The Social Bases of Support for Workplace Democracy

After analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of political power, Form and Rytina (1969) called for increased investigation of the relationship between social stratification and political ideology. This article complements their focus by analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of power in th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociological perspectives 1984-10, Vol.27 (4), p.395-425
Main Authors: Zipp, John F., Luebke, Paul, Landerman, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affluence
Attitudes
Blue collar workers
Capitalism
Coefficients
Democracy
Democracy/Democracies/Democratic/ Democrats/ Democratization
Financial management
General studies
Job satisfaction
Manual labor
Owners
Party identification
Political attitudes
Political ideologies
Political power
Public opinion
Reorganization
Social stratification
Sociology
Sociology of work
Sociology of work and sociology of organizations
Stock ownership
Work
Workplace/Workplaces
Workplaces
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Summary:After analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of political power, Form and Rytina (1969) called for increased investigation of the relationship between social stratification and political ideology. This article complements their focus by analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of power in the workplace. We do this specifically by examining the social bases of support for workplace democracy in the United States. Workplace democracy is important because in and of itself, it is an indicator of the democratic versus undemocratic tendencies of individuals, and support for it questions the existing distribution of power between workers and owners/managers. Drawing on data from a 1975 national sample, our principal findings are that there is widespread support for a democratic reorganization of power in the workplace, with blue-collar workers being the most in favor of it and managers the least disposed to it. Furthermore, affluence does not seriously decrease blue collar workers' support for it. In the concluding section, we discuss the practical and scholarly implications of these results.
ISSN:0731-1214
1533-8673
DOI:10.2307/1389034