dislike work, so they will slack off unless they are coerced and threatened. On the
assembly line, a line supervisor must be watching them at all times. In white-collar
jobs, they must fill out time sheets, goals statements, and allocation lists. While they
must have a little more freedom, supervisors should still monitor their activities
closely.
Theory Y is based on the assumption that people naturally like work, so they will
do it if they feel they are a valued part of a team (as in the Hawthorne Effect). The
job of the supervisor is to create team spirit, solve problems, and offer advice, not
monitor productivity. On the assembly line, there should be suggestion boxes and team
meetings. White-collar workers might go on retreats where they fall backwards into
each other’s arms to learn trust.
McGregor argued that both theories are valid and can increase productivity,
depending on the task and the maturity and responsibility of the workers. The biggest
mistake of management is to implement Theory X all the time and never consider the
possibility of Theory Y.Manufacturing Consent.Sociologist Michael Burawoy (1980) wondered why so
many people work so hard, making only their managers rich. It’s not a desire for
promotion because people work just as hard at dead-end jobs. It’s not fear of being
fired. Why don’t they slack off or rebel against the oppressive system? Why do they
care? To find out, he took a blue-collar job at “Allied Corporation,” and carefully
observed both management and workers. He found that management engaged in
three strategies designed to manufacture consent, by which workers came to
embrace a system that also exploited them. Manufacturing consent is the
production of values and emotions (in addition to the actual things they produce)
that bind workers to their company:
■Piece-rate pay system. The workers competed with each other to produce the
highest quotas. Though the “prizes” were only minor pay raises, workers devoted
a lot of time to “making out,” strategizing new ways to increase their produc-
tion. Even Burawoy found himself working harder.
■Internal labor market. Increasing job mobility within the company gave the
workers the illusion that their dead-end jobs had potential.
■Collective bargaining. Unions gave workers the illusion that they, as individual
workers, held power.The ideas in Manufacturing Consenthave been applied to many jobs, white col-
lar as well as blue collar. For instance, in academia, promotion and tenure are based
to a great extent on publications, but often tenure committees look only at the num-
ber of publications, not the quality. So professors find their own way of “making out.”
They publish a lot of short articles that do not involve extensive research rather than
working on a big, meaningful project.Types of Jobs
There are several different types of jobs, often categorized by the color of the collar
you are thought to wear. Of course, these color codings are not always followed, but
the job categories remain relatively stable.White-Collar Jobs.White-collar work is knowledge-based work, with the day spent
manipulating symbols: talking, speaking, reading, writing, and calculating, but not
lifting boxes, assembling products, or welding parts together. Most white-collar
jobs require considerable education, usually a bachelor’s degree and often today436 CHAPTER 13ECONOMY AND WORK