Workers, Managers, and Customers Triangles of Power in Work Communities

• Published in: Work and occupations Vol. 37; no. 3; pp. 251 - 271
• Main Author: Lopez, Steven Henry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.08.2010; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Communities; Consumers; Control; Customer relations; Customer service; Customers; Emotions; Gender; Industrial Sociology; Labor; Occupation; Organizations; Power relations; Race; Service industry; Sex; Sociology; Sociology of Work; Sociology of work and sociology of organizations; Triangles; Work organization; Work organization. Working relations; Work place; Workers; service work; care work; power; gender; aesthetic labor; emotional labor; Service Industry; Services; Professional Relation; Bourdieu (P.); Customer; Segregation; Gender; Power; Habitus
• ISSN: 0730-8884; 1552-8464
• DOI: 10.1177/0730888410375683

The sociology of service work has blossomed in the 10 years since Work and Occupations first published a special issue on this subject. This introductory essay chronicles developments and new debates around emotional labor, worker–customer relationships in the service triangle, and the nexus of gender and control in service work. Several neglected themes are highlighted, including the relationship between race and the organization of work on the shop floor, as well as a number of themes that were once prominent in industrial sociology but which have fallen into relative neglect in the sociology of service work despite their continuing relevance.