Steven P Vallas
Biographic Data
| ID | 5701284 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven P Vallas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven P |
| FAMILY NAME | Vallas |
| SIGNATURE | VALLAS S P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northeastern University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 224 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Labour platforms as mechanisms of class reproduction
Expansion of the platform economy has given rise to a paradox in the literature on gig work: Given capital’s imposition of algorithmic controls, why do so many platform workers express support and appreciation for gig work, viewing it as enhancing their autonomy? Approaches toward this question have advanced numerous explanations, such as gamification, neoliberal norms, and entrepreneurial culture. We find these efforts only partially successful,…
How Slavoj Became Žižek
Confronting Weber's Ghosts
The Sharing Economy
The sharing economy is transforming economies around the world, entering markets for lodging, ride hailing, home services, and other sectors that previously lacked robust person-to-person alternatives. Its expansion has been contentious and its meanings polysemic. It launched with a utopian discourse promising economic, social, and environmental benefits, which critics have questioned. In this review, we discuss its origins and intellectual found…
Work and Labor in the Digital Age
This volume presents the most recent studies of work and labor in the digital age as it unfolds in both Europe and the United States.One of the critical questions facing modernity concerns the reconfiguration of paid employment, which has been subject to wholesale changes that have widespread consequences for workers, their families, and the institutional structure that characterizes capitalist societies. A key driver of these changes has been th…
Precarious Work
Probing Precarious Work
Research in the Sociology of Work
Personal Branding and Identity Norms in the Popular Business Press
The theory of enterprise culture (du Gay, 1996) has provoked one of the more enduring strands of research on organizations and identities. Yet, after a decade and half of debate, the validity of this theory remains mired in ambiguity. In this article we revisit the theory of enterprise culture by exploring shifts in the popular business press and employee responses to them, in an effort to track the identity norms that have impinged on job seeker…
Work and Employment
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Sociology of Work Ascriptive Inequality at Work The Sociology of Organizations Conclusion References
Enemies of the state? Testing three models of anti-immigrant sentiment
Essays on Professions
The Cultural Study of Work
Why Teamwork Fails
Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s. Although these plants adopted an array of new work practices, most achieved only limited gains and were generally unable to transcend the traditional boundary between salaried and hourly employees. A key reason lay in the mana…
Rediscovering the Color Line within Work Organizations
Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work organizations, this traditional strength has languished in recent years. Few ethnographic studies have managed to capture what E. C. Hughes once called “the knitting of racial groups” at work. This article critically reviews the literature on race and work organizations and offers a set of propositions that target neglected aspects of racial boundari…
The Adventures of Managerial Hegemony
New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn that team systems may encourage workers to internalize managerial definitions of their work situations, and-as a result-strengthen management's hegemony over them. This article presents an ethnographic analysis of four manufacturing plants in which team initiatives have been introduced. The findings cast doubt on the hegemony thesis. Analyzing data bea…
White Collar Sweatshop
In the 1990s, before the bubble of the miracle economy burst, corporate America grew fat on the miseries of the American worker. Media attention has focused on dot-com disasters, massive layoffs, and explosions of corporate violence. But for those millions of Americans who have neither been laid off nor gone postal, life at the office has become a nightmare: seven-day-a-week workloads; reduced salaries, pensions, and benefits; virtual enslavement…
The Transformation of Work
Science, capitalism, and the rise of the 'knowledge worker
Rethinking Post-Fordism
Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or “Fordist” paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, “post-Fordist” structure of work. These claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theo…
Rethinking Post-Fordism
Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or “Fordist” paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, “post-Fordist” structure of work. These claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theo…
The Transformation of Work Revisited
Journal Article The Transformation of Work Revisited: The Limits of Flexibility in American Manufacturing Get access Steven P. Vallas, Steven P. Vallas Direct correspondence to Vallas, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar John P. Beck John P. Beck Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic …
Work, Workplaces, and Beyond
White-Collar Proletarians? The Structure of Clerical Work and Levels of Class Consciousness
Marxist theory has long argued that the development of capitalism tends to proletarianize office employees. This article addresses the validity of this claim. Using survey data drawn from a subsample of clerical workers employed in the communications industry, the article tests a series of hypotheses regarding the relation between computerization, clerical work, and levels of class consciousness. In line with predictions of deskilling, computeriz…
The Lesson of Mannheim's Historicism
Although nearly half a century has elapsed since Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was first developed, the precise nature of its lesson remains ambiguous. In this essay it is argued that Mannheim's work is best understood within the context of historicism, which informed many of its most basic assumptions. Mannheim's work, thus approached, is seen to be the product of an unresolved antagonism between historicism and Marxism, the two traditions b…
Science, capitalism, and the rise of the 'knowledge worker
The Adventures of Managerial Hegemony
New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn that team systems may encourage workers to internalize managerial definitions of their work situations, and-as a result-strengthen management's hegemony over them. This article presents an ethnographic analysis of four manufacturing plants in which team initiatives have been introduced. The findings cast doubt on the hegemony thesis. Analyzing data bea…
The Transformation of Work Revisited
Journal Article The Transformation of Work Revisited: The Limits of Flexibility in American Manufacturing Get access Steven P. Vallas, Steven P. Vallas Direct correspondence to Vallas, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar John P. Beck John P. Beck Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic …
The Sharing Economy
The sharing economy is transforming economies around the world, entering markets for lodging, ride hailing, home services, and other sectors that previously lacked robust person-to-person alternatives. Its expansion has been contentious and its meanings polysemic. It launched with a utopian discourse promising economic, social, and environmental benefits, which critics have questioned. In this review, we discuss its origins and intellectual found…
Rediscovering the Color Line within Work Organizations
Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work organizations, this traditional strength has languished in recent years. Few ethnographic studies have managed to capture what E. C. Hughes once called “the knitting of racial groups” at work. This article critically reviews the literature on race and work organizations and offers a set of propositions that target neglected aspects of racial boundari…
Enemies of the state? Testing three models of anti-immigrant sentiment
White-Collar Proletarians? The Structure of Clerical Work and Levels of Class Consciousness
Marxist theory has long argued that the development of capitalism tends to proletarianize office employees. This article addresses the validity of this claim. Using survey data drawn from a subsample of clerical workers employed in the communications industry, the article tests a series of hypotheses regarding the relation between computerization, clerical work, and levels of class consciousness. In line with predictions of deskilling, computeriz…
The Lesson of Mannheim's Historicism
Although nearly half a century has elapsed since Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was first developed, the precise nature of its lesson remains ambiguous. In this essay it is argued that Mannheim's work is best understood within the context of historicism, which informed many of its most basic assumptions. Mannheim's work, thus approached, is seen to be the product of an unresolved antagonism between historicism and Marxism, the two traditions b…
The Lesson of Mannheim's Historicism
Although nearly half a century has elapsed since Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was first developed, the precise nature of its lesson remains ambiguous. In this essay it is argued that Mannheim's work is best understood within the context of historicism, which informed many of its most basic assumptions. Mannheim's work, thus approached, is seen to be the product of an unresolved antagonism between historicism and Marxism, the two traditions b…
White-Collar Proletarians? The Structure of Clerical Work and Levels of Class Consciousness
Marxist theory has long argued that the development of capitalism tends to proletarianize office employees. This article addresses the validity of this claim. Using survey data drawn from a subsample of clerical workers employed in the communications industry, the article tests a series of hypotheses regarding the relation between computerization, clerical work, and levels of class consciousness. In line with predictions of deskilling, computeriz…
Work, Workplaces, and Beyond
The Transformation of Work Revisited
Journal Article The Transformation of Work Revisited: The Limits of Flexibility in American Manufacturing Get access Steven P. Vallas, Steven P. Vallas Direct correspondence to Vallas, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar John P. Beck John P. Beck Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic …
Rethinking Post-Fordism
Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or “Fordist” paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, “post-Fordist” structure of work. These claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theo…
Rethinking Post-Fordism
Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or “Fordist” paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, “post-Fordist” structure of work. These claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theo…
The Transformation of Work
Science, capitalism, and the rise of the 'knowledge worker
White Collar Sweatshop
In the 1990s, before the bubble of the miracle economy burst, corporate America grew fat on the miseries of the American worker. Media attention has focused on dot-com disasters, massive layoffs, and explosions of corporate violence. But for those millions of Americans who have neither been laid off nor gone postal, life at the office has become a nightmare: seven-day-a-week workloads; reduced salaries, pensions, and benefits; virtual enslavement…
Why Teamwork Fails
Using data from a comparative, multisite ethnography, this paper identifies some of the social and organizational conditions that limited the impact of workplace transformation at four manufacturing plants during the 1990s. Although these plants adopted an array of new work practices, most achieved only limited gains and were generally unable to transcend the traditional boundary between salaried and hourly employees. A key reason lay in the mana…
Rediscovering the Color Line within Work Organizations
Although American sociology has long been concerned with racial and ethnic inequality within work organizations, this traditional strength has languished in recent years. Few ethnographic studies have managed to capture what E. C. Hughes once called “the knitting of racial groups” at work. This article critically reviews the literature on race and work organizations and offers a set of propositions that target neglected aspects of racial boundari…
The Adventures of Managerial Hegemony
New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn that team systems may encourage workers to internalize managerial definitions of their work situations, and-as a result-strengthen management's hegemony over them. This article presents an ethnographic analysis of four manufacturing plants in which team initiatives have been introduced. The findings cast doubt on the hegemony thesis. Analyzing data bea…
The Cultural Study of Work
Enemies of the state? Testing three models of anti-immigrant sentiment
Essays on Professions
Work and Employment
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Sociology of Work Ascriptive Inequality at Work The Sociology of Organizations Conclusion References
Personal Branding and Identity Norms in the Popular Business Press
The theory of enterprise culture (du Gay, 1996) has provoked one of the more enduring strands of research on organizations and identities. Yet, after a decade and half of debate, the validity of this theory remains mired in ambiguity. In this article we revisit the theory of enterprise culture by exploring shifts in the popular business press and employee responses to them, in an effort to track the identity norms that have impinged on job seeker…
Research in the Sociology of Work
Precarious Work
Probing Precarious Work
Work and Labor in the Digital Age
This volume presents the most recent studies of work and labor in the digital age as it unfolds in both Europe and the United States.One of the critical questions facing modernity concerns the reconfiguration of paid employment, which has been subject to wholesale changes that have widespread consequences for workers, their families, and the institutional structure that characterizes capitalist societies. A key driver of these changes has been th…
Confronting Weber's Ghosts
The Sharing Economy
The sharing economy is transforming economies around the world, entering markets for lodging, ride hailing, home services, and other sectors that previously lacked robust person-to-person alternatives. Its expansion has been contentious and its meanings polysemic. It launched with a utopian discourse promising economic, social, and environmental benefits, which critics have questioned. In this review, we discuss its origins and intellectual found…
Labour platforms as mechanisms of class reproduction
Expansion of the platform economy has given rise to a paradox in the literature on gig work: Given capital’s imposition of algorithmic controls, why do so many platform workers express support and appreciation for gig work, viewing it as enhancing their autonomy? Approaches toward this question have advanced numerous explanations, such as gamification, neoliberal norms, and entrepreneurial culture. We find these efforts only partially successful,…
How Slavoj Became Žižek
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (15 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (11 works) · Engineering (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Work (physics) (9 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (7 works) · Mechanical Engineering (7 works)