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Unit 5 Seminar
Work and Technology
SS430 Sociology of Work
Dr. Evelina Panayotova
Overview
 We review the impact of technology on the
workforce via:


tracking changes in the organization of work
as it has evolved from the household farm to
the urban factory and bureaucracy
tracking changes in technology
Key Concepts
 Technology: The application of knowledge and skills
for practical purposes
 Organizational structure: The pattern of
relationships among the various parts of an
organization and among the various employees
 Technological determinism: Forms of technology
determine organizational structure.
 Types of technologies
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Simple Tool
Craft
Mass production
Microchip.
Implications of Technological
Change
 Technology functions to amplify and surpass
the organic limits of the body.
 In creating jobs that demand less of the
body, industrial production has tended to
create jobs that give less to the body.
 However, information technology can redirect
the negative, seemingly deterministic effects
of automation.
What is Skill?
 Skill is the ability to act according to rules
which depend on feedback from a non-social
environment. Skills might be the ability to
chop wood or type on a typewriter. The actor
him/herself is able to judge whether the
action has been successful or not.
 Complexity, diversity and autonomy of jobs
What Makes for a Good Job?
 Autonomy – self-direction and potential for
expression of creativity
 Diversity – the number of different tasks and
responsibilities required
 Complexity – level, scope, and integration of
physical, mental, and interpersonal tasks
Division of Labor in Capitalism
 What type of division of labor was unique to
capitalism:

systematically subdivide the work in each
productive specialty into limited operations.
 assign
each operation to an individual
worker

What are the three steps that uniquely
identify the capitalist mode of production?
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The “Detailed Worker”
 What are the 3 steps that create the detail
worker?
 Step 1: Analyze the production process
Step 2: Separate into individual tasks
 Step 3: Assign separate tasks to individual
workers = the breakdown of work among
workers that creates the detail worker
 All steps are impractical in the absence of
sufficient quantities to be produced, i.e.
mass production only.
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Dividing the Craft Cheapness its
Individual Parts
 Why is that?
 Because the labor power needed to
produce an article can be purchased more
cheaply as separate skills rather than as a
capacity integrated in one single worker.
 Do you agree with this statement?
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Deskilling – Braverman*
 Would you agree or disagree?
 Can you provide examples to support your
argument in reaction to Braverman’s
statement that:


“The capitalist mode of production
systematically destroys all-around skills where
they exist and brings into beings skills and
occupations that correspond to its needs”.
*(p.162 in your text for reference)
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Frederick Taylor (1856-1915)
 Taylorism: A practice, named after Frederick
Winslow Taylor, of the scientific management
of work processes. In Taylor's task
management system, each worker was given
a definite task with detailed written
instructions and an exact time allowance for
each element of the work. The task was
based upon detailed time study and
standardization of methods, tools, and
materials.
Principles of Taylorism
 Factory management must:
determine the best way for the worker to do the job
provide the proper tools and training,
provide incentives for good performance.
 Task allocation: Each job is broken down into its
constituent motions, analyzed to determine which are
essential, and timed for efficiency
 Superfluous motion is eliminated,
 Worker follows a machinelike routine, becomes more
productive BUT has no control over the work process.
Why SCIENTIFIC Management?
 Taylor applied scientific principles and
measurement to the work process, rather
than to machines.
 Problem:
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Neglected the human element
Task allocation: no room for the worker to
excel or think; everything is prescribed
Assumed worker motivation with financial
incentives only;
Carrot=money
Drive system in Industrial
Factories
 The process of factory worker management
and control by which the foreman pushed
workers to work faster, more continuously,
and under increasingly dangerous conditions,
in order to meet production goals.
Is a “carrot” or a “stick” a better
method for control and motivation?
While replacing the
“stick” what kind of
a “carrot” did
Taylorism offer?
Problematic Assumptions of
Taylorism:
 Scientific management theorists assumed that
 workers desired to be used efficiently
 to perform their work with a minimum of effort,
 to receive more money.
 workers would submit without question to
standardization of physical movements and thought
processes.
 The system ignored human feelings and motivations,
leaving the worker dissatisfied with the job.
 Employers omitted the altruistic elements in Taylor's
system and employed time and motion studies to set
high norms of production and speed up the
production line while still keeping wages down.
Task allocation=dehumanization
Detailed Division of Labor Revisited
Breaking the work down into smaller
and smaller units to maximize
efficiency without giving thought to
the job satisfaction of the worker =
dehumanizing of the work
Hawthorne Experiments: Elton Mayo
 Mayo, Harvard Business School -
experiments at Hawthorne Works of Western
Electric Company 1924-1927
 Finding:

Getting workers involved, asking their
opinions, as in consultations/interviews
between labor and management, gave
workers a sense of belonging to a team and
increased productivity
Summary of Mayo's Beliefs:
 Individual workers cannot be treated in isolation, but
must be seen as members of a group.
 Monetary incentives and good working condition are
less important to the individual than the need to
belong to a group.
 Informal or unofficial groups formed at work have a
strong influence on the behavior of those workers in a
group.
 Managers must be aware of these 'social needs' and
cater for them to ensure that employees collaborate
with the official organization rather than work against
it.
Additional Motivational Approaches
 Industrial engineers/sociologists have
suggested additional approaches toward
improving motivation and productivity. These
include


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job alternation to relieve boredom;
job enlargement, or having the worker perform
several tasks on a project rather than
performing a single operation;
job enrichment, redesigning the job to make it
more challenging.
Bureaucracy
 According to Weber, a system of legal
rational management in which administration
is based on impersonal, written rules and a
hierarchy of offices. Office holding is a
vocation based on expert training, a salary,
and a career ladder in which promotion
depends on seniority and/or ability.
Weber’s Bureaucracy
 Efficient
 Rational
 Impartial
 Management follows rules and regulations
 Officials are appointed based on expertise
 Hierarchy of authority among offices
 Consistent information flow
What is your Experience with Modern
Bureaucracies?
 Are they:
 Efficient?
 Rational?
 Impartial?
 Management follows rules and regulations?
 Officials are appointed based on expertise?
 Hierarchy of authority among offices?
 Consistent information flow?