Abstract
In the 1950s, the Norwegian sociologist Sverre Lysgaard investigated social relations at a pulp and paper mill, the result of which was his theory of the “worker collectivity.” This is an informal defense organization among subordinate employees against a company’s work organization and goals. Our research group returned to the same plant, which until 2012 was still a pulp and paper mill, with two questions in mind: Was the worker collectivity still present at the plant? What had happened since Lysgaard’s study when it came to the preconditions for the existence of the worker collectivity?
Highlights
“We?”—that’s we who are in the same position
It was statements like these in interviews with workers in a pulp and paper mill that put the Norwegian sociologist Sverre Lysgaard (1961/2001) on the track of the phenomenon he later referred to as the worker collectivity. (We translate the Norwegian kollektiv as collectivity, as it has become an established term through Alan Fox’s [1971] analysis of what he calls the “employee collectivity.”) From very large amounts of data, Lysgaard created a complex and elegant theory about the informal culture in work organizations
The worker collectivity still existed at the plant up to the time of its closure
Summary
“We?”—that’s we who are in the same position. All workers, that is—all of us are on par in that way. It’s someone who gives too much information (to the company) about the individual’s weak and strong points. It can be economically profitable for individuals to be like that and it has suited management very well. The main objective of this article is, to discuss whether changing conditions since the 1950s have affected this kind of informal organization. This is investigated by comparing three moments during the period between 1950 and 2010. The investigation is, a historical comparative case study (Ackroyd & Karlsson, 2014) This kind of replication of a study is rare in working life studies. To analyze the worker collectivity, Lysgaard starts by making a distinction between the technical-economic system and the human system of employees at workplaces (see Figure 1)
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