A study of alienation among knowledge workers

Abstract

Alienation as a concept has been discussed for a long time. The term came into prominence in the early writings of Marx (1844/1932), and since then the concept of alienation finds reference across a broad range of subjects such as theology, philosophy, sociology,psychology and even psychiatry (see Johnson, 1973 for a review of the usage of the term across various disciplines). However, it has received little attention in organizational studies (Kohn,1976). Most of the research on work alienation has been with respect to manual work or blue collar workers (Blauner, 1964; Dean, 1961; Seeman, 1959, 1967; Sheppard, 1977).Some authors have referred to the likely disconnect or disenchantment of workers with work (Drucker, 1969;Hirschfeld & Field, 2000; Watson, 2003). Research on alienation among the white collar or non manual worker has been limited. Given the importance of knowledge workers contribution to the performance of organizations (Davenport et al., 2002; O’Neill & Adya, 2007), study of their positive and negative experience and perception of work, is necessary. Though there are many studies on commitment, identification, satisfaction, etc., there are hardly any studies on the negative experience/perception of work and its context. Negative behaviors such as aggression and deviance (Greenberg & Barling, 1999; Robinson & Bennett, 2000), and negative outcomes such as stress and burnout (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Schaufeli,Keijsers & Reis, 1995) have been studied; but the underlying affect and cognition in the form of alienation has largely been ignored. The focus of this research is specifically on work alienation in the context of knowledge workers.

The present study examines the extent and reasons for knowledge workers experience of work alienation. Since there is much variability in the literature on how alienation has been measured and there does not appear to be a reliable and parsimonious measure of work alienation,for the purpose of this research a new measure of work alienation was first developed and tested.The developed eight item measure of alienation was found to have sound psychometric properties. Analysis of survey data collected from over thousand respondents in the IT industry showed that around 20% of the sample was alienated. In other words, one in every five knowledge worker was alienated.

In exploring the factors leading to work alienation, structural elements of centralization and formalization, work characteristics of autonomy, variety, creativity and challenge, meaningfulness of work and its ability to allow self expression, quality of work relationships and organizational justice perceptions were hypothesized as predictors of work alienation. Disconfirmation of expectations from work and work centrality were posed as moderators of the relationship between the predictors and work alienation.

As predicted, work that limits autonomy and variety, offers less opportunity for creativity and challenge, is not meaningful and does not allow for self expression, were found to predict work alienation. Similarly, poor quality work relationships and perceptions of low organizational justice were found to predict work alienation. The results for the predictive ability of structural elements were mixed. While centralization was positively related to work alienation, formalization, contrary to that hypothesized, was found to have a negative relationship with work alienation. Thus, increase in centralization was associated with increase in alienation but increase in formalization was related to reduction in alienation. The moderator hypothesis with respect to work centrality and expectancy disconfirmation also received only partial support. Work centrality and expectancy disconfirmation were found to moderate the relationship between only some of the predictors and work alienation. Gender, age and income levels were found to influence the experience of alienation. The key predictors of work alienation for knowledge workers were lack of meaningful work, poor work relationships and inability of the work to allow for self expression.