ABSTRACT
Frameworks of meaning shape work experiences as surely as do organizational structures, technology, and patterns of ownership. Motivation, effort, discipline, group identifications and boundaries, and self-understanding all depend on work cultures. These factors are molded in obvious ways by structural and material factors both within and beyond the workplace, yet work cultures do more than express and embody differences in power, authority, interests, and advantage. They have their own effects on how work is done, how organizations operate, how people understand themselves, to whom they feel loyal. While drawing on elements of the broader culture that order solidarities and identities, whether based on nation, gender, or other social distinctions, cultures of work can also affect surrounding cultural milieux. Work cultures, broadly defined, are sets of values, beliefs, norms, and sentiments about
work and the symbols and rituals that express them. Sociological and historical work demonstrates the significance of work cultures that operate at a variety of levels, from specific workplaces and occupations to organizations to nations and supranational systems. These cultures are neither static nor uncontested. They can provide the impetus and resources for struggles over control of work, inclusion and exclusion, goals, and rewards. This essay emphasizes the continual interplay between culture and economic condi-
tions, structures, and practices. It first argues that cultural frameworks always guide economic activity, even as changes in the structures and practices of work shape consciousness, identities, and ideologies. The discussion then moves from large-scale cultural shifts to the operation of culture within more sharply delineated structures of work, noting change over time in the significance of occupational cultures, workplace cultures, and organizational cultures. At all of these levels, workers aim to maintain control over their tasks and their environment, sometimes offering resistance to efforts by others, especially bosses, to interfere with the norms of their work culture. Yet solidarity among those who share an occupation or a workplace may be weakened by cultural distinctions imported from beyond the workplace. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how changing conditions of work-currently driven by globalization-transform elements of culture at all levels, providing ongoing challenges to sociologists seeking to
understand the complex interplay of economic structures, everyday work experiences, and surrounding cultures.
