Summary Sociology of organisations
The Future of Jobs Report 2025 – World economic
forum
The future jobs report 2025 brings together the perspective of over 1000 leading
global employers, to examine how macrotrends impact jobs and skills, and the
workforce transformation strategies employers plan to embark on in response.
Broadening digital access is expected to be the most transformative trend. These
trends are expected to have a divergent effect on jobs, driving both the fastest-
growing and fastest-declining roles, and fueling demand for technology-related
skills.
Increasing cost of living ranks as the second-most transformative trend overall,
with half of employers expecting it to transform their business by 2030. General
economic slowdown, to a lesser extent, also remains top of mind. Inflation is
predicted to have a mixed outlook for net job creation to 2030, while slower
growth is expected to displace jobs.
Climate-change mitigation and climate-change adaption is driving demand for
roles such as renewable energy engineers, environmental engineers and electric
and autonomous vehicle specialist.
Two demographic shifts are increasingly seen to be transforming global
economics and labour markets: aging and declining working age populations.
These trends drive an increase in demand for skills in talent management,
teaching and mentoring, and motivation and self-awareness.
Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions are expected to drive
business model transformation in one-third of surveyed organizations in the next
five years. Almost all economies for which respondents expect these trends to be
most transformative have significant trade with the United States and/or China.
Employers who expect geoeconomic trends to transform their business are also
more likely to offshore operations.
Frontline job roles are predicted to see the largest growth in absolute terms of
volume and include farmworkers, delivery drivers, construction workers,
salespersons, and food processing workers.
Technology related roles are the fastest-growing jobs in percentage terms.
Analytical thinking remains the most sought-after core skill among employers.
This is followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, along with leadership and
social influence.
,Watson chapter 2
There are six strands of thought that we need to be aware of if we are to
appreciate both the variations and the continuities in the sociological study of
work:
1. Managerial-psychologistic
2. Durkheim-human-relations-systems
3. Interactionist-negotiated-order
4. Weber-social-action-institutional
5. Marxian-labour-process
6. Poststructuralist and postmodern
The managerial-psychologistic strand
They are vitally important to an understanding of the development of industrial
sociology, as it became a significant area of study in the twentieth century. This
strand is divided into two separate line of thinking:
- Scientific management (Taylorism)
o Rationalised division of tasks and the mechanisation of work
reached a point where the need to co-ordinate human work efforts
invited the attentions of individuals interested in applying scientific
and engineering criteria to the human sphere as they had to the
mechanical.
o Taylorism encouraged a view of the industrial worker as an economic
animal who could be encouraged to act as a self-seeking hired hand
wo would allow managers to do their job-related thinking for them.
o Design of the jobs by managers to achieve the maximum technical
division of labour through advanced job fragmentation.
o The psychologistic side of things is looking at soldiering.
Soldiering is the natural instinct and tendency of men to take
it easy.
Systematic soldiering: Soldiering combined with people’s
economic interests and the failure of managers to design,
allocate and reward work on a scientific basis, it leads
employees to get together and rationally conspire to hold
production down.
- Psychological humanism
o Psychological humanists argue for achieving organisational
efficiency not through the exclusion of workers from task-related
decision-making but by encouraging their participation in it.
o It bases its approach to human work behaviour on a theory of
human nature, and one of the popular early writers of this school
made quite clear the equivalence of the two opposing propositions
by labelling them Theory X and Theory Y
Theory X: This sees human being as naturally disliking work
and therefore as avoiding it if they can. People prefer to avoid
responsibility and like to be given direction. The manager
controls and coerces people towards the meeting of
organisational objectives. Lack of creativity and initiative on
their part.
, Theory Y: States that all people are not at all like this but
would generally prefer to exercise self-control and self-
discipline at work. He believed this would occur in a way to
enable self-actualization.
Self-actualization was central in the work of Maslow,
whose starting point was the belief that scientific
investigations of human behaviour should be oriented
towards releasing in people the various potentials they
possess.
Maslow: hierarchy of needs. You need to achieve the
needs of the bottom one to go up. Once you have
completed every level, you have achieved your
ultimate self.
Durkheim-human-relations strand
There is an emphasis on the social system of which individuals are a part of. The
social system may be that o the society as a whole or it may be that of the work
organisation or even a sub-unit of the organisation. The key idea is the essentially
sociological one of concentrating on the patterns of relationships, which exist
between people rather than on the people as such.
Durkheim argued that to study social life one had to isolate and examine social
currents and social facts. These are the things that exist externally to individuals
and exert constraint over them.
Anomic = a form of social breakdown in which the norms which would otherwise
prevail in a given situation cease to operate.
Managerial skills and good communications were the antidotes to the potential
pathologies of an urban industrial civilisation.
The Hawthorne effect has two outcomes:
1. The suggestion that workers’ behaviour can be attributed to their
sentiments rather tan to their reason. Apparently rational behaviour, could
be better understood as deriving from irrational fears, status anxieties and
the instinctive need of the individual to be loyal to his or her immediate
social group.
2. An emphasis on the notion of system.
The Hawthorne effect emphasizes on the belief that people work better when
they are being observed and they know that they are being observed.
The interactionist-negotiated-order strand
The individual and society are inseparable units: their relationship is a mutually
interdependent one, not a one-sided deterministic one. Human being construct
their realities in a process of interaction with other human beings. Individuals
derive their very identity from their interaction with others.
Symbolic interactionism = the study of social interaction which focuses on how
people develop their concept of self through processes of communication in
which symbols such as words, gestures and dress allow people sto understand
the expectations of theirs.
Negotiated order = pattern of activities which emerges over time as an outcome
of the interplay of the various interests, understandings, reactions and initiatives
of the individuals and groups involved in ana organisation.
The Future of Jobs Report 2025 – World economic
forum
The future jobs report 2025 brings together the perspective of over 1000 leading
global employers, to examine how macrotrends impact jobs and skills, and the
workforce transformation strategies employers plan to embark on in response.
Broadening digital access is expected to be the most transformative trend. These
trends are expected to have a divergent effect on jobs, driving both the fastest-
growing and fastest-declining roles, and fueling demand for technology-related
skills.
Increasing cost of living ranks as the second-most transformative trend overall,
with half of employers expecting it to transform their business by 2030. General
economic slowdown, to a lesser extent, also remains top of mind. Inflation is
predicted to have a mixed outlook for net job creation to 2030, while slower
growth is expected to displace jobs.
Climate-change mitigation and climate-change adaption is driving demand for
roles such as renewable energy engineers, environmental engineers and electric
and autonomous vehicle specialist.
Two demographic shifts are increasingly seen to be transforming global
economics and labour markets: aging and declining working age populations.
These trends drive an increase in demand for skills in talent management,
teaching and mentoring, and motivation and self-awareness.
Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions are expected to drive
business model transformation in one-third of surveyed organizations in the next
five years. Almost all economies for which respondents expect these trends to be
most transformative have significant trade with the United States and/or China.
Employers who expect geoeconomic trends to transform their business are also
more likely to offshore operations.
Frontline job roles are predicted to see the largest growth in absolute terms of
volume and include farmworkers, delivery drivers, construction workers,
salespersons, and food processing workers.
Technology related roles are the fastest-growing jobs in percentage terms.
Analytical thinking remains the most sought-after core skill among employers.
This is followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, along with leadership and
social influence.
,Watson chapter 2
There are six strands of thought that we need to be aware of if we are to
appreciate both the variations and the continuities in the sociological study of
work:
1. Managerial-psychologistic
2. Durkheim-human-relations-systems
3. Interactionist-negotiated-order
4. Weber-social-action-institutional
5. Marxian-labour-process
6. Poststructuralist and postmodern
The managerial-psychologistic strand
They are vitally important to an understanding of the development of industrial
sociology, as it became a significant area of study in the twentieth century. This
strand is divided into two separate line of thinking:
- Scientific management (Taylorism)
o Rationalised division of tasks and the mechanisation of work
reached a point where the need to co-ordinate human work efforts
invited the attentions of individuals interested in applying scientific
and engineering criteria to the human sphere as they had to the
mechanical.
o Taylorism encouraged a view of the industrial worker as an economic
animal who could be encouraged to act as a self-seeking hired hand
wo would allow managers to do their job-related thinking for them.
o Design of the jobs by managers to achieve the maximum technical
division of labour through advanced job fragmentation.
o The psychologistic side of things is looking at soldiering.
Soldiering is the natural instinct and tendency of men to take
it easy.
Systematic soldiering: Soldiering combined with people’s
economic interests and the failure of managers to design,
allocate and reward work on a scientific basis, it leads
employees to get together and rationally conspire to hold
production down.
- Psychological humanism
o Psychological humanists argue for achieving organisational
efficiency not through the exclusion of workers from task-related
decision-making but by encouraging their participation in it.
o It bases its approach to human work behaviour on a theory of
human nature, and one of the popular early writers of this school
made quite clear the equivalence of the two opposing propositions
by labelling them Theory X and Theory Y
Theory X: This sees human being as naturally disliking work
and therefore as avoiding it if they can. People prefer to avoid
responsibility and like to be given direction. The manager
controls and coerces people towards the meeting of
organisational objectives. Lack of creativity and initiative on
their part.
, Theory Y: States that all people are not at all like this but
would generally prefer to exercise self-control and self-
discipline at work. He believed this would occur in a way to
enable self-actualization.
Self-actualization was central in the work of Maslow,
whose starting point was the belief that scientific
investigations of human behaviour should be oriented
towards releasing in people the various potentials they
possess.
Maslow: hierarchy of needs. You need to achieve the
needs of the bottom one to go up. Once you have
completed every level, you have achieved your
ultimate self.
Durkheim-human-relations strand
There is an emphasis on the social system of which individuals are a part of. The
social system may be that o the society as a whole or it may be that of the work
organisation or even a sub-unit of the organisation. The key idea is the essentially
sociological one of concentrating on the patterns of relationships, which exist
between people rather than on the people as such.
Durkheim argued that to study social life one had to isolate and examine social
currents and social facts. These are the things that exist externally to individuals
and exert constraint over them.
Anomic = a form of social breakdown in which the norms which would otherwise
prevail in a given situation cease to operate.
Managerial skills and good communications were the antidotes to the potential
pathologies of an urban industrial civilisation.
The Hawthorne effect has two outcomes:
1. The suggestion that workers’ behaviour can be attributed to their
sentiments rather tan to their reason. Apparently rational behaviour, could
be better understood as deriving from irrational fears, status anxieties and
the instinctive need of the individual to be loyal to his or her immediate
social group.
2. An emphasis on the notion of system.
The Hawthorne effect emphasizes on the belief that people work better when
they are being observed and they know that they are being observed.
The interactionist-negotiated-order strand
The individual and society are inseparable units: their relationship is a mutually
interdependent one, not a one-sided deterministic one. Human being construct
their realities in a process of interaction with other human beings. Individuals
derive their very identity from their interaction with others.
Symbolic interactionism = the study of social interaction which focuses on how
people develop their concept of self through processes of communication in
which symbols such as words, gestures and dress allow people sto understand
the expectations of theirs.
Negotiated order = pattern of activities which emerges over time as an outcome
of the interplay of the various interests, understandings, reactions and initiatives
of the individuals and groups involved in ana organisation.
