Toward a Phenomenology of Work

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Toward a Phenomenologyof Work

• Amy Lavender Harris
• Centre for Industrial Relations
• University of Toronto
• 9 November 2005

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• Next, we consider the impact of workforce skill
  on the portion of output created with IT support
  as shown in the second terms of Equations (2a)
  and (2b). First, in simple IT-worker systems,
  worker skill beyond the base level is not needed
  to operate IT and generate output so that ?psup
  1sub 2i/?s 0 holds. In sharp contrast, in
  complex IT-worker systems, the speed that a
  worker operating IT generates output depends
  heavily on the extent that worker skill exceeds
  the base level. For example, a highly skilled
  engineering specialist may generate more output
  volume per unit time from a CAD system than a
  lesser skilled worker operating the same
  technology. Specifically, while holding constant
  the size of the workforce (w), IT accessibility
  (x), and the IT choice (i), the volume of output
  in a complex IT-worker system is a non-decreasing
  function of worker skill (?psup 2sub 2i/?s
  0). However, increasing worker skill while
  holding other inputs fixed leads to diminishing
  returns so that ?sup 2psup 2sub 2i/ ?sup
  2S lt 0.
• (Napoleon, Karen Cheryl Gaimon, 2004. The
  Creation of Output and Quality in Services A
  Framework to Analyze Information
  Technology-Worker Systems. Production and
  Operations Management, 13(3) 245-260)

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• During my discussions with these office workers,
  I sometimes asked them to draw pictures that
  represented their felt sense of their job
  experience before and after the conversion to the
  new computer system. Frequently these pictures
  functioned as a catalyst, helping them to
  articulate feelings that had been implicit and
  hard to define. These simple drawings convey
  feelings that often elude verbal expression. The
  condition of being tied to the machine
  represents a new kind of confinement, not just
  the spatial confinement of having to sit in one
  place for long stretches, but an interior
  confinement. These clerks, driven into the
  confines of the laboring body, have seen their
  tasks shorn of opportunities for using
  interpersonal and substantive skills. The
  principal challenge of their current jobs is an
  effort of endurance. It is a sullen effort,
  subtly corrosive, felt in diffuse interior
  discomforts, rarely dramatic, but persistent and
  inescapable.
• (Zuboff, Shoshana, 1988. In the Age of the Smart
  Machine The Future of Work and Power. New York
  Basic Books. See pages 141-150.)

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A Short Caricature of Empiricism

• the project of empiricism is to make
  observations, to classify and order what is
  observed and to make general statements about
  observed or calculated relations between
  observables. (Marsden, 1982 233, after Zubaida
  (1974))
• All knowledge is a posteriori, that is, derived
  from experience or experiment (many empiricists
  deny the legitimacy of a priori knowledge or
  knowledge derived through pure reason)
• The validity of any claim is measured by the
  ability to test it (in this sense, theories are
  the second-order products of hypotheses tested in
  the field theories subsequently derived are
  subject to further testing hence the claim that
  a good theory is one we can test empirically)
• non-observable and non-measurable phenomena are
  generally excluded at its core, empiricism
  reflects a materialist orientation
• In the sciences and social sciences, rigorous
  is generally interpreted to mean empirical the
  scientific method is generally equated with an
  empirical method and an empiricist orientation

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Criticisms of Empiricism

• There is a world of difference between the terms
  empirical and empiricism. The term
  empirical refers to a battery of very useful
  research methods. The term empiricism refers to
  a restrictive methodological doctrine which
  claims that researchers may only use empirical
  methods. (Mende, 2005189)
• IR scholars, among them Richard Marsden (1982)
  and John Godard (1989, 1994), have argued that
  industrial relations theory and practice is
  doctrinally (or at least epistemologically)
  empiricist.
• According to sociologist Louis Althusser, in
  empirical research there are objects (real
  things) and essences (abstractions, ultimately
  theories) which researchers purport to extract
  from them. Yet, these essences are not actually
  derived from objects but are themselves products
  of thought theoretical objects which
  appropriate and conceal the real object.
  Knowledge is produced, not discovered the
  empiricist production of knowledge always occurs
  within an ideology. (viz Marsden, 1982)
• In this critique, empiricists might be said to
  play a sort of shell game, infusing objects with
  the very theories they then pretend to extract
  from them. Another way of putting this is to say
  that the answers a researcher gets are dependent
  upon the questions s/he asks.

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IR theory faces a dual quandary

• Deficiency A fetish for empirical approaches and
  a fixation on description, classification, and
  the quantification of the visible has left IR
  theory partial, primitive (Adams, 1988 5), and
  reliant on uncritical interdisciplinarity.
  (Walker (1977 310)
• Duplicity The doctrine of empiricism in IR has
  concealed its ideological underpinnings (the
  theory-ladenness of objects and essences as the
  proverbial elephant in the corner), thus posing a
  further obstacle to the development of genuinely
  critical IR theories.

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Whither IR?

• Low/middle-range theorizing and
  generalization/hypothesis building Give up and
  accept an atheoretical or thinly theoretical IR
  focused on circumstantial relationships (Dunlops
  systems model, KKMs rational choice model
  industrial relations are).
• - and/or -
• Higher-level theorization What should a theory
  of IR look like? Risks carving up IR into
  theoretical territories across which academic
  antagonists wield their warring axiologies in
  infinite regress (e.g., Hymans
  conflict-critical approach (1994 see Hansen,
  2002), feminist/gendered approaches (Hansen and
  others), Marsden (1982), labour process theory,
  Frankfurt school, etc. industrial relations
  is).
• - and/or -
• Meta-theory (theory about theory explores
  assumptions underlying any given theoretical
  perspective) One asks, What might a philosophy
  of IR look like?
• Note the three levels of theorization are
  influenced by Hansen (2002) who credits Hyman
  (1994)
• Note also the are/is distinction comes from
  Marsden (1982)

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What might a philosophy of IR look like?

• It would ask epistemological questions What does
  it mean to know something? Is there any a priori
  knowledge? What are the limits of knowledge? How
  do we get to knowing?
• It would acknowledge ontological questions
  What is the nature of reality and of being in it?
  How many ways are there of being in the world?
  How many worlds are there?
• It would seek to uncover world views about the
  nature of knowledge, reality, meaning, and being.
• It might begin by examining philosophies of work.

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Philosophies of WorkThe means of production and
the production of meaning

• A longstanding area of philosophical inquiry that
  is largely overlooked by IR scholars.
• Many philosophers write about work, but the most
  influential contributions are generally
  attributed to Hegel and Marx.
• Both held that work is an essential part of human
  existence it is a rational and distinctively
  human activity that creates the way of life of
  the human being and, at the same time, transforms
  the world and human relationships. (Kovacs,
  1986 196)
• Philosopher of education John White challenges
  the notion of the centrality of work (and the
  inherent work ethic) advanced by thinkers from
  Marx to Hannah Arendt instead, he cites
  Nietzsche and Bertrand Russells critiques of
  industriousness in building his theory of
  autonomous and heteronomous work in relation
  to personal flourishing (White, 1997)
• The question of alienation is present throughout
  philosophical analyses of work.
• Yet, missing or poorly developed is a clear
  analysis of the self (particularly with respect
  to autonomy and cooperation) and of the nature
  and meaning of work itself. In other words, an
  ontology of work (and working) is needed.

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Toward a Phenomenology of Work

• A phenomenology of work is one element in a
  philosophy of work within IR.
• A phenomenology of work asks, What is the
  meaning of work? What does it mean to do
  work? How are being and work(ing) related?
  How does alienation characterize the experience
  of work?
• Kovacs (1996) holds that work is a basic mode of
  being in the world it is a way of self-creation
  and a mode of forming and transforming the world
  and nature. (196). Kovacs also holds that work
  has both personal and social dimensions
  phenomenologically speaking, it is both
  subjective and intersubjective.
• Research in IRHR applying phenomenological
  methods and approaches includes Shoshana Zuboffs
  well-known In the Age of the Smart Machine
  (1988), Francis Penn on the phenomenology of
  skill (1994), work-nonwork conflict and the
  phenomenology of time (Thompson Bunderson,
  2001), among others.
• My research begins where these accounts leave
  off. It considers how paying attention to
  phenomenological accounts might alter not only
  how we understand and organize work, but how the
  inclusion of a phenomenological approach might
  alter IR as a whole.

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A Phenomenological Analysis of Alienation

• A joining of Heideggerian phenomenology with
  Marxs concept of the alienated worker, read in
  large part through a philosophical analysis of
  technology.
• I am not the first person to suggest that Marxs
  concept of alienation might be read
  phenomenologically see Kovacs (1986), Eldred
  (2000) nor to suggest that alienation and
  technology are intertwined (see Laing, 1960
  Kateb, 1997).
• Marxian scholars (e.g., Rinehart, 1996) tend to
  reject any reading of alienation that departs
  from Marxs notions of class consciousness.
• However, a phenomenological analysis helps deepen
  as well as challenge Marxs views while taking
  the genealogy of IR seriously, and might help
  build a more solid place for a philosophy of work
  within IR.

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Alienated Labour

• Concepts of alienation have a long genealogy in
  philosophy and social political thought.
• Hegel held that the self was a historical and
  social creation and that alienation (and
  self-recovery) was part of a process of growth
  for individuals and society as a whole. Acts of
  work are both alienating to the self and offer
  the possibility of reconciliation.
• Diverging sharply from Hegel while retaining some
  of the same terms, Marxs concept of alienation
  arises as part of a materialist critique of
  industrial capitalism. In his early work Marx
  identifies five dimensions of alienated labour
  (see Rinehart, 1996)
• (1) estrangement from the products of ones
  labour
• (2) estrangement from the work process itself
  (when labour belongs to someone else)
• (3) self-estrangement (from self-expression and
  self- development)
• (4) estrangement from ones own essence of
  nature
• (5) estrangement of individuals from one
  another (e.g., by class)
• According to Marx, workers share an alienated
  consciousness of the effects of structural
  alienation their class consciousness is what
  will give rise to resistance and (perhaps)
  revolution.

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Heidegger and Alienation the Question
Concerning Technology

• Marxs concept of alienation bears striking
  similarity to Heideggers view that the essence
  of technology is the reduction of Beings to
  standing reserve.
• In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger
  distinguishes between techne (the bringing-forth
  of something out of itself, a revealing, in the
  form of the activities and skills of the
  craftsperson but also the work of the fine arts
  the bringing forth of the true into the
  beautiful) and the essence of technology (a
  challenging-forth, in which everything is ordered
  about to stand by and thereby reduced to
  standing reserve).
• The essence of technology permits only this one
  manner of revealing it buries and denies other
  ways of Being it is a kind of banishment of the
  self.
• While important differences exist between Marx
  and Heidegger (Heidegger almost never engaged
  with Marx, and Heideggers phenomenology is
  neither materialistic nor ideologically critical
  of capitalism), both raise important questions
  about how technology alters the experience of
  Being.

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Implications for Research on Work

• What is work? Is all work alienating? How might
  technologically mediated work exacerbate
  alienation?
• How is alienation experienced? How is it
  expressed? How is it subverted?
• Is abolishing alienated labour (e.g., Schwalbe,
  1986) a reasonable goal? As an HR practice? As
  part of a Marxist revolution?
• How might an understanding of alienation advance
  IR/HR theory? How might it advance its practice?

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Conclusion

• A phenomenological analysis of alienation
  contributes to the development of IR/HR theory in
  a variety of ways
• It provides insight into aspects of work that
  empirical approaches do not (and perhaps cannot)
  account for.
• It encourages us to take the lived experiences of
  workers seriously to see workers as something
  more than human capital, human resources or
  standing reserve and to think about the
  meanings of work.
• It requires a re-thinking of the perspectives and
  presumptions that inform our thinking and doing,
  whether as IR/HR practitioners or scholars.
• It seeks to integrate seemingly disparate corners
  of IR/HR research and thought (e.g., HRM, Marxian
  thought, questions about technology,
  phenomenological method, etc.) and in doing so
  seeks to both challenge and further them.
• It prompts consideration of the kinds of
  epistemological and ontological questions IR must
  tackle if it is to succeed as a discipline.

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Work \ werk \ n ME werk, work, fr. OE werc,
weorc

• Activity in which one exerts strength or
  faculties to do or perform something sustained
  physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles
  and achieve an objective or result the labour,
  task, or duty that is ones accustomed means of
  livelihood energy expended by natural phenomena
  something that results from the use or
  fashioning of a particular material structures
  in engineering or mining a place where
  industrial labour is carried on the working or
  moving parts of a mechanism something produced
  or accomplished by effort, exertion, or exercise
  of skill something produced by the exercise of
  creative talent or expenditure of creative
  effort artistic production performance of
  moral or religious acts the material or piece
  of material that is operated upon at any stage in
  the process of manufacture everything
  possessed, available, or belonging subjection
  to drastic treatment engaged in working
  having effect in process of preparation to
  bring to pass to set or keep in motion to
  solve by reasoning
• Source Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary,
  10th ed. (2002)

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Sources

• Adams, Roy, 1988. Desperately Seeking Industrial
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• Burston, Daniel, 1998. Laing and Heedegger on
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• Eldred, Michael, 2000. Capital and Technology
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• Mende, Jens, 2005. The Poverty of Empiricism.
  Informing Science Journal, Volume 8 189-210.
• Napoleon, Karen Cheryl Gaimon, 2004. The
  Creation of Output and Quality in Services A
  Framework to Analyze Information
  Technology-Worker Systems. Production and
  Operations Management, 13(3) 245-260.
• Rinehart, James W., 1996. The Tyranny of Work
  Alienation and the Labour Process. 3rd edition.
  Toronto Harcourt Brace Canada.
• Schwalbe, Michael L., 1986. The Psychosocial
  Consequences of Natural and Alienated Labor.
  Albany State University of New York Press.
• Waugh, William L., Jr., and Wesley W. Waugh,
  2004. Phenomenology and Public Administration.
  International Journal of Organization Theory and
  Behavior, 7(3) 405-432.
• White, John, 1997. Education and the End of Work
  A New Philosophy of Work and Learning. London
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• Zuboff, Shoshana, 1988. In the Age of the Smart
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Further Information

• This ongoing research is documented on-line at
• http//individual.utoronto.ca/alharris/phenomenolo
  gy_of_work.html
• See also related phenomenological field research
  on life and work at
• http//individual.utoronto.ca/alharris/life_and_wo
  rk.html