many pitfalls
Esp consequential since employers arent forced to provide healthcare to their
employees
Public pensions (like Social Security system in U.S.) provide a much higher amount of
the income a worker received while working
For many decades after World War II, workers were able to count on pension plans
offered by their employers that were based on the amount of time they had worked for the
company
Since 1980s, esp after unions have declined, employers are increasingly
abandoning these plans in favor of less generous retirement programs like 401(k)
savings plan
o Employer is not obligated to provide base amount of retirement income
o Employer contributes to a fund for the employee, but it is up to the worker
to contribute to the fund as well

For high-income workers, contributing to retirement account is

relatively easy
For workers whose earnings are low, contributing is often difficult
or impossible
Employees in America have less power than workers in other countries
Most significant alternative to American system of worksocial democratic model
Typically associated w/ countries in Northern Europe
Social democratic countries spend far more on social programs to help poor &
unemployed than in U.S.
o Provide health insurance & retirement benefits that arent so closely linked
to someones job
o Typically provide much more protection for workers in their jobs
o Harder to fire someone, workers have more protections against
mistreatment from employers, have more paid vacation time & paid leave
when they have a child
Strong regulation of most jobs in Europe has double-edged sword
Employers may be more reluctant to hire workers when they know they cannot
fire them very easily & when they have to pay higher taxes for their workers
pension & health benefits than in U.S.
Encouraged companies in Europe to hire workers on a temporary basis w/o full
social benefits
Creates new division b/w full-time employees who enjoy world-class benefits &
vacations and a growing temporary, contingent workforce that doesnt

Measuring labor market activity

Unemployment:
Since 1947, federal government has measured unemployment each month by
asking large sample of Americans whether in past week they were working, out of
work but looking for job OR out of work & not looking for a job
Unemployment rate is officially defined as a percentage of respondents who were
out of work & looking for work
o Using this definition, unemployment rate ranged from 2.9-9.7% in these
years
Underemployment:
Includes people who want a job but are not actively looking for work b/c they
have grown too frustrated to look OR people who work part-time but want a fulltime job
Since 1994, government asked further questions to get a fuller measurement of
total unemployment
Showed much higher level of unemploymentat times reaching almost 17%
Ratio of employed to employable population:
Another way of thinking about employment & unemployment is to look at ratio of
employed people to entire population in prime working years (ages 25-54)

Since 1947, percentage of Americans w/ job rose steadily, falling during periods
of recession
Recent recession has shown rapid, unprecedented fall & no real recovery since
2008
Americans are increasingly supporting themselves by cobbling together 2 or more parttime jobs
Overall percentage of individuals employed is greater now than in 1950s, but this is
largely due to women being in labor force today
Percentage of men who are neither employed nor looking for work is higher today
than in earlier decades

Conclusion: markets, organizations, & work in 21st century

Rapid change appears to be underway in rich, developed countries like the U.S.
Markets are also growing into arenas that governments once help monopolies on
Work & organizations are not immune to pressures & are changing as well
Vast majority of organizations are still seeking to maintain compliance from top down to
bottom
Emerging counterexamples of growing number of organizations
Organizations have viewed loose couplingweakening of relationship b/w executives at
the top & rest of firmas a strength
Center of this alternative type of organization: bureaucracies tend to stifle
creativity, better to create organizations where members share tasks &
responsibilities and all participate in management to some extent
Work teams operating independently of one another may come up w/ innovations more
rapidly than classical bureaucratic firm
Common examples can be found in high-tech sector
Firms like Google, Facebook, many start-up companies (instead of chain of
command)
o Often a bunch of different work teams (typically about 3-7) that work
together on various projects
o No one member of team is irreplaceable
o Team takes advantage of its collective intelligence
o Team has to report to higher management
o At some point, if nothing is accomplished, team is broken up & members
are reassigned to other, more productive units

Isomorphism: pressures to emulate one another

Appears to be driving some of the ongoing changes in work & organizational
forms

o Ex: when one company or organization figures out how to cut its costs or
implement a new style of workplace organization, other firms study that
change & may implement it
Change occurs but not in a random way