Steven Vallas | Northeastern University (original) (raw)

Papers by Steven Vallas

Contemporary Sociology, May 1, 1991

Research in the sociology of work, Dec 4, 2017

Work And Occupations, Jun 19, 2022

What mechanisms has Amazon deployed in its effort to control the labor of its warehouse employees... more What mechanisms has Amazon deployed in its effort to control the labor of its warehouse employees? This question holds both practical and theoretical interest, given Amazon's prominent position in the economy and the wider importance of the logistics sector for consumer capitalism. This paper, part of a broader mixed-methods study of Amazon's workplace regime, uses a small national sample of interviews with Amazon warehouse workers (N = 46) to identify the mechanisms of labor control the company invokes. In keeping with accounts propounded by activists and journalists, we find evidence of highly coercive labor controls, chiefly in the form of what we call techno-economic despotism (which applies algorithmic technology to a precariously employed workforce). Yet many workers also experience forms of labor control that rely not on coercion but on the generation of consent. We identify three such mechanisms of hegemonic labor control - normative, relational, and governmental – that Amazon uses to foster workers’ consent. The efficacy of Amazon's workplace regime stems largely from its ability to deploy a multiplicity of labor controls that resonate with different groups holding distinct positions in the labor process. Given shifts in the social and economic conditions that bear on the company's regime, cracks have begun to appear in Amazon's armor, potentially reducing the traction its labor control mechanisms have gained with segments of its employees.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 15, 2018

Social scientific efforts to understand the political and economic forces generating precarious e... more Social scientific efforts to understand the political and economic forces generating precarious employment have been mired in uncertainty. In this context, the Doellgast–Lillie–Pulignano (D–L–P) model represents an important step forward in both theoretical and empirical terms. This concluding chapter scrutinizes the authors’ theoretical model and assesses the present volume’s empirical applications of it. Building on the strengths of the D–L–P model, the chapter identifies several lines of analysis that can fruitfully extend our understanding of the dynamics of precarization, whether at the micro-, meso-, or macro-social levels of analysis. Especially needed are studies that explore the dynamics of organizational fields as these shape employer strategy and state policy towards employment. Such analysis will hopefully shed light on the perils and possibilities that workers’ organizations face as they struggle to cope with the demands of neoliberal capitalism.

American Journal of Sociology, May 1, 2006

Research on the new managerial regimes has been hampered by its neglect of the question of human ... more Research on the new managerial regimes has been hampered by its neglect of the question of human agency-specifically, the nature of workers' responses to the advent of the new forms of work organization. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in five ...

Contemporary Sociology, Mar 1, 2021

Malden, MA: Polity Press. Gerhardt, Uta. 2016. ‘‘The Crux of Authenticity: Comparing Some Transla... more Malden, MA: Polity Press. Gerhardt, Uta. 2016. ‘‘The Crux of Authenticity: Comparing Some Translations of Max Weber’s Works into English. An Essay in Intellectual History.’’ Max Weber Studies 16(1):11–37. Gordon, Peter E. 2020. ‘‘Max the Fatalist.’’ The New York Review, June 11. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/06/11/max-weberfatalist/. Hanke, Edith, Lawrence A. Scaff, and Sam Whimster. 2019. ‘‘Introduction: Max Weber Past, Present, and Future.’’ Pp. 3–20 in The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber, edited by E. Hanke, L. A. Scaff, and S. Whimster. New York: Oxford University Press. Hanke, Edith. 2015. ‘‘Max Weber Weltweit. Eine Topografie der Übersetzungen.’’ Berliner Journal für Soziologie 24(4):487–504. Joosse, Paul. 2018. ‘‘Countering Trump: Toward a Theory of Charismatic Counter-Roles.’’ Social Forces 97(2):921–44. Kaelber, Lutz. 2006. ‘‘The Art of Reading and Understanding Max Weber: Reflections on Recent (and Not-so-Recent) Readers and Compilations.’’ Canadian Journal of Sociology 31(1):131–41. Kalberg, Stephen. 2008. ‘‘The Perpetual and Tight Interweaving of Past and Present in Max Weber’s Sociology.’’ Pp. 273–89 in Max Weber Matters: Interweaving Past and Present, edited by D. J. Chalcraft, F. Howell, M. L. Menendez, and H. Vera. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Kalberg, Stephen. 2014. Searching for the Spirit of American Democracy: Max Weber’s Analysis of a Unique Political Culture, Past, Present, and Future. London: Routledge. Käsler, Dirk. 1979. Einführung in das Studium Max Webers. München: Beck. Scaff, Lawrence A. 2015. ‘‘Jenseits des heiligen Textes: Max Webers Fragestellung und die Perspektiven für ein weberianisches Denken.’’ Berliner Journal für Soziologie 24(4):469–86. Strazzeri, Victor. 2016. ‘‘What Comes Next in the Global Max Weber Reception? Call for Participation in the Young Weber Scholars Network.’’ Max Weber Studies 16(1):89–99. Weber, Max. 1976. Economy and Society, edited by Günther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, Max. [1904–1905] 2011. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated and introduced by Stephen Kalberg. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max. 1984–2020. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG) (Max Weber Complete Edition). 47 volumes, including 2 index volumes. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) (see https://mwg.badw.de/en/the-project.html).

Research on the restructuring of work has tended to neglect the autonomous effects that symbolic ... more Research on the restructuring of work has tended to neglect the autonomous effects that symbolic or cultural influences can have on the utilization of new technologies. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in three pulp and paper mills to explore the symbolic boundaries that occupational groups bring to bear on the process of workplace automation. As sophisticated technologies and management methods were introduced, process engineers engaged in subtle yet important efforts to portray manual workers’ knowledge in derisive terms. Such boundary work led managers to institute credential barriers that restricted manual workers’ opportunities, eventually enabling engineers to gain exclusive control over analytic functions as their own “natural” domain. The study suggests that symbolic representations can have powerful consequences for the restructuring of work, reproducing social inequalities even when new technologies render them unnecessary.

Routledge eBooks, Nov 25, 2022

Research in the sociology of work, Feb 17, 2015

The nature of work in America is changing in important ways. Blue-collar jobs are being eliminate... more The nature of work in America is changing in important ways. Blue-collar jobs are being eliminated because of increased competition from countries where wages are lower, while a greater economic role is being assumend by professional, technical, and clerical workers involved in developing complex technologies, providing services, and processing information. All this affects the values and expectations of those who work as well as their relationships to one another and to society at large. This book discusses this recent transformation. Among the provocative issues raised are - precisely what alienation from work means, and what non-alienated forms of work might be like, what happens within the family when both husband and wife contribute to the family's income, how work values are changing, and whether the primacy of work in people's lives has begun to wane, why American society has failed to develop a full employment policy in the past, how the economy might be redirected to reduce unemployment, whether work sharing (in which available hours of work are divided among a labor force) is feasible in America, and what the future will be like for workers in advanced industrial societies.

Work And Occupations, Nov 1, 2003

Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work... more Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work organizations, this traditional strength has languished in recent years. Few ethnographic studies have managed to capture what E. C. Hughes once called “the knitting of racial groups” at work. This article critically reviews the literature on race and work organizations and offers a set of propositions that target neglected aspects of racial boundaries at work. These center on the spatial dimension of race and organizations, the relevance of racial boundaries for the acquisition of skill and expertise, the bearing of status hierarchies on the reproduction of racial boundaries, and the character of corporate and judicial responses to racial inequalities at work. This article offers a tentative strategy for research in the field that might reclaim the lost tradition of E. C. Hughes.

Social Forces, May 29, 2019

The European Single Market guarantees the free movement of workershence the consequent freedom of... more The European Single Market guarantees the free movement of workershence the consequent freedom of firms to send workers around via free movement of serviceand represents one of the main pillars of the European Union (EU). 'Posted workers' are employees that are sent by their employers to work in another EU member state on a temporary basis, by way of a contract of services, an intra-group posting or the hiring of a person through a temporary agency. Therefore, they are different from EU mobile workers, since they remain in the host member state only temporarily, and do not integrate into its labour market. In this book, the author examines how workers experience their rights within the context of nation states, which are renouncing large parts of their sovereignty over their labour markets. At the same time, the book looks at how precarious employment relations can contribute to direct violations of workers' rights. The book analyzes interviews and participant observations of posted workers, focusing on the intra-EU mobility experience in Germany. The author examines how the de-territorialization of national models and employment relations systems have opened up exit options for management, thereby violating the regulatory framework and creating a disadvantage for workers. This is illustrated through the German example of how transnational regulation and de-territorialization have an impact on two industries, namely construction and meat slaughtering, in which most posted workers are employed. The author applies institutional theory coupled with the sociology of organization in order to examine how industrial relations actors abide by EU rules in the workplace, to identify which kind of claim for workers' rights is possible within these spaces. The author concludes by analyzing the contours of new structures for employment relations within EU labour markets, focusing on how borders are constructed within regulatory workplaces, also understood as institutions. The book makes an outstanding contribution to the study of reshaping nation states from a bottom-up perspective, by focusing on how posted workers and the actors involved utilize and experience the EU framework. With a critical approach to the currently dominant research on EU integration, the book illustrates how borders are not only defined and characterized by nation states and fences, but also inherently by employment relations. Unequal salaries, lack of access to collective channels of representation, and the inability to claim rights are some of the main obstacles that EU and intra-EU workers face in current times.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Apr 6, 2023

Research in the sociology of work, Jun 14, 2019

Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 1994

SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, Sep 13, 2016

American Journal of Sociology, 2003

Sociology Compass, Aug 31, 2021

Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational condi... more Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational conditions that reproduce racial segregation, racial disparities in wages, and racial hierarchies in the labor market and the workplace. Much less is known, however, about the specifically occupational influences that impinge on equitable work outcomes by race. In this paper, we explore three processes at the occupational level that relate to racial segregation, racialized access to resources, and status in one's line of work. We review research on racial inequality at work over the last 20 years to elucidate what is known, and remains to be seen, about these occupational processes. First, we review how occupational members get selected, and attempt to self‐select, into occupations via recruitment, licensing, credentialing, or certifications. Second, we consider how occupational incumbents teach, govern and evaluate new entrants, and with what consequences for racial inclusion/exclusion and retention in careers. Third, we examine research on client‐ or service‐based work, and highlight how workers navigate not only their roles, but also racial dynamics, vis‐a‐vis clients. We conclude with suggestions for how future research can harness occupational analysis to advance understanding of racial inequality at work.

Work And Occupations, Jul 20, 2020

The orderly functioning of global capitalism increasingly depends on the labor of logistics worke... more The orderly functioning of global capitalism increasingly depends on the labor of logistics workers. But social scientists have yet to produce nuanced accounts of the labor process in the many ports, warehouses, and distribution centers that lie at the heart of logistics work. In this study we seek to connect the nascent field of critical logistics studies to theories of the labor process in an effort to understand the production regimes that arise in warehouse work under different economic and regulatory conditions. Using qualitative data gathered at four European warehouses owned by the same third party logistics firm, we identify several distinct types of production regimes at these warehouses and analyze the conditions accounting for each. Even in this globally oriented industry in which firms seek to standardize their international operations, locally rooted conditions play a significant role, generating sharply different forms of labor control even within the same firm.

American Sociological Review, Apr 1, 2003

Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social an... more Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s. Although these plants adopted an array of new work practices, most achieved only limited gains and were generally unable to transcend the traditional boundary between salaried and hourly employees. A key reason lay in the managerial orientation toward production that was brought to bear on the process of workplace change. This orientation, which placed substantial emphasis on scientific and technical rationality, limited the firm's ability to provide an overarching normative or moral framework within which workplace change might unfold, leaving team systems vulnerable to anomic tendencies, to status distinctions among hourly employees, and to other sources of instability. The predominance of a technical, expert-centered orientation toward production also introduced salient contradictions into the new work regimes, pitting a logic of standardization against managerial efforts to cultivate a logic of participation. These findings suggest that successful implementation of workplace change may depend on the ability of corporate executives to demonstrate the very capacity for flexibility that they often demand of their hourly employees.

Contemporary Sociology, May 1, 1991

Research in the sociology of work, Dec 4, 2017

Work And Occupations, Jun 19, 2022

What mechanisms has Amazon deployed in its effort to control the labor of its warehouse employees... more What mechanisms has Amazon deployed in its effort to control the labor of its warehouse employees? This question holds both practical and theoretical interest, given Amazon's prominent position in the economy and the wider importance of the logistics sector for consumer capitalism. This paper, part of a broader mixed-methods study of Amazon's workplace regime, uses a small national sample of interviews with Amazon warehouse workers (N = 46) to identify the mechanisms of labor control the company invokes. In keeping with accounts propounded by activists and journalists, we find evidence of highly coercive labor controls, chiefly in the form of what we call techno-economic despotism (which applies algorithmic technology to a precariously employed workforce). Yet many workers also experience forms of labor control that rely not on coercion but on the generation of consent. We identify three such mechanisms of hegemonic labor control - normative, relational, and governmental – that Amazon uses to foster workers’ consent. The efficacy of Amazon's workplace regime stems largely from its ability to deploy a multiplicity of labor controls that resonate with different groups holding distinct positions in the labor process. Given shifts in the social and economic conditions that bear on the company's regime, cracks have begun to appear in Amazon's armor, potentially reducing the traction its labor control mechanisms have gained with segments of its employees.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 15, 2018

Social scientific efforts to understand the political and economic forces generating precarious e... more Social scientific efforts to understand the political and economic forces generating precarious employment have been mired in uncertainty. In this context, the Doellgast–Lillie–Pulignano (D–L–P) model represents an important step forward in both theoretical and empirical terms. This concluding chapter scrutinizes the authors’ theoretical model and assesses the present volume’s empirical applications of it. Building on the strengths of the D–L–P model, the chapter identifies several lines of analysis that can fruitfully extend our understanding of the dynamics of precarization, whether at the micro-, meso-, or macro-social levels of analysis. Especially needed are studies that explore the dynamics of organizational fields as these shape employer strategy and state policy towards employment. Such analysis will hopefully shed light on the perils and possibilities that workers’ organizations face as they struggle to cope with the demands of neoliberal capitalism.

American Journal of Sociology, May 1, 2006

Research on the new managerial regimes has been hampered by its neglect of the question of human ... more Research on the new managerial regimes has been hampered by its neglect of the question of human agency-specifically, the nature of workers' responses to the advent of the new forms of work organization. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in five ...

Contemporary Sociology, Mar 1, 2021

Malden, MA: Polity Press. Gerhardt, Uta. 2016. ‘‘The Crux of Authenticity: Comparing Some Transla... more Malden, MA: Polity Press. Gerhardt, Uta. 2016. ‘‘The Crux of Authenticity: Comparing Some Translations of Max Weber’s Works into English. An Essay in Intellectual History.’’ Max Weber Studies 16(1):11–37. Gordon, Peter E. 2020. ‘‘Max the Fatalist.’’ The New York Review, June 11. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/06/11/max-weberfatalist/. Hanke, Edith, Lawrence A. Scaff, and Sam Whimster. 2019. ‘‘Introduction: Max Weber Past, Present, and Future.’’ Pp. 3–20 in The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber, edited by E. Hanke, L. A. Scaff, and S. Whimster. New York: Oxford University Press. Hanke, Edith. 2015. ‘‘Max Weber Weltweit. Eine Topografie der Übersetzungen.’’ Berliner Journal für Soziologie 24(4):487–504. Joosse, Paul. 2018. ‘‘Countering Trump: Toward a Theory of Charismatic Counter-Roles.’’ Social Forces 97(2):921–44. Kaelber, Lutz. 2006. ‘‘The Art of Reading and Understanding Max Weber: Reflections on Recent (and Not-so-Recent) Readers and Compilations.’’ Canadian Journal of Sociology 31(1):131–41. Kalberg, Stephen. 2008. ‘‘The Perpetual and Tight Interweaving of Past and Present in Max Weber’s Sociology.’’ Pp. 273–89 in Max Weber Matters: Interweaving Past and Present, edited by D. J. Chalcraft, F. Howell, M. L. Menendez, and H. Vera. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Kalberg, Stephen. 2014. Searching for the Spirit of American Democracy: Max Weber’s Analysis of a Unique Political Culture, Past, Present, and Future. London: Routledge. Käsler, Dirk. 1979. Einführung in das Studium Max Webers. München: Beck. Scaff, Lawrence A. 2015. ‘‘Jenseits des heiligen Textes: Max Webers Fragestellung und die Perspektiven für ein weberianisches Denken.’’ Berliner Journal für Soziologie 24(4):469–86. Strazzeri, Victor. 2016. ‘‘What Comes Next in the Global Max Weber Reception? Call for Participation in the Young Weber Scholars Network.’’ Max Weber Studies 16(1):89–99. Weber, Max. 1976. Economy and Society, edited by Günther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, Max. [1904–1905] 2011. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated and introduced by Stephen Kalberg. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max. 1984–2020. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG) (Max Weber Complete Edition). 47 volumes, including 2 index volumes. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) (see https://mwg.badw.de/en/the-project.html).

Research on the restructuring of work has tended to neglect the autonomous effects that symbolic ... more Research on the restructuring of work has tended to neglect the autonomous effects that symbolic or cultural influences can have on the utilization of new technologies. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in three pulp and paper mills to explore the symbolic boundaries that occupational groups bring to bear on the process of workplace automation. As sophisticated technologies and management methods were introduced, process engineers engaged in subtle yet important efforts to portray manual workers’ knowledge in derisive terms. Such boundary work led managers to institute credential barriers that restricted manual workers’ opportunities, eventually enabling engineers to gain exclusive control over analytic functions as their own “natural” domain. The study suggests that symbolic representations can have powerful consequences for the restructuring of work, reproducing social inequalities even when new technologies render them unnecessary.

Routledge eBooks, Nov 25, 2022

Research in the sociology of work, Feb 17, 2015

The nature of work in America is changing in important ways. Blue-collar jobs are being eliminate... more The nature of work in America is changing in important ways. Blue-collar jobs are being eliminated because of increased competition from countries where wages are lower, while a greater economic role is being assumend by professional, technical, and clerical workers involved in developing complex technologies, providing services, and processing information. All this affects the values and expectations of those who work as well as their relationships to one another and to society at large. This book discusses this recent transformation. Among the provocative issues raised are - precisely what alienation from work means, and what non-alienated forms of work might be like, what happens within the family when both husband and wife contribute to the family's income, how work values are changing, and whether the primacy of work in people's lives has begun to wane, why American society has failed to develop a full employment policy in the past, how the economy might be redirected to reduce unemployment, whether work sharing (in which available hours of work are divided among a labor force) is feasible in America, and what the future will be like for workers in advanced industrial societies.

Work And Occupations, Nov 1, 2003

Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work... more Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work organizations, this traditional strength has languished in recent years. Few ethnographic studies have managed to capture what E. C. Hughes once called “the knitting of racial groups” at work. This article critically reviews the literature on race and work organizations and offers a set of propositions that target neglected aspects of racial boundaries at work. These center on the spatial dimension of race and organizations, the relevance of racial boundaries for the acquisition of skill and expertise, the bearing of status hierarchies on the reproduction of racial boundaries, and the character of corporate and judicial responses to racial inequalities at work. This article offers a tentative strategy for research in the field that might reclaim the lost tradition of E. C. Hughes.

Social Forces, May 29, 2019

The European Single Market guarantees the free movement of workershence the consequent freedom of... more The European Single Market guarantees the free movement of workershence the consequent freedom of firms to send workers around via free movement of serviceand represents one of the main pillars of the European Union (EU). 'Posted workers' are employees that are sent by their employers to work in another EU member state on a temporary basis, by way of a contract of services, an intra-group posting or the hiring of a person through a temporary agency. Therefore, they are different from EU mobile workers, since they remain in the host member state only temporarily, and do not integrate into its labour market. In this book, the author examines how workers experience their rights within the context of nation states, which are renouncing large parts of their sovereignty over their labour markets. At the same time, the book looks at how precarious employment relations can contribute to direct violations of workers' rights. The book analyzes interviews and participant observations of posted workers, focusing on the intra-EU mobility experience in Germany. The author examines how the de-territorialization of national models and employment relations systems have opened up exit options for management, thereby violating the regulatory framework and creating a disadvantage for workers. This is illustrated through the German example of how transnational regulation and de-territorialization have an impact on two industries, namely construction and meat slaughtering, in which most posted workers are employed. The author applies institutional theory coupled with the sociology of organization in order to examine how industrial relations actors abide by EU rules in the workplace, to identify which kind of claim for workers' rights is possible within these spaces. The author concludes by analyzing the contours of new structures for employment relations within EU labour markets, focusing on how borders are constructed within regulatory workplaces, also understood as institutions. The book makes an outstanding contribution to the study of reshaping nation states from a bottom-up perspective, by focusing on how posted workers and the actors involved utilize and experience the EU framework. With a critical approach to the currently dominant research on EU integration, the book illustrates how borders are not only defined and characterized by nation states and fences, but also inherently by employment relations. Unequal salaries, lack of access to collective channels of representation, and the inability to claim rights are some of the main obstacles that EU and intra-EU workers face in current times.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Apr 6, 2023

Research in the sociology of work, Jun 14, 2019

Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 1994

SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, Sep 13, 2016

American Journal of Sociology, 2003

Sociology Compass, Aug 31, 2021

Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational condi... more Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational conditions that reproduce racial segregation, racial disparities in wages, and racial hierarchies in the labor market and the workplace. Much less is known, however, about the specifically occupational influences that impinge on equitable work outcomes by race. In this paper, we explore three processes at the occupational level that relate to racial segregation, racialized access to resources, and status in one's line of work. We review research on racial inequality at work over the last 20 years to elucidate what is known, and remains to be seen, about these occupational processes. First, we review how occupational members get selected, and attempt to self‐select, into occupations via recruitment, licensing, credentialing, or certifications. Second, we consider how occupational incumbents teach, govern and evaluate new entrants, and with what consequences for racial inclusion/exclusion and retention in careers. Third, we examine research on client‐ or service‐based work, and highlight how workers navigate not only their roles, but also racial dynamics, vis‐a‐vis clients. We conclude with suggestions for how future research can harness occupational analysis to advance understanding of racial inequality at work.

Work And Occupations, Jul 20, 2020

The orderly functioning of global capitalism increasingly depends on the labor of logistics worke... more The orderly functioning of global capitalism increasingly depends on the labor of logistics workers. But social scientists have yet to produce nuanced accounts of the labor process in the many ports, warehouses, and distribution centers that lie at the heart of logistics work. In this study we seek to connect the nascent field of critical logistics studies to theories of the labor process in an effort to understand the production regimes that arise in warehouse work under different economic and regulatory conditions. Using qualitative data gathered at four European warehouses owned by the same third party logistics firm, we identify several distinct types of production regimes at these warehouses and analyze the conditions accounting for each. Even in this globally oriented industry in which firms seek to standardize their international operations, locally rooted conditions play a significant role, generating sharply different forms of labor control even within the same firm.

American Sociological Review, Apr 1, 2003

Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social an... more Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s. Although these plants adopted an array of new work practices, most achieved only limited gains and were generally unable to transcend the traditional boundary between salaried and hourly employees. A key reason lay in the managerial orientation toward production that was brought to bear on the process of workplace change. This orientation, which placed substantial emphasis on scientific and technical rationality, limited the firm's ability to provide an overarching normative or moral framework within which workplace change might unfold, leaving team systems vulnerable to anomic tendencies, to status distinctions among hourly employees, and to other sources of instability. The predominance of a technical, expert-centered orientation toward production also introduced salient contradictions into the new work regimes, pitting a logic of standardization against managerial efforts to cultivate a logic of participation. These findings suggest that successful implementation of workplace change may depend on the ability of corporate executives to demonstrate the very capacity for flexibility that they often demand of their hourly employees.

New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn t... more New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn that team systems may encourage workers to internalize managerial definitions of their work situations, and-as a result-strengthen management's hegemony over them. This article presents an ethnographic analysis of four manufacturing plants in which team initiatives have been introduced. The findings cast doubt on the hegemony thesis. Analyzing data bearing on the degree of managerial legitimacy, the salience of class boundaries, and instances of worker defiance in both traditionaland team-based production areas, I find only occasional evidence of increased worker integration or incorporation within a nascent managerial regime. Indeed, by drawing attention to the limited authority that workers were actually allowed, team systems tended to heighten worker suspicion and distrust and to foster patterns of solidarity that were difficult for managers to control. The most significant feature of the new production concepts may not be their siren-like appeal, but rather the tensions and contradictions they introduce into work organizations. In fact, such concepts provide workers with subtle yet strategic resources with which to renegotiate the boundaries of managerial authority.