I am currently engaged in three active research projects:
The Australian Women's Working Futures (Collaborative Project)
Significant ink has been spilled regarding how trends of automation, financialization and globalization threaten the future quantity and quality of jobs. Surprisingly, dominant narratives about the "future of work" seem to draw from the past, generally imagining future workers in traditional, masculine terms. Yet globally, women currently make up almost 40% of the formal labor force, and estimates of women's informal labor force participation are even higher. Further, concerns about gender inequality in the workplace consistently dominate contemporary headlines and policy agendas. This project addresses the striking invisibility of gender in discussions about the future of work by bringing young women's voices to the fore. Using original survey data from a representative sample of approximately 2,000 Australian working women, aged 16-40 years old, and supplementary focus group data, this research illuminates women's current work experiences and their aspirations and anxieties about the future of work. While identifying important aspects regarding the gendered dimensions of the future of work, this research also highlights important areas of variation among different groups of women.
The research is a collaboration among interdisciplinary scholars at The University of Sydney.
Significant ink has been spilled regarding how trends of automation, financialization and globalization threaten the future quantity and quality of jobs. Surprisingly, dominant narratives about the "future of work" seem to draw from the past, generally imagining future workers in traditional, masculine terms. Yet globally, women currently make up almost 40% of the formal labor force, and estimates of women's informal labor force participation are even higher. Further, concerns about gender inequality in the workplace consistently dominate contemporary headlines and policy agendas. This project addresses the striking invisibility of gender in discussions about the future of work by bringing young women's voices to the fore. Using original survey data from a representative sample of approximately 2,000 Australian working women, aged 16-40 years old, and supplementary focus group data, this research illuminates women's current work experiences and their aspirations and anxieties about the future of work. While identifying important aspects regarding the gendered dimensions of the future of work, this research also highlights important areas of variation among different groups of women.
The research is a collaboration among interdisciplinary scholars at The University of Sydney.
Trust Fall: The Processes and Politics of Trust in Contemporary Work (Book Project)
Americans report high levels of interpersonal trust at work despite a documented proclivity toward distrust outside the workplace. Why do people trust coworkers and employers, particularly given widespread job insecurity, labor market inequality and workplace discrimination and harassment? This research draws on fourteen months of ethnographic workplace observations and 122 in-depth interviews with workers and managers to examine the paradoxical case of trust at work. Contending that a prolonged, cross-organizational managerial discourse orients individuals toward trust at work, I reveal how people “do” trust – and to what end – in four distinct service-sector settings: a restaurant, a marketing firm, a high-tech consulting start-up and the NYC ride-hail circuit.
Workplace actors, I find, creatively mix and match disparate symbols to construct meanings of trust that align with their lived realities – a process that enables the expression of trust across a wide range of work relationships and situations. Findings further demonstrate how the ability to trust and to be trusted at work conveys moral worth, making successful performances of trust a highly valued accomplishment within the workplace. Through processes of trust, people access workplace resources and rewards, establish social connections and inject meaning and purpose into their work. These dynamics of trust, however, also motivate people to embrace uncertainty, rationalize and reframe incivility and exert unrequited effort while drawing attention away from the profound vulnerabilities and inequities that define modern work arrangements. Moreover, as the accomplishment of trust is moderated by existing workplace “inequality regimes” and ingrained cultural beliefs about gender, race and ethnicity, women and people of color must work harder to express and receive trust. Interestingly, even though these workplace groups are less likely to enjoy the benefits of trust at work, their extended efforts lead them to become more heavily invested than white men in relations of trust, disproportionately exposing them to the risk of malfeasance and the burden of obligation such relationships can entail. I conclude that trust has emerged, within a context of deinstitutionalization, as a powerful, informal structure organizing and stratifying contemporary work.
This research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Bankard Fund for Political Economy.
Americans report high levels of interpersonal trust at work despite a documented proclivity toward distrust outside the workplace. Why do people trust coworkers and employers, particularly given widespread job insecurity, labor market inequality and workplace discrimination and harassment? This research draws on fourteen months of ethnographic workplace observations and 122 in-depth interviews with workers and managers to examine the paradoxical case of trust at work. Contending that a prolonged, cross-organizational managerial discourse orients individuals toward trust at work, I reveal how people “do” trust – and to what end – in four distinct service-sector settings: a restaurant, a marketing firm, a high-tech consulting start-up and the NYC ride-hail circuit.
Workplace actors, I find, creatively mix and match disparate symbols to construct meanings of trust that align with their lived realities – a process that enables the expression of trust across a wide range of work relationships and situations. Findings further demonstrate how the ability to trust and to be trusted at work conveys moral worth, making successful performances of trust a highly valued accomplishment within the workplace. Through processes of trust, people access workplace resources and rewards, establish social connections and inject meaning and purpose into their work. These dynamics of trust, however, also motivate people to embrace uncertainty, rationalize and reframe incivility and exert unrequited effort while drawing attention away from the profound vulnerabilities and inequities that define modern work arrangements. Moreover, as the accomplishment of trust is moderated by existing workplace “inequality regimes” and ingrained cultural beliefs about gender, race and ethnicity, women and people of color must work harder to express and receive trust. Interestingly, even though these workplace groups are less likely to enjoy the benefits of trust at work, their extended efforts lead them to become more heavily invested than white men in relations of trust, disproportionately exposing them to the risk of malfeasance and the burden of obligation such relationships can entail. I conclude that trust has emerged, within a context of deinstitutionalization, as a powerful, informal structure organizing and stratifying contemporary work.
This research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Bankard Fund for Political Economy.
The American Work Ethic
I investigate the drivers and consequences of the American work ethic through three papers:
I investigate the drivers and consequences of the American work ethic through three papers:
- In a paper under review, I argue that working mothers navigate a complex cultural terrain when making decisions about how to best manage work and family demands, and I test the association between women's cultural commitments and specific work-family strategies. Introducing a sacred/profane strategy typology, this paper extends scholarship on work-family management beyond the binary language of "trade-offs" and demonstrates women's bounded agency in creatively interpreting and selecting from a "buffet" of strategy options.
- Elite work environments demand all-encompassing work devotion, yet many organizations boast "well-rounded" employees. What are the norms for talking about leisure in these environments? Pulling on 65 in-depth interviews with high-status professionals, I investigate the meaning and stratification of leisure among elites across five distinct industries. Initial findings from this research have been presented at national conferences, and a manuscript is currently in preparation.
- With Allison Pugh, I investigate the cultural context surrounding U.S. workers' documented acquiescence to work intensification. We explore the contesting discourse available to workers by analazying the critique of overwork in newspapers, magazines and - employing methodological innovation - on social media. In a manuscript currently in progress, we outline the volume and form of public critique and discuss the implications of the available cultural vocabulary for worker resistance.