Work culture

The work culture is a form of culture within a company or organization that describes the everyday aspects of the employees in relation to gainful employment . This includes, on the one hand, the practice of appropriating operational specifications and, on the other hand, the expected and subjective attitude of employees to the tasks set. The work culture is subject to political and structural change through the internal relationship between work and organization. Concepts of globalization , digitization and flexibility have contributed to the establishment of the concept of work culture .

definition

Werner Widuckel offers a concise and precise definition of work culture . It describes the two concepts of work and work that are immanent in work culture as values and norms that shape both individual and social activity and are subject to social relationships. Work culture in the narrower sense describes the organization's internal rules of work from the perspective of the employees themselves. In addition, sociologists of work culture consider gainful employment in a socio-cultural context and taking social change into account. The term work culture aims in particular at the relationship between the organizational structures and the attitudes, expectations and experiences of the employees and employers and can generally be understood as the interplay of organizational conditions, the private life background of the employed and the social and political structures.

concept

The concept of work culture cannot be traced back to any particular sociologist or theory. It was popularized as a result of developments such as the delimitation and subjectivation of work. On the one hand, the work culture can be seen as part of the corporate and organizational culture, but the terms are not to be used synonymously. On the other hand, one also speaks of national work cultures (e.g. the Japanese work culture, which is in some basic features centuries-old) or of the "Americanization of work culture".

Culture

The fact that the concept of work culture is not uniformly defined results, among other things, from the diversity of the concept of culture itself.

While the term culture was still a foreign word 300 years ago, it is now an integral part of everyday political and scientific discourse. The decisive turning point and trigger of the debates going on today lies in the change from the singular use of the concept of culture to a concept of cultures that has been permanently in the plural since Nietzsche . Cultures from the perspective of understanding sociology are to be seen as value principles that represent the social rules of experience and patterns of interpretation, which in turn construct social reality. According to this understanding, culture is to be understood as a dimension of shared meanings, whose validity is based on intersubjective recognition and whose meaningfulness only arises through social action and intersubjective interpretations.

The cultural plurality can also be related to organizations whose internal structures are permeated by a parallelism of different cultures.

Differentiation from corporate and organizational culture

The concept of corporate and organizational culture was introduced into organizational research by Elliott Jaques in 1951 with his book The Changing Culture of a Factory . It defines the corporate culture as the culture of a company that prevails by means of shared ways of thinking and acting and is learned, accepted and recognized by almost all employees of the company. In sociology, the term was coined by Edgar Schein in the 1980s and seen as a pattern of common basic premises that the group learned in dealing with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. According to Schein, the samples are therefore binding. The basic premises are viewed as rational and passed on to new members as an emotionally correct approach to dealing with problems. The corporate and organizational culture is made up of both formal and informal norms. While the concept of corporate and organizational culture comes from the field of management research and control and leadership concepts, the concept of work culture primarily deals with the analysis of differentiated processing methods of management specifications in the organization. The focus here is on personal meaningfulness and the subjective forms of coping with everyday work situations. The employees of an organization are integrated into other living environments beyond membership of the organization and are socialized through different instances, so that needs and demands are incorporated into everyday work. This variable embedding and the requirement for the members of the organization to take into account the private living conditions are reflected in the work culture and are processed in the corporate and organizational culture.

Work culture

The concept of work culture is a second cultural concept in addition to the corporate and organizational culture in organizations, but is less often mentioned as such in the literature. The working culture in Germany was first discussed in the context of socialist cultural policy and, during the GDR era, aimed at making working and living conditions more humane in the interests of working people. The Federal Government's Humanization of Working Life program also aimed to modernize work culture.

Work culture can be understood as a concept that, in contrast to corporate and organizational culture, does not affect the employees from above, but is carried into the organization by the employees themselves. While the Protestant work ethic was still in the foreground for Max Weber , i.e. a socio-moral concept that regulates the relationship to work, Fordism promoted a new way of experiencing and an instrumental understanding of workers' work. In the course of the last few decades, not only the work-related interests of the employees have become important, but also the everyday interests that can no longer be thought of independently of the company. The employees are understood as working citizens who have their own subjectivity, demands for meaning and values. In which way these can flow into the work role is a question, the answer to which can be found in the respective work culture of a company. Correspondingly, the everyday side of work is reflected in the work culture of a company.

The work culture is therefore made up of the organizational culture prevailing in the organization, the personal needs of the employees and the areas of tension resulting from social relationships. In addition, the term is related to the change in work in the course of globalization, flexibility and digitization. The work culture as such is related to the factor of subjectification and the change in the understanding of labor. The labor is seen as exploitation, which goes hand in hand with the expansion of the individual's creative freedom. The professional culture ( habitus ) also plays a role.

Making work and living environments more flexible

Since the 1990s, there has been a change in the understanding of manpower and work towards the establishment of a work culture.

Change in the understanding of labor

With the establishment of the concept of work culture, there is a change in the understanding of labor . This change manifests itself in the departure from normal working hours and is reflected in working time models such as full-time, part-time and flextime . The fact that employees can organize their working hours autonomously and no longer have to be at work within a certain time frame suggests the individualized organization of their own workforce. Since the employees are given more responsibility by the organization and the skills of self-control and self-monitoring are required, one also speaks of worker entrepreneur . He makes his manpower available on the market and, on the other hand, can manage the use of his manpower. This means a higher degree of flexibility, autonomy, self-organization and self-control on the part of the labor entrepreneur. On the part of the organization, control is passed on to the employees accordingly.

Work culture can therefore be seen as a process in which the relationship between the worker and himself and the company changes. New norms of cooperation are being formed in companies themselves by relying on factors such as autonomy and trust and by shifting company control to self-control. This development towards the labor entrepreneur is related to the departure from normal employment, the delimitation and subjectification of work.

Normal employment relationship and flexibility

The normal employment relationship outlines the “model of the employment relationship, which was presented as a permanent, continuous, qualified full-time employment relationship in the larger company. In addition to an individual legal relationship (between employer and employee), this model also meant a social reproduction arrangement that not only controlled the capital relationship as a production relationship, but also the relationship between gainful employment and life, the relationship between the sexes and generations to one another and the social one through this Concepts of meaning and values, images of themselves and others, shaped the members of society ”.

The departure from normal employment is related to the process of making work more flexible and working processes. This also includes the introduction of flexible working time models, which enables the employees of a company to better combine family work and gainful employment. At the same time, the flexibilisation leads to the introduction of the everyday component into the world of gainful employment and vice versa. The breaking of the boundary between the world of life and the world of work is also the subject of the delimitation of work.

Removal of boundaries from work

Delimitation processes can be interpreted as an expression of a change in the development of work. The delimitation of work has its origins in the 1990s. The dissolution of boundaries can be understood as a social upheaval process that leads to the erosion of the boundaries of companies and changes the deployment and use of labor. A change in the relationship between companies and their environment as well as in the relationship between work and living environment grows out of this erosion.

The turning away from Taylorist-Fordist operational strategies, which aimed at detailed and highly standardized structures, is seen as a central aspect of this dynamic work structure. These changes force companies to change internally. In the context of these change processes, social formations of social work that have proven themselves over decades are perceived as obstacles. The obstacles found in the work structures are seen as limitations that need to be unbounded.

The delimitation is to be understood accordingly as the change in working conditions across all social levels. As a result, delimitation refers to the overall social structures of work, to the internal and external organization of the company as well as to the work itself. Delimitation can be viewed in different dimensions, including the temporal and spatial dimension. Accordingly, work is not tied to space and time and goes hand in hand with both the principle of flexibilization and the principle of digitization. Both can be interpreted as conditions for the dissolution of boundaries. At this point, concepts such as home office come into focus, the characteristic of which is to cope with work regardless of location and time. The principle of the home office (see home work ) is also due to the departure from normal employment.

Future of work culture

Work is a decisive factor in social participation and has an important role in the process of identity formation. The fact that work cannot only be recorded in one dimension is related to the fact that this has exceeded the area of gainful employment and has passed into other areas. As part of this development, terms such as family work , voluntary work and reproductive work are becoming increasingly relevant.

Flexibility, digitization and globalization are seen as factors for future changes in work. This affects the individual résumés and the balancing of different areas of life. From this, challenges in dealing with modern work and the work culture that develops from it can be derived:

Problems have to be solved against a globalized background and thought on a global level (globalization).
The living environment can no longer be viewed in isolation from the world of work and the complex lifestyle of individuals must be brought into harmony with gainful employment (flexibility).
The digital world of work creates conflicts of power, domination and appropriation, the escalation of which must be prevented (digitization).

The preceding list is to be seen as a call to action that every company and every society must take on in order to be able to react adequately to the change in work.

literature

Ralf Elberfeld: Culture as a meeting of cultures . Humboldt Forum initiative. Humboldt Talks. Berlin 2007.
Scratch, nick; Sauer, Dieter 2003: Delimitation of work. Concept, theses, findings. In: Gottschall, Karin; Voß, Günter G .: Dissolving the boundaries between work and life. Rainer Hampp Verlag. Munich.
Lange, Hellmuth ; Manske, Fred 2004: Culture in the process of change. Culture as an analytical category of work and organization, innovation and environmental research. In: Lauterbach, Uwe (ed.) Education and the world of work. Volume 11. Nomos Publishing Company. Baden-Baden.
Mückenberger, Ulrich 1990: Normal employment relationship: wage labor as a normative horizon of social security? In: Sachße, Christoph; Engelhardt H. Tristam: Security and Freedom. On the ethics of the welfare state. Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main.
Senghaas-Knobloch, Eva 2004: Resistance of work cultures under changed organizational framework conditions. The desire for recognition and social identity problems using the example of masters. In: Lange, Hellmut; Manske, Fred: Education and the world of work. Nomos publishing company. Baden-Baden.
Stachura, Mateusz 2005: The interpretation of the political. An action theory concept of political culture and its application. Campus publishing house. Frankfurt am Main.
Tietel, Erhard: Emotions and Recognition in Organizations. Paths to a triangular organizational culture. In: Senghaas-Knobloch; Müller, Winfried: Work design. Technology assessment of the future. LIT publishing house. Muenster.
Voss, Günter G. 1998: The dissolution of boundaries between work and labor. In: Communications from labor market and occupational research 31.3: 473–487. Kohlhammer GmbH. Stuttgart. [URL: http://doku.iab.de/mittab/1998/1998_3_MittAB_Vo%C3%9F.pdf ; Status: 09/28/2017]

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Werner Widuckel: Work Culture 2020 - Challenges for the Future of Work . In: Werner Widuckel et.al (Hrsg.): Arbeitskultur 2020. Challenges and best practices of the working world of the future . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, p. 30 .

^ Andreas Wien et al .: Basics of corporate culture . In: Andreas Wien, Norms Franzke (ed.): Corporate culture . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2014.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Eva Senghaas-Knobloch: Resistance of work cultures under changed organizational framework conditions. The desire for recognition and social identity problems using the example of masters . In: Hellmuth Lange, Fred Manske (ed.): Education and the world of work . 1st edition. tape 11 . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2004.

↑ Martin Heidenreich: Group work between Toyotism and humanization. An international comparative perspective. In: Soziale Welt , 45 (1994) 1, pp. 60-82.

↑ Ingo Matuschek, Uwe Krähnke, Frank Kleemann, Frank Ernst: To be on the left: Political practices and orientations in everyday milieus with an affinity for the left. Berlin, Heidelberg 2011, p. 120.

^ Ralf Elberfeld: Culture as a meeting of cultures . In: Initiative Humboldt Forum (ed.): Humboldt Talks . tape 1 . Berlin 2007, p. 1 .

↑ Mateusz Stachura: The interpretation of the political. An action theory concept of political culture and its application . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 74 .

↑ Mateusz Stachura: The interpretation of the political . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 75 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c Erhard Tietel: Emotion and recognition in organizations. Paths to a triangular organizational culture . In: Eva Senghaas-Knobloch; Wilfried Müller (Ed.): Work design. Technology assessment of the future . tape 14 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2003, p. 47 .

^ Edgar Schein: Corporate Culture A Handbook for Managers . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 1995, p. 25 .

↑ Irene Götz , Andreas Wittel (Hrsg.): Working cultures in transition: on the ethnography of work and organization: 9th meeting of the working cultures commission in the German Society for Folklore on 8/9. May 1998 in Munich . Waxmann, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89325-882-5 .

↑ Marta Augustynek: Working cultures in large corporations: a cultural anthropological analysis of organizational transformation dynamics from an employee perspective . Waxmann, Münster 2010.

↑ Eva, Senghaas-Knobloch: Recognition and utilization of personal qualities: Effects of new management concepts on the corporate environment . Ed .: Journal for Psychology. 7th edition. No. 3 , 1996, p. 30 .

^ Moldaschl, Manfred; Voss, Günter: subjectification of work . Ed .: Moldasch, Manfred; Voss, Günter. 2nd Edition. Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2002.

^ Günter G. Voss, Hans J. Pongratz: The labor entrepreneur. A new form of labor? Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology, Cologne 1998, p. 4th ff .

↑ Günter G. Voss, Hans J. Pongratz: The labor entrepreneur A new basic form of the commodity labor? Cologne 1998, p. 131-158 .

↑ Ulrich Mückenberger: Normal employment relationship: wage labor as a normative horizon of social security? Ed .: Christoph Sachße, H. Tristam Engelhardt. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 158-178 .

↑ Johannes Müske: Flexibilization as a dissolution of boundaries, mechanization processes and the change of commercial work . In: Johannes Müske, Klaus Schönberger, Ove Sutter (eds.): Work and non-work. Delimitations and limitations of areas of life and practices . tape 1 . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2009, p. 60 .

↑ Günter Voss, Karin Gottschall: Delimitation of Work and Life On the change in the relationship between employment and the private sphere in everyday life . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 88 .

↑ Günter Voss, Karin Gottschall: Delimitation of Work and Life On the change in the relationship between employment and the private sphere in everyday life. Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 90 .

↑ Nick Kratzer, Dieter Sauer: Delimitation of work. Concept, theses, findings. In: Karin Gottschall, Günter G. Voss (Hrsg.): Delimitation of work and life. To change the relationship between employment and privacy in everyday life . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 97 .

↑ Nick Kratzer, Dieter Sauer: Delimitation of work. Concept, theses, findings . In: Karin Gottschall, Günter G. Voss (Hrsg.): Delimitation of work and life . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 88 .

↑ Nick Kratzer, Daniel Sauer: Delimitation of work. Concept, theses, findings . In: Karin Gottschall, Günter G. Voss (Hrsg.): Delimitation of work and life: on the change in the relationship between employment and private life in everyday life . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 90 .

↑ ^a ^b Werner Widuckel: Work Culture 2020 - Challenges for the Work of the Future . In: Widuckel et.al (Hrsg.): Arbeitskultur 2020. Challenges and best practices of the working world of the future. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, p. 42 .

[:2-1] Werner Widuckel: Work Culture 2020 - Challenges for the Future of Work . In: Werner Widuckel et.al (Hrsg.): Arbeitskultur 2020. Challenges and best practices of the working world of the future . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, p. 30 .

[2] Andreas Wien et al .: Basics of corporate culture . In: Andreas Wien, Norms Franzke (ed.): Corporate culture . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2014.

[:0-3] Eva Senghaas-Knobloch: Resistance of work cultures under changed organizational framework conditions. The desire for recognition and social identity problems using the example of masters . In: Hellmuth Lange, Fred Manske (ed.): Education and the world of work . 1st edition. tape 11 . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2004.

[4] Martin Heidenreich: Group work between Toyotism and humanization. An international comparative perspective. In: Soziale Welt , 45 (1994) 1, pp. 60-82.

[5] Ingo Matuschek, Uwe Krähnke, Frank Kleemann, Frank Ernst: To be on the left: Political practices and orientations in everyday milieus with an affinity for the left. Berlin, Heidelberg 2011, p. 120.

[6] Ralf Elberfeld: Culture as a meeting of cultures . In: Initiative Humboldt Forum (ed.): Humboldt Talks . tape 1 . Berlin 2007, p. 1 .

[7] Mateusz Stachura: The interpretation of the political. An action theory concept of political culture and its application . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 74 .

[8] Mateusz Stachura: The interpretation of the political . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 75 .

[:1-9] Erhard Tietel: Emotion and recognition in organizations. Paths to a triangular organizational culture . In: Eva Senghaas-Knobloch; Wilfried Müller (Ed.): Work design. Technology assessment of the future . tape 14 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2003, p. 47 .

[10] Edgar Schein: Corporate Culture A Handbook for Managers . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 1995, p. 25 .

[11] Irene Götz , Andreas Wittel (Hrsg.): Working cultures in transition: on the ethnography of work and organization: 9th meeting of the working cultures commission in the German Society for Folklore on 8/9. May 1998 in Munich . Waxmann, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89325-882-5 .

[12] Marta Augustynek: Working cultures in large corporations: a cultural anthropological analysis of organizational transformation dynamics from an employee perspective . Waxmann, Münster 2010.

[13] Eva, Senghaas-Knobloch: Recognition and utilization of personal qualities: Effects of new management concepts on the corporate environment . Ed .: Journal for Psychology. 7th edition. No. 3 , 1996, p. 30 .

[14] Moldaschl, Manfred; Voss, Günter: subjectification of work . Ed .: Moldasch, Manfred; Voss, Günter. 2nd Edition. Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich 2002.

[15] Günter G. Voss, Hans J. Pongratz: The labor entrepreneur. A new form of labor? Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology, Cologne 1998, p. 4th ff .

[16] Günter G. Voss, Hans J. Pongratz: The labor entrepreneur A new basic form of the commodity labor? Cologne 1998, p. 131-158 .

[17] Ulrich Mückenberger: Normal employment relationship: wage labor as a normative horizon of social security? Ed .: Christoph Sachße, H. Tristam Engelhardt. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 158-178 .