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Summary The Social Organization of Work, ISBN: 9781133715238 industrial sociology (SOCL2624)
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Summary on chapter 3 of industrial sociology
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UNIT 3- Meaningful work: Satisfaction and Alienation Not everyone experiences work in similar ways
Who you are (gender, race, age, professional status, tenure) and
your socialization for work will determine your unique trajectory.
Job-worker fit – worker’s values and job characteristics.
Intrinsic and extrinsic factors
Intrinsic rewards – autonomy, creativity, opportunity positive
relations with co-workers, pride, enthusiasm, passion
(“organisational citizenship behaviour”).
Extrinsic rewards – pay, fringe benefits, job security, status.
Notion of “commitment” changes over the years.
Absenteeism, quitting, resistance and sabotage (Veblen –
“conscious withdrawal of efficiency”, theft (dishonestly
claiming expenses, corruption, etc.)
What is job satisfaction?
Job satisfaction is the summary evaluation that people make of
their work.
It can be positive or negative.
They can find their work satisfying and highly engaging or
dissatisfied and utterly meaningless.
People’s levels of job satisfaction are the result of their job tasks,
the characteristics of the organizations in which they work,
individual differences in needs and values, and the religious and
cultural values through which they understand the role of work in
their lives.
Alienation: Occurs when work provides inadequately for human
needs for identity and meaning. When work is alienating you only
do it for economic necessity not for intrinsic pleasures.
It can be defined as the social and emotional separation between
one’s identity and one’s life experiences.
Self-actualization: Occurs when work contributes to the fulfilment
of these broader human needs. A self-actualizing job provides for
material needs and you want to continue the work anyway for its
own rewards.
, Theories of Alienation:
Karl Marx on Alienation
As the world of material goods increases in value, the value placed
on individuals seems to diminish.
Industrial capitalism in its pursuit of profit led to the most wretched
living and working conditions in human history – “wage slavery”.
These conditions happened because workers were denied the
right to control their work activity and the products they produced.
Alienation starts at work and spills over into society too.
4 aspects of alienation:
Alienated from the products of their labor – work becomes a
means to an end (to be paid) as there is no direct link to the
products they produce.
Alienated from the process of work as they are not in control
of pace, techniques, timing, tools of work – becoming
emotionally separated from their work (think of the assembly
line and the repetitive nature of work).
Alienated from the creative activity that is unique to our
species being.
Alienated from others through isolated endeavor – not part of
an integrated team.
Subjective experiences of Alienation- Melvin Seeman (1993)
The Erosion of Meaning
Powerlessness
Cannot control events in one’s life (Marx – alienation
from products)
Self-estrangement
Lack of rewarding and engaging activities (Marx –
alienation in the process of work)
Meaninglessness
Cannot adequately predict the future – efforts seem
worthless (Marx – alienation from human creativity)
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