Suchergebnisse

Workplace authority in contemporary contexts is increasingly being constituted through online automatons, internet platforms whose logic is diametrically opposed to the notion of hierarchical knowledge. They govern the organization of work and derive legitimacy from three principles: (1) the streaming of information into a network composed of all workers; (2) the transparency of the information and measurements they provide to workers; and (3) their automatic self-regulation, which obscures the role of management in their design. Via interviews and on-site observation in a large computer chain store, I examined how one automaton controls workers through a complex system of sales contests. To lure workers into active engagement with the automaton, management offers hefty prizes to contest winners and also strives to legitimate the automaton's operation by presenting the contests as fair and just. Through the behavioural scripts inscribed into it, the automaton fosters belief in markets as efficient means of resource allocation and promotes self-interested behaviour and arm's-length social ties. Smart artefacts like this automaton, which foster belief and generate authority through workers' prescribed engagement with them, are, I argue, emerging as effective managerial tools in a variety of work contexts, part of a pattern of increasing automation of workplace authority.

This study focuses on control and autonomy among an emerging class of knowledge workers in sales, from the employees' perspective. The sales engineers studied were not only technical experts, they also worked on their own in client's plants over extended periods of time, where they customised the emergent technology offered by their company. How did management control the work of the sales engineers? This paper will attempt to answer this question using ethnographic and interview material collected at a small engineering boutique. Market control emerges in this study as a central control mechanism. The sales engineers became a part of a quasi‐firm arrangement, composed of them and the client's engineers and managers, who supervised their work. Management effort to ensure detailed documentation emerges as a second control mechanism. The necessity to document created a dilemma for the sales engineers. They perceived documentation as a managerial tool designed to enhance control and limit their autonomy, but also as a professional norm.

What conflict resolution mechanisms do democratic worker cooperatives generate and to what extent could these mechanisms be called democratic? This case study tries to address these questions by examining both conflict and conflict resolution in a democratic organization, a 66-year-old taxi cooperative. The conflicts presented stem from three main sources: ethnic origin, local division of labor, and "class" affiliation. These conflicts are resolved through different processes, ranging from a joke-telling ritual to a formal tribunal composed of elected judges. Discussion centers on unique aspects of conflict resolution in a democratic worker cooperative and their implications for studies of conflict resolution in nondemocratic firms.

This article focuses on a trade union-owned commercial vehicle assembler operating in Israel since the mid-20th century. The article analyses the transformation of the case study firm's management, employment and work organization, the outcome of which is a firm concerned with profit, not employee welfare, as it was initially. The article explores how and why this transformation occurred. Secondary and primary data research is used in the analysis, consisting of archival and interview data respectively. This analysis reveals three distinct periods in the transformation, with an old firm, a transitional firm and a new firm. The research indicates that these periods correlate to the changes of political economy and institutional configurations within which the case study firm is embedded, suggesting that such embeddedness is a key issue for the firm and its orientation to welfare or profit.