Individualistic Value Orientation Research Articles

The Relationship between Working Life and Individualisation: A Study among Danish Trade Union Members

A significant current trend in the industrialised countries is a growing individualization among wages-earners: i.e changes from collective value orientations based on solidarity and equality towards more individualistic value orientations based on self-interest and personal opportunities. This paper analyses relations between these changes in wage-earners' identity, labour market position, job characteristics, and relationship to the company and trade union: both empirically, by using Danish survey data from the research project: `The Employee Perspective on Working Life and Politics', and theoretically, by discussing the contrasting ideas of Hirsch and Roth (1986) and Valkenburg (1995) and Zoll (1995). The analysis shows both expected and surprising relationships between labour market positions, job characteristics and individualization. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the term individualization' must be understood as a relative concept, and that an increased individualization does not necessarily lead towards a dissolution of the trade union movement as a representative of wage-earners' interests in modern society.

The role of uncertainty in resource dilemmas

Resource dilemmas entail a conflict between self-interests and the welfare of a group or society at large. If a majority of individuals fail to restrain themselves, scarce common resources such as water, air, and forests will be depleted or polluted. Previous research has shown that individuals with a pro-social value orientation act in the interest of the collective (cooperate) rather than in self-interest (defect). However, many people only do that if the situation imposes constraints on their egoistic or individualistic value orientation. Such factors include group identification, communication with and social pressure exerted by group members, and rewards and penalties. Incomplete knowledge about how others act (social uncertainty) and about the degree of depletion/pollution of a resource (environmental uncertainty) are still other factors which affect cooperation. Based on an analysis of the role of these factors drawing on theories of how decisions are made under risk and uncertainty, we suggest that individuals with a pro-social value orientation, to whom collective consequences are most salient, may cooperate even though the beneficial consequences are uncertain. For egoistic persons, the sure individual gain of defecting dominates other consequences which are uncertain. If people are also risk-seeking, increased uncertainty may increase defection. Even though egoism is constrained, how the individual is affected by collective consequences is still salient. As such consequences are perceived to be uncertain, increasing uncertainty will make cooperation less consistent.

Social Reference Basis of Job Satisfaction: The Case of Manual Workers

Studies in job satisfaction typically assume that the individualistic value orientations of middle status groups pervade all levels of the occupational structure. This study postulated that such orientations do not characterize different types of industrial workers, and that reference group theory can account for the traditional findings, as well as such anomalous findings as high satisfaction among relatively unskilled workers. However, reference group theory itself must take into account structural features of the society such as the type of stratification system, pattern of adult socialization, and mobility rates.