Anomie in an increasingly Globalizedworkplace in Singapore

CHAN JIA HAONational University of Singapore

Abstract

In Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim mentioned Anomie1 as the

result of too fast the rate of division of labour over a

slower development of organic solidarity (Durkheim, 1933). One

example of Anomie lies in his other work, Suicide (Durkheim,

1897). Fast forward into an increasingly globalized world

today; does the mobility of information, people and

interaction across nations contribute to a possible anomie

among workers in a globalized workplace? Particularly in the

case of Singapore as a highly globalized city-state with a1 Anomie is a phenomenon that reflects a lack of common conscience or moralities, more than merely ‘normlessness’, whereby the individual’s action increasingly mismatches one another (Durkheim, 1893).

1

This paper presents findings based on the study of workers inlocal Multinational corporations, governmental policies likemeritocratic system in complement to the impacts ofglobalization, so as to point towards a lack of organicsolidarity among workers against an increasingly intensedivision of labour that conclude the existence of a risingAnomie among workers in the Singapore workplace. This paperalso asserts that such an anomie poses serious concerns to

A0125354L

rising number of MNCs established locally, an increasingly

diversified workforce seems to have intensified competition,

widened differences and weakened solidarity among workers.

This paper seeks to discuss causes of a rising Anomie in the

Singapore workplace and how it can eventually lead to latent

struggles between management and workers that in turn breeds a

poor cooperative system, affecting the sustainability of

organizations as such.

A lack of organic solidarity among workers in Singapore’s

workforce

Although Neoliberalism adopted as a fundamental in economic

policies in Singapore (Ong, 2006) seem to suggest a more

‘self-interest’ individualistic belief among workers given the

state’s non-welfarist stand2 (Chua, 1995), Singaporeans

presumably remains largely a collectivistic3. Nonetheless,

studies revealed signs of ‘cultural regression’ within an

2 Such a non-welfarist stance is supposedly derived from Neoliberalism ideology that delegates economic responsibilities onto individuals while the state focuses on capital accumulation instead (Chua,1995)

3 According to Hofstede’s cultural analysis, the level of collectivism in Singapore is higher than that of Asian societies like Japan while similar to China. This means that the concept of “We” is prevalent and individuals would see themselves as a unit of the society related to other individuals rather than by their own.

2

A0125354L

increasingly globalized workplace where local and foreigner

workers meet [see H4 in Annex 1.1]. For instance, Singaporean

workers who are supposedly more collectivistic than their

Western counterparts in MNCs were found to adopt lesser

integration at work compared to their individualistic foreign

colleagues (Wei Wu, 2001). This means that while

individualistic foreign workers may feel a need to develop

team spirit in the workplace to compensate their lack of

collectivism, the great number of collectivistic local workers

conversely sees lesser need to enhance their reciprocity and

interdependence towards their foreign counterparts in the

workplace. Such nonchalant approach may have been aggravated

by an already existing series of restructuring schemes4 across

many organizations that aims to reduce ‘non value added’ time

that can be defined as informal worker-to-worker interaction

and a lack of strong centralized work union5 system in

4 Management across organizations have been introducing multiple restructuring schemes such as continuous improvement, Six Sigma, Kaizen, Lean, 5S and the Toyota Production System. Some are adopted more frequently than others. Yet, the central goal in these schemes calls for the reduction of “non-value added” time defined as moments ofinformal worker-to-worker interaction arises (C Richardson, 2010)

5 The National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) is the central union of Singapore. Although individual workplaces have their own unions, decisions making and their approval are usually centralized and highly as most independent unions are highly affiliated to NTUC. Since this translates to making more difficultly for workers to demand wider

3

A0125354L

Singapore that does not yield sufficient bounded solidarity6

among workers since such centralization make workers unable to

demand wider improvements at workplace (C Richardson, 2010;

Kelly, 2002). Respect for unique contributions of others may

also be arguably more disparaging than before since

competition in the Singapore workplace has been

internationalized7 and endorsed8 by the government, therefore

distinctive contributions by other colleagues may bring about

more performance pressure among individuals to stay

competitive than admiration.

When factoring in globalization, the level of solidarity at

workplace becomes of even greater concern. Despite that rising

improvements, less participation and involvement in union activities among workers would not help yield high solidarity among workers (Kelly, 2002)

6 According to Durkheim, bounded solidarity refers to solidaristic bondsthat tie the community together, causing them to support members in need (Durkheim, 1933)

7 A government plan to bring in ‘foreign talents’ to supplement the local workforce was made public in 1988 by the then Minister of Home Affairs S. Jayakumar (Hong, 2013). Fast forward to 2006, Ministry of Manpower announced the introduction of a Personalized Employment Pass to encourage foreign workers to work in Singapore, allowing them to flexibly change jobs in Singapore (Mom.gov.sg, n.d.)

8 The Singapore government is being seen as endorsing stress in work life so as to enhance competitiveness among its people in a global economy (Chan, 2007)

4

A0125354L

mimetic isomorphism9 found to be practiced across many

organizations today due to global competitiveness such as in

the case of corporate social responsibility practices among

organizations becoming more homogenous (Meyer & Rowan, 1977;

DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), workplace practices across and

within organizations appears fractional. As globalization

bring about more frequent changes in parties of interaction10

at work as well as growth in workforce population, it creates

wider gap in beliefs, lifestyle and philosophies among workers

in individual organizations, resulting in dynamic internal

reformations lacking collective acceptance. For instance in

terms of work approach, while some individuals advocate a more

westernized work-life balance at work, others contend that

practice of working overtime is required for success of

organizations11 (ST Jobs, 2013). In another instance, although9 According to DiMaggio and Powell, organizations have tendency to replicate or duplicate structures and cultures alike of other existing organizations that are successful and well established by adhering to standard norms and practices in the industry as a means to feel secure.

10 Parties refer to people in the workplace, for instance one’s superior, subordinates, customers, colleagues and those that provides service to one.

11 Since efficiency, pragmatism and materialism are highly valued by some Singaporeans, work essentially becomes an indicator of success in life to them (Chua, 2003). Yet according to a survey by Cats Recruit, only 57% of respondents indicate that they are only ‘somewhat willing’ to work overtime, whereas only 24% said they bring home their work oncea week (ST Jobs, 2013).

5

A0125354L

global competition drive firms to adopt technological and

creative approaches, not all workers discern that taking

innovative stance and approach should be instituted as

corporate strategy12. Together with a lack of sufficient

reciprocity, interdependence and respect for unique

contributions, such diversity among workers due to

globalization poses serious barrier to the workforces’ ability

in developing adequate organic solidarity13.

A more intense division of labour in Singapore

Durkheim professed that division of labour among members in

society is caused by an increasing physical density. It exists

as workers seek to differentiate their skills in order to

avoid direct struggle for survival, while a meritocratic

system in place would prevent such division of labour from

being ‘unequal’ and ‘forced’ upon workers (Durkheim, 1893).

Intriguingly, although such is the case for the cause division

12 According to a Randstad survey report, only 53% of employees polled believe that their companies are ready to receive Generation Z workers who are deemed as innovative

13 The presence of Organic solidarity within a society includes elementsof reciprocity, interdependence and respect for unique contributions ofdiverse individuals (Durkheim, 1893).

6

A0125354L

of labour in Singapore’s context14, workers are seen as being

helplessly divided into different stratification of class even

with an existing intellectual meritocratic system that

resonates with the ancient Confucian emphasis on intellectual

values over heredity and social class (J Ye, 2011; Xu, 2007).

For instance, the allocation of jobs and their scopes are

highly differentiated among workers based on their educational

backgrounds15, adding that a large number of organizations do

sponsor scholarships and bonds that seek to distinguish and

develop some individuals from the rest even before they step

into the workforce16 (Xu, 2007 ; Cameron & Spreitzer, 2012). 14 For instance, doctrines like the White Paper and CECA aims for a risein inflow of foreign workers and population for economic progress and prosperity. This leads to rising growth in workforce population over scarce amount of land resources in Singapore.

15 For example, a diploma holder as compared to a degree holder in Singapore is likely to yield a different kind of job scope in a common workplace. This is because the skills trained in the respective educational levels differ in matching with demands of employers in the sense that a polytechnic education adopts a more ‘technical’ and ‘hands-on’ approach while a university education adopts a more critical-thinking and researched based approach. This means that if jobs like technician that require hands on versus jobs like quality assurance managers that requires analytical thinking would be filled byworkers from different educational background.

16 Increasingly, organizations in Singapore are giving out scholarships to seek for potential candidates for roles and jobs in their workplace.These scholarships may call for international candidates as a move to ‘democratize’ access to worldwide human resources. Yet, such moves implies that only some individuals out of the entire workforce would benefit from such selections that may yield than higher prospects at workplace than the rest (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2012)

7

A0125354L

Hence unlike Durkheim’s assertion, division of labour with

meritocracy seen in Singapore’s context conversely brings

about more struggles among workers as such meritocracy yields

class differentiation – the small group of privileged workers

versus the majority of non-privileged workers, causing lower

solidarity in the workplace as well. Such division of labour

is further exacerbated with impacts of globalization - an

increase in population, literacy rate and job polarisation17

that compels this majority of workers to fight for a smaller

pool of jobs against a larger pool of equally capable

contestants18 than before.

Symptoms of Anomie among workers at workplace

17While middle job opportunities like white collar clerical, administrative, sales occupations, blue collar production, craft and operative occupations increasingly could become replaced by informationtechnologies, sophisticated professions like lawyers and medical doctors require a greater demand for skilled workers in which Singaporeimports these talents from abroad. This leaves a great amount of both foreign and local workers compete over fewer jobs available in the marketplace as the lowest and top jobs are closed up (Kang & Leong, 2012).

18 This refers to those in the Singapore workforce, local and foreign workers alike

8

A0125354L

In the midst of coping with such intensified division of

labour at workplace, workers may find it increasingly

difficult to identify and adhere to norms or ‘workplace

culture’ that they purport to be fixated and withstanding over

time since diversity and a lacking solidarity would further

undermine collective social sanctions to establish what

constitutes as deviations or norms. For instance, while

practices like entertaining one’s superior after work was a

culture previously prevalent in Japanese organizations in

Singapore, an inflow of increasingly diversified workers due

to globalization may cause reduction in such practices.

Existing workers may start questioning whether not adhering to

such a practice is stepping out of the norm or whether not

doing such a practice has become the widely collective norm in

the organization. It would be even harder to pose social

sanctions given that the higher diversity of workers

significantly weakens solidarity and such questioning goes

unsolved.

Increasingly, workers would face increasing symptoms of Anomie

at workplace such as questioning one’s own role and its

purpose in the organization, lower organizational commitment,

9

A0125354L

lower job satisfaction and higher level of job stress

(Switzer, 2013), evident in findings that shows rising

disengagement among Singapore workers (Gallup, 2006) and

Singapore having second unhappiest workforce worldwide

(Zolkifi, 2012).

Latent conflict between top management and workers

Yet, organizational anomie does not stop at causing confusion

among workers. Instead, it furthers intensify struggles

between the top management and workers (working class) at

workplace. Aware that such anomie derived from the impacts of

globalization may pose issues of a maintaining a productive

workforce, managements have increasingly adopted corporate

visions, structures and practices aimed at developing cultural

synergies to leverage on benefits of a diverse workforce19.

Yet, managements may have reservations to truly address the

problem of diversity that leads to anomie since agency theory20

19 For instance, management in some successful organizations like IBM and Hewlett-Packard assembled their workers from different countries tocome together to give input on their local culture, knowledge and working approaches to enhance creativity and innovation. Other organizations like Resort World Sentosa also attempt to leverage on workforce diversity by organizing induction programme when new workers enter the organization so that local and foreigners can mingle and makefriendship bonds.

20 Agency theory assumes that relationships between the principal (management) and agent (workers) poses differing goals and risks

10

A0125354L

asserts that goals of employers and employees are ultimately

different and therefore the situation of anomie may help to

effectively divide workers in preventing them from

collectively challenging managements’ centralized powers

(Eisenhardt, 1989). Adding on that since a visibly weak union

lowers bargaining power of workers against managements, an

exercise of third dimension power by management that seeks to

spread ideologies that ‘diversity is beneficial21 to workers is

evident since although being fully aware that such underlying

diversity issues and dynamism due to Globalization are complex

and long standing, managements nevertheless coerce workers to

choose either integration or exit22 (Luke, 2005). Therefore

preferences. While the goal of the organization is efficiency, individual workers are motivated to seek self-interest which may lead to deviant behaviour when such personal interest conflict with the interest of organization (Eisenhardt, 1989).

21 For instance, Resort World Sentosa propagates the benefits of diversity by implementing the concept of “Kampong Spirit” among workers, whereby they seek to make individual workers see their colleagues from different background as fellow villagers so that they can foster better bonds and become more effective at disseminating information and exchange ideas and innovation at work (Chia & Tan, 2004).

22 Such coercion can be seen in the example of organizing induction programme by Resort World Sentosa that purportedly seeks to filter out those who are unable to meet the organization’s expectation of integration or having an open mind about working with other workers from a myriad of nations and backgrounds. Later on, 360 degree feedbacks would be conducted to filter off employees who deem to have failed to meet the goal of fostering “Kampoing Spirit”.

11

A0125354L

managements would experience contradictions as such; seeking

to foster solidarity which could solve anomie to usher

productivity, yet refusing to eliminate anomie totally for

powers, while pressurizing workers to meet their aims of

productivity by becoming more interdependent. In this, the

management also contributes more Anomie at workplace by their

inaction and ambiguity in resolving it.

This would eventually lead to latent conflicts within the

organization because while the management knows that its

interest after all lies in productivity; interest of workers

goes unnoticed as it increasingly becomes difficult to define

amidst anomie unsolved by the management (Luke, 2005). The

longer such conflicts go unsolved, the more frequent both

parties would question if their economic relationship is

communal, associative or none (Weber, 1978), resulting in

moments of exchange23 less frequent and harder to generate [see

Annex 1.2] (Barnard, 1938). This potentially removes the

ability of the organization to maintain its efficiency.

23 A reciprocal nature of organization exists whereby the management would provide means to motivate the individual while the individual would provide means to work for the organization. A moment of exchange is when these two means crosses one another and an end is met. This endwill become the means to the next end (Switzer, 2013).

12

A0125354L

Conclusion

While globalization and its effect of diversity evidently

brings about Anomie and latent conflict within the workplace,

several other pre-existing conditions like an intellectual

meritocratic system, weak union, usage of power and

reservations by management play a role as well. Rather than

being the sole conclusive cause for Anomie at workplace,

globalization acts as a significant catalyst that when met

with these pre-conditions, impedes the growth of organic

solidarity and increases intensity in division of labour in

the workplace. Nonetheless, the problem of Anomie in the

workplace no longer concern only workers. In an increasing

globally competitive landscape, management of organizations

would find themselves at a crossroad; to embrace globalization

but possibly face Anomie and latent conflicts, or to avoid

adopting a global and diverse workforce but face intense

global competition, both of which would pose threat to its

survivability.

(1493 words; excluding abstract, citations and annexes)

13

A0125354L

Annexes

Annex 1.1 Conflict Style by Cultural Groups

H4 on Integrating shows that the level of individualism among differenttypes of workers is directly proportional to the the level of integration.

Source: Wei, W. U. (2001). Individualism-collectivism and Conflict Resolution Styles: A cross-cultural study of managers in Singapore 

14

A0125354L

Annex 1.2 Cooperative System

Division 1 – Workers (Working class)

Division 2 – Management (Middle class)

End – point of moment of exchange that serves as a new means for a new end

Source: Switzer, Tayo Glenn. (2013). Measuring Normlessness in the Workplace: A Study of Organizational Anomie in the Academic Setting. Dissertations & Theses. Paper 67.

15

A0125354L

Reference

Chan, K. (2007). Work stress and coping among professionals. Leiden: Brill.

Channel NewsAsia,. (2015). Almost half of Singapore employees believe companies not ready for Gen Z workers: Survey. Retrieved 24 March 2015, from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/almost-half-of-singapore/1587294.html

Cameron, K., & Spreitzer, G. (2012). The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship. New York: Oxford University Press.

Chia, V., & Tan, R. (2004). Disappearance of the Kampong Spirit : An Economic Explanation Retrieved 17 March 2015, fromhttp://www.oaktreeresearch.com/index2.php?option=content&do_pdf=1&id=131

Chua, Beng Huat. (1995). Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London and NewYork: Routledge.

Durkheim, Emile. (1933). The Division of Labour in Society. Trans. George Simpson. New York: Free Press

DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147- 60

16

A0125354L

Eisenhardt, K.M. (1989). “Agency Theory: Assessment and review”. Academy of Management Review, 4 (1) 57-74.

Gallup INC,. (2006). Worker Disengagement Continues to Cost Singapore. Gallup.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015, from http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/22720/worker-disengagement-continues-cost-singapore.aspx

Hodson, R., & Sullivan, T. (1995). The social organization of work. Belmont: Wadsworth

Pub. Co.

Hong, J. (2013). The evolution of 'foreign talent' in Singapore's lexicon. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/07/Jerrold-Hong_The-evolution-of-foreign-talent-in-Singapores-lexicon_010713.pdf

Kelly, P.F., (2002), “Spaces of Labour Control: Comparative Perspectives from South

East Asia” in Transactions of British Geographers, NS 27: 395 – 411.

Kang, S., & Leong, C. (2012). Singapore perspectives 2012. Singapore: World Scientific.

Lukes, S. (2005). Power, a radical view. London: Macmillan.

Mom.gov.sg,. (2015). Publications - Ministry of Manpower. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from http://www.mom.gov.sg/statistics-publications/others/publications/Pages/default.aspx

17

A0125354L

Mom.gov.sg,. Personalised Employment Pass. Retrieved 3 April 2015, from http://beta.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/personalised-employment-pass

Ong, Aihwa. (2006) Neoliberialism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Switzer, Tayo Glenn. (2013). Measuring Normlessness in the Workplace: A Study of Organizational Anomie in the Academic Setting. Dissertations & Theses. Paper 67.

Wei, W. U. (2001). Individualism-collectivism and Conflict Resolution Styles: A cross-cultural study of managers in Singapore (Doctoral dissertation, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong).

Weber, Max (1978). Economy and society. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press.

Xu, W. (2007). The Gifted Education Programme: Intellectual Meritocracy and Elitism in Singapore. Usp.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 3 April 2015, from http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/curriculum/modules/writing/folio/vol6/weizhen3.html

Ye, J. (2011). Reproducing class In the global labour force: the case of Singapore's division of labour.

Zolkifi, S. (2012). Singaporeans second most unhappy employeesworldwide. Human Resources Online. Retrieved 25 March 2015, from http://www.humanresourcesonline.net/singaporeans-second-unhappy-employees-worldwide/

18

A0125354L

19