Student Registration No(s): 12011264
Module Title: People, Work and Organizations
Module Leader: David Spicer
Tutor: Jenny Allen
Word count: 1011 words
STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICITY:
I have read the University Regulations relating to plagiarism and certify that the above piece of coursework is all my own work and does not contain any unacknowledged work from any other sources.
Signed: ____________________________
Date: 30.11.2012
The social study of work has always played a central part in sociology. It has necessarily done this, given that sociology emerged and developed as a way of coming to terms with fundamental changes associated with industrialisation and the rise of capitalism(Watson, 2003; 53). Watson acknowledges that changes in the way work is structured have been at the heart of the social and historical shifts, with which sociology has always engaged. Watson’s observation compromises the reason for which the aim of this essay is to explore not only the stages work has passed through since humans have developed as a community with work not separated from home until the industrialisation and the changing division of labour, but also the relations “between the work and the social milieu in which the worker moves” (Miller, William; 9).
In the pre-industrial era (1500-1750) the main kind of work were all non-industrial. There did not exist a division of labour, mechanisation implying tools or machineries which help individuals to carry out tasks easier. Prior of the advent of the industrial capitalism in England, work was seen only as a way of satisfying the basic need of survival for the vast majority of individuals at a subsistence level. It is in the recent past that work has become synonymous with regular paid employment. In the past work was seen more as an obligatory activity that was essential for the human to carry out in order to sustain himself and his family rather than a way of developing his
Bibliography: of British Industrial Relations,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press