Work and Organizational Studies in Australia Essay

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Inequalities/ opportunities in modern society

One can provide an analysis of the changes to work and society upon securitizing the changes on basis of three frameworks. He/she can carry out the analysis through social seclusion, through imaging or organizational identities, and through the emergence of new classes of people. Florida looks at the changes in the work of today as being attributed to the transformations encountered in everyday life. Modern work has changed letting loose 1950’s rules, dressing codes, and adopting new work schedules as opposed to 1950s 8.00-5.00 work schedule. People would report to work and leave as they wish.

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Also, racial discrimination and ethnicity have become something of the past with people of any race occupying any leadership position in as much he/ or she is qualified. He particularly noted that “our fundamental social forms are shifting as well, driven by forces traceable to creative ethos” (Florida 2002, p.7). The transformations offer a myriad of opportunities to everyone without discrimination whatsoever. Du Gay (1996) claims that the modern-day work environs and society seems surrounded by opportunities brought about by technological sophistication.

He notes that “the internal world of retail is being re-imagined through managerial discourse of excellence as a place where productivity is to be enhanced, customer needs satisfied, quality service guaranteed, flexibility enhanced and creative innovation fostered” (Du Gay 1996, p.119).

Du Gay’s line of thought orientation is stronger by the fact that the incorporation of varying technologies has resulted in senior personnel’s management tactics aspirations undergoing a transformation into new methods of the society’s working population adopting new mechanisms of work. It proves however paramount to evaluate how much people consume the technology in an attempt to make a total change in the manner in which the society ought to be transformed. The technology, as subjected to various groups of people stands out as no choice and therefore not worth keeping at bay.

I find the ideas of Florida and du Gay not satisfying since according to the arguments, forces that shape our social changes at our places of work are beyond our capacity to control them. In as much the advocated technology translates to people living in a virtual world in which work takes place online, has seen the very ways that linked people broken. Florida notes that “technology and unbridled market force are making us work harder and faster, leaving us with very less time to enjoy each other and our interests” (p.7). Consequently, human connections and neighborhoods have suffered significant destruction.

Anthias’ ideas on the seclusion of social classes are more convincing since attributing the changes in work and society to racial and cultural changes gives an indication that the changes can be observed, and hence interventions to disorient the direction of change can be taken if need be. However, the notion of seclusion is treated, “as emergent and subject to historical contingencies, variable, irreducible and changeable but not ad hoc or un investigable” (Anthias 2001, p.841). Seclusion involves collaborative allegiances bucked up by struggles: something that is observable from the society.

Dirty work

Tainted jobs are tasks regarded by other people as morally insulting or rather disgusting and degrading. Concepts of tainted work extend to include, “aspects of job that are shameful, disliked or serve to challenge the self image of the worker” (Tracy 2006, p.8). Work may be dirty in physical social or moral terms. Physical taint characterizes jobs, which are associated with garbage collection, body fluids, dirt, or dangerous working conditions in general.

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Workers who task demand servile relationships with their employers such as domestic workers commonly encounter social taints. This form of taint also faces workers who have “regular contact with people who themselves are stigmatized such as social workers or correctional officers” (Tracy 2006, p.9). Lastly, moral taint afflicts those whom their work seems perceived as of dubious virtue in nature or more plainly as sinful for instance strippers and pawnbrokers.

In light of the different types of taint, the victim workers adopt various strategies to deal with whatever taint afflicts them. Workers may put efforts to reframe the stigma attached to the job. Through “transforming the meaning attached to the stigmatized occupation” (Tracy 2006, p.9) the worker learns how to adapt to the stigma. This way they manage to neutralize through negating, rationalization, or attachment of some positive traits to the ‘dirty job’. Alternatively, the workers attempt to recalibrate the dirty work. This entails “adjusting the implicit standards that are invoked to assess the magnitude or valence of a given dirty job” (Tracy 2006, p.9).

As a way of example, workers under-exaggerate some certain aspects of their jobs in an attempt to extract some attributes of their job, which explicitly helps to justify how important the job is in terms of the benefits it confers to the society or how it amicably helps to contribute to the overall attainment of the goals of the organization. Thirdly, workers may alleviate taints by the deployment of refocusing techniques.

The employee takes requisite strides to shift “attention from stigmatized features of the work to non stigmatized features” (Ashforth & Kreiner 1999, p.420). For instance, reflecting more on the high pay and work schedules that don’t comply with the traditional schedules of work, people undertaking tasks of criminal investigations can confidently deal with social taints attached to their jobs. Lastly (Tracy 2006, p.10) argues that workers can employ a distancing strategy to escape association with taints. He points out that health workers can physically or symbolically distance clients while bathing them by simply putting on gloves.

The concepts of prestige, taint, and or dirt are rigidly intertwined with social identities such as gender, ethnicity, and class. Tracy (2006, p.12) noted that “gendered discourses permeate people’s popular understanding of male and female authority”. Such discourse allows the growth of gender-segregated regards at different magnitudes of dirty job perceptions based on gender schools of thought. Class and ethnicity have got their take on the attribution of people with works that are deemed appropriate for them… Given that the mechanisms of fighting with the stigma of dirty works fall on platforms of equality in all other ways except on the job itself, workers who seem segregated on the grounds of their gender, ethnicity, and class cannot be able to substantially combat negative taints of their work.

Globalization and labor markets

In relation to international labor markets, people can consider workers not only as service and consumption but also as part of the production process. Broek (2004, p.61) echo out that outsourcing of some office-based tasks to countries with “low wages, precarious employment and questionable safety standards” has significantly contributed to the shaping of the international labor divisions.

However, differences in levels of global worker agency exist between the three types of workers due to the forces of the national economy; the state as a legislator; migration policies, and trade unions among others. For instance, despite the intensive strides in the ICT sector, the applications are “embedded in operating systems or consumer products” (Broek 2004, p.61). On the other hand, the service work such as call center demands specific skills affiliated to emotional labor, and or aesthetic characteristics, which remain dictated by some deeply ingrained cultural values.

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The manner in which different genders relate, both at home and workplaces, also plays a role in levels of workers globally. In service work, Broek (2006, p.67) indicates that “women account for 70 percent of call centre workforce in most UK and European countries and for over 50 percent of all Australian call centers”. The reason for this is that people view women as having stronger organizational social skills that permit them to pursue careers demanding service work requiring interaction skills in a better way than men do.

Substantially to note is the contribution of “tradition and modernity interaction with the way local and global cultures shape and are shaped by gender, both in terms of production and consumption” (Broek 2006, p. 69). Globalization having resorted to more quests for liberation, the modern women perceive themselves as a better place than the past generation of their kind. Consequently, women are provided with avenues to challenge the pre-existing ideological perceptions of gender and hence pragmatically asserting their personal agency.

Production takes place alongside consumption simultaneously in the same arena and within the same place and therefore international competition has not opened doors for service jobs significantly despite the role of ICT in globalization. Evidently, “cultures of work interrelate with the process of globalization” (Broek 2006, p.72) so that different levels of global worker agency surfaces for the three types of workers. Engulf by the cost parameter, the global work levels becomes even more pronounced.

Many companies deploy all the mechanisms to ensure that they satisfactorily benefit from the disharmony of the labor costs. It is thus no wonder that, by taking into consideration the unit labor costs, “English, America, and Australian firms have established service call centers in NIE’s as they did in outer metropolitan regions of Australia during the first decade”(Broek 2006, 61). Some places in the world prove to cut the costs of certain support services to the consumption and production function well by a half or even by three quarters.

Globalization through its enhanced technological know-how comes even to foster more relocation of the three types of works of disproportionately globally based on the lowest bidder. As a result, the international labor market stands shaped such that no state is a single island.

Most significant social factors changing work

I think the Breakdown of cultural beliefs, the onset of liberation, ethnicity and class breakdown, and complete reversal of moral perception of people have significantly changed the work environment. The cultural beliefs that segregate work on basis of ‘man’ and ‘women’ jobs have broken loose permitting a significant rise in the number of Women in competition in the arena of employment with men.

The fruits are re-structuring the labor markets giving each gender more preference to the work that suits them best. For example, as observed by Broek (2006, p.67), “women account for 70 percent of call centre workforce in most UK and European countries and for over 50 percent of all Australian call centers” depicts that women are best suited to works that require aesthetic and emotional affiliations. Allowing each gender to explore the sector, which seems well acquainted with has substantial results in terms of productivity being anticipated.

The modern world seems dominated by struggles to fight for social integration impediments at all costs. Social classes and racial differentiation when it comes to delegation of work duties reminiscent of those experienced during Taylor’s time are ceasing out. The new generation of global workforce therefore carryout their tasks without mental taints that the job allocated to them is prejudiced based on which racial, cultural, or ethnic group they come from.

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The output of each worker thus proves the best within his/her capacity. Consequently, organizational overall goals are incredibly realized. The technological development as noted by Florida (2002) has broken down work hierarchy classes bringing in new approaches characterized by the full autonomy of every worker in decision-making based on the worker’s creativity and innovatively (p. 12).

Inculcation of mechanisms aimed at protecting and treating all jobs right and without disdain incredibly alters contemporary work perceptions. Declines in stigmas attached to different work, especially work regarded as ‘dirty’ see a total reversal of workers regards to their work. Consequently, social segregation seems hampered with resulting in to complete redefinition of various jobs and labors markets at large globally.

With the elimination of physical, social, and moral taints significantly, more opportunities arise in the consumption, production, and service work sectors. Through “transforming the meaning attached to the stigmatized occupation” (Tracy, 2006, p.9), people have ventured into traditionally perceived dirty jobs such as firefighting, garbage collection, recycling among others which have proofed to so essential in support of the entire global production function not negating the vast opportunities of work arising as a result.

Unfortunately, the advocated for global universalisms in the way people perceive various jobs having being brought about by social reforms, have got the ability to make people more satisfied with what they currently do, something that is a threat to the world of dynamism and replicating societal needs. Nevertheless, globalization provides avenues for enhancing instant information flow there by fostering the integration of the world’s societies into one major group of people with almost similar perceptions toward various issues. This has amicably changed international contemporary work.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'Work and Organizational Studies in Australia'. 26 January.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Work and Organizational Studies in Australia." January 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/work-and-organizational-studies-in-australia/.

1. IvyPanda. "Work and Organizational Studies in Australia." January 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/work-and-organizational-studies-in-australia/.


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IvyPanda. "Work and Organizational Studies in Australia." January 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/work-and-organizational-studies-in-australia/.

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