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Alan Fox is one of the most prolific and original British sociologists of industry and employment. Fox's largely derivative writings on macro-sociology have received considerable attention in the literature. In comparison his original micro-sociological theory of the role played by trust in organizational integration has been neglected. This paper presents a critical evaluation of Fox's microsociological theory of 'trust dynamics' in organizations. The paper identifies conceptual, theoretical and methodological weaknesses in Fox's complex argument and concludes that Fox's theory is invalid. The paper also suggests that trust in organizational life is probably more significant as an aspect of 'social integration' than, as Fox contends, as an aspect of' 'system integration'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years ergonomist and industrial sociologists have found considerable common ground in the study of the impact of technological change on work. The former have been concerned mainly with the ways in which new technologies affect the activities and skill requirements of the individual worker and with studies of newly emerging man-machine systems. The latter have turned their attention more to the impact of technological change at the level of the total organizational system and on the occupational structure of industrial society. Conceptions of skill and ideas about levels of skill are highly relevant to both lines of enquiry, but in bringing the two approaches together a problem arises, in that 'skill' as defined for the purposes of ergonomics research is something different from 'skill' as an element in the social structure of a manufacturing plant or the occupational structure of an industrial society. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the existence of two sets of ideas about skills, to show how they relate to each other in occupational life, and to examine the implications for technical progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anti-‘death tax’ movement is the starting point for contemporary discussions of inheritance taxation. The political rhetoric surrounding calls for its repeal typically is met with analyses of the extent to which inheritance tax avoidance benefits the wealthy, and arguments that inheritance taxation is fair and ‘targeted’. This article suggests that engagement by tax lawyers with sociological theories of economic inheritance has the potential to revive this discourse. A renewed approach to inheritance taxation is of immediate concern to supporters of inheritance taxation in the United Kingdom, who face considerable obstacles posed by the increasing use of United States anti-inheritance tax movement political rhetoric by politicians. Durkheim's consideration of the conjugal family and, more recently, Beckert's sociology of inheritance are submitted as analyses that, amongst others, have particular potential. Such engagement also has the potential to revive the interest of sociologists in inheritance taxation, memorably described by MacNamee and Miller as a ‘sociological lacuna.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]