Workers and the Pursuit of Social Objectives in Organizations

Abstract

This dissertation presents three papers that explore intersections between workers and the pursuit of social objectives in organizations. Organizations, especially for-profit companies, face increasing pressure to account for their influence on society and the environment. In the Introduction, I situate workers within this context, first as intended beneficiaries of organizations’ social interventions, and second as the people who carry out the work of pursuing social goals. Chapters 1 and 2 draw on an 11-month ethnographic case study of TableTech, a socially oriented start-up that implemented a four-day workweek and a flexible work policy with the aim of enhancing worker well-being. Chapter 1, “Navigating Tensions Between Well-being and Productivity: How Win-Win Framing Contributed to the End of a 4-day Workweek Trial,” investigates how the simultaneous pursuit of productivity alongside worker well-being shaped contestation over whether to continue TableTech’s four-day workweek. Chapter 2, “Changing the Workweek to Enhance Worker Well-being: Shorter or More Flexible?”, explores how two organizational interventions—the four-day workweek and a flexible work policy—differently shaped workers’ time use and well-being, suggesting that a shorter workweek may have advantages over flexible work in enabling workers to manage work-life conflict. Chapter 3, “Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial-Professional Identity Integration with Clients” (co-authored with Lakshmi Ramarajan), draws on interviews with 84 architects and designers to identify strategies through which individuals integrate their prosocial and professional identities in their work, with implications for power relations between professionals and their clients.