INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY OF WORK
- Micro-rela*on in the workplace
o Experience of work
o Interac*ons, strategies and power
- Macro-forces shaping the workplace
o Technological development
o Interna*onal compe**on and globalisa*on
o Investment decisions
o Ins*tu*onal forces
▪ The state, industrial structure
▪ Class, gender, race
- The main focus of this module is JOB QUALITY
o How can we explain the differences in inequality between different
countries?
o Analyse the module through the perspec*ve of stakeholders; mainly workers
- Compare with economics
o Invisible hand: every firm in the market can ac*on their own interest and this
will collec*vely add up to self-regula*ng economy
o Focus on individuals, incen*ves, markets
OCED (OrganisaGon for Economic CooperaGon and Development)
- Club of rich countries
- Most developed
KEY CONCEPTS OF SOCIOLOGY OF WORK
- Work
o Human labour that transforms nature into something useful
o Physical or mental, paid or unpaid, employed or self-employed, waged or
non-waged
o Any*me you transform labour into something useful
- Employment
o A contract between two par*es, an employer and employee
o Generally, for a specific wage
- Economy
o System of produc*on, exchange, distribu*on and consump*on
o Goods and services
o Occupa*ons and industries
- Society
o Family and domes*c life
o Religion
o Poli*cal sphere and civil society
o Cultural ins*tu*ons, norms
, ▪ Gender, race, ethnicity, na*onality
o The state
o Society is fundamental to the way the economy works
KEY CONCEPTS OF INSTITUTIONS
- Defini*ons
o “seRled habits of thought” – Thorstein Veblen
o “rules of conduct” – John R Commons
o “durable social structures based in rules, norms and/or cultural beliefs” – W
Richard ScoR
- Characteris*cs
o Basis of stable paRerns of interac*ons; reason why society is so stable isn’t
because of the free market, but ins*tu*ons provide stability
o Have the appearance of naturalness
o Formal or informal
▪ Formal: the state, corporate governance, educa*on systems, the stock
market, use of banks
▪ Informal: gender, race, logics of corporate organisa*on
- Basic Societal ins*tu*ons:
General Religion Corpora*on Gender Race
Types
Specific Protestant ethic Western Dual breadwinner Slavery;
Forms and capitalism; corpora*on; (both in the Apartheid;
Islamic finance Japanese workplace)/ US prison as a
Keiretsu; female care (US); labor market
Korean Chaebol Male bw/ ins*tu*on;
female care (FRG); Racial
Dual bw/ state care occupa*onal
(Sweden) segrega*on
KEY CONCEPTS OF EMBEDDEDNESS
- Economic ac*vity is shaped by, and dependent on, non-economic social rela*ons
o Economic ac*on is embedded in social networks and social ins*tu*ons
- Not just individuals ra*onally maximising u*lity in market exchange, but
o Economic ac*on shaped by cultural and poli*cal ins*tu*ons
o Individual iden**es shaped by family and communi*es, rela*ons of power
(class, race, gender), ideas and goals other than maximising u*lity
o That’s why you get German firms ac*ng differently to American firms,
because they’re embedded in their ins*tu*ons and cultural beliefs
,KEY CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM
- The economy is cons*tuted through the social and poli*cal
o Social and poli*cal ins*tu*ons not separate from economy; they’re
fundamental to the economy
o Economy is built based upon socie*es and ins*tu*ons
- Ideas, ins*tu*ons and ideologies provide meanings that are assigned to events,
people and social rela*ons
o Shape goals, means and prac*ces
o Socially constructed ins*tu*ons: race and gender, the purpose of
corpora*ons, na*onal ins*tu*ons
- There is no natural form of market economy
- Different na*onal economies have developed along dis*nct trajectories
o Based on different cultures, ideologies and ins*tu*ons
- Some economies marke*zed than others, but none is more natural than another
- Social interac*on ! rou*nes, rules and shared understandings
o Rou*nes, rules and shared understandings become “social facts” or cultural
ins*tu*ons
o Taken for granted understandings of the way things are
- Cultural ins*tu*ons passed down to subsequent genera*ons ! become seemingly
objec*ve to reality
o Cultural beliefs of race and gender doesn’t seem formal or has any real effect
but it does, like gender wage gap
- Regionally: different ins*tu*ons ! dis*nct development trajectories
- Historical
o Gender and race in the labour market
▪ Social construc*on of gender: men are beRer than women in the
workplace so there is a process of gender discrimina*on and bias
▪ Gender gap / gender earnings ra*os where men were earning much
more than women ** gender/race discrimina*on topic for coursework
essay
▪ Tested that women are more skilled than men and do beRer in school
and university, but s*ll there is this social construct of them doing
worse than men
▪ Study in trying to get a job; applying for a job with black sounding
name vs white sounding name – white people automa*cally get the
call back – there is systema*c discrimina*on in gender and race. It
happens in all corpora*ons at low levels and has cumula*ve nega*ve
effects
o Logics of the corpora*on
- Cross-na*onal
o Compara*ve ins*tu*onal analysis
, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
- There are no essen*al male or female characteris*cs
o Inequality and occupa*onal segrega*on not a result of innate differences
o It’s all a social construc*on
- Gender is not determined by biological difference
o Bodily material is the same for females and males, except for hormones and
sex organs
o Male and female genitalia develop from the same fetal *ssues
o Combina*ons of incongruent genes, genitalia and hormones are common
o Much more fluid construc*on in present day
- The main difference between men and women is testosterone, but even this does
not exclusively determine behaviour
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE
- Race is not a gene*cally or biologically meaningful concept
o Race is constructed through cogni*ve schemas, cultural frames and poli*cal
projects
o No such thing as innate, biological racial difference
- Biological features through to delineate racial groups (ex. Skin colour, hair texture,
facial features) do not co-vary
o Sets of features for certain races we have constructed and aligned, they’re
made up and not real biological differences
o They vary independently
o Different traits exhibit dis*nct paRerns across geography
- Racial categories vary across place and over *me
- The range of socio-historical varia*on in racial difference cannot be explained via
biology
o Biology will not explain the outward appearance of race
COMPARATIVE INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS
- Comparing the ins*tu*onal configura*on of na*onal economies
- European social model vs Anglo liberal model
o An old dis*nc*on
- Varie*es of capitalism (VoC) model
o A new, influen*al theore*cal approach
o Heavily economis*c (ra*onal choice)
o Cri*cized for being too sta*c and proposing an oversimplified binary model of
capitalism
o Economis*c, tries to describe ins*tu*ons in a ra*onal way
o ** used in BBC tutorial video
