Business, Management and Economics > Work and Employment
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One of the greatest impacts of Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital is the discovery of a ‘control imperative’ within the capitalist production process. Whereas his equation of capitalist domination and Taylorism has been heavily criticized early on, the capabilities of the expanded use of digital technologies at the workplace have raised the question of whether a Taylorist mode of control is on the advance once again. The article challenges this perspective by addressing managerial problems that go beyond the problem to transform labour power into actual labour. Taking up Sohn-Rethel’s theory of ‘dual economics’, we argue that the necessity to reconcile contradictory requirements of the ‘economics of the market’ and the ‘economics of production’ poses an equally crucial challenge for management. Whereas that ‘problem of reconciliation’ remained latent in the Fordist era, tensions between the two logics of economics have now increasingly become a problem to solve within the course of controlling the labour process. Drawing on our own research on ‘the inner marketization of the firm’ over the last 15 years, we discuss ‘indirect control’ as a mode of control that precisely addresses the problem of reconciliation and considers recent changes in the course of digitalization. On the basis of our empirical findings, we describe the contradictory forms of activating and restricting subjectivity in the digital workplace and its implications for the legitimation of managerial power and capitalist domination.
This article sets out to explore whether the amendment to the ILO’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work which, in June 2022, added a ‘safe and healthy work environment’ to the principles and rights already included, might help to address conditions leading to the disproportionate burden of work-related death, injury and disease estimated to occur in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). It does so by drawing on the findings of an extensive review of the literature to examine evidence for the influence and operation of (a) global and national regulatory standards and interventions; and (b) private standards and their role in influencing practices in export-oriented work. It situates its examination of this evidence in relation to the economic, social and regulatory contexts in which work and its poor outcomes for safety and health are experienced in many LMICs, and hence in relation to the challenges that confront the effective utilisation of regulatory action. The article argues that these contextual challenges are formidable, and evidence of the operational means of securing sustainable improvements to work health and safety in the face of them remains incomplete. But it concludes that the 2022 amendment could contribute a useful driver for the considerable strategic orchestration and leadership required to achieve such effective utilisation if, within the ILO, there were a tripartite consensus concerning its desirability.
Expansion of the platform economy has given rise to a paradox in the literature on gig work: Given capital’s imposition of algorithmic controls, why do so many platform workers express support and appreciation for gig work, viewing it as enhancing their autonomy? Approaches toward this question have advanced numerous explanations, such as gamification, neoliberal norms, and entrepreneurial culture. We find these efforts only partially successful, as they fail to explain why ideological incorporation so readily succeeds. We argue that responses to gig work are a function of the class positions that gig workers hold in the wider society, which lead to distinct orientations that they bring to gig work. For workers with a foothold in the middle class, gig work provides access to job rewards that may no longer be available via the conventional economy alone. They consequently experience gig work as a labour of affirmation – a stark contrast with the experience of those gig workers who hold subordinate positions in the class structure. Interview data with 70 respondents in the ride-hail, grocery-shopping and food-delivery sectors supports this approach. Consent to gig work is strongest among our better-off respondents, who hold more secure positions in the conventional economy and use gig work as a culturally-sanctioned mechanism of class reproduction. The implication is that class-based divisions among the platform workforce warrant greater attention than labour process theory has allowed.
Two frequently researched factors in the tax compliance literature are perceptions of fairness and trust. Nevertheless, what is known about the relationship between the two variables is limited. Different findings in the literature have encouraged further research. This study aims to examine the relationship between fairness and trust in tax compliance and the role of these variables with multivariate statistical tests. In this direction, survey data were collected from 540 self-employed taxpayers in Istanbul/Turkey. As a result of the multivariate statistical tests carried out by dividing the data in two, the following conclusions were reached: (1) in line with the findings in the literature, perceptions of tax fairness and trust in tax authorities are essential determinants of tax compliance intention; (2) tax fairness positively affects trust in authorities and trust in authorities positively affects tax fairness; (3) both the mediating and moderating role of trust in tax authorities in the relationship between perceptions of tax fairness and tax compliance intention are confirmed; and (4) although there is a mediating effect of perceptions of tax fairness in the relationship between trust in tax authorities and tax compliance intention, the existence of a moderating effect could not be detected.
This chapter is the first of two that examine the agency and voice of workers. The chapter puts forward two dimensions to facilitate a mapping of worker agency and voice. These dimensions are: the form of agency – ranging from (informal) meanings, norms or beliefs via informal practice to formal practices; and the ends to which the agency is applied – whether it is agency that is mainly resistive to the employer or agency that is supportive of employer aims. This chapter focuses on worker agency in the creation of meaning before examining workers’ informal practices. In so doing, the chapter analyses meaningful work, organizational citizenship, discretionary effort, organizational commitment, flow, communities of coping and informal resistance, in terms of limiting effort and defending autonomy.
This chapter is the second of two that examine the agency and voice of workers. The chapter’s mapping follows two dimensions: the form of agency – ranging from (informal) meanings, norms or beliefs via informal practice to formal practices; and the ends to which the agency is applied – whether that agency is mainly resistive to the employer or is supportive of employer aims. This chapter focuses on formal voice structures and mechanisms. It begins with an analysis of employer-initiated voice mechanisms. It then focuses on the following worker-initiated voice structures and mechanisms: social media campaigns, worker collectivities, civil society organizations, labour unions, statutory workplace democracy, worker cooperatives and labour voice in global supply chains.
This chapter introduces the book as an analytical celebration of the sociology of contemporary work. The chapter defines what is meant by ‘the sociology of contemporary work’. It then goes on to outline the key threads in the book: the focus on service work, knowledge work and platform (gig) work; the sociological imagination at work; the importance of debate; and the importance of clear communication.
This chapter focuses on inequalities of opportunity: systematic differences in the likelihood that different groups of people (for instance people born to working-class or upper-class parents) are able to occupy employment positions that give beneficial outcomes, such as high income. The chapter examines, in turn, four types of inequality of opportunity: overall social (im)mobility, barriers related to gender, barriers related to ethnicity, and global inequality between countries as a context for international migration. The chapter weaves in examples from service work, knowledge work and platform work.
This chapter begins by laying out the building blocks needed to understand the key patterns of rising inequality of income. Then it outlines those patterns of rising income inequality, both in broad historical terms and in more detail regarding changes in recent decades. The chapter goes on to consider the causes of the rise in income inequality. The last section of the chapter examines why rising income inequality matters – both in terms of health and social consequences and in terms of the issues that it raises for our understanding of class in contemporary society.
At the heart of the sociology of work is the analysis of how work is organized. This is the core focus of this chapter. Key dimensions of work organization are outlined: division of labour, labour process, co-worker relations, control and individual job mobility (career). This allows the chapter to build up to consider different overall types of work organization. Here, a key contrast is shown between work organization along craft principles and Taylorized work organization. Debates are examined regarding how best to characterize work organization in contemporary service work, knowledge work and platform work.
