ABSTRACT
The empirical evidence presented in the preceding three chapter’s lead to the development of a number of key conclusions. These concern the nature of subjective perceptions of skill, core and periphery, and the causal processes that shape them, and also the adequacy of existing sociological theory as an explanatoiy framework. The key conclusions are as follows: 1. Workforce perceptions of skill are narrowly defined and context dependent. 2. The labour process debates of the 1970s and 1980s remain a useful framework through which to understand the causal processes that shape the perceptions of skill held by many of the production workers interviewed. 3. The organisational structures that help shape subjective perceptions of skill cannot be understood in the context of Fordist and post-Fordist dualisms. This is due to the complex configurations of structural features within firms. 4. The perceptions of workforce skill held by managers are shaped by managers contradictory position in relation to capital. 5. Gender has no direct salience in the generation of workers’ perceptions of skill. 6. Workers whose formal position defines them as peripheral express no perception of themselves as forming part of a peripheral workforce.
