The Reality of Work Cultures in the Modern Economy - Essay Example

?   The Reality of Work Cultures in the Modern Economy       The Reality of Work Cultures in the Modern Economy Work culture playsa significant part in bringing the best out of workers and enabling them stay in the work place for a prolonged period. Work culture is significant as it leads to contented workers and enhanced productivity. Richard Sennett asserts that individuals’ work culture will be defined by the novel ideas of flexibility, decentralization and control, flextime, work ethics and teamwork, and change. Moreover, the stated concepts have an impact on character as articulated by commitment and loyalty and eventually lead to the lessening of personal traits and values that are attractive in society (Sennett 1999, p. 9). This paper will answer a question regarding Richard Sennett’s book, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. It will analyse Sennett’s suggestion on the modern way of working, define and outline the issues in the book that cause the corrosion of character, analyse the meaning of the corrosion of character and the precarious worker, and the causes and effects of such work in the modern corporate world with specific concentration on the workers. The modern way of working makes it extremely demanding to get a life as asserted by Sennett. He claims that the personal effects of work in the New Economy have made the individual to be disoriented due to notions such as flexibility, decentralization and control, flextime, work ethics and teamwork, and change. In the contemporary way of life, there has been a spatial modification of work activities on a universal degree, as space and geography have become significantly essential components of work, labour relations, and labour markets (Sennett 1999, p. 9). This means that workers will use most of their time trying to engage in activities that will help them adapt to new working requirements, therefore, it will be difficult for them to get a life. Nonetheless, modern way of working has enhanced connections between individuals, nations, and organizations. This has been made possible by developments in technology and has made it extremely simple to transport people, capital, and commodities in and across regions as a rapid speed. This has also made employers, customers, and employees focus solely on work activities, and losing their individual existence, hence not getting a life. In addition, the modern way of working has liberated employers from standard spatial and temporal restrictions and facilitated them to position their work activities finely and to gain inexpensive sources of labour. Therefore, workers who provide their labour in exchange for low wages cannot have a life simply because their income cannot match their needs (Golden 2001, p. 240). Moreover, the modern way of working entails developments in communication and information technologies. These advances permit capitalists to impose restraint over spatially and decentralized distributed labour processes. Also, in the contemporary way of working, an individual has to engage in activities that will maintain and enhance their job skills. This will help them to keep up with shifting job needs. Numerous people find it demanding to find ways of staying employable in a rapid-changing working environment in which talents become quickly out of date. Unlike employees of the early periods, modern day workers are most probable to go back to school or engage in activities that will enhance their talents as they change careers. This will make it difficult to get a life as argued by Sennett. Sennett highlights flexibility, decentralization and control, flextime, work ethics and teamwork, and change as the issues which lead to the corrosion of character. For Charles Stuart Mill flexibility signified the source of individual freedom and which continues to have an impact on our comprehension of the flexibility notion. Sennett asserts that search for flexibility has lead to the development of new structures of control and power, instead of establishing the situations which makes people free (Sennett 1999, p. 47). There are three components that play a part in establishing these structures of power and control. They include the concentration of power without centralization of power, flexible specialization of production, and the discontinuous reinvention of institutions. In addition, Sennett asserts that the foremost component that permits an organization to transform quickly is information technology. Re-engineering and de-layering are presumed to be results of novel technologies that largely attempt to lessen the number of employees in an organization. Also, Sennett develops a connection between decreased morale and decreased productivity and motivation of employees because of scaling down. This makes the character of the workers to decline and make past periods extra productive than recent ones. Sennett argues that one of the claims made for the new structure of work is that power is decentralized. This means that individuals’ holding lower positions in the organization poses extra control for their own duties. This claim is certainly not true on the basis of the methods used for eliminating the old bureaucratic behemoths. The novel information systems offer a complete image of the organization to leaders in manners which provide people everywhere in the network minimal space to hide. In addition, Sennett asserts that contemporary information technology has introduced unpredictable restrain over the workers. Sennett’s foremost view is that conventional forms of control, for example, pyramidal hierarchies, have been substituted in the New Economy by formless control via information technology (Sennett 1999, p. 55). Sennett asserts that flextime has turned to be a core component of the New Economy. He illustrates the augmenting of flextime with the increase of females into the world of work. Flextime was created so as to incorporate females in the working population, permitting them to mix full time parenting and part time work (Sennett 1999, p. 117). Sennett highlights how flextime works. The simplest form of flextime is for an employee to apply to work for an entire week but establish the time during the day she or he will be at the office or factory. In America, middle-class, white women and men currently can access flexible work programs than Hispanic employees or factory operatives (Douglas & Michaels 2004, p. 92). In addition, flextime is presumed to be a concession of the working day. Flexible planning of time is more beneficial to favoured workers. If flextime is a worker’s incentive, it also puts the worker in the organization’s thorough control. An example of the most flexible flextimes is working at home. This incentive causes tremendous anxiety among workers. The employers are afraid of losing restrain over their absent employees and believe that the workers who remain at home will misuse their lack of restrictions. Consequently, a number of restrictions have been developed to control the definite work processes of the workers who are not present in the work place or office (Hochschild 1997, p. 133). Workers may be compelled to regularly phone into the work place, or internal regulations may be employed to scrutinize the absent employee. All these lead to the corrosion of the worker’s character. The author illustrates the significance of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Webber, which highlights how it attempted to depict the development of a new character type. Teamwork may lead a person to believe that the working man could be brought back into a community and therefore be beneficial (Sennett 1999, p. 98). Nonetheless, Sennett refutes that teamwork has this ability and condemns it as a fantasy. The work ethics is the area in which the degree of experience is currently most disputed. The work ethic, as it is popularly understood, emphasizes self disciplined utilization of a person’s time and the consequence of delayed gratification. Nevertheless, in an administration where there is a rapid change of institutions, delayed gratification loses its worth. It becomes illogical to work hard and for long for an employer who only thinks about making sales and advancing. In Sennett’s view, teamwork signifies a work ethic which matches a political economy which is flexible. Also, teamwork illustrates the group activities of lessening showiness (Moore 1997, p. 51). Therefore, work ethics and teamwork may cause the corrosion of character. Sennett asserts that flexibility in the working area has made it demanding to the person to make lasting engagements and to design a history and narrative for its prospects. The consequence of change for the individual is fragmentation and disorientation of consistent objectives (Fairclough 1992, p. 39). This is evident in western communities. Consequently, it may be argued that all the above factors lead to corrosion of the individual’s character (Sennett 1999, p. 117). Sennett also makes claims of the corrosion of character and the precarious worker. In corrosion of character, Sennett means that the fresh forms of organization in the New Economy have direct effects on individuals and particularly on their character. In Sennett’s view, character specifically concentrates on the long term feature of people’s emotional incident. He also presumes that character is illustrated through mutual commitment and loyalty, or via the quest for long-term goals, or by the utilization of delayed gratification for the purpose of a future end (Sennett 1999, p. 117). Sennett means that the New Economy does not have the ability to maintain the development of character and that eventually the fresh form of capitalism is destabilizing the person. A person cannot design a meaningful tale of the future due to lack of an orientation to guide them (Giddens 1990, p. 63). A person cannot make a decision on what is of lasting worth in a community that concentrates on the short term. Finally, it means a person cannot sustain mutual loyalties and commitments in unstable institutions. By a precarious worker, Sennett means a person who engages in substandard employment that is insecure, unprotected, poorly paying, and does not have the capacity to support a family. There has been a tremendous rise in precarious workers due to a number of factors, for example, the distribution of information technology, the change from the manufacturing industry to the service industry, and globalization (Sennett 1999, p. 117). These transformations have led to the development of a new economy which requires flexibility in the work area and, consequently, led to the diminishing of the ordinary employment relation and a significant rise in precarious work (Fudge & Owens 2006, p. 45). In addition, Sennett depicts a precarious worker as a person largely involved in work activities that are gendered in nature. This is because females are incessantly over-represented in this form of work. The precarious worker also signifies an employee who engages in unpredictable, uncertain, and risky activities from the worker’s point of view. The worker also experiences distress in different ways to remind them of their precarity. There are a number of causes and consequences of precarious work in the modern corporate world especially to the employees. Employment precarity occurs when workers are afraid of losing their jobs or lose their jobs, when they cannot find substitute jobs in the corporate world, and when employees face lessened chances to acquire and maintain specified talents (Fudge & Owens 2006, p. 45). The precarious work has also been caused by a change in the work process. The contemporary corporate world is characterized by knowledge intensive work which requires technological innovation. There is an erosion of the standard employment relation, in which employees are perceived to work full time for a specified boss at the place of worker of the employer, frequently moving upward on employment positions in the modern corporate world (Coontz 2000, p. 67). The contemporary corporate world management’s effort to attain flexibility leads to numerous forms of corporate reorganization, consequently, this leads to a rise in precarious work and alterations in the quality of the employment relation (Warren 1996, p. 92). This continues to have extensive consequences to workers and society as a whole. Moreover, the modern corporate world has witnessed a diverse labour force with noticeable rise in the numbers of workers from every race, gender, and age (Jenkins 2000, p. 96). Also, there are increased differences in salaries or wages and other pointers of labour market success between employees with different qualifications. Job refers to a paid position of standard work. My job refers to an individual’s regular position of work. Work is a mental or physical activity intended to accomplish an activity. Career is an individual’s selected interest. Task refers to a piece of activity accomplished as part of an individual’s responsibilities. A project is an organized set of connected activities to be accomplished within a specific time and within specified costs. Finally, team work is the process of cooperating so as to accomplish an objective. The above elements may either have appositive or negative impact on a worker’s attitude and relationship to work and employment. Consequently, they may affect the employee’s character. For instance, an employee who pursues his career will be more satisfied when doing his work than a person who holds a job. This is because a job is only a paid position of standard work while a career is an individual’s selected interest. A person who has a career has control over his work while a person engaged in a project has to dedicate significant time, control, finances, and has to be loyal (Warren 1996, p. 89). This is the same in work, job, task, my job, and team work. The relationship between these and the employees have changed in that employees are aware that they should give as much as they give, and work in required conditions. We are at the age of the precarious worker and new technology gives more control for management. In the modern corporate world, the distribution of information technology and globalization has led to the development of a new economy that lay emphasis on flexibility in employment relations and the market place (Silver 2003, p. 83). These changes have both led to a rise in precarious work and number of women employees in the contemporary corporate world. Nonetheless, control of precarious work is different among countries. These controls can both act to decrease the differences between precarious and standard employment by enhancing the safeguards given to precarious workers and emphasize the dissimilarities between precarious and standard employment (Beck 1999, p. 21). In conclusion, the essay question is satisfied. This is achieved by the way the author outlines his points. He claims that the personal effects of work in the New Economy have made the individual to be disoriented due to notions such as flexibility, decentralization and control, flextime, work ethics and teamwork, and change. This leads to the corrosion of character. Also, he argues that the modern way of working has liberated employers from standard spatial and temporal restrictions and facilitated them to position their work activities finely and to gain inexpensive sources of labour. In corrosion of character, Sennett means that the fresh forms of organization in the New Economy have direct effects on individuals and particularly on their character. By a precarious worker, Sennett means a person who engages in substandard employment that is insecure, unprotected, poorly paying, and does not have the capacity to support a family. He argues that employment precarity occurs when workers are afraid of losing their jobs or lose their jobs, when they cannot find substitute jobs in the corporate world, and when employees face lessened chances to acquire and maintain specified talents (Fudge & Owens 2006, p. 45). Elements such as job, my job, career, task, team work, and work may either have appositive or negative impact on a worker’s attitude and relationship to work and employment. Therefore, it may be asserted that we are at the age of the precarious worker and new technology gives more control for management. 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