class and work autonomy in 21 countries- a question of production regime or power resources

http://asj.sagepub.com/Acta Sociologica

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/53/3/213The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0001699310374489 2010 53: 213Acta Sociologica

Jonas Edlund and Anne GrnlundPower Resources?

Class and Work Autonomy in 21 Countries : A Question of Production Regime or

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Nordic Sociological Association

can be found at:Acta SociologicaAdditional services and information for

http://asj.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://asj.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/53/3/213.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Sep 17, 2010Version of Record >>

by Nicolas Diana on October 17, 2011asj.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Class and Work Autonomy in 21 Countries

A Question of Production Regime or Power Resources?

Jonas EdlundDepartment of Sociology, Umea University, Umea, Sweden

Anne GronlundDepartment of Sociology, Umea University, Umea, Sweden

abstract: Autonomy, or the extent to which employees can control their own work, isa central theme in debates on organizational flexibility and labour marketstratification. Predictions of upskilling and autonomy, for manual workers too, havebeen a striking component in visions of post-Fordism and post-industrialism. The twomain comparative labour market theories the varieties of capitalism school and thepower resources approach suggest that both the level and the distribution of auton-omy vary across production contexts, either because of national differences in skillrequirements or because of the varying strength of organized labour. The objectiveof the article, based on the 2004 European Social Survey, is to test these two hypoth-eses by examining national variation regarding mean levels and class differences inautonomy among 21 countries. The main conclusion is that both mean levels and classdifferences in autonomy have much more to do with the strength of organized labourthan with the skill requirements of production. The analysis also questions a centralelement of the varieties of capitalism theory, namely the notion of national productionstrategies based on differences in skill specificity.

Keywords: autonomy u class u power resources u production regimes u skill uspecific skill

Introduction

Autonomy the extent to which employees exercise discretion in their work has been animportant subject in both public and scholarly debate on organizational flexibility and labourmarket stratification. In the class theory currently dominating sociology, autonomy is an impor-tant concept for distinguishing classes (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992; Goldthorpe, 2000). Auton-omy is closely related to skill and a fundamental notion is that work tasks involving complexskills are difficult to monitor and sanction. Therefore, the level of autonomy is expected to beconsiderably higher among service class employees than among unskilled workers. However,comparative theories suggest that the organization of work follows different logics in countrieswith different institutional set-ups. Therefore, not only mean levels but also class differences in

ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2010

Acta Sociologica u September 2010 u Vol 53(3): 213228 u DOI: 10.1177/0001699310374489Copyright # 2010 Nordic Sociological Association and SAGE

(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)www.sagepublications.com


autonomy may vary between countries. Two perspectives may be considered to explain suchvariation: the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach, emphasizing national variation in the skillrequirements of production (Soskice, 1999), and power resources theory, which suggests thatclass-based differences in work conditions across countries vary with the strength of organizedlabour (Korpi, 2006).

The objective of this article is to examine with data from 21 countries whether class differ-ences in autonomy differ systematically between countries and whether such variation can beattributed to differences in the skill requirements of production or to the varying strength oforganized labour. In using direct indicators of skill requirements, we also test one cornerstoneassumption in VoC theory, namely the notion of national skill profiles.

End of Fordism return of worker autonomy?

Scholarly interest in autonomy was developed against the backdrop of scientific management the principles of work organization laid down by Frederick W. Taylor, put to large-scale practiceat Henry Fords car factories and chosen by organizational researchers to epitomize thetwentieth-century era of mass production. Scientific management rested on two basic principles:first, that work should be divided into small and standardized units and, second, that thisdetailed pre-planning and division of work should be carried out by the management. Briefly,Taylors conviction was that efficiency could only be achieved through enforced standardizationof methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced coop-eration and that the duty of enforcing these standards rested with the management alone (1911/1972: 83, emphasis in original).

Taylors two principles illustrate that autonomy is related to skill, but also to power. Thisbecomes even clearer in Bravermans (1974: 136) famous interpretation of scientific management.In Bravermans view, the organizational principles devised by Taylor aimed at separating thelabour process from the skills of the workers and providing management with a monopoly ofknowledge that could be used to control workers. He predicted that the principles of scientificmanagement would be spread and perfected until the worker was no longer a craftsman in anysense, but [] an animated tool of the management. Although this de-skilling thesis has notreceived strong empirical support, Bravermans way of linking autonomy, skill and power in theanalysis of Taylorism also appears in modern accounts of the breakdown of Fordism.

In visions of the new economy and the flexible organization, the abolition of Tayloristic prin-ciples of standardization and control is equated with a reinstatement of craft skills, workerautonomy and empowerment. Here, it is suggested that the number of employees involved inknowledge-based work traditionally characterized by more autonomy than production work has increased (Castells, 1996). Moreover, it is argued that in a globalized world, organizationsmust be lean and flexible, constantly adapting to volatile markets. To achieve this and to realizethe potentials created by information technology narrow job descriptions must be widened,hierarchies flattened and responsibilities delegated (Piore and Sabel, 1984; Womack et al.,1991; Castells, 1996). In their seminal work on flexible organization, Piore and Sabel (1984:278) argue echoing Braverman that in the Fordist era, production was made independentof the skills of workers as the extreme division of labor routinizes and thereby trivializes workto a degree that often degrades the people who perform it. However, in their view, the need forflexibility will turn the logic of the Tayloristic organization upside down, resulting in multi-skilled workers, teamwork and autonomy a return, in an industrial form, to craft production.Such a shift also implies an increase in worker power, because when employers are dependenton their skills and judgement, workers are no longer exchangeable cogs in the machine. Accord-ing to this line of argument, the mean level of autonomy can be expected to increase, while classdifferences in autonomy should decrease as production becomes more complex. However, in

Acta Sociologica 53(3)

214


order to understand the implications of modern work organization, the relationship betweenskill, class and autonomy must be examined more closely.

Autonomy and class different perspectives

In the class theory developed by Goldthorpe and colleagues (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992;Goldthorpe, 2000), autonomy is firmly connected with skill, but it is not viewed as a zero-sumgame between workers and employers, as in Bravermans de-skilling thesis. The theory claimsthat class distinctions among employees reflect differences in employment relations and distin-guishes, ideal-typically, between the labour and the service contract. The former principallyfound among unskilled manual workers entails a relatively short-term and specific exchangeof money for effort while service class employees with occupations typically requiring a uni-versity degree are offered a contract involving a more diffuse and long-term exchange.

Because the work of professionals with an expertise acquired through lengthy training cannotbe readily observed and measured, it implies some asymmetry of information between employerand employee; the employer has little possibility to monitor and control the quantity and quality ofwork (in Bravermans terminology: to achieve a monopoly of knowledge). This is also the casefor managers, who exercise delegated authority in the interests of their employing organization.Therefore, service class employees professionals as well as managers must [...] be accorded alegitimate area of autonomy and discretion (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992: 42, emphasis added).Because of the limited possibilities for supervision and sanction, employers try to motivate theseemployees by offering a contract designed to ensure that their interests are aligned with the goalsof the organization; a contract entailing long-term employment security, seniority wages andcareer ladders.

Apart from specialist knowledge, autonomy may also be connected with skill specificity or,more precisely, with the level of firm-specific skill. These are skills that are valuable to only oneemployer and, consequently, are developed mainly through on-the-job training (as opposed togeneral skills, which are useful at all firms and acquired through formal education). In a recentversion of the class theory (Goldthorpe, 2000), the development of firm-specific skill is regardedas an important feature of the service contract. This is because the long-term character of theemployment relation makes it profitable for firms to invest in training, and since the difficultyof monitoring work is the main motive for establishing long-term contracts, firm-specific skillis also related to autonomy. In sum, autonomy is theoretically connected to both general andfirm-specific skill, and both of these skill types are assumed to be more prevalent among serviceclass employees than among workers.

Goldthorpes theory is interesting in relation to the debate on flexibility and labour marketstratification, since skill and autonomy are associated with employers dependence on theiremployees (due to information asymmetry) and their interest in providing long-term employment.However, it can be argued that different countries have developed quite different strategies tohandle globalized competition and integration and that the connection between skill, class andautonomy may vary between countries. Below, we will discuss two main comparative approachespointing to the importance of institutional set-ups for the employment contract.

Production regimesAccording to the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach, capitalist countries differ substantiallyregarding the skill requirements of production and the alleged differences are likely to affect therelationship between autonomy and class. The basic idea in the VoC approach is that the insti-tutional framework of a country defined by its capacity for non-market coordination, or long-term strategic interaction between important actors of the economy determines companiesproduction strategies.1 In the coordinated market economies (CMEs) of Scandinavia and

Edlund & Gronlund: Class and Work Autonomy

215


northwestern Europe, firms employ diversified quality production, based on a continuousdevelopment and diversification of high-quality products. The focus on quality and frequentproduct changes requires a workforce that can work autonomously, perform a wide range oftasks and continuously detect and solve production problems. In liberal market economies(LMEs), as a contrast, the lack of coordination requires (and enables) firms to react promptlyto market supply and demand signals and, by deriving advantage from their capacity for fastand radical change, opt for either standardized, low-wage production or radical product inno-vation in new industries such as software production and biotechnology (Soskice, 1999; Este-vez-Abe et al., 2001; Hall and Soskice, 2001).

A central claim of the VoC approach is that different production strategies require differentskills. It is argued that in LMEs i.e. the Anglo-Saxon countries production strategies relyon firms ability to hire and fire and require mainly general skills readily available on the market.However, diversified quality production requires employees with specific skills, i.e. with a pro-found knowledge of the specific firm and/or industry, and the accumulation of such skillsrequires long-term employment relations. Thus, in countries dominated by such production, thelong-term employment relation and on-the-job training associated with the service contractshould also (to some extent) be part of the labour contract.

An underlying, but less discussed, claim is that the different production strategies also requiredifferent work organizations. As explained by David Soskice, a leading proponent of the VoCperspective:

[Diversified quality production requires workers] to work in ways (especially autonomous group envir-onments) that are costly for management to monitor and impossible to explicate contractually. More-over, because problem-solving knowledge is held by employees, it is seldom practical for managersto have unilateral control over decisions: efficiency requires a more consensus-based approach todecision making. (1999: 115)

As the attentive reader notes, his argument describing the monitoring problems andcontractual hazards associated with asymmetry of information is a perfect replication ofGoldthorpes description of the service contract. The crucial difference, of course, is that Soskiceis talking about manual workers.

Thus, VoC theory implies that in countries characterized by diversified quality production,manual workers have a high level of autonomy due to the importance of specific skills. It alsoimplies that class differences in autonomy should be smaller in CMEs than in LMEs. As men-tioned above, VoC scholars see diversified quality production and similar company strategiesas incompatible with the lack of coordinating structures in the LME. For LME firms, the twomain options are radical innovation and traditional Fordist systems of standardized mass pro-duction (Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Soskice, 1999). These strategies are similar in the sensethat neither of them requires firm-specific skills. However, while most jobs in standardized massproduction firms competing on the basis of cost rather than quality require little education,the radical innovation strategy relies on employees with a high level of general skills basically,academic degrees. Thus, in LMEs we can expect a polarization of general skills, but also of workorganization and autonomy.

Power resourcesThe VoC scholars argue in opposition to the neo-corporatist tradition emphasizing the impor-tance of trade unions that the micro-economic decisions of firms should be placed at the centreof comparative analyses of the political economy. However, the theory also implies that employ-ers and employees in a certain production regime have largely similar interests, based on theskill requirements of production. The power resources approach questions these employer-centred explanations and to argue that there is no such agreement in preferences. In this


216


perspective, employees in both liberal and coordinated economies are assumed to strive forsocial citizenship rights to insure their life-course risks (Korpi, 2006: 171), while employers haveradically different interests. Therefore, differences between production regimes in, for example,employment security regulation, are seen as reflecting the relative strength of employer andemployee socio-political organizations.

This perspective can also be applied to national differences in work organization. As notedabove, there is widespread belief that autonomy strengthens the position of the employee vis-a`-vis the employer (e.g. because information asymmetry motivates the employer to establishlong-term employment contracts with the employee). Also, autonomy is widely recognized asa means by which to reduce stress and increase learning and, therefore, as an important ingre-dient in a good job (Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Thus, a potentially important goal for organizedlabour is to increase employees level of autonomy. Indeed, autonomy was a core issue in theinfluential campaigns for Good Work and Developmental Work launched by trade unionsin Sweden in the 1980s (Gallie, 2003), and recently autonomy was included as an indicator in theJob Quality Index developed by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) (Leschke et al., 2008).

From a power resource perspective, then, it can be argued that the level and distribution ofautonomy should vary between countries in a way that reflects the power balance betweenemployers and organized labour. More specifically, trade unions may help strengthen autonomyamong workers, thereby raising the average level of autonomy and reducing class differences.

Contribution, aim and hypotheses

In empirical research, national variation in the classautonomy relationship has not received muchattention. Dobbin and Boychuk (1999) find the level of autonomy to be higher in the Nordic coun-tries than in the United States, Canada and Australia, while class differences do not vary betweenregimes. However, their measurement of class (managers vs. non-managers) fails to capture thecomponents of the service and labour contracts. Another study suggests that class differences mayin fact vary between countries, although not many countries are compared (Gallie, 2007a).

The general aim of this article is to examine whether and how the level of autonomy and therelationship between class and autonomy vary systematically between countries. Two hypoth-eses are tested, the production regime hypothesis and the power resources hypothesis.

The production regime hypothesis argues that skill specificity has a decisive impact on auton-omy. In production contexts where specific skills are important, workers are provided with ahigh level of autonomy. Therefore, class differences in autonomy are expected to be smaller inthese contexts compared to those with a high requirement for general skills. The hypothesis isbased on VoC theory, in which skill specificity is regarded as crucial to organizational strategy.

The power resources hypothesis claims that class differences in autonomy are negatively cor-related with the strength of organized labour. Unions affect the level of specific skill, especiallyfor workers, by exerting influence over company strategies regarding training and work organi-zation but may also strive for worker autonomy as an important goal per se. According to thishypothesis, union strength is thus more important in explaining national differences in auton-omy than variation in the requirements for specific skills.

For the analysis, we use a data set comprising a large number of countries representing dif-ferent production contexts. However, instead of the common strategy comparing countries orcountry groupings that are assumed to represent different production regime types, we applydirect indicators of skill requirements. This strategy is an empirical test of an important assump-tion in VoC theory; namely, the notion of national skill profiles.

Of course, since skills are not readily observable they are difficult to measure. Unfortunately,works applying the VoC perspective offer little guidance when it comes to empirical assessmentsof skill specificity. Operationalizations of the concept have not been underpinned by thorough


217


systematic empirical analysis or by in-depth methodological discussions. However, a core argu-ment in the theory about national skill profiles is about the portability of skills. Portability is crucialfor employers deliberations on training investments, work organization and employment rela-tions. In short, skills that are difficult to evaluate for other than the current employer have a limitedportability and tend to tie employers and employees together in long-term relationships. Portableskills do not create such commitment, as they are useful for a large number of employers; the mostportable skills are those that are certified in an objectively recognizable form for outside employ-ers (i.e., school diplomas or other forms of vocational certification) (Estevez-Abe, 2005: 188). Interms of portability, VoC scholars discuss three types of skill. Firm-specific skills, which are usefulto only one employer, are clearly the least portable, and general skills, useful for all employers, themost portable. Industry-specific skills take an intermediate position.

To the extent that VoC scholars have applied direct measures to identify skill profiles oftenin a descriptive way measures capture industry-specific skills primarily. This is true for both thecommonly discussed indicator of vocational schooling (e.g. Hall and Soskice, 2001; Estevez-Abe,2005, 2006) and the indicator developed by Iversen and Soskice (2001), in which the major ISCO-88 occupational groups are compared in regard to the number of occupational categories (unitgroups) included and their share of the labour force.2 However, considering that non-portableskills and long-term employment relations are prerequisites for the particular production strate-gies developed in CMEs, it is important to capture firm-specific skills. Therefore, this article usesan indicator of skill specificity that captures the amount of on-the-job training that is required toperform the assigned work tasks in a satisfactory way. On-the-job training has been associatedwith firm-specific skill and long-term employment relations both in human capital theory andinternal labour market theories (Osterman, 1984; Becker, 1993) and VoC scholars seem to agree,as they argue that the development of firm-specific skills relies on on-the-job training (Estevez-Abe, 2005: 188). Finally, it may be mentioned that average tenure has been used in some studiesas a measure of firm-specific skill. However, as shown in Edlund and Gronlund (2008), tenure isa problematic measure and national differences in tenure rates do not correspond to differencesin on-the-job training.

Data, variables and analytic models

The data come from the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS), which covers representative samplesof the adult populations in 21 countries.3 Among these, there are countries classified in VoCtheory as CMEs (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands andBelgium), countries classified as LMEs (UK and Ireland) and some borderline cases (France andSwitzerland). A number of Mediterranean and transitional countries are also included (Spain,Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia and Estonia), but cannotreadily be classified as either CMEs or LMEs (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Buchen, 2006). In this arti-cle, a weighted subsample comprising employees only is used (n16731).

On the individual level, the main independent variable is class [A], which is based on ISCO-88,recoded into a five category EGP class scheme (service classes I and II, routine non-manuals,skilled workers and unskilled workers) (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992). All class categories arefurther subdivided by supervisory position. The reason for separating supervisors from non-supervisors is twofold. First, the work logic may differ between employees within and those out-side the line of command (Esping-Andersen, 1993; Oesch, 2006). Second, it is relevant to checkfor cross-country differences regarding the incidence of supervising (Dobbin and Boychuk,1999). When presenting the results, we display predicted values for the three categories that areempirically the best representations of the worker and service contract ideal types: unskilledmanual worker without supervisory function and service class I with and without a supervisoryfunction, hereafter labelled managers and professionals.4


218


Age [C] is used as an individual-level control variable because, presumably, work experiencemay increase skill more in some classes than in others and therefore age may confound the rela-tionship between class and autonomy. Also gender [B] is controlled for in the analysis. Owing tooccupational and vertical gender segregation, women tend to be situated in other classes frommen, but also to occupy lower positions, providing less autonomy, within the same classes.

Three contextual, or country-level, variables are used in the analysis. To examine the role oforganized labour, we use trade union representation [U], which is a summary measure accountingfor national differences in employees bargaining and representation capabilities and power.It is constructed by the International Labour Office and includes several indicators, measuringboth the formal rights to organization and bargaining and the actual situation regarding union-ization rates and the coverage of collective agreements (ILO, 2004). The variable varies empiri-cally between 0.54 and 0.99. To measure the requirements for general skills in a certain country,we use level of required education [E], which is the estimated length of education or vocationalschooling beyond compulsory education that someone needs to apply for the respondents job(as estimated by the respondent). The variable values used are the aggregated country averagesin months (running empirically from 17 to 52). The requirements for specific skill are measured asthe average amount of on-the-job training [T] that is required to perform the assigned work tasks ina satisfactory way (as estimated by the respondent). Again, variable values are aggregated coun-try averages in months (running empirically from 5 to 13). Both [E] and [T] are based on a sub-sample of the ESS data set, comprising employees aged 3060 years.5

The dependent variable in the analysis work autonomy is based on three indicators, wherethe respondents are asked to estimate how much the management at their work allows them to:[Y1] decide how (their) own daily work is organized, [Y2] influence policy decisions about theactivities of the organization and [Y3] choose or change (their) pace of work. Response categories:I have no influence (0) I have complete control (10).

We used latent class analysis to analyse the relationships between the indicators (Magidsonand Vermunt, 2001; Vermunt and Magidson, 2000, 2003). The results indicate that the items mir-ror an ordinal basically one-dimensional latent factor variable [Y] ranging from low to highautonomy. The country variable [X] was entered as a nominal covariate. While the effect of coun-try was allowed to vary across factor levels, all effects between country and indicators were set to0.6 This means: (a) that the characteristic of the latent factor (its influence on the indicators) isassumed to be identical across countries, and (b) that the score on the latent factor variable canvary across countries.7

Table 1 gives mean scores on each indicator by latent factor level. Just as expected, amongthose with fairly low levels of autonomy the difference is about influence over the organizationand the pace of their daily work. Common to all of them is the lack of influence over policydecisions. Among those with the highest level of influence, the difference in autonomy concernsmainly indicators Y1 and Y3, while Y2 is constant. In forthcoming analysis, the dependentvariable is labelled autonomy [Y]; it is continuous and can vary between 0 and 100.8

Because the variables of interest are measured at different levels, multi-level analysis (MLA) isused. Since it can be argued that country characteristics are contextual variables i.e. individuals

Table 1 Autonomy. Mean scores (0100) on manifest indicators by factor level (n16731)[Y] Autonomy level: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Influence on:[Y1] Organization of daily work 3 8 19 39 60 76 86 93 97 98[Y2] Policy decisions 0 0 0 0 11 48 77 100 100 100[Y3] Choose/change pace of work 1 4 23 46 62 74 82 95 99 100


219


in one country are more alike than individuals in different countries this method is moreappropriate than OLS regression, which assumes observations to be independent (Hox, 2002).In this article, MLA is used to examine whether (a) the association between class and autonomydiffers between different contexts and whether (b) such class-based differences in autonomy canbe explained by contextual differences regarding the skill requirements of production and thedistribution of power resources.

We define three baseline multi-level models, each capturing different theoretically derivedproduction contexts. The first is designed to explore the role of different skill requirements (dif-ferent mixes of general and specific skills) for explaining class differences in autonomy. Usinghierarchical logit notation, this model can be specified as: fYAET, YB, YCg.9 The fYAETg termmeasures whether the classautonomy relationship is dissimilar in different mixes/contexts ofgeneral and specific skill requirements of production. The fYBg and fYCg terms are mainly con-trols and assume that gender and age influence autonomy. No assumptions that they differacross contexts are made. The other two baseline models are constructed using the same strat-egy. These models bring in the role of organized labour and its relationship with skill require-ments on the classautonomy association, and are specified as: fYAUT, YB, YCg and fYAUE,YB, YCg. The baseline models are complex. We did a series of multi-level regressions with theexplicit strategy of simplifying them as much as possible. We used the F-test (0.05 level) to deter-mine whether terms could be deleted or not, and in two instances succeeded in simplifying thebaseline models without much change in model fit.10

In order to interpret the results from the multi-level regression models properly, both themain effects and the interaction effects have to be considered simultaneously, a difficulty thatincreases with model complexity. Therefore, the results from the regression models are pre-sented in the form of predicted values for the three class categories mentioned above. When esti-mating predicted values of work autonomy by class by production context, we use combinations ofempirical minimum and maximum values for the contextual variables. The reason for this istwofold. First, the interaction effects between contextual variables and class appear more clearly;second, we estimate contextual ideal-types that are derived from theory. For gender we use themean value, while age is set to 40 years.

Results

Table 2 displays the levels of autonomy for unskilled manual workers, professionals and man-agers in four ideal-typical production contexts with different skill requirements. In a specific skillcontext, the average job requires a large amount of on-the-job training, but little general

Table 2 Autonomy in three classes by ideal-typical contexts based on specific skill requirements [T] and general skillrequirements [E]. Predicted values derived from model fYAET, YB, YCg (n16620)

Class

Context Worker Professional Manager Std.dev. Mean CVb

Low 28 51 61 16.9 46.7 33.9High 39 61 65 14.0 55.0 28.1General 41 45 61 10.6 49.0 21.2Specific 50 55 64 7.1 56.3 14.3Std.dev. 9.0 6.7 2.1Mean 39.5 53.0 62.8CVb 18.4 13.4 4.3

Values on contextual variables: Low (T5, E17); High (T13, E52); General (T5, E52); Specific (T13, E17).


220


education, whereas in a general skill context, the situation is the opposite. A context with lowrequirements for both general and specific skill is labelled low-skill, while a context with highrequirements for both types of skills is named high-skill.

Table 2 indicates that the low-skill context has the lowest mean level of autonomy. Also, thedifference between classes is larger than in the other contexts, as shown by the measures of dis-persion, that is, the standard deviation and the Bounded Coefficient of Variation (CVb).

11 Theseobservations seem to fit into traditional visions of postindustrialism. However, higher skillrequirements are not uniformly associated either with a higher mean level of autonomy or withsmaller class differences in autonomy. What seems to matter most regarding the mean level ofautonomy is the requirement for specific skill, rather than general skill. The two contexts whereon-the-job training is important, i.e. specific skill and high-skill contexts, display the highestmean values of autonomy. However, class patterns are very different in these two contexts. Thedifference in autonomy between workers on the one hand and the service class I groupings onthe other is much smaller in the specific skill context than in the high-skill context.

The results support the claim, presented in the production regime hypothesis, that a specific-skill context should be characterized by a comparatively high mean level of autonomy, as well asby low class polarization. However, the mirror image of the specific skill context is not the gen-eral skill context as predicted by the production regime hypothesis but the low-skill context.In fact, class polarization is first and foremost associated with the low- and high-skill contexts,not as predicted with the general skill context.

Another finding worth underlining is the negligible difference in autonomy for managersacross production contexts. Autonomy seems to be an important component of managerial workirrespective of skill context, whereas for workers, it makes a difference if they are working in alow-skill context or in a context emphasizing on-the-job training. In the former, the principles ofstandardized mass production devised by Taylor the sharp division between the planning andexecution of work and the detailed control of workers still prevail. In production contextsrequiring a more skill-based production, these principles are relaxed, allowing more autonomyfor workers. Note that in the specific skill context, unskilled manual workers have almost thesame level of autonomy as professionals.

The classautonomy relationship observed in the contexts where on-the-job training isimportant deserves some further attention. The main dividing line in the specific skill contextruns between managers on the one side and professionals and workers on the other. In thehigh-skill context, this is a worker vs. professional/manager split and may indicate that, in ahigh-skill context, on-the-job training is directed mainly at professionals, while in a specific skillcontext also workers take part in such training, resulting in greater autonomy. If this assumptionis valid, it could be argued that autonomy is not just about organizational demands for a specificskill, but also about the distribution of on-the-job training among different groups. Such distri-butional issues are not necessarily a matter of unilateral employer decisions but may also beaffected by the strength and strategies of organized labour.

In Tables 3 and 4, the role of organized labour is subjected to analysis. The tables show thatwhen the strength of organized labour is entered into the equation, the impact of skill require-ments decreases sharply. National-level demands for either specific or general skill do not muchaffect the difference in autonomy between workers and managers. Thus, the lions share of thepreviously observed relationship between specific skill requirements and workers autonomycan be attributed to the strength of organized labour.

When comparing workers and professionals, the role of organized labour becomes even morestriking. By controlling for union representation (i.e. by comparing predicted values betweenlow- and high-skill contexts with identical values on union representation), we find that skillrequirements correlate positively with the level of autonomy of professionals. For workers, therelationship is either weak (specific skill) or negative (general skill). Because this analysis


221


captures the effect of skill requirements net of union representation, the tables show the effect ofskill requirements in situations where issues on work organization and skill requirements areunilateral employer decisions. Apparently, in these situations, skill requirements increase auton-omy for professionals but not for workers. In line with the reasoning of Goldthorpe (2000),according to whom opportunities for specific skill developments are offered mainly to employ-ees with high general skills, this finding suggests that, in situations of pure employer power,on-the-job training is directed towards professionals.

In the real world, however, unions seem to have considerable impact on the distribution andlevel of training and autonomy. Thus, our main conclusion is that both aggregated levels andclass differences in autonomy have more to do with the strength of organized labour than withthe skill requirements of production.

In sum, the low-skill context appears to have the most Tayloristic work organizations, withlow autonomy for workers. In a high-skill context, the level of autonomy is higher and class dif-ferences smaller. The level of worker autonomy is particularly high, and the difference vis-a`-vismanagers particularly low, in a production context with high demands for specific skills and lowdemands for general skills, i.e. in the ideal-typical CME, as depicted by the VoC approach. How-ever, our analysis shows that, especially for workers, the association between specific skill andautonomy is largely spurious. In fact, differences between production contexts in the require-ment for skill specific, as well as general are largely explained by differences regarding the

Table 4 Autonomy in three classes by ideal-typical contexts based on strength of organized labour [U] and generalskill requirements [E]. Predicted values derived from model fYAU, YAE, YB, YCg (n16620)

Class


Ustrong, Elow 58 57 70 7.2 61.7 14.8Ustrong, Ehigh 53 61 70 8.5 61.3 17.5Uweak, Elow 30 48 59 14.6 45.7 29.3Uweak, Ehigh 25 53 58 17.8 45.3 35.8Std.dev. 16.4 5.6 6.7Mean 41.5 54.8 64.3CVb 33.3 11.3 14.0

Values on contextual variables: U0.54 (weak), U0.99 (strong); E17 (low), E52 (high).

Table 3 Autonomy in three classes by ideal-typical contexts based on strength of organized labour [U] and specificskill requirements [T]. Predicted values derived from model fYAU, YAT, YB, YCg (n16620)

Class


Ustrong, Tlow 52 53 69 9.5 58.0 19.2Ustrong, Thigh 55 63 70 7.5 62.7 15.5Uweak, Tlow 27 46 58 15.6 43.7 31.5Uweak, Thigh 30 56 59 15.9 48.3 31.8Std.dev. 14.5 7.0 6.4Mean 41.0 54.5 64.0CVb 29.5 14.1 13.3

Values on contextual variables: U0.54 (weak), U0.99 (strong); T5 (low), T13 (high).


222


strength of organized labour. Thus, for explaining differences in autonomy, power resourcesseem more important than skill differences associated with production regimes or withpost-industrial upskilling.

The production regime hypothesis is further weakened when we go beyond the ideal-typicalrepresentations of skill-based production contexts and examine the whole spectre of skill profilesdisplayed in the sample. Figure 1 shows the actual distributions of general and specific skillacross the countries studied. The most striking result is the weak correlation between generaland specific skill. Furthermore, it tends to be positive rather than negative, contrary to theassumption in VoC theory. Also, the skill profiles displayed in the sample do not fit with the VoCclassification of CMEs and LMEs. In most of the countries classified as CMEs the Nordiccountries, The Netherlands and, to some extent, Germany the requirement for both general andspecific skills is relatively high. The few countries that are dominated by one skill type displayprofiles that contradict the assumptions in VoC theory. In Switzerland and Austria, bothclassified as CMEs, general skill requirements are high, while specific skill requirements are not.Specific skills dominate in the UK, classified as an LME, while in the other LME included in theanalysis Ireland the level of both skill types is low. Strictly speaking, only Belgium complieswith VoC theory. Regarding the countries not discussed in VoC theory, we find that in theMediterranean countries and in some transitional countries skill requirements are low. How-ever, the transitional countries do not form a coherent group. Finally, France, regarded by VoCscholars as similar to the Mediterranean countries (Hall and Soskice, 2001), seems to have morein common with the Nordic countries.

12,5010,007,505,00Specific skills

50,00

40,00

30,00

20,00

Gen

eral

ski

lls

EE

PL

SI

SK

CZ

HU

GR

PT

ES

UK

IE

FR

BE

NL

DE

AT

CH

FI

DK

NOSE

Figure 1 Relationships between general and specific skill requirements in 21 countries. Measurement unit = months.


223


Figure 2 displays the association between the classautonomy link and the strength of organizedlabour. The thin black bars indicate for each country the levels of autonomy enjoyed by serviceclass I employees and unskilled workers, as well as the mean level. The fat grey bars show thestrength of organized labour in each country. Let us first take a look at the correspondencebetween class differences in autonomy and the countries classified in the same production con-text by VoC theory. For the CMEs, the pattern is far from clear; for instance, in Germany the classdifference in autonomy is twice as large as in The Netherlands and France. Also the two LMEcountries are very different and, regarding the UK, class differences in autonomy are no greaterthan in Denmark and Finland. In short, the observed patterns do not correspond with VoCassumptions.

In contrast, the figure displays a fairly clear-cut association between the strength of organizedlabour and class differences in autonomy, with only a few exceptions (France, the UK and Hun-gary). In the Nordic countries, characterized by strong unions, unskilled manual workers have ahigh level of autonomy. The largest class difference is found in the transitional countries, wheretrade union strength is generally low. In fact, in some of these countries, employees in serviceclass I have a lower level of autonomy than Scandinavian workers. Greece, too, belongs to thisgroup, while the other Mediterranean countries display medium levels of both union strengthand worker autonomy.

Conclusions

The aim of this article was to examine whether class differences in autonomy vary systematicallybetween production contexts in accordance with the skill requirements of production and thestrength of organized labour. In VoC theory, the amount of autonomy enjoyed by manual work-ers is linked to companies demand for specific skills. Our results show that workers indeedenjoy the highest level of autonomy in the production context emphasizing specific skills, i.e.where on-the-job training is important while requirements for general education are low.

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

1

SE DK FI NO IE AT DE NL BE HU ES UK CH FR PT CZ SI PL SK GR EE

Stre

ngth

of o

rgan

ized

labo

ur

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Aut

onom

y

Organized labour High = Service class 1 Low = Unskilled workers Country Mean autonomy

Figure 2 Strength of organized labour and classes work autonomy in 21 countries.


224


However, considering that general and specific skills are presented in the VoC perspective asdiametrically opposed, it is interesting to note that, in most European countries, general and spe-cific skill requirements go hand in hand. More importantly, our analyses show that the impact ofskill requirements on autonomy is largely spurious, especially for workers. In fact, the strengthof organized labour is much more important for understanding national variation, regardingboth mean levels and class differences, in autonomy. Our interpretation would be that in somecountries, trade unions have considerable influence on both the distribution of training amongdifferent groups and on work organization per se.

The main thrust of the VoC approach is to bring the firm back into comparative analyses of thepolitical economy. While this is an admirable endeavour, both the results presented here andthose arrived at in our previous empirical examination of the VoC tenets (Edlund and Gronlund,2008) point to the importance of not neglecting the role of organized labour. Moreover, whileVoC theory presents skill specificity as the key factor determining a range of differences betweenindustrialized countries from company strategies to educational policies, employment protec-tion legislation and labour market gender segregation (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Estevez-Abe,2005) this article adds to the growing pile of evidence suggesting that these claims are over-simplified (e.g. Geffen and Kenyon, 2006; Korpi, 2006; Edlund and Gronlund, 2008; Tahlin, 2008).

What, then, is the relevance of our results for class theory? Although autonomy is only an indi-rect measure of the service contract, it is an important theoretical link between skill complexity causing monitoring difficulties and service contract features such as long-term employment. Thefinding that national differences in work organization and in the skill content of production haveimportant implications for the design of employment contracts, the worker contract in particularquestions the common strategy in comparative works on class to employ a general, institutionalnon-sensitive, categorization of occupations based on the ISCO and highlights the need to meticu-lously scrutinize the building blocks of the employment contract (Evans and Mills, 1999).

In sum, our findings point to the importance of unions and we note that their influence is notlimited to workers; even managers have a higher autonomy in countries with encompassingunions. The results indicate that coordination, a key concept in VoC theory, comes in differentforms. While some, rather rigid, forms of coordination such as monitoring and sanctioning can be handled effectively by the state, encompassing trade unions are important for the forma-tion of deliberative institutions, which encourage actors to engage in collective discussions andagreements. And, as argued elsewhere (Gallie, 2007b: 100; Edlund and Gronlund, 2008), suchdeliberative proceedings based on a frequent re-negotiation of terms at local, sectoral andnational levels allow for both long-term strategic action and for the rapid changes necessaryin a post-Fordist world. Thus, unions may affect organizational strategies in several ways, notjust through collective bargaining practices but also by influencing societal norms regardingmodern work organization.

There is no doubt that VoC theory has been highly influential in comparative labour marketresearch. However, considering the grand aspirations of its leading proponents, who claim thatVoC theory will cast the fundamental problems facing economic policy-markers in a new light,call for a reexamination of social policy and a reinterpretation of the welfare state (Hall andSoskice, 2001: vi) and, eventually, rewrite social history (Estevez-Abe et al., 2001: 182), it isunfortunate that the role of organized labour in contemporary advanced industrial economieshas not been properly addressed.

Notes

The authors of this work are listed in alphabetical order, reflecting their equal contribution. The work was

supported by the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social

Research.


225


1. The concept of coordination refers to activities that take place between firms, the state, financial insti-

tutions and trade unions (Hall and Soskice, 2001).

2. While this measure identifies small and specialized occupational groups, it seems less relevant to the

theoretical discussions of firm-specific skill and the implications of non-portability of skills. In fact,

employees with this kind of specialized knowledge are likely to be moveable between employers. Thus,

the measure does not identify firm-specific skill but industry-specific or occupational-specific skills.

3. Visit www.europeansocialsurvey.org for information on data collection and response rates.

4. From a VoC perspective, it might be argued that skilled workers are a more relevant category than

unskilled workers. However, an additional analysis of skilled workers indicates that differences in

autonomy are similar to those observed for unskilled workers. In relation to Tables 24, the average

mean difference in autonomy for skilled workers compared to unskilled workers is as small as 2.25

percentage units (minimum difference 0 percentage units; maximum difference 6 percentageunits). Moreover, the variation of differences in autonomy between skilled and unskilled workers

across production contexts is not systematically biased towards either the production regime

hypothesis or the power resources hypothesis. Table is available on request.

5. The items are formulated as follows: [E] If someone was applying nowadays for the job you do now,

about how many years of education or vocational schooling beyond compulsory education would they

need? (answer categories running from 1. less than 1 year, to 8. 10 years or more); [T] If somebody with

the right education and qualifications replaced you in your job, how long would it take for them to learn

to do the job reasonably well? (answer categories running from 1. 1 day or less to 8. more than 5 years).

6. Model specification (hierarchical logit notation): fYY1, YY2, YY3, YXg; in which XCountry; YLatentfactor variable; Y1, Y2, Y3autonomy indicators.

7. Although the chosen model has a rather good model fit (L27941, d.f.2533, n16731, reducing thetotal amount of L2 that can be explained by any latent model by 74.3 per cent), residuals between indi-

cators Y1 and Y3 were still fairly large. We therefore did additional analyses of these residuals by esti-

mating a separate factor. The results indicate that the factor does not differ much between classes, nor

does its association with class differ much across countries. Thus, while some respondents have a light-

version of autonomy (a stronger than predicted autonomy regarding Y1 and Y3, when Y2 is low), this

phenomenon tends to be rather evenly distributed across classes and countries.

8. The software Latent Gold computes a factor score for each individual in the data set. These can be saved

and used as a continuous variable in subsequent analyses.

9. Hierarchical logit notation is commonly used within the loglinear modelling framework and is a conve-

nient way of presenting model specifications. Hierarchical notation in this context means that lower-order

terms embedded within higher-order terms are not shown in the notation, but included in the model. For

example, a simple model notated as fYAEg, includes the following terms in the model fY, A, E, YA, YE,AE, YAEg. The logit indicates that the terms associated with the independent variables only (in theabove example that is fA, E, AEg) are calculated in the model but not shown in the notation.

10. Tables are available on request.

11. Both measures are in the form: the lower the value, the lower is the class variation around the mean. The

difference between them is that the CVb takes into account that a standard deviation of a mean needs to

be interpreted in the light of that particular mean (Escobar, 1997).

CVb 100s=m 0100m

q;where m mean; s standard deviation:

References

Becker, G. (1993) Human Capital. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. NewYork: Columbia University Press.


226


Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York and London: Monthly Review Press.Buchen, C. (2006) Estonia and Slovenia as Antipodes, in D. Lane and M. Myant (eds) Varieties of Capitalism

in Post-Communist Countries, pp. 6589. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford and Massachusetts: Blackwell.Dobbin, F. and Boychuk, T. (1999) National Employment Systems and Job Autonomy: Why Job Autonomy

is High in the Nordic Countries and Low in the United States, Canada, and Australia, OrganizationsStudies 20: 25791.

Edlund, J. and Gronlund, A. (2008) Protection of Mutual Interests? Employment Protection andSkill Formation in Different Labour Market Regimes, European Journal of Industrial Relations 14:24564.

Erikson, R. and Goldthorpe, J. (1992) The Constant Flux. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Escobar, M. (1997) Deviation, Inequality, Polarization: Some Measures of Social Diversity. Working paper.

Madrid: Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences.Esping-Andersen, G. (1993) Changing Classes. London: Sage.Estevez-Abe, M. (2005) Gender Bias in Skills and Social Policies: The Varieties of Capitalism Perspective on

Sex Segregation, Social Politics 12: 180215.Estevez-Abe, M. (2006) A Study of Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies,

World Politics 59: 14275.Estevez-Abe, M., Iversen, T. and Soskice, D. (2001) Social Protection and the Formation of Skills: A

Reinterpretation of the Welfare State, in P. Hall, P. and D. Soskice (eds) Varieties of Capitalism. TheInstitutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, pp. 14583. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Evans, G. and Mills, C. (1999) Are There Classes in Post-Communist Societies? A New Approach toIdentifying Class Structure, Sociology 33: 2346.

Gallie, D. (2003) The Quality of Working life: Is Scandinavia Different? European Sociological Review 19:6179.

Gallie, D. (2007a) Task Discretion and Job Quality, in D. Gallie (ed.) Employment Regimes and the Quality ofWork, pp. 10536. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gallie, D. (2007b) Production Regimes and the Quality of Employment in Europe, Annual Review of Sociol-ogy 33: 85104.

Geffen, D. A. and Kenyon, T. (2006) Heinz Capitalism: How Many Varieties Are There? An EmpiricalReexamination of Coordination Mechanisms in Advanced Market Economies. Social Science ResearchNetwork, available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract1005407

Goldthorpe, J. (2000) On Sociology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Hall, P. and Soskice, D. (eds) (2001) Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advan-

tage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Hollingsworth, J. R. and Boyer, R. (eds) (1997) Contemporary Capitalism. The Embeddedness of Institutions.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Hox, J. (2002) Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.ILO (2004) Economic Security for a Better World. Geneva: ILO.Iversen, T. and Soskice, D. (2001) An Asset Theory of Social Policy Preferences, American Political Science

Review 95: 87593.Karasek, R. A. and Theorell, T. (1990) Healthy Work. Stress, Productivity and the Reconstruction of Working Life.

New York: Basic Books.Korpi, W. (2006) Power Resources and Employer-Centered Approaches in Explanations of Welfare

States and Varieties of Capitalism. Protagonists, Consenters and Antagonists, World Politics 58:167206.

Leschke, J., Watt, A. and Finn, M. (2008) Putting a Number on Job Quality? Constructing a European Job QualityIndex, WP 2008.03. Brussels: European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education, Health and Safety(ETUI-REHS).

Magidson, J. and Vermunt, J. (2001) Latent Class Factor and Cluster Models, bi-Plots and Related GraphicalDisplays, Sociological Methodology 31: 22364.

Oesch, D. (2006) Coming to Grips with a Changing Class Structure. An Analysis of Employment Stratifica-tion in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland, International Sociology 21: 26388.

Osterman, P. (ed.) (1984) Internal Labor Markets. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


227


Piore, M. J. and Sabel, C. F. (1984) The Second Industrial Divide. Possibilities for Prosperity. New York: BasicBooks.

Soskice, D. (1999) Divergent Production Regimes: Coordinated and Uncoordinated Market Economies inthe 1980s and 1990s, in H. Kitschelt, P. Lange, G. Marks and J. Stephens (eds) Continuity and Change inContemporary Capitalism, pp. 10134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tahlin, M. (2008) Asset Specificity, Labor Market Outcomes, and Policy Preferences. Working paper:Swedish Institute for Social Research.

Taylor, F. W. (1911/1972) Scientific Management. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Vermunt, J. K. and Magidson, J. (2000) Latent GOLD 2.0 Users Guide. Belmont, MA: Statistical Innovations.Vermunt, J. K. and Magidson, J. (2003) Addendum to Latent GOLD Users Guide: Upgrade for Version 3.0.

Boston, MA: Statistical Innovations.Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T. and Roos, D. (1991) The Machine that Changed the World. The Story of Lean

Production. New York: Harper Perennial.

Biographical Note: Jonas Edlund is Professor of Sociology at Umea University, Sweden. His researchfocuses mainly on the interrelationships between social attitudes, social structure and nationalinstitutions. Edlund is a member of the International Social Survey Program, a comparative projecton social attitudes involving about 40 countries.

Address: Department of Sociology, Umea University, SE-901 87 Umea, Sweden.[email: [email protected]]

Biographical Note: Anne Gronlund is Associate Professor of Sociology at Umea University. Her researchconcerns a range of labour market issues as well as workfamily reconciliation, with an important focuson gender. Currently, she heads a project aimed at investigating the relationship between gendersegregation, on-the-job-training and wages in European countries.

Address: Department of Sociology, Umea University, SE-901 87 Umea, Sweden.[email: [email protected]]


228


/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 266 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 200 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.00000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages false /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 900 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Average /MonoImageResolution 600 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.00000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox false /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier (CGATS TR 001) /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName (http://www.color.org) /PDFXTrapped /Unknown

/Description > /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ > > /FormElements true /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles true /MarksOffset 9 /MarksWeight 0.125000 /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (2.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /PageMarksFile /RomanDefault /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> ] /SyntheticBoldness 1.000000>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice

class and work autonomy in 21 countries- a question of production regime or power resources

Documents