The Work Ethic Reconsidered

The Work Ethic ReconsideredAuthor(s): Rogene A. BuchholzSource: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Jul., 1978), pp. 450-459Published by: Cornell University, School of Industrial & Labor RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2522234 .

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THE WORK ETHIC RECONSIDERED ROGENE A. BUCHHOLZ

MANY scholars and other observers believe that a basic change has taken

place in American society with respect to the traditional beliefs held about work. The following quote is typical: We also believe that America-along with many other developed countries-is no longer dominated by the work ethic of the past, which stressed work for its own sake. It was this specific type of ideology, originally formulated and diffused by Calvin and his followers, that provided the social-psychological basis for the factory discipline necessary to carry out the ex- treme division of labor of the industrial age. But today we are entering upon a post-industrial society and, as the President said on September 1, 1971, the American worker has new needs.'

This study identifies five sets of common beliefs about work by factor analyzing questionnaire responses made on a five-point Likert type scale to a series of belief statements. Questionnaires returned by 366 blue- and white-collar workers from the Pitts- burgh area and 72 union officials from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area were subsequently analyzed. The traditional work ethic beliefs-stressing the values of individualism and hard work-received the least support in all occupations surveyed, from hourly union workers to managers and professionals. The belief system winning the strongest support was the "humanistic," stressing the value of work that is personally fulfilling, and intermediate levels of support were shown for the three systems stressing the value of leisure, organizational life, and Marxist-related views.

Rogene A. Buchholz is Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Washington University. This study was supported by a grant from the College of Business Administration Research Committee at the University of Minnesota. The author is indebted to Professor Jack Flagler, Director of the Labor Education Service at the University of Minnesota, for his help in designing the sample.-EDITOR

'Harold L. Sheppard and Neal Q. Herrick, Where Have All the Robots Gone? (New York: The Free Press, 1972), p. xiii.

This conclusion was based on a survey of 1,533 employed workers, conducted for the Department of Labor in 1969 by the Univer- sity of Michigan Survey Research Center. Because a large proportion of the workers surveyed said that the nature of their jobs was more important to them than security or pay, the authors of the study concluded that the nature of work itself is foremost among the causes of worker discontent. They found elements of autonomy, opportunity for personal growth, and interesting work to be more highly correlated than security or pay with overall job satisfaction.2

This inference about a basic change in the American work ethic can also be found in one volume of a recent series of research reports dealing with problems related to the work ethic, such as productivity, the four- day workweek, changes in blue-collar occupations and attitudes, and jobs for the future.3 Nonetheless, the foreword to the book states that the work ethic is declining and ties this conclusion directly to the alienation and discontent of the American worker.

This book explores the widening problem of making people want to work. It seems that the old American work ethic may be failing, or at least slipping, and there is no consensus whether this is for better or worse. . . . As portrayed in a host of official studies, press findings, and industry reports, the increasingly familiar "blue collar blues" of bored, alienated assem-bly-line workers have spread to a white collar world of dull, unchallenging jobs. There is fear that

21bid., p. xiv. 3Editorial Research Reports oil the Amlerican Wl'ork

Ethic (Washington: Congressional QUarterly, Inc., 1973).

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (July 1978). ? 1978 by Cornell University. 0019-7939/78/3 104-0450$00.75

450



THE WORK ETHIC RECONSIDERED 451

worker discontent is so pervasive it may under- mine the nation's social and economic structure.4

Most of these studies fail, however, to draw firm conclusions about the nature and direction of such changes. Their conclusions about the work ethic are based primarily on empirical data regarding dissatisfaction with jobs and may confuse such dissatisfaction with lack of belief. People can, after all, be dissatisfiedwith the job they are presently holding and yet still believe that work is an important and virtuous activity.

Thus, there is a need for studies that deal more directly with the work ethic itself and measure its strength relative to other beliefs about work.5 This point has been made by John D. Long, who argued that the lack of such information makes it difficult to draw authoritative conclusions about the relative strength of various ethical systems oper- ating in the United States today.6

Furthermore, there have been no studies of occupational differences on this subject. Some studies have shown differences in perceptions of worker priorities and sources of dissatisfaction to exist among management, international union officials, and shop stewards.7 Other studies have dealt with the value systems of managers and union leaders and have come to conflicting conclusions regarding basic similarities or

4Ibid., p. 1. For other sources that reach similar conclusions see Judson Gooding, The Job Revolution (New York: Walker and Co., 1972); Special Task Force to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Work in America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973); and Dale Tarnowieski, The Changing Success Ethic: An AMA Survey Report (New York: AMACOM, 1973).

5The central life interest study of Robert Dubin and others is related to this study but really asks a different question; it deals with an individual's interest in his present job rather than with his concept of work, and focuses on behavior rather than beliefs. See Robert Dubin, Joseph E. Champoux, and Lyman W. Porter, "Central Life Interests and Organizational Commit- ment of Blue Collar and Clerical Workers," Ad- ministrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Septem- ber 1975), pp. 411-21.

6John D. Long, "The Protestant Ethic Reexamined," in William D. Evans and Robert A. Wagley, eds., Business and Society 74-75 (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1974), pp. 8-15.

7Sheppard and Herrick, Where Have All the Robots Gone?

differences between these two groups.8 None of these studies, however, have dealt in a direct way with the work ethic in relation to other beliefs about work.

This study attempts to fill this gap through the development of a conceptual framework that allows beliefs about work to be measured in a multidimensional scheme and the application of this measure to a full range of occupations, including union officials.

Conceptual Framework Since the work ethic is a tightly integrated

set of beliefs that form a system and fit into a coherent pattern,9 this kind of study requires the measurement of belief systems. There are several models of belief systems in the literature,'0 but the concept employed in this study will rely primarily on the work of Rokeach and the model he has developed. According to Rokeach, "the belief system is conceived to represent all the beliefs, sets, ex- pectancies, or hypotheses, conscious or un- conscious, that a person at a given time accepts as true of the world he lives in."" Beliefs constitute assumptions about the world a person lives in, the validity of which he does not question, nor need he do so in the ordinary course of events. The system

8George W. England, Naresh C. Agarwal, and Robert E. Trerise, "Union Leaders and Managers: A Com- parison of Values Systems," Industrial Relations, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May 1971), pp. 211-26; E. Wight Bakke, Mutual Survival, The Goal of Unions and Manage- ment (New Haven: Yale University, New Haven Labor and Management Center, 1947); and Edwin L. Miller, "Job Attitudes of National Union Officials: Percep- tions of the Importance of Certain Personality Traits as a Function of Job Level and Union Organizational Structure," Personnel Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter 1966), pp. 395-410.

9Rogene A. Buchholz, "Beliefs About Work: A Factor Analytic Model and Multivariate Analysis of the Pres- ent American Concept of Work," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1974), pp. 35-53.

"0See Ward Goodenough, Cooperation in Change (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1963), and Robert A. Hahn, "Understanding Beliefs: An Essay on the Methodology of the Statement and Analysis of Belief Systems," Current Anthropology, No. 14 (1973), pp. 215-28.

"1Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed M1ind (New York: Basic Books, 1960), p. 33.



452 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

into which beliefs fit performs the function of organizing the world of ideas, people, and authority in a way that makes sense to that individual and allows a person to function in ways he or she may consider effective.'2

A search of the work of scholars who have written extensively on this subject revealed the existence of several distinct and clearly definable contemporary belief systems. These systems, each found in many separate works, were all empirically measurable. For purposes of this study, the following five belief systems about the nature of work- each thought to constitute a set of unique assumptions about this kind of human activity-were formulated:'3

The humanistic belief system. Work is the way in which man discovers himself and ful- fills himself as a human being. Thus, individual growth and development on the job are more important than the output of the work process and what happens to people in the workplace is more important than productivity. Work must be redesigned to allow man to become fully human and reach higher stages of development rather than to stress fulfillment of material, low-order needs and wants. Work is an indispensible human activity that cannot be eliminated but must be made meaningful and fulfilling for individuals to allow them to discover their potential as human beings.'4

Marxist-related beliefs. Productive activity or work is basic to human fulfillment, for without work man cannot provide for his physical needs nor can he maintain contact with the deepest part of himself. Through work man creates the world and himself and keeps in touch with his fellow human beings. As presently organized, however, work in the United States does not allow man to fulfill himself as a creative and social individual because the work of the average person mainly benefits the ownership

"2Milton Rokeach, Beliefs, Attitudes and Values (San Francisco: Jersey-Bass, Inc., 1969), pp. 11-12.

'3The references that follow each belief system are intended as examples of the literature searched and are not an exhaustive list of the sources on which the systems are based.

"4Erik Fromm, The Revolution of Hope (New York: Bantam, 1968), and Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper & Row, 1954).

classes of society rather than the worker himself. Workers are exploited and alienated from their productive activity. They should have more of a say as to what goes on in corporations and exercise more control over the workplace.'5

The organizational belief system. Work takes on meaning only as it affects the group or the organization for which one works and as it contributes to one's status and rise in the organizational hierarchy. Work is not so much an end in itself, but a means valued only for how well it serves group interests and contributes to one's success in the organization. Success is more dependent on one's ability to conform and adapt to group norms than it is the result of individual effort and accomplishment. In other words, success in the organization is more dependent on the ability to get along and "play the game" than it is on individual productivity.'6

The leisure ethic. Work has no meaning in itself; one only finds meaning in leisure. Therefore jobs cannot be made meaningful or fulfilling. Work is a human necessity to produce goods and services and enable one to earn the money to buy them. Human fulfillment is found in leisure activities where one has a choice regarding the use of his time, can find pleasure in pursuing activities of interest to him personally, and can become creative and involved. Thus the fewer hours one can spend working and the more leisure time he has available, the better.'7

The work ethic. Work is good in itself and bestows dignity on a person. Everyone

15T.B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956), and David Caute, Essential Writings of Karl Marx (New York: Collier, 1967).

'6John Kenneth Galbraith, The New IDndustrla I State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1967); William H. Whyte, The Organization ManI (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956); C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); Vance Packard, The Pyramid Climbers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962).

'7Daniel Bell, Work and its Discontenits (New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1970); Sebastian De Grazia, Of Time Work and Leisure (New York: Twen- tieth Century Fund, 1962): and Kenneth Roberts, Leisure (London: Longman, 1970).




should work and those who do not are not useful members of society. By working hard a person can overcome every obstacle that life presents and make his own way in the world. Success is thus directly linked to one's own efforts, and the material wealth a person accumulates is a measure of how much effort he has expended. Wealth should be wisely invested to earn still greater returns and not foolishly spent on personal consumption. Thus thrift and frugality are virtues to be practiced in the use of one's material possessions."8

Measuring Beliefs There are at least two ways in which this

conceptual framework could be made operational. The first-the whole systems approach-would involve having subjects react to each of the five belief systems as an entity. This approach depends upon the dubious assumption that each system exists as a separate and self-contained philo- sophical entity, when, in fact, the belief systems may well blend into each other.

The second method that could be used to test this conceptual framework-the sum- of-the-parts approach-would involve breaking the five belief systems down into individual belief statements with which subjects would be asked to agree or disagree. A structure would then be built based on the reactions of the subjects themselves, thus creating whole systems by correlating individual belief statements that have some basis in empirical reality. For this purpose, a multivariate technique, such as factor analysis, could be used. This approach therefore assumes that the whole is the sum of the parts and that reactions to individual statements that correlate with each other can be combined to produce a reaction to the entire system. This is the approach that was used in this study.

The five belief systems were made operational by developing an inventory of

"8Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Robert W. Green, Protestantism and Capitalism (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1959); Richard H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Har- court, Brace, & World, 1926).

statements that reflected the various dimensions of each system. An original inventory of 159 statements was reduced to 100 for use on a questionnaire by an informal card-sorting procedure. This reduction was necessary so that the statements could be factor analyzed using a program from the BMD statistical package (BMD08M). The par- ticipants in this reducing procedure were ten doctoral students in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, who were asked to sort the original statements that seemed to be related to each other in some manner into categories and to iden- tify what they thought the categories represented. The students had complete freedom to put the statements together in any way they wanted and to give the categories their own labels with no conscious bias introduced by the author. None of the students were acquainted with the research being conducted.

The results of this sorting technique were tabulated on five different sheets that corresponded to the five categories of belief. Us- ing this method, it was easy to see if the individual statements were falling into the intended categories with any degree of consistency. Comparing the labels given the categories by the subjects themselves showed if people were seeing the same thing in the statements and how this corresponded with the content intended.

From this analysis, the 20 best statements for each belief system (based on consistency of groupings) were selected for inclusion on a questionnaire. The statements were be- lieved to be reliable and valid because (1) they were grouped with some degree of consistency into the same kind of category, and (2) the labels given the categories reflected the intended categories and thus the statements appeared to be expressing what they were intended to express.'9

These statements selected from the card- sorting procedure were then randomized by

'9The statements selected for each belief system were repeated and labeled appropriately in a large percen- tage of the responses: for the work ethic an average of 8 out of 10 times; for the organizational 9 out of 10, for the Marxist-related 9 out of 10, for the humanistic 8 out of 10, and for the leisure ethic 9 out of 10.




Table 1. Description of Pittsburgh Survey Population.a (n = 366)

Industry Age Electrical equipment and electronics 35 24 or younger 74 Steel industry 96 25-29 77 Office equipment-computers 3 30-39 82 Other manufacturing 44 40-49 66 Banking-investment-insurance 55 50 or older 67 Advertising-publishing 4 Retail-wholesale trade 14 Religion Transportation-public utilities 11 Protestant 130 Consumer services 4 Catholic 204 Government 22 Jewish 4 Armed services 22 Other 13 Nuclear power 11 None 15 Education 9 Other 36 Education

High school 138 Job Some college 122 Production worker 45 College graduate 66 Maintenance worker 21 Some graduate school 20 Supervisor 20 Graduate degree 15 Middle management 51 Missing 5 Clerical 133 Professional 45 Sex Other 51 Male 256

Female 110

aAll production and maintenance workers were covered by union contracts. None of the clerical workers were.

a card shuffle and listed on the questionnaire in that order. A five point Likert-type scale was used for the questionnaire, rang- ing from strong disagreement to strong agreement to elicit a commitment from the respondents.

The questionnaire was then distributed by students in a University of Pittsburgh "Business and Society" class to their coworkers in some 30 companies. The return rate was 76 percent-366 returned out of 482 distributed. Although this was not a random sample in any statistical sense, responses were obtained from members of most occupational groups (see Table 1).

The results of this survey were factor analyzed to determine how the questionnaire respondents grouped the statements and which separate and unique dimensions or factors existed in the response pattern. On the assumption that the factors would be orthogonal in nature, varimax rotation was performed. The diagonal elements were un- altered and .95 was used as the upper limit

on the correlation coefficient. The selection of the best questions to be used for scoring each of the five belief systems for further analysis was made on the basis of a significant loading (.40 or above) on one factor and low loadings on all the rest. Using these criteria, 45 statements were selected to com- prise five scales of factors that corresponded with the five belief systems that formed the original conceptual framework. An analysis of the factor correlation coefficients showed that these factors were independent of each other (average correlation = .09). The Cronbach-Alpha and Split-Half reliability coefficients corrected by the Spearman- Brown formula were in the acceptable range for each factor or scale. Thus the conceptual framework held together, making further analysis possible. The statements compris- ing each scale are as follows:20

20The statements marked with an asterisk (*) were reverse scored. As stated, they are opposite to the intended meaning of the belief system.




Humanistic Statements Work can be made meaningful. One's job should give him a chance to try

out new ideas. The workplace can be humanized. Work can be made satisfying. Work should allow for the use of human

capabilities. Work can be a means for self-expression. Work should enable one to learn new

things. Work can be organized to allow for human

fulfillment. Work can be made interesting rather than

boring. The Job should be a source of new ex-

periences.

Marxist-Related Statements The free enterprise system mainly benefits

the rich and powerful. The rich do not make much of a contribu-

tion to society. The working classes should have more say

in running society. Workers get their fair share of the economic

rewards of society.* Factories would be better run if workers had

more of a say in management. The work of the laboring classes is exploited

by the rich for their own benefit. Workers should be more active in making

decisions about products, financing, and capital investment.

Wealthy people carry their fair share of the burdens of life in this country.*

Management does not understand the needs of the worker.

Workers should be represented on the board of directors of companies.

The most important work in America is done by the laboring classes.

Organizational Statements Survival of the group is very important in an

organization. Working with a group is better than work-

ing alone. Better decisions are made in a group than by

individuals. It is best to have a job as part of an organiza-

tion where all work together even if you don't get individual credit.

Conformity is necessary for an organization to survive.

One should take an active part in all group affairs.

The group is the most important entity in any organization.

One's contribution to the group is the most important thing about his work.

Work is a means to foster group interests.

Leisure Statements The trend towards more leisure is not a good

thing.* More leisure time is good for people. Success means having ample time to pursue

leisure activities. Increased leisure time is bad for society.* Leisure time activities are more interesting

than work. The present trend towards a shorter

workweek is to be encouraged. Work takes too much of our time leaving lit-

tle time to relax. The less hours one spends working and the

more leisure time available, the better.

Work Ethic Statements Only those who depend on themselves get

ahead in life. To be superior a man must stand alone. A man can learn better on the job by striking

out boldly on his own than he can by following the advice of others.

One must avoid dependence on other per- sons whenever possible.

One should work like a slave at everything he undertakes until he is satisfied with the results.

By working hard a person can overcome every obstacle that life presents.

One should live one's life independent of others as much as possible.

To reduce the size of the questionnaire for the later survey of union officials, only these 45 statements were used. They too were randomized and listed on a questionnaire along with the same five-point scale used in the previous survey of other occupations.

The union officials surveyed were selected




Table 2. Characteristics of Union Respondents. (n 72)

Type of Position Education State official of international union 2 Grade school 2 Local official of international union 6 High school 43 Full-time official of local union 11 Some college 2 Part-time official of local union 28 College graduate 16 Shop steward 17 Some graduate school 7 O ther 8

Age Industry 24 or younger 2 S teel 5 25-29 16 Electrical equipment and electronics 4 30-39 20 Other manufacturing 10 40-49 21 Advertising-publishing 2 50-59 11 Construction 12 60-64 1 Retail-wholesale trade 2 Transportation-public utilities 8 Sex Consumer services 3 Male 54 Education 6 Female 17 O ther 20

Religion Size of Constituency Protestant 26 100 or less 10 Catholic 31 100-1,000 30 Other 5 1,000-10,000 14 None 10 10,000-50,000 9 50,000 or more 5

from Union Leadership Academy courses held in 1976 by the Labor Education Service at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities area. (The first survey did not ask if any of the workers were also union officials of some kind.) Since about a third of the delegates to the Minnesota State Federation of Labor Convention in 1975 had gone through these leadership courses, these students presumably represented the present and future leadership of unions in Minnesota. A personal visit was made to these classes and an invitation extended to the members to participate in the survey. Some 110 questionnaires were distributed in this manner and 72 were returned, a 65 percent response rate. The sample is described in terms of some independent organizational and personal variables in Table 2.

The data from this survey of 72 union officials were combined with the data from the previous survey of 366 individuals, making a total survey population of 438. The factor analysis of the responses of this total group showed no appreciable change from the

results of the responses of the original population, and thus the factor structure and composition of the five scales remained the same. The following results, then, are based on scoring the five scales described previ- ously for the total survey population and analyzing the results in relation to the independent variables of industry, job or position, age, sex, religion, and education.

Results Scores derived for each belief system,

holding the other independent variables constant, are grouped by occupational category in Table 3. One of the first patterns that stands out is the fact that all occupational categories show a lower score on the work ethic than on any other belief system. That pattern indicates that individualism and hard work for its own sake are not central beliefs of the population surveyed, or at least are not as important to most of these people as the other belief systems that were a part of this study.




Table 3. Belief System Scores by Occupational Category.

Work Marxist- Organi- Human- Categorya n Ethic Leisure Related zation istic

Union officials 72 2.310* 3.469 3.596* 3.616* 4.567* Hourly union 86 2.703 3.135 3.353 3.280 4.187* Clerical 135 2.555 3.189 3.437 3.235 4.368 Management 68 2.571 3.160 2.949* 3.301 4.347 Professional 49 2.551 3.260 3.108 2.937* 4.390 Other 24 2.762 3.135 3.117 3.343 4.350

aThe hourly category consists of production workers, maintenance workers, and technicians who are union members or covered by a union contract; management consists of middle-management and supervisors; the professional category consists of lawyers, accountants, and research-scientists; the "Other" category includes jobs such as sales. The clerical workers surveyed were not covered by union contracts.

*indicates that the Student-Newman-Keuls multiple comparison test showed that a group was significantly different from all other groups in its column at the .05 level.

Thus the findings of this study lend par- tial support to the conclusion of earlier studies that some kind of change has taken place in our traditional beliefs about work as a human activity. Because of the lack of longitudinal data, however, it cannot be said with certainty from this study that the work ethic has declined over time. One can only infer from other writing that the work ethic was indeed strong in the "old days" and thus the low scores of this study seem to represent some kind of a change.

On the other hand, note that the humanistic belief system received the highest score from all occupational categories. The people surveyed stress the importance of finding personal fulfillment and satisfaction in one's job and of having a chance to learn new things and to grow in the knowledge of oneself.

In fact, there is a remarkable similarity in the response pattern to all the belief systems: all six occupational groups rank the work ethic lowest, the humanistic belief system highest, and the other three somewhere between. For all occupational groups, the differences among the leisure, Marxist- related, and organizational belief systems are not significant; yet the differences between these three belief systems and the work ethic and humanistic belief systems are both significant at the .01 level. Thus the groups are more interesting for their similarities than their differences.

A few significant differences nevertheless

exist within each belief system, as can be seen in the results of the multiple comparison test shown in Table 3.21 Profes- sional people, for example, were least committed to the organizational belief system, suggesting strong ties instead to their pro- fessions, and middle managers, as might be expected, were least committed to the Marxist-related belief system.

In addition, union officials show significantly different scores from all other groups on four of the belief systems, and (although not shown in Table 3) the scores of union officials and those of hourly union workers differ significantly, when measured by the T-Test, on all five belief systems. The differences on the humanistic belief system are particularly interesting: union officials show a significantly higher score than all other groups and hourly union workers show a significantly lower score. One possible explanation of this gap between union leaders and members is that both groups hold to the humanistic approach as an ideal, but the idealism of the union members is tempered by their experience with the realities of the workplace; that is, they may be more aware than union officials (and other groups) of the difficulties involved in humanizing the workplace.22

2"For details of this test, see Norman H. Nie, et al., Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975), pp. 426-28.

221t must be acknowledged, however, that the reasons




The only consistent finding in regard to any of the other independent variables con- cerns sex differences.23 Other independent variables held constant, women scored higher than men in all occupational categories on the Marxist-related and humanistic belief systems. The differences on the Marxist-related belief system (significant at the .01 level) probably reflect greater feel- ings of exploitation on the part of women and a correspondingly greater desire for full and equal participation in the workplace. The higher scores on the humanistic belief system (significant at the .02 level) may reflect cultural stereotyping for women that emphasizes the importance of social and human relations skills and fails to reinforce technical skills.

Discussion The low score of all occupational groups

on the work ethic belief system deserves some discussion. The work ethic is a highly individualistic concept. One is to work hard not just for the sake of working hard, but so that one can make one's own way in the world and be self-reliant. These two dimensions-individualism and hard work-are indissolubly linked in the work ethic and distinguish it from other belief systems that also place a high value on work itself.

The work ethic has its roots in Lutheran and Calvinist theology, being based on the belief that man has a moral duty to work diligently at whatever station in life he finds himself. This duty is found in an individual relationship between man and God and is not dependent on any direction meted out by the church. All occupations are worthy in

for this and the other differences in the scores of union officials cannot be determined from the survey data. Perhaps these differences are simply a result of regional differences, since the union officials came from a different part of the country than the other respondents to the survey. Or they could be a result of differences in the method of data collection, since the author was ill direct contact with the union officials surveyed (through personally visiting their classes) but not with the Pittsburgh subjects.

23Space limitations prevent showing the results on all the other independent variables but they are available from the author oin request.

the eyes of God. This concept was part of Martin Luther's totally individualistic theology developed to counter the Catholic Church, which was claiming only it could speak for God and mediate salvation to people on God's behalf.24

Apparently this concept is not very rele- vant to today's world. Hard work may still be important, but not in the sense that it enables people to make it on their own in the world. In a world where people are so highly dependent on some kind of collectivity-a business organization, labor union, or government, for example-this kind of individualism seems strangely anachronistic.

The humanistic belief system emerges as the ideal to which all occupational groups tend to aspire. It is tempting to question the possibility of its attainment, given the current state of such factors as technology, modern business organizations, and union- management relations, but that subject is beyond the scope of this study.

Returning to the question of why hourly union workers scored significantly lower than union officials on this belief system, it might be thought helpful to consider shop stewards separately. Sheppard and Herrick found, for example, that shop stewards deviated significantly from other union officials in their perception of worker needs and priorities, the stewards being much more accurate in their assessment than were other union officials, who tended to share a management perspective on these matters.25

An analysis of the data in this study, however, shows that shop stewards' scores do not differ significantly from those of other union officials on any but the humanistic belief system, on which stewards show a lower commitment. This difference on the humanistic belief system, measured by the T-Test, is significant at the .04 level. Corresponding with this finding is the fact that the difference between the scores of the shop stewards and hourly workers on the humanistic belief system is not significant. Thus, on this dimension shop stewards

24Max Weber, The Protestanzt Ethic. 25Sheppard and Herrick, W4here Have A 11 the Robots

Gone?, p. 197.




reflect the perceptions of the hourly workers rather than those of the union officials, perhaps again due to the more realistic approach of workers to the possibilities of this kind of change in the workplace.26

Conclusions Although the sample employed in this

study is obviously small and imperfect, it is nevertheless significant that all occupational categories studied showed the same general. pattern of beliefs, including low commitment to traditional work ethic beliefs. This raises the interesting question of whether the meaning of the work ethic has changed over time. Perhaps people still believe in working hard but also have a belief in collective action that was not present in the days of small organizations. Thus

26Again space limitations prevent showing these results, but they can be made available to any interested reader.

one possible explanation of these findings is that the work ethic has not declined so much as it has changed in content.

If the content has changed significantly, however, it would seem appropriate to call the new system of beliefs something other than the work ethic. The results of this study suggest that a more appropriate name for the dominant belief system today would be the humanistic ethic-beliefs that stress the importance of finding personal fulfillment and satisfaction in one's job, of having a chance to learn new things on the job and grow in the knowledge of oneself. Hard work is valued not for its own sake, but for what it contributes to personal development. Leisure is accepted somewhat posi- tively, but not as a substitute for the fulfillment that work can provide. In short, the idea has taken root in the entire population studied that work should and can be a personally rewarding experience.



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The Work Ethic Reconsidered