Legitimationsprobleme in der Erwerbsarbeit

Abstract

The second, revised edition of this book, which has now been expanded to include an afterword, reveals that employees’ expectations of fairness and rationality when it comes to gainful employment are diverse and deeply rooted in their experiences with work and companies. Basing their findings on the results of an extensive qualitative empirical study of service providers and industrial companies, the authors show how such expectations result in permanent evaluation and comparisons by those employees and what kinds of problems and conflicts this can cause in terms of their own legitimacy and fairness. The range of their expectations encompasses moral expectations relating to performance-related equity, participation, personal fulfilment, welfare and dignity, which are connected to their technical and functional, bureaucratic and economic expectations relating to rationality. Their typical expectation patterns have little to do with the so-called ‘new spirit of capitalism’ or neo-liberal entrepreneurialism, but indicate both sustainability and the blurring of labour standards which fall within the parameters of normal working relationships and professional ethics. If employees’ expectations are not met, this can lead to legitimacy crises and to them actively fighting for their own interests. At the same time, evidence of delegitimisation can also be found: they lower their normative expectations of gainful employment.

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