Myths at Work: Extracts and Related Quotes

"…by ‘myths’ we refer to widely believed bodies of ideas about the way work is changing." 1

"…the word ‘myth’ [here] goes beyond mere description to explanation; not just how things are changing, but why they are changing. Myths by this definition are ways that people in specific cultural contexts make sense of the world…" 2

"We do not use myth as synonymous with ‘false’, nor do we necessarily imply a hard distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’. Instead in the chapters that follow we are concerned to ‘unpick’ and deconstruct the myths to show which aspects of them have credibility." 2

[Globalization is a ‘meta-myth’] "A meta-myth is a grand and overarching notion used to explain broad processes of historical change [it] is often used as an excuse by managers for imposing cuts and changes on their employees." 9

"Not only has globalization… become a major component of attempts to describe social, political and economic trends on a world-wide scale, but it has also been seen as a way of theorizing them." 13

"The myth we wish to criticize [is] that individual places are confronted by a similar range of problems and that they are affected in a broadly equivalent manner." 13

"…globalization is less of a rupture with the past than has often been supposed…" 23

"…contemporary globalization must be placed in its historical context… The emphasis on newness has… offered governments a pretext for the… promotion of labour market ‘flexibility’, since this is deemed essential for sustaining international competitiveness." 30

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"…it is in America, Britain and Australia that… feminization has most clearly been mythologized as a ‘female takeover’, with accusations of ‘men losing out’ and a male ‘backlash’ developing against gender equality." 72

"We shall characterize women’s economic position in terms of processes of integration, marginalization and polarization." 73

Can have feminization in three areas pages 73-4: (1) The labour market, "…the proportion of women in employment is increasing comparitively to the proportion of men." (2) Within occupations, "…the trend for women to move into occupations which were formerly dominated by men." (3) Of work, "…whereby the very nature of jobs, tasks and skills is changed in ways said to make them more suitable for women."

Women are marginalized via, "…horizontal segregation (the clustering of women and men into different occupations) and vertical segregation (the concentration of women in lower tiers in each occupational hierarchy)." 82 [From Hakim (1979)]

"…gender disadvantage stems from the interaction of capitalism and patriarchy." 86

"Three important forms of resource which men tend to monopolize are economic, positional and symbolic." 86

"Age, class and ethnicity combine in complex ways to influence the fortunes of different groups of women; but processes of feminization, opening opportunities for some and confirming the fate of low-paid insecure jobs for others, are intimately entwined with processes of class polarization." 90-1

"Structures of male power are remarkably resilient and the feminization of the labour market does not amount to a female takeover." 91

"…patriarchy theory has so far failed to identify a cause for patriarchy, male dominance and male solidarity, as distinct from a description of the mechanisms used to dominate women…Preference theory provides an explanation… Women are fundamentally divided in their preferences and interests. Conflicting interests make it difficult for women to organize around any single set of common aims… Men collectively gain a huge tactical advantage from women’s diversity, an advantage they need do nothing to create, but can simply exploit to further their own relatively homogeneous interests." 282-3

[In the future] "Women’s success in the labour market, as indicated by the occupational grade, earnings and status, will be determined by the same factors that shape men’s achievements: talent and ability, qualifications, hard work, the particular industry and career path chosen, an element of luck. Sex discrimination does not disappear overnight, but will eventually cease to be a major factor at the national level, even if it can have serious consequences for the particular individuals who occasionally experience it." 276

Hakim C. (2000) Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21^st Century Oxford, OUP

"…there is a general consensus that women’s lives are fundamentally different from men’s, and that they construct their careers in different ways. For example feminist psychologists take issue with theories of adult development based on male experiences, while feminist sociologists emphasise the significance of gender in an individual’s experience of life… what is needed is … to completely rethink our taken-for-granted definitions of career and assumptions about what constitutes career success."

Cohen L. (2001: 272-3) ch 9 in T. Redman and A. Wilkinson (Eds.) Contemporary HRM, London, FT Prentice Hall

"Women are often required to display the sex stereotype in order to be effective in their work [e.g. semi-institutionalized expectation of flirting for stewardesses]." 80

Wilson F. (1999) Organizational Behaviour: A Critical Introduction, Oxford, OUP

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"Our exploration of the myth does not dispute the importance of economic rewards, but suggests that work plays a much more complex part of in our life than the mere receipt of a weekly or monthly pay packet." 10

"…work is central to the construction of identity." 169

"…few managers and academics would consider that their own primary motivations for working are purely financial, yet they still uphold the myth and apply it in managing and formulating academic analyses of work." 170

"…explanations pitched purely at the level of the rational pursuit of economic goals are insufficient to explain the range of workplace attitudes and behaviour." 171

"..,how can we make sense of the role of work for individuals without an analysis of what work actually is?" 172 [So we need to, "… move towards a ‘sociology of work’…" 178]

Quoting Hannah Arendt: " ‘The work of our hands, as distinguished from the labour of our bodies… fabricates the sheer unending variety of things whose sum total constitutes the human artifice’." [i.e. makes us who we are] 176

‘Work’ (‘creative production’) for Arendt is different from ‘labour’ (‘activity orientated towards subsistence needs’) and different again from ‘action’ (‘social action, interaction and communication’). 177

The goal of a ‘sociology of work’ would recognise "…the structural implications of formal employment under capitalism [and] also acknowledge that work, as an activity and a set of social relationships, may provide meaning and identity for the individual." 179

"The extent to which an organisation combines financial and non-financial rewards in its reward strategy reflects a clear value position. Overreliance on pay as a motivator is likely to be accompanied by other human resource policies which assume a scientific management perspective (e.g. no involvement in management decisions, minimum employee control over the way in which jobs are performed)."

Lewis P. (2001: 113) ch 4 in T. Redman and A. Wilkinson (Eds.) Contemporary HRM, London, FT Prentice Hall

"Organizations… are experiencing high levels of rewards failure because most of their pay systems do not reflect strongly enough strategic thrusts towards quality, teamworking, and competition based on time."

Sparrow P. and Marchington M. (1998) in H. Newell and H. Scarborough (Eds.) Human Resource Management in Context, (2002: 29)

"Work is then, more than a means towards the end of earning a living; people work for more than money. If work were purely a means to an economic end there would be no way of explaining the dislocation and deprivation individuals feel when they retire… People who win the pools or the lottery continue to work even if they hold jobs that could be described as dull, routine and repetitive."

Wilson F. M. (1999: 11) Organizational Behaviour: a critical introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford

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"A controversial meta-myth is the notion of the ‘death of class’… There are various strands to this… One is the idea that work is no longer central to people’s lives. Another is the claim that we live in a ‘classless society’: an alternative view is that class no longer means much in people’s lives and so is not the base of political attitudes and action." p10

"This leads us to explore in chapter 8 the related issue of trade union decline: unions have traditionally been seen as vehicles of class consciousness and class interests which are now seen by some as outmoded." p10 (this forms the theoretical basis of their arg)

They offer two main sources of evidence:

1. "… the changing structure of employment – the shift of jobs from the highly unionised primary and manufacturing sectors to relatively non-unionized private services – appears to have undermined power.." p149

2. "…many employers have become increasingly concerned to exclude unions from their workplaces [alongside / because of] The elaboration of techniques associated with the unitarist philosophy of HRM…" p149

Summary:

"…the weakened state of the unions appears largely to have been the result of increased employer antipathy and a more hostile political climate [the cause]…" p167

"…there is a widely held assumption that their decline is secular [to do with society] in nature and the expression of long-term, adverse social trends [the myth]…" p167

"…it seems clear that trade unions will continue to maintain a presence in the future and may well even expand their influence…" p168

"…let me tell you, gentlemen, at once, and I want to be emphatic about it, scientific management has nothing in it that is philanthropic; I am not objecting to philanthropy, but any scheme of management which has philanthropy as one of its elements ought to fail; philanthropy has no part in any scheme of management. No self-respecting workman wants to be given things, every man wants to earn things, and scientific management is no scheme for giving people they do not earn. So if the principles of scientific management do not pay, then this is a miserable system. The final test of any system is, does it pay?" [philanthropy: literally ‘a love of mankind’, normally implies the giving away of money]

Taylor F. W. (1947) Scientific Management, Harper & Row, in D. S. Pugh (Ed) (1997: 289) Organization Theory: Selected Readings, Penguin, London, 4^th edition.

"…work under capitalism is geared to the creation of profit rather than the satisfaction of human needs, thus there is a conflict of interests between labour and capital. In these antagonistic conditions it is necessary for managers to secure maximum possible control over the labour process… the consequence of scientific management is degradation of the labour process, with jobs becoming increasingly specialised and routine."

Wilson F. M. (1999: 23) Organizational Behaviour: A Critical Introduction, OUP, Oxford.

"…managers holding a ‘unitary’ frame of reference emphasise that management and employees hold common interests (for example, the survival and growth of the organization) and that, given this unity, conflict is aberrant (dysfunctional, transitory and caused by ‘troublemakers’). Given the emphasis on unity and the backgrounding of conflict, power is not an issue. Instead, ideas about authority and leadership underwrite the unilateral exercise of a managerial prerogative directed at guiding the organization towards the achievement of common goals."

Legge K. (1995: 33) HRM: Rhetorics and Realities, Macmillan, London.

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