Workers on the line in small firms: informal management and working-class clivages

Relations between workers of low status in small firms are often presented either as fragmentary in an autocratic setting or, on the contrary, as harmonious in a personalized world. This article, based on fieldwork and a historical case study of a distributor of pharmaceutic products in Belgium, adv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociologie du travail (Paris) 2010-10, Vol.52 (4), p.503-520
Main Author: Lomba, C
Format: Article
Language:fre
Subjects:
Belgium
Ethnography
Management
Occupations
Pharmaceutical industry
Small and medium sized enterprises
Workers
Working class
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Relations between workers of low status in small firms are often presented either as fragmentary in an autocratic setting or, on the contrary, as harmonious in a personalized world. This article, based on fieldwork and a historical case study of a distributor of pharmaceutic products in Belgium, advances the idea that, despite the importance of alliances between workers, clivages between groups are more significant in small organizations where management tends to be informal. Competing groups form that are based on bonds of ''interknowledge'' and on alliances with the staff in order to gain access to scarce resources. All rights reserved, Elsevier
ISSN:0038-0296
DOI:10.1016/j.soctra.2010.09.008