Work Attitudes A Sociological View

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Work Attitudes A Sociological View
MICHAEL ROSE
ESRC Work Attitudes Measurement Network (WAM-net)
Seminar Series Launch mini-conference, University
of Bath, England 12 October 2007
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ATTITUDES IN A SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT

• How are work-related attitudes distributed
  throughout society (by sex, age, social system,
  etc.)?
• In particular, how are they distributed between
  key occupations?
• Still more particularly, how are they
  distributed with regard to skill levels and skill
  types?
• What are the major trends over time in work
  related attitudes?
• In what demonstrable ways do work attitudes
  affect behaviour in the labour market and in
  workplaces?

Implications for method? (A personal view!)
quantitative analysis is indispensable for the
above purposes
for (fully) understanding processes of attitude
formation and change, however, qualitative
investigation often more appropriate
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CLASSIFYING ATTITUDES A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW
Level of commitment (work ethic)
to paid employment or self-employment
centrality of paid work
discretionary effort, optional ingenuity,
organisational citizen behaviour
career outlook
Orientation to paid work
sex role norms, breadwinning ideology
rationale of employment (dominant reason for
working at all)
job facet priorities
Attachment level
job satisfaction
organisational commitment
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YOU MEAN PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC ?
NO!
The object of this book briefly is, to
re-inculcate these old-fashioned but wholesome
lessons-which perhaps cannot be too often urged,
that youth must work in order to enjoy, that
nothing creditable can be accomplished without
application and diligence, that the student must
not be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them
by patience and perseverance, and that, above
all, he must seek elevation of character,
without which capacity is worthless and worldly
success is naughtSAMUEL SMILES Self-Help
GIVE ME A W! GIVE ME AN O! GIVE ME R! GIVE ME A K!
I want an E! I want a T! I want an H, an I, and a
C !!
W-O-R-K E-T-H-I-C !
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1968-73 Strike rates in developed capitalist
countries shoot up
Number, scale, duration of strikes rose
Novelty of grievance activity

• wildcat or unofficial, rendering union leaders
  more militant
• qualitative demands as well as bread and butter
  issues calls for industrial democracy and end
  to alienating mass-production tasks
•  
• more militant methods - the general strike,
  rolling strike, mass picketing, workplace
  occupations

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Hippie counter-culture
TUNE IN! TURN ON! DROP OUT!
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DANIEL BELL (b.1919)

• In the post-industrial new order, Work will be
  de-sacralizedlosing its former element of
  moral compulsion
• 2. Work motivations based on provisioning or
  some other economic/instrumental logic will be
  displaced by a quest for self-actualisation and
  expressivity

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BREAKING THE MOULD
Back to Victorian values
Social security widen mesh of net
Increase incentives in labour market
Support entrepreneurship and Individual striving
for success
Belittle failure
Victorian values or Victorian compulsion?
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A declining work ethic?
Current employees saying continue working ()
MEN
WOMEN
SCELI (1985, n3,650)
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66
67
EiB (1992, n3,469
68
65
65
WiB (2000, N2,132)
Current employees saying no to desired
job change GIVE UP PAID WORK ()
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BHPS Wave 9 (1999, n7,669)
74
71
72
BHPS Wave 9 (2005, n7,305)
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Orientation to work how well validated?
Achievement orientation (go-getting)

career pursuit is core rationale of work
promotion is preferred job facet
Most important reason 2 Second most important
reason 1 Not important 0
Most important reason 2 Second most important
reason 1 Not important 0
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Association between achievement orientation and
work aspirations
Objection!
COMMON METHOD BIAS inflation?
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Validation achievers work more hours
contrast between women achievers and women
non-achievers is sharper
than contrast between men achievers and men
non-achievers
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Validation Income growth of achievers
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Validation subjective well-being
Proportion saying satisfaction with life as a
whole is BETTER this year than last year
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(No Transcript)
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Founding of the sociology of work and employment
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The Mayoite Approach

• Number One Problem of C20 industrialism is anomie
• Anomie is an illness of societies absence of
  agreed norms of behaviour, widely accepted value
  systems
• Solution make large corporations a substitute
  social focus
• Role of managersintegrate workers
• Training of managerssocial sciences
• Bonus happy workers make productive workers

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Job satisfaction in occupations UK 2004, WERS
data
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Job satisfaction levels among professionals - Why
such sharp contrasts in league table position?
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What ties the foregoing results together most
clearly? What is the single most influential
factor?
Occupation, SKILL LEVEL, SKILL TYPE, and SKILL
SITUATION
Work ethic by highest qualification Go-getting by
? Job satisfaction and 1. Skills discrepancy 2.
Skills stability
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Top 10 occupational groupings (SOC () Minor
Groups) ranked by mean go-getting score
By the way, theres no correlation of go-getting
with work ethic Spearman corr. ccupational ranks
for go-getting and NFC are 0.03
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A dissenting view

• Underlying conflict of interests (bourgeoisie v.
  proletariat) produces proletarian revolutionary
  class consciousness IOTA paradigm
• IIdentification of identical interest
• OOpposition of employer interest
• TTotalisation of opposed interests
• AAlternative society (socialism) envisioned and
  pursued

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Vilfredo Pareto swordsman, connoisseur of fine
wine, theorist of élitesand no doubt elitist
but far too posh to be a Fascist
log N log A m log x

• First economist to perceive serious limits to
  rationality
• In life of societies, non-logical action
  dominates, mostly
• Residues (non-logical sentiments) drive actions
• Derivations (post-hoc rationalisations) then
  justify the actions
• Pursuit of utility (well-being) is usually a
  disguised pursuit of preferences

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Meta- theory how to account for patterns in
behaviour? how best to link micro-macro levels?
Assumptions
action (product of intention) must be
distinguished from behaviour (which has
affective or normative sources)
rationality (coherence of intention) should be
given first refusal as an explanation of action
attribution of rationality must allow for other
types of influence it cant explain everything
(c.f. Beckers economic imperialism doesnt
need to, and shouldnt try to
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Attitudes as vocabularies of motive
Notion originating with C.W.Mills (ASR 1940)
All accounts of action, whether imputations or
avowals to be seen as a) socially/historically
situated, b) potentially self-serving or
ritualistic (socially or politically correct)
This requires intensive study of linguistic
declarations and exchanges, Requiring qualitative
strategies of enquiry such as conversation analysi
s
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Attitudes as Well-Being Outcomes Job
Satisfaction as an Aspect of Social Inequality
Class, consumption, status/social prestige, power
Anomalous ranking in job satisfaction league of
occupations like hairstyling/beautician
offsets low position in other rankings?
However, broadly occupation position on the
ladder follows other systematic inequalities
might even say the corporate fat-cats enjoy
a psychic rent