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Abstract
To pursue high-quality development, China needs to create new working conditions for workers to improve the quality of their work. “Working conditions” refers to the kind of working climate and state that people perceive in their organizations, a perception will have an important impact on their organizational behavior. Improving the working conditions of an organization is actually a social process of organizational governance. In observing organizational working conditions from a governance perspective, it is necessary to take into consideration “embeddedness” as a structural background and the work unit (danwei) as an institutional vehicle. It is imperative to emphasize both organizational order and the subjective perceptions of individuals. It also essential to analyze the organization’s social solidarity, its conflicts and integration and its protections and inclusion, the participation of its members, their interaction and the structure of their roles, and the organization’s structure and functions. This analytical framework provides a more comprehensive picture of organizational governance, which in turn reflects the organization’s working conditions and provides insights into overall research and dialogue in the disciplinary field of working conditions.
Notes
1 Eurofound and International Labour Organization, Working Conditions in a Global Perspective, p. 3; Sonja Drobnic, Barbara Beham and Patrick Prag, “Good Job, Good Life? Working Conditions and Quality of Life in Europe,” pp. 205-225; Duncan Gallie, “Production Regimes, Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work,” in Duncan Gallie, ed., Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work, pp. 1-33.
2 Ivan Robertson, Sociology, p. 188.
3 In international academic circles, working conditions are also expressed and understood as quality of work, quality of working life, job quality, “good work or good job” and decent work. The focus of these expressions is different, but their academic significance is largely the same. On the one hand, this demonstrates endeavors to complement and improve this important concept from different perspectives; on the other, it shows that the field needs to be further developed, as it is difficult to establish the theoretical and methodological basis of a discipline if the basic concepts are not consistent. This paper uses the concept of “working conditions” to summarize and express the abovementioned contents.
4 See Pascal Paoli, First European Survey on the Work Environment 1991-1992; Second European Survey on Working Conditions; Pascal Paoli and Damien Merllié, Third European Survey on Working Conditions 2000; Agnès Parent-Thirion et al., Fourth European Working Conditions Survey; Agnès Parent-Thirion et al., Fifth European Working Conditions Survey; Agnès Parent-Thirion et al., Sixth European Working Conditions Survey.
5 Zhang Yan, “The Leap from Individual Emotion to Generalized Emotion: An Empirical Study of Working Conditions Satisfaction among Urban Residents in China.”
6 Niu Jianlin et al., “The Working and Living Conditions of Urban Migrant Workers and Their Health Effects: The Case of Shenzhen”; Sun Zhongwei, Zhang Li and Zhang Xiaoying, “Polluted Working Conditions and Overtime Work, and Migrant Workers’ Mental Health: From the Theoretical Perspective of the ‘Second Strike’”; Yu Linwei, “The Effect of Living and Working Conditions on the Health of the New Generation of Migrant Workers.”
7 Fan Wei, “On the Right to Working Conditions”; Yi Haizhong and Xie Decheng, “The Content and Value of the Right to Working Conditions.”
8 Wang Yijie and Lu Nan, “Work, Relative Deprivation and Migrant Work Burnout.”
9 Jiang Xuewen, Ju Wei and Chang Chun, “A Path Analysis of the State of Anxiety and Depression and Working Conditions for Occupational Groups.”
10 Chinese Truck Drivers Research Group of the Transfar Foundation Public Welfare Research Institute, No. 1 Investigative Report on Chinese Truck Drivers: Their Group Characteristics and Labor Processes.
11 Sun Yuhua, “Work-Life Quality: Pursuing the Harmonious Development of Teachers’ Work and Life”; Qing Tao, Cong Qing and Luo Jian, “Research on the Structure and Measurement of Work-Life Quality of Corporate Knowledge Workers”; Huang Weide and Ke Di, “Research on the Measurement of Decent Work in Various Countries.”
12 See Cai He et al., Migrant Workers in the Urbanization Process: A Study of the Pearl River Delta; Liu Aiyu, “Permanent Urban Residence of Migrant Workers in the Urbanization Process.”
13 Qu Jingdong, “The Project System: A New System of National Governance.”
14 See Liu Shiding, Possession, Cognition and Interpersonal Relations: An Economic and Sociological Analysis of Institutional Change in Rural China.
15 James A. Chamberlain, Undoing Work, Rethinking Community: A Critique of the Social Function of Work, p. 18; Donald Olding Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, p. 38.
16 Zhang Jing, “The Role of Trade Unions under the ‘Corporatism Model’”; Zhang Jing and Dong Yanfeng, “Organizational Differentiation, Political Integration and Social Governance in the New Era”; Zhang Jing, “Why Does Social Governance Fail?”; “A Comparison of Social Integration Ties: Culture and Politics.”
17 See Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict.
18 See the Employee Participation Research Group, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, “Research Report on Organizational Change and Employee Participation in Chinese Enterprises” (internal research report for restricted distribution only).
19 See Elizabeth Chell, Participation and Organization: A Social Psychological Approach.
20 Employee Participation Research Group, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, “Research Report on Organizational Change and Employee Participation in Chinese Enterprises”; Adrian Wilkinson et al., The Oxford Handbook of Participation in Organizations.
21 Johannes Siegrist, “Adverse Health Effects of High-Effort/Low-Reward Conditions,” pp. 27-41.
22 The relationship between working hours, remuneration, workplaces and work participation on the one hand and the six points of organizational governance will be discussed in a separate article.