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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations

Introduction To A Special Issue On Inequality In The Workplace (“What Works?), Pamela S. Tolbert, Emilio J. Castilla Jul 2017

Introduction To A Special Issue On Inequality In The Workplace (“What Works?), Pamela S. Tolbert, Emilio J. Castilla

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] While overt expressions of racial and gender bias in U.S. workplaces have declined markedly since the passage of the original Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a half century ago (Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997; Dobbin 2009), a steady stream of research indicates that powerful, if more covert forms of bias persist in contemporary workplaces (Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009; England 2010; Heilman 2012). In line with this research, high rates of individual and class-based lawsuits alleging racial and gender discrimination suggest that many …


The Impact Of Family Economic Structure On Dual-Earners’ Career And Family Satisfaction, Ronit Waismel-Manor, Asaf Levanon, Pamela S. Tolbert Apr 2016

The Impact Of Family Economic Structure On Dual-Earners’ Career And Family Satisfaction, Ronit Waismel-Manor, Asaf Levanon, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

The present study builds on the explanatory power of the “doing gender” perspective to understand the effects of family economic structure on the family and career satisfaction of husbands and wives. Using data from a two-panel, couple-level survey of full-time employed middle-class families in the Northeastern United States, we find that when wives’ earnings increase relative to their husbands’, their career satisfaction significantly increases whereas their husbands’ is significantly depressed. In contrast, family economic structure has little effect on women’ and men’s level of family satisfaction, although we find a significant reduction in family satisfaction among couples who have recently …


Occupations, Organizations, And Boundaryless Careers, Pamela S. Tolbert Nov 2015

Occupations, Organizations, And Boundaryless Careers, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] The central premise of this chapter is that, as organizations become less important in defining career pathways and boundaries, occupations will become increasingly more important. While occupational demarcations have always had a significant, albeit often unacknowledged, impact on individual career patterns, the significance of such demarcations for careers is likely to be heightened by current trends in employment relationships. In this chapter, then, I review the sociological literature on occupational labor markets and on the structure of professional occupations, in an effort to shed light on a number of issues associated with occupationally based careers. Of specific concern are …


On Organizations And Oligarchies: Michels In The Twenty-First Century, Pamela S. Tolbert, Shon R. Hiatt Nov 2015

On Organizations And Oligarchies: Michels In The Twenty-First Century, Pamela S. Tolbert, Shon R. Hiatt

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] A central problem for those interested in studying and explaining the actions of organizations is how to conceptualize these social phenomena. In particular, because organizations are constituted by individuals, each of whom may seek to achieve his or her interests through the organization, questions of how decisions are made in organizations and whose preferences drive those decisions are critical to explaining organizational actions. Although early organizational scholars spent much time wrestling with these questions (e.g. Barnard 1938; Simon 1947; Parsons 1956; March and Simon 1958), more recent work in organizational studies has tended to elide them, adopting an implicit …


Introduction To Special Section: Careers In Context, Hugh Gunz, Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Pamela Tolbert Dec 2011

Introduction To Special Section: Careers In Context, Hugh Gunz, Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Pamela Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] Career scholars regularly cite Hughes’ (1937: 413) dictum that the study careers as “the moving perspective in which persons orient themselves with reference to the social order, and of the typical sequences and concatenations of office – may be expected to reveal the nature and 'working constitution' of a society.” Yet the greater part of the careers literature typically ignores this by focusing, largely, on the careers of individuals and influencing factors mainly linked to the person and his or her immediate context, to the neglect of the broader context within which the careers are lived. However, large-scale economic …


Institutional Environments And Resource Dependence: Sources Of Administrative Structure In Institutions Of Higher Education, Pamela S. Tolbert Jun 2011

Institutional Environments And Resource Dependence: Sources Of Administrative Structure In Institutions Of Higher Education, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

Two theoretical perspectives are combined to explain the pattern of administrative offices in public and private institutions of higher education. The first perspective, resource dependence, is used to show that the need to ensure a stable flow of resources from external sources of support partially determines administrative differentiation. The second perspective, institutionalization, emphasizes the common understandings and social definitions of organizational behavior and structure considered appropriate and nonproblematic and suggests conditions under which dependency will and will not predict the number of administrative offices that manage funding relations. The results of the analyses indicate that dependence on nontraditional sources of …


Organizational Institutionalism And Sociology: A Reflection, Pamela S. Tolbert Jun 2011

Organizational Institutionalism And Sociology: A Reflection, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] In 1991, DiMaggio and Powell observed: Institutional theory presents a paradox. Institutional analysis is as old as Emile Durkheim's exhortation to study 'social facts as things', yet sufficiently novel to be preceded by new in much of the contemporary literature. (1991: 1) We argue that this paradox is, at least in part, the result of a long-standing tension in sociology between more materialist, interest-driven explanations of behavior and ideational, normative explanations, a tension that has often driven oscillating waves of sociological theorizing. It underlies many classical debates (e.g., between Spencer and Durkheim, Weber and Marx, and even Parsons and …


Physicians’ Work, Alice A. Oberfield, Pamela S. Tolbert Jun 2011

Physicians’ Work, Alice A. Oberfield, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] In order to evaluate the full impact of such changes on physicians' work and the health care system, it is necessary to understand the forces bringing change about. Thus, we begin by providing a brief history of the contemporary medical care system, then turn to an assessment of current trends and their consequences for the practice of medicine.


Institutional Sources Of Organizational Culture In Major Law Firms, Pamela S. Tolbert Jun 2011

Institutional Sources Of Organizational Culture In Major Law Firms, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] A large body of research has been generated within the last few years on the forms and functions of organizational culture and on the consequences of culture for organizational control and effectiveness. Surprisingly little attention has been given, however, to the sources of organizational culture and, in particular, to the features of organizations that affect its maintenance and transmission. This chapter uses an institutionalization perspective to explore these issues.