A presentation at European Broadcasting Union Workshop in Basle, December 10, 1984
By Hans L
Zetterberg
Today we look back at several years of bleak economic
outlook and we look ahead to a growing economy.
On the job
front we are faced with a legacy of high unemployment from the long recession.
In spite of the current upturn, unemployment will remain close to 40 million in
the OECD countries during the rest of the 1980s. If we include the poor
countries we have some 400 million unemployed according to the World Bank. In
most countries the prospect that unemployment will decline significantly during
the good economic years we now see ahead is very dim. The debate about unemployment
may subside, but not the phenomenon. We are entering a paradoxical era of high
prosperity and high unemployment.
Politicians in nearly all advanced countries are
vaguely embarrassed – at least in private – about the promise of full
employment that was so freely written into every party platform in the past
three, four decades. And the entitlement to work that was written into the UN
Declaration of Human Rights and into many constitutions in the post-war era sound
very lofty today. Contemporary politicians have also begun to use a language
and adopt measures which show that they want to promise employability
rather than employment. It is rather like telling youngsters: "You will
get driver's training and a lot of driving practice, and you will also get a
driver's license. But we won't promise you a car during your adult life; you
will have to take care of that detail yourself in some way."
The jobs we have and are creating are being upgraded.
In the advanced countries some 3040 per cent of the working population report
that during the past five years their jobs have been redesigned, changed
through technology, or are entirely new jobs that did not exist five years ago.
The pace of change at the workplace is extremely rapid. These new or newly restructured jobs are
generally reported to be better than the old ones. They allow the jobholder
more freedom and discretion in carrying out his or her work, and they allow for
the development of individual potentials. In the main, the research findings on
this score run contrary to the common assumption of Marxian scholars that jobs
in our economies get more controlled from above, more subdivided, and more void
of human content. The contrary is true, which brings us to a paradox: in an era
when there are too few jobs to go around, much effort is put into existing
jobs, with the result that they are improving and becoming more interesting.
During the past hundred years those values which we
describe as material success have been in ascendancy replacing the values
of sustenance SLUT KURSIV , i e survival security, and faith in
authorities. These values of material success include an admiration of the
entrepreneurial spirit, a desire for material success, for degrees, titles, and
status, the welcome acceptance of technological advances, an emphasis on
punctuality and pragmatism, as well as confidence in authority and in the
market economy. A central theme that runs through material success values is
"the standard of living." These values fit well with the idea of
economic growth. Outwardoriented values and economic growth are allies that
reinforce one another. Their alliance was notably robust during the 1950s.
The past two
decades have witnessed the emergence of other clusters of values. We call them expressive success values
SLUT KURSIV .
This cluster
comprises values such as selfactualization, creativity, fellowship, a sense of
harmony with nature, self-government, and an awareness of mental and physical
health and environmental concerns. Here we also encounter a polysensualism,
that is, the use and enjoyment of all the senses; touch and smell are
regarded as important as sight and hearing. The central theme that runs through
expressive success values is "quality of life."
These new
values – and their novelty lies more in their impact than in their content –
are not the self-evident partners of economic growth that material success
values are. Today, the climate of values and the economy may strain in
different directions.[1]
It is obviously true that individuals are not
fashioned from whole cloth. They do not embrace all the values and attitudes of
a one specific value orientation but are rather "tapestries in which one
or two weaves emerge predominant" (Greta Frankel), it is also true that
not even the predominant weave may remain the salient one throughout a
lifespan. Here is an illustration of a change brought about by a job shift.
A 53-year old
man in Sweden who had worked on an assembly line for 35 years was a typical
securityminded individual 20 years ago and regarded his job as his duty as the
family breadwinner. Recently, however, he was forced to quit his old job
because of back injury and take a position as a janitor at a local high school.
His obligations to his nowgrown children no longer fetter him, and he finds
himself thriving in the reproductive sphere. He describes his former and
present work thusly:
Interviewer: It was perhaps a duty?Earlier, yes. Then I said to myself "Ugh, I have to go to work again."
I: Then it was just a necessary evil to earn a living.Yes. It was something you forced yourself to do. Of course, it wasn't quite that bad all the time.
I: What is it that makes you thrive so at your present job?I work with young people. It's hard to explain. It's a feeling I have inside.
I: Would you try to describe that feeling?It's very hard; it's a feeling of you. The spontaneity the young show.
In the sphere of Material Success this man counted his
blessings in terms of being able to maintain his security and living standard
and his self-esteem was based primarily on being a good provider. When he
switched to the sphere of work with expressive values his blessings became
feelings held inside. There seems little doubt that his latter work helped
evolve aspects of his personality that had been there also during earlier
years.
While the prosperous welfare states have created
conditions for values of Expressivism on an unprecedented scale, it must be
pointed out that the surge of inner-directedness is not unique to our times.
The study of earlier periods of value change may help us think more clearly
about contemporary ones. History indicates that dissonant value currents may
coexist.
In the midst
of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, when the Encyclopaedists felt that
their final victory over all sorts of superstition, prejudice, and emotional
nonsense was close at hand, mysticism, gushing religiosity, and romanticism
rose to put an end to the century of enlightenment and reason. In the main, the
thus victorious values were not a reaction against the Enlightenment; they were
actually a stream of values parallel to the Enlightenment that rose to
hegemony. Zinzendorf and Swedenborg – not to speak of Rousseau – were as
typical sons of the 18th century as were Voltaire and Diderot.
The prevalence
of parallel but dissonant streams of values fighting for hegemony in the media,
in conversation, in the appraisal of products for purchase and in judging
persons for promotion also applies to our times.
Values of
Expressivism and inner-directed personalities were actually rather common
during the heydays of the values of Material Success in the 1950s. They took
the form of a "bourgeois sentimentality" which is well documented in
the mass consumption of popular magazines and movies and many opinion and
market surveys. Mostly, these values were to be found among middleclass
housewives. Here the concern with such Material Success values as family status
and cleanliness, mixed with concerns about romance, beauty, love, care, and,
naturally, the romance, beauty, and love of their media idols. Advertising agencies
experienced much scorn, not only from intellectuals but also from top
management, for relating to such values – but most of the time they were
absolute justified in doing so.
The surfacing
of inner-directedness in the late 1960s and 1970s – taking the form of
environmental concern, cultivation of inner life etc – means that bourgeois
sentimentality took new forms and became acceptable, rather than rejected, by
the younger generation of the educated middle class.
The three
currents of values that we have sketched are not new. But their relative strength varies over time and from place to
place with demographic changes. In the
course of the past half century a dramatic shift has occurred in the developed
countries of the West. Since the 1930s
the proportion of people with values chiefly related to earning one's daily
bread has receded. Values of material success crested in the 1950s but ebbed in
the 70s – a decade when expressive values rapidly gained.
People who are
governed by basic needs have been shaped by sustenance values and are usually
either older or younger, seldom middle-aged.
The older ones most often live in rural areas or in towns. The family farm in the country and the
family store in town are typical backgrounds. Farm workers, servants, and odd
jobbers are typical among the sustenance-oriented who do not own their own
small business. The main dividing line in this category runs between those who
own no property and have no security on the one hand and those who own a little
piece of land or a small store, have an unassuming job or a pension to get by
on. Urban environments or a breakdown in the welfare system create a breeding
ground for a new sustenance type. Here we encounter aimless urban youth whose
past is characterized by poor education and unemployment and who are accustomed
to a chaotic lifestyle. (We call them
"chaotics," not because they create chaos but because they have
learned to live with it.) They have no
family farm or store to fall back on in order to make a living.
Those shaped
by values of material success and who are responsive to external cues are more
frequently male. One encounters them
everywhere, but more frequently in towns than in large cities or rural areas.
Many work in commerce or industry or in public administration. They can be found in all classes, from the
traditional, unionized working class to groups composed of prosperous
businessmen. This category is stratified primarily according to profession or
occupation. It can accordingly be divided politically into a traditional left
and a traditional right. Some strive
for equality in a socialist spirit and others strive for entrepreneurship in a
conservative spirit.
Those who take
their cues from signals within themselves and who have been shaped by
expressive values are most often young and female. They are more common in
large cities than in small towns or rural areas. Many work in health care, in social work, or in education. They
are stratified primarily according to educational level. A high educational level – and then more
frequently in the humanities or social sciences than in business or technology –
is characteristic of the more articulate in this category. The River of Time In the
value streams the whole society structure is crystallized.
Our
representation of the present can be likened to three currents in the river of
time. They run parallel and do not exclude one another. One, which we call the World
of the Apparatus is the main current.
Here decisions
are reached on the basis of the values of Material Success. Political life is
corporative, that is, the big organizations, ponderous public authorities, and
major corporations, to a lesser extent by parliamentary parties and the media,
and hardly at all by intellectuals, consumers, and voters, dominate it. The
apparatus are organized on a hierarchic principle. The chief aim of its present
politics is to break economic stagnation. To shape working life in order that
it attains greater productivity is an important goal.
Alongside this
mainstream is a smaller current, the World of the Networks. Here the
values of Expressive Success prevail.
It is
important to note that the economically bad times of the early 1980s do not
mean a retreat for these values. Decentralized local groups and informal
network flourish. Self-government is the principle of organization. Politics
takes usually the form of protests against the elites in the World of the
Apparatus, through, for example, the environmental movement, women's
liberation, and the peace movement. Few live solely in the World of the
Networks, and many in this world commute to the World of the Apparatus.
BILD The River
of Time.
These
"commuters" effect working life in the World of the Apparatus, which
at present is being reorganized in planned and unplanned ways to meet the
demands of the Expressives, for example, the demands for part-time work and for
"meaningful" tasks.
We also have a
third current, the World of the Chaotics. Here the prevailing values are
those of sustenance as they have been shaped by the .pi /values/of sustenance
growing legions of aimless drifters in big cities; the unemployed, the
rootless, the homeless. Lacking a sense of continuity in their view of
themselves and the world around them, these lost individuals lead a life that
is chaotic, rough, and marked by rising crime rates. Politics in the World of
the Chaotics is anarchistic; it may also be a growing ground for fascism (as
Adolf Hitler once demonstrated).
In most western
countries in the early 1980s, the Apparatus do not create enough jobs, nor do
they seem to generate enough to pay for decent and full services to the
unemployed, the students, the pensioners, and others outside the places of
employment. Some of the unemployed can be absorbed in the World of Networks.
Some make a living in the informal economy thus avoiding the curse put on the
jobs in the Apparatus: the heavy taxes paid by employers on payrolls and by jobholders
on their earnings. Others – particularly the young ones – end up in the World
of the Chaotics.
In the
territory bordering on the World of Networks and the World of the Apparatus we
find the new entrepreneurs of Europe.
Every seventh
adult in Europe (14%) describes himself or herself in an international RISC
poll as follows: "I am the kind of
person who could start a business of my own". They say this without
hesitation: they "strongly agree" that they could start a business.
Since entrepreneurship can generate both prosperity and jobs this finding
spells hope for the European economies.
The persons
with an entrepreneurial mind are numerous in France and Spain.
|
France |
18% |
|
Italy |
15% |
|
Spain |
23% |
|
W Germany |
6% |
|
Switzerland |
10% |
|
United Kingdom
|
11% |
|
Denmark |
17% |
|
Sweden |
11% |
The low share
of persons with an entrepreneurial bent in the Federal Republic of Germany (6%)
is noteworthy. Many Germans are pessimistic about the prospects of creating new
business and more jobs, and they want to ration and share the existing jobs.
But the German attitude is not typically European.
Of special
interest is the fact that 11 percent of the interviewed women described
themselves as being potentially able to start a business of their own. For many
of them this may appear a more certain way to realize economic and occupational
ambitions than to take a job as an employee in a man's world. For the new
entrepreneurs the sex roles are blurred.
The new
potential entrepreneurs of Europe share the need to achieve with entrepreneurs
in earlier generations. They want to prove themselves in an obstacle race,
beginning with small hurdles and going on to more difficult ones. To make money
in the process is not so much a goal in itself as a sign that you are
successful and skilled in your chosen field. It is typical of the new
entrepreneurs that they look upon status and consumption in exactly the same
way as the typical citizen. They are no more and no less motivated by the big
house, the prestigious neighborhood, the great car, the good table, and the
material amenities of life than their fellowmen who do not pursue a business of
their own.
What drives
the new entrepreneurs more than anything else is a desire for a full rich life
and full use of all senses. They do not hold a narrow view of life as totally
guided by the profit motive. Of course, a profit is necessary to the survival
of any business, but the view taken here is that entrepreneurship is a way of
life, not merely a way of making a living or building a fortune. Daniel
Yankelovich has observed the same vision in the new entrepreneurs in America:
In the past, the entrepreneur’s
pursuits were money and recognition. Today, they are autonomy, creativity, and
adventure. Entrepreneurship has been redefined to focus on the expressive side
of life.
The old entrepreneur in Weber's or
Schumpeter's sense was a calculating person, rationally assessing how different
strategies might affect his balance sheet. The new entrepreneur is much more
intuitive, accepting even the irrational.
The old entrepreneur was often a lone wolf
in energetic pursuit of the manufacture and marketing of an idea. The new
entrepreneur is a much more sociable person operating through a net of social
cells. He is a network man, not an organization man.
The old entrepreneur was typically a city
slicker. The new one accepts rurality and is often actively looking for his
roots in a preurban society.
Here are some
statistics showing how Europeans with an entrepreneurial bent rate on social
trends. 25 is the mean for the whole population, and the entrepreneurs are
ahead on these trends
Need for achievement 47% 22% above mean
Full rich life 46% 21% above mean Polysensuality 44% 19% above mean Irrationality 38% 13% above mean
Blurring of sexes 37% 12% above mean
Roots-rurality 36% 11% above mean
On the status motive the entrepreneurs
scored 26 percent an insignificant deviation from the total population average
of 25 percent.
Entrepreneurs
– both old and new – are an absolute minority in any population studied. It is
easy for a political majority to adopt rules and taxes that discourage
entrepreneurship. Whether the European body politic is going to create a political
atmosphere in which the new entrepreneurship can thrive is still an open
question. It would require a restraint with regulations and taxes that does not
come easily to the politicians of Europe.
A hundred years ago – and on the authority of the
great economist Rikardo – a country's competitive advantage was thought to rest
on having raw material and cheap labor. My country of Sweden was intrinsically
rich with all the minerals and all the timber one could wish. It was thought
that we would prosper at least so long as the wages of miners and lumberjacks
remained reasonably low.
We are now in
an entirely different ballgame. In today's economies, the availability of raw
material and cheap labor do not give a very significant advantage. What counts
is access to capital and to technology. Japan, the most successful of the
post-war economies, has neither raw material of its own, nor cheap labor. But
it has technology and capital the latter in part supported in the post-war
period by an undervalued yen.
What makes
Japan unique in post-war capitalism is its marriage of high technology and an
unflagging willingness to work hard. The willingness to work has always figured
in folklore about the rise and decline of nations. In every nation and at any
period in modern history one can document a tendency to claim that the older
generation has worked harder than the younger one. And most nations entertain
notions that the peoples of some regions or tribes work harder than others. The
saying "Southerners are lazy" is found in many countries.
The category
"will to work" falls outside the ones dealt with by mainstream
economists. They talk about the price of labor and they treat wages as the one
and only force driving us to work more or less hard. A very striking fact in
our research, however, is that in most countries there is little immediate
correlation between good pay and hard work.
Majorities in
every country report from their workplaces that there is little or no
difference in pay between those who work hard and efficiently and those who
don't. This came almost as a shock to the economists in our research teams.
This
combination of jobs moving toward high discretion for the jobholder and jobs that
pays the same irrespective of how one uses that discretion puts the will to
work into focus.
In Japan older
generation give their discretionary effort to the company, but younger Japanese
are increasingly reluctant to do so. The Japanese researchers called this
phenomenon the "Europeanization of the labor force". Seen in a
perspective of some fifteen to twenty years this will have an effect on Japan's
competitive position. It will have
little or no effect within the next few years.
We have
learned only very recently to measure the will to work and compare nations on
this score. The comparisons we have made in our research include three quite
separate measurements that only have one thing in common: they get at the non-economic
aspects of the will to work. The three aspects are
Some people have an inner need to do a good job
regardless of pay– Their religion, upbringing, and education have imbued them
with a work ethic. These are the people who feel that they absolutely must do
things well. The famous Protestant work ethic is an example of an implanted
urge to do a good job for its own sake, not for the sake of worldly gain, pay,
or honor.
The prevalence
of the implanted work ethic differs greatly between countries. In centers where
tradition would have us expect to find a strong work ethic – Germany, the home
of the Lutherans, and Britain, the home of the Methodists – very few people
today say in our interviews say that they "have an inner need to work hard
regardless of pay". Japan, the United States, and Sweden show higher
figures. The US figure is high enough – about 40 per cent – so that a discussion
has started there about putting the work ethic to work. Since the implanted
work ethic is something that has its roots in upbringing there is not much
managers can do about it. The most conscious efforts to make use of it are
reported in the hiring practices of some Japanese firms operating in the United
States. They try to choose for their American work force people with an
intrinsic interest in quality work and in fast, hard work.
It is with jobs as with marriages: what is a mismatch
for one may be a good match for another. One person may desire a
husband or wife who is stylish and elegant. He places less importance on
emotional depth and intelligence. Another puts a premium on deep emotional contact
and attaches less importance to
external attributes. As in marriage, however, some of us are unwilling to
forego some attributes in our jobs in favor of others. One has not learned to
make all the tradeoffs that are necessary in various areas of life. On the
job, as in a marriage, the chances for disappointment – and therewith such
reactions as frustration, bitterness, or even apathy – very likely await the
person who expects a mate or a workplace to fulfill a preponderance of
often-irreconcilable desires. Just as a mate may not be both sufficiently
fashionable and sufficiently profound, a job may not be able to offer both the
fullest opportunity for creativity and maximum security.
Depending on
what values we hold certain jobs will be mismatched and others will be matched
to us.
The mismatches
are pronounced among the young those under 30. It seems as if society has
not redesigned its jobs at the same pace as values have changed. In all
countries the young with the newer values of Expressive Success are frequently
mismatched.
A good match
between your values and your work is a daily reward. A fortunate half of the
working population in the advanced industrial democracies enjoys this
experience. They agree with one of our
respondents, who in no way would work without pay since she carried a burden of
family support, but nevertheless said: "I have this job that is so good to
me, and on top of it I also get paid."
Where you have
a good match between values and jobs you also have an automatic will to work.
Our values motivate us on the job.
To sum up this
argument:
Sustenance-oriented people give their best to jobs with steady
remuneration and complete job security. The older blue-collar generation of
industrial workers fit here.
People with
outer-directed values of material success give their best to jobs with
incentive pay, advancement opportunities, and clear and fair rules for
promotion.
People with
inner-oriented values of expressivism give their best at what they call
interesting jobs that allow for personal growth, not just material growth.
Their interviews are full of phrases such as "my job is so good to
me". They give their best when the job allows for creativity and selfdevelopment.
We were
surprised to find that nearly half of the work force we interviewed had a
mismatch between jobs and dominant values. To an amazing extent the various
labor markets offered insecure jobs to the sustenance-minded, sustenance jobs
to those who wanted material success, material success jobs to those who wanted
expressive success and vice versa.
In the 60s and
70s most people with the new values of expressivism gave up on their work
places and thought they could only realize their values of self-actualization
during leisure – by being close to nature, by walking in the mountains, sailing
on the deep waters, meeting with close friends. The values were a drain on
working life. In the 80s the story is different. People with these values are
increasingly looking for work that allows them to live out their values on the
job rather than outside the job. And they love the new jobs with their high
discretion and room for creativity. They also look with favor on the many small
computers they operate on these jobs. They see the computers as extensions of
their personality: to learn the computer - is like learning to play the piano –
you can express more of yourself and so much better with such a tool.
Those
countries and companies that can quickly teach their managers to be aware of
differences in values, allocate personnel accordingly, and redesign jobs to fit
the values will win the competitive race of the 80s and 90s. The burden lies
mainly on those engineers and organization officers who shape and design jobs.
Practically everywhere interviewed we found bits and
pieces of what we came to call "the invisible contract". Here we are
not talking about a willingness to work because work allows you to live out
your values, not are we talking about an ethical commitment to work hard
irrespective of the reward. We are talking about a give and take of a non-economic
kind that is more or less developed at every place of work.
The usual
visible written work contract says that I put in so and so many hours for so
and so many dollars. The invisible contract says I help you because I know that
you would help me. I care about my fellow workers, and my fellow workers care
about me. I am loyal to my company and my company is loyal to me.
The invisible
contract fares poorly in many countries. In Britain it is poorly developed, and
workers may withhold efforts above the minimum required by the formal contract.
In Germany, the workers feel exploited and do not want to give much of
themselves. In Japan, there are growing signs that the invisible contract is
abused and that workers feel cheated. The best invisible contracts we found –
to my delighted surprise – in Sweden. Swedes have a high rate of absenteeism,
but when on the job they give it a lot.
Good invisible
contracts are more common at small places of work than at large ones, more
common among white-collar workers than blue-collar workers, more common in
the private sector than in the public sector.
The small
place of work can develop a good invisible contract almost by itself. As with a
hockey or soccer team or the fishing and hunting teams of olden days there
should be no more than seven to eleven members to a work group. Jesus Christ
tried with twelve and that proved to be one too many.
But good
invisible contracts can develop also in large organizations, provided
they have a good leadership sensitive to issues of values, interpersonal
relations and performance.
There are examples of leaders in the business world
who have the ability to rally their employees to marshal their best efforts in
a common cause, despite factious rivalries and conflicts. Leaders who can imbue
others with a sense of purpose so that each feels his contributions are
important. Leaders who can arouse others to draw upon untapped resources.
Such
leadership is an elusive but potent force in the invisible contract.
One work
leader in another field of endeavor may provide some clues as to how he
inspires a work crew – albeit on a small scale, with a very special cast of
workers, and in a rarefied field.
Ingmar Bergman
has long known the secret of stirring his co-workers to strive for excellence
and to surmount conflicts in the interest of a common goal. How many men would
even contemplate bringing together a number of their ex-wives and lovers on
the premise that they will work in harmony and deliver optimal performances in
the same project? What is his secret?
Bergman is not
only an accomplished director of motion pictures; he is also an intuitive guide
of human potential. According to interviews made with his imposing collection
of "exs" – each of whom is a distinct personality in her own right –
frictions that might plausible be expected to arise on the set are dissipated
by an even more impelling force. To each member of his cast Bergman seems able
to give a unique gift: to gain access to the undiscovered and richest lodes
within one's being and be guided in mining them to one's own delight. This is a
reward of an entirely different quality and power than conventional praise or
tangible compensations for performance. It spurs one to the highest level of
accomplishment because of the sheer pleasure in developing the self. And,
unlike traditional incentives, the effects are long lasting and cumulative.
And so Bergman
can orchestrate his players so that each strives to summon the finest tones out
of his own instrument – himself – in the creation of the final total product.
What more can
we want?
Thank you very much.
This
presentation is based on ideas found in two recent publications:
* Work and
Human Values: An International Report on Jobs in the 1980s and 1990s by
Daniel Yankelovich, Hans Zetterberg, Burkhard Struempel, Michael Shanks with
John Immerwahr, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, Tomatsu Sengoku, and Ephraim
YuchtmanYaar
*
Det osynliga kontraktet (The Invisible Contract) by Hans L Zetterberg,
Karin Busch, Göran Crona, Greta Frankel, Berth Jönsson, Ivar Söderlind, and Bo
Winander.
Both publications emanate from the international
research program "Jobs in the 1980s" initiated by Aspen Institute for
Humanistic Studies and The Public Agenda Foundation. The research covered
Japan, USA, Britain, West Germany, Sweden, and Israel
[1] Daniel
Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Basic Books, New York,
1976.