ABSTRACT
In this chapter we examine how work and employment has been controlled over time. Classical theorists saw the social organisation of labour as the mark of humanity, but the context in which work is carried out varies enormously. Work does not ‘just happen’ but is organised and controlled by managers, supervisors and by those doing the work. As capitalism developed
and organisations grew, it was no longer possible to control work in the same way as it had been in small-scale workplaces and the home. The chapter looks at how sociologists have made sense of management and in doing so how they have theorised the exercise of control and worker resistance to it. Later we go beyond the established focus on the employment relationship and paid work to examine a range of other ways in which work is controlled, such as gender and ‘race’.
