SOCI4063: Organizations and SocietyChapter 2: Studying the World of Work

In the Social Organization of Work 5th edition, by Hodson and SullivanInstructor: Song Yang

Topics

TECHNIQUES OF ANALYSIS

UNITS OF ANALYSIS

PROBLEMS IN STUDYING WORK

TECHNIQUES OF ANALYSIS

ETHNOGRAPHIES

CASE STUDIES

SAMPLE SURVEYS

Valid and reliable method

Validity: the extent to which an instrument

yields an accurate information about the

subjects

Reliability: the extent to which an instrument yield

the same results when used repeatedly or used by different researchers.

Ethnographies

Participant observation

Nonparticipant observation

Experimental bias

Hawthorne effect

Ethnography

• Ethnographies of work is a careful analysis of a work situation written by a knowledgeable observer after many months and years of observation.

Participant observation

Observers become workers to produce a narrative account of work, the content of work and the human interactions on the job.

limitations

• Observers can only study a few jobs, • Job settings can be atypical, not representative of

general work environment• Observations can be biased due to different background,

pre-disposition, or experiences

Nonparticipant observation

Observers remain overt non-participants, watching workers to do their jobs and the interactions among them.

A famous nonparticipant observation of the Western Electric Company in 1939, formal rules and informal rules about productivity.

Non-participant observation allows sociologists to study work that is impossible to study being a participant observant.

Limitation: experimental bias – human subject under studies, knowing that they are under the study, can alter their behaviors.

Hawthorne effect

Scholars in factories try to use lightening increase to elevate worker’s productivity.

Workers with an increase in their lightening experience productivity increases,

Workers without an increase in their lightening also see their productivity increases.

The very fact the workers are aware that they are being studied makes them work harder than they do without human attention.

Case Studies

Case study brings multiple perspectives to understanding work and workplaces, such as the views of supervisors, customers, suppliers, unions leaders, and workers themselves.

Case study also uses multiple methods to collect evidences, such as written documents, interviews (structured, semi-structured, or complete unstructured), and observations.

Employer’s consent and cooperation

Problematic cases are hostile labor relations, suspects of watch groups, environmentalists, which are ironically of great interest to the sociologist.

Sample Surveys

A survey is conducted by asking a uniform set of questions of a systematic sample of people.

Respondents: those who answer the questions

sample: a selection of respondent that intends to represent the population from which the sample is drawn.

Questionnaire: a collection of standardized questions.

Sample Surveys

• Three methods for conducting questionnaire surveys• Personal interviews• Telephone interviews• Self-administered questionnaire

surveys

Sample Surveys

• Exemplars (common sources for many important surveys)• Current Population Survey (CPS)• American Community Survey• National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS)• Current Employment Statistics Survey• National Organizations Survey (NOS)• Panel Study of Income Dynamic (PSID)• Ad-health • General Social Survey (GSS from 1972 to

current)

Sample Surveys: advantages and disadvantages Sample bias

Selection bias: respondents only represent a portion of

population

Refusal: those who refuse to answer the entire or certain

questions are common in many important dimensions

(refusal-induced bias)

Response errors: respondents unable or

unwilling to provide accurate information.

Surveys are highly generalizable – its findings can be applied to a

wide range of work settings,

UNITS OF ANALYSIS

The worker and the labor force

Industry

Occupation

Workplaces

Other units of analysis

THE WORKER AND THE LABOR FORCE

¡ Workers are analyzed in terms of their characteristics, some of which are ascribed (sex, race, age etc), and some of which are achieved (education, skills, and work experiences).

INDUSTRY

Industry: a branch of economic activity devoted to the production of a particular good or service.

Industries vary in

• Government regulation• Skills and technology involved• Domestic and foreign market competition• Prospective (decline or growing industry)• Average pay (hourly pay from $9.50 in leisure and hospitality

to $27.54 in utility in 2006).

INDUSTRIAL CODE: NAICS

NAICS: North American Industry Classification System

It classifies 1,170 industries based on the activity in which they are primarily engaged.

Establishments in the similar raw materials input, similar capital equipment, and similar labor are classified under the same industrial code.

INDUSTRY: FOUR-FIRM CONCENTRATION RATIO

Four-firm concentration ratio is the proportion of all production, sales, or receipts accounted for by the largest four firms within an industry.

It varies across different industries, and indicates the extent to which the industry is monopolized by large firms.

The four-firm concentration ratio for flour milling is 53.6%, for breakfast cereal is 78.4%.

OCCUPATION

Occupation is a cluster of job-related activities constituting a single economic role that is usually directed toward making a living.

Blue-collar/white-collar occupations

Standard Occupational Classification

Occupational Prestige

BLUE-COLLAR/WHITE-COLLAR OCCUPATIONS

Blue-collars do mostly manual labor work

White-collars work in clean environment that allow them to wear white collar shirt

• Police is in blue-collar, but chief of police has more power and prestige than many white collars

• Technicians, being the core of the white collars, work mostly with machineries, which resemble blue collar work conditions.

• Pink collar jobs, such as nurse, secretaries, elementary school teachers.

Such dichotomy of occupation is outdated as

STANDARD OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION

Standard occupational classification (SOC) classifies workers at four levels – 1) 23

major groups, 2) 96 minor groups, 3) 449 broad

occupations, and 4) 821 detailed occupations

A sociologist would be classified as 25-1067, as 1) 25 denoting education/training, 2) 1000 denoting postsecondary

teachers, 3)60 referring to social science teacher, and 4)67

denoting sociology teachers.

OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE

Occupational prestige is also called NORC scale because

NORC (National Opinion Research Center) conducted survey to ask respondent to rate occupations in terms of how much standing members of that occupation have in the community.

The rating is then transformed into a 100 point ranking scale.

Supreme court justice receives the highest occupational prestige 89, shoe shiner having the lowest 27.

Income, education, and occupational prestige together constitute a Social Economic Status indicator (SES indicator)

WORKPLACES

ESTABLISHMENT

FIRM

PARENT COMPANY

SUBSIDIARIES

CONGLOMERATE

MULTINATIONAL COMPANY

INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATE

ESTABLISHMENT

Work establishment refers to a particular physical work site, in which work takes place.

Some employing organizations have only one establishment (UARK Credit Union),

Others have many establishments (Toyota)

FIRMS¡ Firms refer to all employing organizations. Firms encapsulate

work establishment, some firm has only one work establishment, others have many establishments.

PARENT COMPANY/SUBSIDIARY

Parent companies are firms that own other firms

Subsidiaries are firms that are owned by other companies

Example: ABC’s parent company is The Walt Disney Company, which is parent company for ABC/ESPN.

CONGLOMERATE

Conglomerate refers to the firms that own other

firms that operate in different unrelated

industries.

General Electric (GE) not only manufacture electric and electronic products, italso owns GE Finance, and NBC television network.

GE is a conglomerate.

MNC

¡ Multinational Company refers to companies that own subsidiary firms or establishments that are located in different countries.

INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATE

¡ Interlocking directorate occurs when members of corporate board of directors serving on the boards of multiple corporations. Thuscorporations sharing the same or the same set of board of directors are linked together.

PROBLEMS IN STUDYING WORK

¡ Lack of information

¡ Nonmarket work such as homemakers

¡ Neighbors who exchange labors

¡ Illegal products or services, drugs, prostitutions, gambling.

¡ Hard-to-Measure Characteristics

¡ Job commitment (absenteeism)

¡ Underemployment (work hours)

¡ Productivity for service workers (number of customers served, or satisfaction of customers)