IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/198597.html

Lean Work and Gender Inequalities: Manufacturing Consent at a Multinational Car Plant in Provincial Russia

Author

Listed:
  • Krzywdzinski, Martin
  • Lechowski, Grzegorz
  • Mählmeyer, Valentina

Abstract

How do local labour market structures, in tandem with workforce dispositions and attitudes, influence the way multinational companies localise their standardised work and production systems? This article investigates the conflict-ridden factory regime of a lean automotive plant in provincial Russia at which the management was able to secure a relatively high level of consent among its female workers but not among male workers. In order to explain this gendered pattern of worker consent, the plant-internal gender division of labour and two societal factors proved crucial: the gendered segmentation of the local labour market and the workers’ cultural dispositions. At the same time, the analysis points to the transformative effect that the company’s work and production system had on the local labour regime. The case study relies on a combination of quantitative survey data and qualitative interviews. It emphasises the need to reconnect the analysis of branch-plant factory regimes to a nuanced understanding of their embeddedness within local labour markets – also in the case of highly standardised work and production systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Krzywdzinski, Martin & Lechowski, Grzegorz & Mählmeyer, Valentina, 2019. "Lean Work and Gender Inequalities: Manufacturing Consent at a Multinational Car Plant in Provincial Russia," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(2), pages 123-141.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:198597
    DOI: 10.15173/glj.v10i2.3488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/198597/1/full-text-Krzywdzinski-et_al-Work-v3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.15173/glj.v10i2.3488?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Pattenden, 2016. "Working at the margins of global production networks: local labour control regimes and rural-based labourers in South India," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1809-1833, October.
    2. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1877-1900, October.
    3. Jurgens, Ulrich & Krzywdzinski, Martin, 2016. "New Worlds of Work: Varieties of Work in Car Factories in the BRIC Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198722670.
    4. Elger, Tony & Smith, Chris, 2005. "Assembling Work: Remaking Factory Regimes in Japanese Multinationals in Britain," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199241514.
    5. Bradon Ellem, 2016. "Geographies of the labour process: automation and the spatiality of mining," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(6), pages 932-948, December.
    6. Laetitia Hauret & Donald R. Williams, 2017. "Cross-National Analysis of Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 203-235, April.
    7. Kristensen, Peer Hull & Zeitlin, Jonathan, 2004. "Local Players in Global Games: The Strategic Constitution of a Multinational Corporation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199275625.
    8. Atencio,Andrea & Posadas,Josefina, 2015. "Gender gap in pay in the Russian Federation : twenty years later, still a concern," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7407, The World Bank.
    9. Chris Smith, 2006. "The double indeterminacy of labour power," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(2), pages 389-402, June.
    10. Andrew Brown & Andy Charlwood & David A Spencer, 2012. "Not all that it might seem: why job satisfaction is worth studying despite it being a poor summary measure of job quality," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1007-1018, December.
    11. Elena Baglioni, 2018. "Labour control and the labour question in global production networks: exploitation and disciplining in Senegalese export horticulture," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 111-137.
    12. repec:bla:kyklos:v:53:y:2000:i:2:p:135-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Andrew Jonas, 1996. "Local Labour Control Regimes: Uneven Development and the Social Regulation of Production," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 323-338.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tatiana López, 2021. "A practice ontology approach to labor control regimes in GPNs: Connecting ‘sites of labor control’ in the Bangalore export garment cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1012-1030, August.
    2. Oya, Carlos & Schaefer, Florian, 2021. "The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    3. Elena Baglioni, 2022. "The Making of Cheap Labour across Production and Reproduction: Control and Resistance in the Senegalese Horticultural Value Chain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 445-464, June.
    4. Katie J Wells & Kafui Attoh & Declan Cullen, 2021. "“Just-in-Place†labor: Driver organizing in the Uber workplace," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 315-331, March.
    5. Lijun Tang & Pengfei Zhang, 2019. "Global problems, local solutions: unfree labour relations and seafarer employment with crewing agencies in China," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 277-291, May.
    6. Elena Baglioni, 2018. "Labour control and the labour question in global production networks: exploitation and disciplining in Senegalese export horticulture," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 111-137.
    7. Fuchs Martina & Dannenberg Peter & López Tatiana & Wiedemann Cathrin & Riedler Tim, 2023. "Location-specific labour control strategies in online retail," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 67(4), pages 189-201, December.
    8. Annelien Gansemans & Marijke D’Haese, 2020. "Staying under the radar: constraints on labour agency of pineapple plantation workers in Costa Rica?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(2), pages 397-414, June.
    9. Yu Zheng & Chris Smith, 2018. "‘Chicken and Duck Talk’: Life and Death of Language Training at a Japanese Multinational in China," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(5), pages 887-905, October.
    10. Sara Stevano & Rosimina Ali & Merle Jamieson, 2021. "Essential Work: Using A Social Reproduction Lens to Investigate the Re-Organisation of Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 241, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    11. Tom Barratt & Johan Sandström & Bradon Ellem, 2024. "Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(6), pages 1651-1667, September.
    12. Thomas Hastings & Danny MacKinnon, 2017. "Re-embedding agency at the workplace scale: Workers and labour control in Glasgow call centres," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 104-120, January.
    13. Patrick Bottazzi & Sébastien Boillat & Franziska Marfurt & Sokhna Mbossé Seck, 2020. "Channels of Labour Control in Organic Farming: Toward a Just Agroecological Transition for Sub-Saharan Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-21, June.
    14. Oya, Carlos & Schaefer, Florian, 2023. "Do Chinese firms in Africa pay lower wages? A comparative analysis of manufacturing and construction firms in Angola and Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    15. Sharon C. Bolton, 2009. "Getting to the heart of the emotional labour process: a reply to Brook," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(3), pages 549-560, September.
    16. Zhiwei Zhao & David Walters & Desai Shan, 2020. "Impediments to free movement of Chinese seafarers in the maritime labour market," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 425-443, September.
    17. Alex Veen & Tom Barratt & Caleb Goods, 2020. "Platform-Capital’s ‘App-etite’ for Control: A Labour Process Analysis of Food-Delivery Work in Australia," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(3), pages 388-406, June.
    18. Tom Barratt & Caleb Goods & Alex Veen, 2020. "‘I’m my own boss…’: Active intermediation and ‘entrepreneurial’ worker agency in the Australian gig-economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(8), pages 1643-1661, November.
    19. Stephan Humpert, 2014. "Working time, satisfaction and work life balance: A European perspective," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 64(4), pages 3-17, October-D.
    20. Laia OLLÉ-ESPLUGA & Johanna MUCKENHUBER & Markus HADLER, 2019. "Job Quality in Economy for the Common Good Firms in Austria and Germany," CIRIEC Working Papers 1921, CIRIEC - Université de Liège.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:198597. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.