HIGH SOCIETY IN A WORKERS' SOCIETY: WORK, COMMUNITY AND KIBBUTZ

The recent attention paid to corporate culture by managerial gurus has revived interest in the relationship between occupation and community, particularly the influence of social organisation upon work experience. Examination of kibbutz industry supplements these contemporary debates by extending th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology (Oxford) 1996-02, Vol.30 (1), p.1-19
Main Author: Warhurst, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assembly lines
Capitalism
Case studies
Communities
Community
Community relations
Corporate culture
Debates
Dialectics
Factories
Forces And Relations of Production
Groups
Human relations
Industrial Collectives
Industrial development
Industrial Production
Industrial sociology
Israel
Kibbutz
Kibbutzim
Labor
Labor Relations
Occupations
Polyethylene
Polyethylenes
Productivity
Qualitative research
Social interaction
Social relations
Socialism
Society
Sociological perspectives
Sociology
Sociology of work
Sociology of work and sociology of organizations
Steel production
Studies
Work environment
Work Organization
Work organization. Working relations
WORK, COMMUNITY AND COLLECTIVITY
Workers
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Summary:The recent attention paid to corporate culture by managerial gurus has revived interest in the relationship between occupation and community, particularly the influence of social organisation upon work experience. Examination of kibbutz industry supplements these contemporary debates by extending the analysis into a form of work organisation formally devoid of managerial control, instead determined by those informal social relations identified by writers critical of corporate culture. Indeed, kibbutz industrial workers find relative compensations to unpleasant, tedious and demanding work through intense social interaction. Tightly cohesive work groups provide both a defence mechanism against the brutality of the work and, through the creation of group work norms, act as a spur to ensure productivity. Awareness of this dialectical relationship between occupation and community is not new. However, the qualitative analysis presented of the communal socialism of the kibbutz does provide a unique insight into the function of social relationships within the organisation of industrial work beyond that usually examined in either capitalist or state socialist economies.
ISSN:0038-0385
1469-8684
DOI:10.1177/0038038596030001002