Sociology Chapter 14

Question 1

Activity Level (Definition):

Answer 1

Work often provides a basis for the acquisition and exercise of skills and capacities. Even where work is routine, it offers a structured environment in which a person’s energies may be absorbed. Without it, the opportunity to exercise such skills and capacities may be reduced.

Question 2

Alienation (Definition):

Answer 2

The sense that our own abilities as human beings are taken over by other entities. The term was originally used by Karl Marx to refer to the projection of human powers onto gods. Subsequently, he used the term to refer to the loss of workers’ control over the nature and products of their labor.

Question 3

Barnet and Cavanagh Theory of Global Economics:

Answer 3

Claims there are four webs of interconnecting commercial activity in the new world economy, including the global culture bazaar, the global shopping mall, the global workplace, and the global financial network.

Question 4

Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 4

Economic system based on private ownership of wealth, which in invested and reinvested to create profits.

Question 5

Capitalism Qualifications:

Answer 5

Private ownership of wealth, profit as incentive, competition for makers to sell goods, cheap labor and materials, and restless expansion / investment. Most widespread form of economic organization in the world.

Question 6

Characteristics of Work:

Answer 6

Money, activity level, variety, structuring one’s time, social contacts, and personal identity.

Question 7

Collective-Bargaining Agreements - Fordism (Definition):

Answer 7

Formal agreements negotiated between firms and unions, which provided for rising wages, seniority rights, and benefits in exchange for worker consent to increasingly automated systems of production.

Question 8

Divisions of labor (definition):

Answer 8

The specialization of producing goods for the market that divides regions into zones of industrial or agricultural production or high / low skills.

Question 9

Economic Interdependence (Definition):

Answer 9

The fact that in the division of labor, individuals depend of others to produce many / most of the goods they need to sustain their lives. Many people do not grow the food they eat, build their own houses, or make the clothes they wear in modern societies.

Question 10

Family Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 10

Capitalistic enterprise owned and administered by entrepreurial families in the 19th / 20th century. Privately traded and passed on to other family members.

Question 11

Flexible Production (Definition):

Answer 11

A manufacturing system involving a complex network of contract factories that enable both the process of production, and the product itself, to be quickly modified in order to meet changing demand and market conditions.

Question 12

Fordism (Definition):

Answer 12

The system of production pioneered by Henry Ford, in which the assembly line was introduced.

Question 13

Global Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 13

The transnational phase of capitalism characterized by global markets, productions, finances, and promotion of global business. (Current phase of the economy)

Question 14

Global Capitalism Qualities:

Answer 14

Giant transnational entities that roam freely around the planet in search of lower costs. Mainly loyal to no countries. Shareholders and superiors drawn from many countries, and operate in more than one country.

Question 15

Global Cultural Bazaar:

Answer 15

The newest and most extensive of the interconnecting commercial webs. It claims that global images and global dreams are diffused through movies, TV programs, music, videos, games, toys and T-shirts, and sold on a world wide basis.

Question 16

Global Financial Network:

Answer 16

Consists of billions of bits of financial information stored in computers and portrayed on computer screens. Entails almost endless currency exchanges, credit card transactions, insurance plans, and buying and selling of stocks and shares.

Question 17

Global Shopping Mall:

Answer 17

Planetary supermarket with a dazzling spread of things to eat, drink, wear and enjoy. It is more exclusive than the global cultural bazaar because the poor do not have the resources to participate.

Question 18

Global Workplace:

Answer 18

Consists of the massive array of offices, factories, restaurants, and millions of other places where goods are produced and consumed or information is exchanged. Closely related to the global financial network.

Question 19

High-Trust System (Definition):

Answer 19

Organizational or work settings in which individuals are permitted a great deal of autonomy and control over the work task (i.e. managers, supervisors, etc.).

Question 20

Informal Economy (Definition):

Answer 20

Economic transactions carried on outside the sphere of orthodox paid employment (i.e. babysitters, dogwalkers, and “off-the-books workers”).Sometimes involving the exchange of cash for goods and services provided, for which no official records are kept, and which therefore escape government notice.

Question 21

Institutional Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 21

Consolidated networks of business leadership in which corporations hold stock shares in one another, resulting in increased concentration of corporate power.

Question 22

Interlocking Directories (Definition):

Answer 22

Linkages among corporations created by individuals who sit on two or more corporate boards – which exercise control over most of the corporate landscape.

Question 23

Knowledge Economy (Definition):

Answer 23

A society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but instead the production of knowledge..

Question 24

Low-Trust Systems (Definition):

Answer 24

Organizational or work settings in which people are allowed little responsibility for, or control over, the work task (i.e. assistants, cashiers, etc.).

Question 25

Managerial Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 25

Capitalistic enterprises administered by managerial executives rather than owners. Displaced family capitalism.

Question 26

Marx Alienation view:

Answer 26

Refers to feelings of estrangement / hostility – initially to one’s job and eventually to the overall framework of capitalist.

Question 27

Money (Definition):

Answer 27

A wage or salary is in the main resource many people depend on to meet their needs. Without such an income, anxieties about coping with day-to-day life tend to multiply.

Question 28

Monopoly (Definition):

Answer 28

The domination of a single firm in a given industry.

Question 29

Negatives of Fordism:

Answer 29

It could only be applied successfully to industries that produced standardized commodities for large markets. Setting up is extremely expensive, and once a Fordist system is established it is rigid and takes substantial reinvestment to alter it. Firms in countries in which labor power is expensive find it difficult to compete with those where wages are cheaper (i.e. automotive industries in Japan versus the US).

Question 30

Oligopoly (Definition):

Answer 30

The domination of a small number of firms in a given industry.

Question 31

Outsourcing (Definition):

Answer 31

A business practice that send production of materials to factories around the world. The components of one final product often originate from many different countries and then are sent elsewhere to be put together and sold. Factories from different countries must compete with one another to obtain business.

Question 32

Personal Identity (Definition):

Answer 32

Work is usually valued for the sense of stable social identity it offers. For men in particular, self-esteem is often bound up with the economic contribution they make to maintaining the household. In addition, job conditions – such as the opportunity to work in jobs that are challenging, not routinized, and not subject to close supervision – are known to have a positive effect on a person’s sense of self-worth.

Question 33

Post-Fordism (Definition):

Answer 33

The period characterized by the transition from mass industrial production, using Fordist methods, to more flexible forms of production favoring innovation and aimed at meeting market demands for customized products.

Question 34

Post-Fordism Attributes:

Answer 34

Flexible business structures, mass customization, global outsourcing, job insecurity.

Question 35

Post-Fordism Negatives:

Answer 35

The idea of Post-Fordism in somewhat problematic due to the term being used to describe a set of overlapping changes that are occurring not only in the realm of work and economic life but also throughout society as a whole. There is no consensus about the precise meaning of post-Fordism or, indeed, if this term is even the best way of understand the phenomenon we are witnessing.

Question 36

Scientific Management (Definition):

Answer 36

Involved the detailed study of industrial processes to break them down into simple operations that could be precisely timed and organized. Designed to maximize industrial output, however is widely associated with de-skilling, degradation, and control of labor.

Question 37

Social Contacts (Definition):

Answer 37

The work environment often provides friendships and opportunities to participate in shared activities with others. Separated from the work setting, a person’s circle of possible friends and acquaintances in likely to dwindle.

Question 38

Structuring One’s Time (Definition):

Answer 38

For people in regular employment, the day is usually around the rhythm of work. Although work may sometimes be oppressive, it provides a sense of direction in daily activities. Those who are out of work frequently find boredom a major problem and may develop a sense of apathy about time.

Question 39

Taylorism / Scientific Management (Definition):

Answer 39

Set of ideas developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, involving simple, coordinated operations in industry.

Question 40

Technology (Definition):

Answer 40

The application of scientific knowledge of the material world to production, involving the creation of material instruments (such as machines) used in human interaction with nature. Used to produce an ever-increasing variety of goods more cheaply.

Question 41

Variety (Definition):

Answer 41

Work provides access to contexts that contrast with domestic surroundings. In the working environment, even when the tasks are relatively dull, individuals may enjoy doing something different from home chores.

Question 42

Welfare Capitalism (Definition):

Answer 42

Practice by which large corporations protect their employees from the fluctuations of economy. Experts think it died out during the great depression, although some claim it just went underground during the labor movement. (Late 19th century)

Question 43

Welfare Capitalism Interests:

Answer 43

Mostly interested in coercion – employers deployed all tactics, including violence to prevent unionization.

Question 44

Strike

Answer 44

A temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand.

Question 45

Employment Rate

Answer 45

The proportion of the population sixteen and older that is actively seeking work but is unable to find employment. (541)

Question 46

Union Density

Answer 46

A statistic that represents the number of union members as a percentage of the number of people who could potentially be union members. (544)

Question 47

Automation

Answer 47

Production processes monitored and controlled by machines with only minimal supervision from people.

Question 48

Mid-Twentieth Century Industrial Characteristics:

Answer 48

-The core corporation is located within the US, from which some overseas manufacturing plants are controlled.
-The corporation is highly bureaucratic and employs a large number of production workers and middle management.

Question 49

Early Twenty-First Century Industrial Characteristics:

Answer 49

-The corporation can be characterized as an “enterprise web” that links smaller businesses together.
-Work turnover is very high.

Question 50

Work Turnover:

Answer 50

The percentage of workers who leave and are replaced each year.

Question 51

Freeman and Rogers’ Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS):

Answer 51

Designed to canvas workers systematically in a wide variety of professions for their opinions on their employment and how their workplace could be improved. Excluded top managers, self-employed, owners of firms and their relatives, public-sector workers, and employees in small firms.

Question 52

Freeman and Rogers’ Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS) Findings:

Answer 52

The overwhelming finding of Freeman and Rogers’ study is that workers want more influence at work. Not only would they enjoy work more, but also their firms would be more competitive, and problems would be solved more effectively.

Question 53

Strike Components:

Answer 53

-The strike must be temporary because workers intend to return to the same job with the same employer.
-A group of workers has to be involved, because a strike is a collective action.
-A strike involves seeking to make known a grievance or to press a demand.

Question 54

Lockout:

Answer 54

Employers, rather than the workers, bring about a stoppage of work to force workers to accept a particular contract.

Question 55

Work to rule:

Answer 55

A form of organized labor action in which workers do the minimum work that is legally required of them, carefully following health, safety, and other regulations. Results in costly slowdowns for the firm because workers routinely exceed the requirements of their contract. Typically done in situations where strikes may be illegal.

Question 56

Differences in Compensation:

Answer 56

CEOs take home millions and the gap between CEOs and employees earnings is growing. Significant differences in wage regarding race, ethnicity, and gender.

Question 57

Highest Union Rates:

Answer 57

Highest in the government sector, resulting in significant differences in weekly earnings between unionized and nonunionized workers.

Question 58

The Knowledge Economy Index (KEI):

Answer 58

Rates countries based on their overall preparedness to compete in the knowledge economy.

Question 59

KEI Ranking Qualities:

Answer 59

-A high degree of educational attainment
-Access to advanced communications
-Scientific accomplishments
-Open political and economic environment