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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3442-3912
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Sociology
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Donald Tomaskovic Devey
Second Advisor
Ofer Sharone
Third Advisor
William Lazonick
Fourth Advisor
Laurel Smith-Doerr
Subject Categories
Economic History | Income Distribution | Industrial Organization | Intellectual History | Political Economy | Theory, Knowledge and Science | Work, Economy and Organizations
Abstract
This dissertation examines the implications of corporate vertical disintegration on workplace inequality. As large firms, from the 1980s onward, increasingly relied on outsourcing their activities to reduce operations that are directly under their control and that they are liable for, they have dramatically transformed labor markets and working conditions. The corporate form that emerged out of this transformation is a network of companies, with workplaces linked in a chain of contracts. Subcontracting, franchising, outsourcing and supply chains are examples of strategies that resulted in this organizational form, allowing the outsourcing corporation to collect rent – making claims on incomes that have not yet been produced – and exercise pressure on workplaces that receive those activities. Those workplaces could in turn implement aggressive and austere practices to eke out a profit, resulting in worsening working conditions. My research tests this connection by inquiring into the historical conditions of the rise of this organizational form geared toward rent-based growth, the strategy of subordinate organizations in the rent system, and the working conditions of employees at those workplaces. My analysis breaks down the causal relationship between the rise of rent systems and working conditions into a causal chain comprising three sets of actors – the outsourcing company, the workplace and employees. I use the case of a franchising network by the largest company in hospitality, in addition to companies of various sizes in other franchising network for comparison, totaling thirteen companies. My findings underscore the role of financialization in the pursuit of rent-based growth by corporations, who adjusted their valuation of profit to match the rentier’s (shareholders). The risk and cost transferred to workplaces through the rent system deteriorate working conditions for employees and block mobility routes. However, this effect is mediated by the organizational capabilities of the receiving organization. Thus, I argue that cost and pressure in the rent system function like the pressure of loans, with borrowers’ unequally distributed abilities determining the outcomes of borrowing in the causal chain – whether austere or retentive workplace practices will be followed..
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/17933947
Recommended Citation
Shams, Safi, "Workplace Inequality in Rent Systems: The Causal Chain of Inequality Between and Within Organizations" (2020). Doctoral Dissertations. 2077.
https://doi.org/10.7275/17933947
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2077
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.