Exam 8: The Postmodern Workplace: Teams, emotions, and No-Collar Work

Though her company has a written "no-discrimination" policy,Julie notices that every time her colleagues talk about men and women in the organization,they describe them as "the men" and "the girls." Recently,Julie has noticed that the men and "the girls" both seem to think that the women in the organization need more help to accomplish projects,travel safely,and negotiate assertively.Which of the following types of power would best describe these micro-uses of gendered language and the ways that they permeate daily organizational life?

Decidedly working-class,Ed never graduated from high school and is almost ninety years old.When he returned from World War II,he got a job at a factory in the town where he grew up.Eventually he and his wife bought a tiny house down the road from the factory and raised their kids there.Thirty-five years after he was hired,he retired from the factory.He wonders why he and his kids worked so hard for so many years to help his grandkids all go to college,because all of his college-educated grandkids are struggling to find jobs.When they do,they change jobs frequently and move often.He finds this all very frustrating.Based on what you know about postmodern organizations,what could you tell Ed to help explain what's going on with his grandkids?

Ed worked on the factory floor for the majority of his career.The kinds of work that his grandkids to is mostly computer-based,developing advertisement and brands for organizations.How would you characterize Ed's work and his grandkids' work,respectively?

Peter runs a non-profit educational organization with a small budget and very few full-time staff members.During the bulk of their programming in the summer,their staff swells to 35 or 40 part-time,temporary teachers.During the hiring process,Peter and the full-time staff carefully review the teachers' experience (from interviews and resumes)and use that information to put teachers into teams where they each bring something unique to the table.In these teams,teachers are in charge of planning all of their own activities,units,field trips,and lessons.They have to make proposals to the full-time staff for big trips,but otherwise,this frees up the full-time staff to trouble-shoot and deal with student issues.From a management perspective,which of the following benefits of work-teams is Peter maximizing?

Which of the following is NOT a typical characteristic of no-collar work?

Susan is a pediatric oncology nurse,which means that she works on both the pediatric floor of the hospital and the oncology floor of the hospital.She is on a pediatric team and an oncology team.Her pediatric team is a nightmare - the "team leader" seems totally unable to direct the team to have meaningful conversations or to make productive decisions.Susan often feels as though all of the individual members could do more work on their own than the team,as a whole,can do.The oncology team is a dream - the team leader is truly a leader and the team often feels empowered.Every member says that she (or he!)cannot believe that the team is able to accomplish so much - it feels very nonsummative.Which of the following "warnings" or "advice" about teams could best apply to this discrepancy?

The title,________________________________,describes the "new" American worker,who encounters great degrees of uncertainty in the workforce and is constantly under threat of losing her job or being outsourced.

Rather than "oppressive" or "negative," Foucault suggests that we view power as _____________________.

Work teams are seen as the ideal decision-making structure in post-Fordist,postmodern organizations.

Modern organizations are often called "_______________" organizations because of their tendency to produce people and products in mass quantities.

Postmodern organizations do not have any definition and emerged out of nowhere;we cannot really trace their emergence to any particular set of contexts.

"Team work" in organizations probably emerged:

Creative knowledge-workers have the most security and the biggest boundaries between life and work in our postmodern economy.

Robert Reich (1991)calls knowledge workers who create ideas and find ways to transform them into braded,marketable products,_______________________________.

The postmodern organization is less about producing goods and more about ________________________________.

Which of the following best defines Foucault's definition of "disciplinary power"?

In post-Fordist organizations,realms of employees' lives formerly deemed "______________," such as emotions,can come under corporate control.

Of the following types of work,which are the most likely to be paid a consistent salary over a period of time?

In our postmodern,consumption-based economy,people can be marketed in particular ways.We might,then,say that people,like products,can be _______________________.

Emotional labor is a positive innovation of post-Fordist organizations,because it allows employees to bring their feelings to work in new and freeing ways.