The Organizational and Social Foundations of Worker Resistance.

The study of worker resistance has tended to focus on organizational attributes that may alter actors= capacity to respond, or on influential social relations occurring on the shop floor. This divide, partially driven by analytical and methodological preference, is also a function of different theoretical traditions. In this article, we suggest that organizational attributes and social relations at work may be simultaneously but also conditionally meaningful for workers and their potential resistance strategies. Findings, derived from analyses of unique data on 82 workplace ethnographies from the U.S. and England and that make use of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) techniques, largely support these expectations. The configuration of poor workplace organization and worker-manager conflict significantly increases the likelihood of collective resistance in the form of strike action. This pattern also holds for certain, more individualized forms of worker resistance (i.e., social sabotage, work avoidance, and absenteeism), and within poorly run and less bureaucratized work environments. Cross-national differences in the forms of worker resistance typically employed are also reported. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of our results for future analyses of worker satisfaction, workplace change, and resistance-oriented action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]