Organizational Anomie and Worker Consent

Abstract

The normative basis of organizational life is often overlooked in contemporary workplace studies. Current models of the workplace more frequently stress forms of workplace control as determinants of workplace relations. The current article analyzes data taken from the population of organizational ethnographies to illuminate the role of organizational anomie in influencing citizenship and resistance at work. The results indicate that anomic management behavior has greater negative consequences for worker consent than the specific system of workplace control used. A greater focus on the role of normative orders in conditioning workplace behaviors and experiences may help to explain anomalies in the contemporary workplace, such as the simultaneous expansion of worker participation and workforce marginalization, by showing how each evolves from different normative orders.