soc of work quiz

Question 1

coworking spaces

Answer 1

a working arrangement in which people from different teams and companies come together to work in a single shared space

Question 2

adv of cowork.. spaces

Answer 2

Flexibility
Connections with others
Positive work environment
Basic amenities (electricity, internet, snacks)

Question 3

disadv of cowork.. spaces

Answer 3

Limited sense of community?
Expensive? (20-50 per day)
Limited in person face time with colleagues located elsewhere (loneliness)
promote inequality

Question 4

bridging connections

Answer 4

tend to join dissimilar individuals

Question 5

bonding connections

Answer 5

tend to join like individuals, typically along demographic dimensions, class,
interests, education, etc

Question 6

supply-side inequality

Answer 6

individuals’ choices (subject to constraint) that may lead to disparate outcomes

Examples:
▪ Education investments
▪ Selection of job or employer
▪ Persistence through adversity
→ These shape access to, or
eligibility for, certain opportunities

IMPORTANT:
▪ This is not ‘victim blaming’–
Systemic factors shape available
choices
▪ Public policies/laws rarely target supply-side factors

Question 7

human capital (hc)

Answer 7

The economic value of an individual’s skill set

▪ “[A]ny stock of knowledge or characteristics the worker has (either
innate or acquired) that contributes to his or her ‘productivity.’”
(Acemoglu and Autor 2011)
▪ Human capital cannot be separated from a person, in contrast to
financial assets
▪ Human capital includes schooling, training, skills, expertise, personal
attitude, and innate intelligence, among others

Examples:
▪ Education**
▪ Training**
Education and training are two of the most important human
capital investments, Highly correlated with economic outcomes in labor markets

▪ Intelligence
▪ Experience

Question 8

HC: general skills

Answer 8

skills that are beneficial to the worker, and frequently portable across employers

Skills and abilities that are broadly transferable across settings. Typically paid for by individuals. Example: Public speaking expertise

Question 9

HC: firm specific skills

Answer 9

skills that solely contribute to productivity within the current employer
Example: Org. floorplan knowledge

Question 10

sources of HC differences

Answer 10

▪ Innate ability
▪ Pre-Labor market socialization (exp: norms of interaction)
▪ Schooling
▪ School Quality
▪ Training

Question 11

SCHOOLING HC difference

Answer 11

Weekly Median U.S. Earnings by Education, 2022:

most: doctoral and professional, over 2000 a week
lowest: less than HS diploma, less than 750 a week

unemployment rates by education:
doctoral (1%)
to
less than hs diploma (5.5%)

Question 12

skills vs signals- education

Answer 12

Human capital represents skills; proportional rewards are allocated

Human capital is a signal that is costly to obtain

Question 13

sheepskin effect

Answer 13

One piece of evidence that diplomas function, in
part, as signals comes from comparing newly-minted bachelors graduates
with those that are very nearly complete

▪Completed bachelor degrees tend to be valued far more highly by
employers relative to those that are very nearly complete

Question 14

Demand-side inequality
▪ Taste-based discrimination
▪ Statistical discrimination
▪ Status characteristics theory

Answer 14

(typically organizational) factors that
may lead to disparate outcomes. Exp:
▪ Decision maker bias/prejudice
(may be conscious or unconscious)
▪ Recruitment and selection systems that
reward different things
▪ Promotion and termination decisions
→ These play a gatekeeping role to
potentially lucrative opportunities

IMPORTANT
Important:
▪ Even ostensibly ‘merit-based’ systems
may produce unequal outcomes b/c of
supply-side processes
▪ Public policies/laws more frequently
target demand-side factors

Question 15

DS INEQ: taste based

Answer 15

Explicit prejudice. Decision makers seek to avoid interaction and thus miss out on productive workers

Question 16

DS INEQ: Statistical discrimination

Answer 16

Similar to profiling. Generalizations regarding group performance applied to individuals

Question 17

DS INEQ: Status characteristics theory

Answer 17

Biased expectations. Socially-constructed perceptions shape expected behaviors for different groups

Question 18

approaches to minimize bias

Answer 18

▪ Blinding/masking
▪ Collecting job relevant information
▪ Competency assessments
▪ Transparency programs
▪ Accountability programs
▪ Self-reflection

Question 19

How do labor markets and
commodity markets differ?

Answer 19

labor markets:
1. Workers are not standardized
2. A multiplicity of markets
3. No central clearing house
4. Continuity of the employment relationship
5. Workers deliver themselves along with their labor
6. Workers (may) have bargaining power

Question 20

Relative ease of discrimination during key employment events

Answer 20

easier to discriminate during hiring

harder during terminating

Question 21

▪ In-group preferences

Answer 21

liking and helping people who are similar to you more than others

Question 22

▪ Internal divisions of labor

Answer 22

significance: how labor is divided internally, can determine pay and how social interactions are structured

Question 23

▪ Relative power

Answer 23

different ppl in org have diff amount of power which has an effect on people’s experiences in organizations

Question 24

▪ Organizational environments

Answer 24

Coercive processes : pressures from really powerfully actors within environment that can change organization, e.g. legal environments, if laws change it is a coercive process that can change how organization goes

Normative processes: customs, the norm has an effect on how things are done in company

Mimetic processes: when orgs are facing uncertainty they adopt behavior that are similar within their field, they copy what other companies within their field are doing

Question 25

▪ Hiring algorithms and hidden workers

Answer 25

seek to help decision makers screen out
applicants assessed to lack certain quantifiable job requirements
▪ Individuals who want to work, but are consistently screened out by
algorithms are sometimes termed Hidden Workers (Liu 2022)

Question 26

▪ Bias in hiring algorithms

Answer 26

▪ Sourcing Stage: When placing ads, algorithms
have been found to selectively target certain
groups, reinforcing the demographic make up of
certain jobs
▪ Screening: Algorithms are often trained on past
hiring decisions, which may unintentionally
formalize past biased judgments
▪ Interviewing: Algorithms can assess video/ audio
feeds to infer personnel characteristics based on
diction, posture, and enthusiasm. Concern that
evaluations are rarely job-relevant…

Question 27

why do firms exist?

Answer 27

To minimize transaction costs (the expenses incurred when
buying/selling)
- Costs can be reduced through in‐house activities and economies of scale
-Firms allow for coordination (Exp: Directed activity, but also “collective
knowledge,” “skill development,” and “corporate culture”)

Firms tend to appear when:
1) Activities are complex, and thus transactional savings can be achieved,
2) Risk can be minimized, and
3) Prices can be reduced (exp: technology, labor, purchase volume)