Steiger, T L (1988) Working construction: Organization and control of the labor process. PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Abstract
Theories of the labor process posit that capitalists must control the workplace. Research on the labor process links the logic of capitalism to increasing bureaucratization and mechanization resulting in a loss of workers' control over their work. Mechanization and bureaucratization appear to go hand in hand. The construction industry offers a case where technology does not differ greatly by organizational setting thereby permitting an examination of the effect of organizational structure somewhat independent of technological change on worker's control. A typology of construction firms base on union presence and number of supervisory layers yields five organizational settings for study. They are bureaucratic-union, bureaucratic-nonunion, entrepreneurial-union, entrepreneurial-nonunion, and builder. Data from 48 in-depth interviews with workers, foremen, supervisors, and owners from each organizational setting indicate that workers' control and autonomy do not significantly vary by setting. In light of research on other occupations, construction workers are exceptional in maintaining control over their workplace despite organizational structures usually associated with a loss of workers' control of the workplace. Theories of labor process view destruction of craft organization and the degradation of craft work as necessary to captialist control of the workplace. The data in this study contradict this proposition. Conventional theories of work and occupation pointing out the variability of the work and the strength of unions are examined and found to be lacking as an alternative explanation of construction workers' advantaged position. Construction workers' advantaged position is a result of their ideology, their ownership of tools and an industrial structure of extensive and increasing subcontracting--all of which serve to place workers in an advantaged position vis-a-vis other workers, but not at the expense of owners' control of the workplace.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Form, W |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | occupations; ownership; technological change; construction firms; builder; organizational structure |
| Index terms: | builder, construction firm, occupation, organizational structure, interview, variability, supervisor, construction worker, construction industry, presence, technological change, ownership, degradation, industrial structure, subcontracting, owner |
| Subjects: | material degradation and durability, environmental science, practitioner, innovation studies, organization, data collection methods, statistical analysis, industry analysis, sociology, economics, structural engineering |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Sustainability, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Construction Materials, Engineering Principles, Organizational Design, Supply Chain Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here