Organizational Culture, Class Values, and Subordination at Work

Abstract

Using data from online job reviews, I document a gap between blue- and white-collar workers’ evaluations of organizational culture and assess the role of two competing explanations. Worker values– or shared beliefs about what workplace culture should beare commonly thought to influence evaluations o f culture, encouraging organizations to recruit workers based upon “cultural fit.” I n contrast, workers may not differ on th e values that they appreciate, and instead may evaluate companies based on experiences of subordination in the workplace. Contrary to class values theories – which assume that differences in workers’ values drive differences in cultural evaluations– I find that blue- and white-collar workers largely agree about the extent to which they find company culture satisfying and about which aspects of those cultures they find satisfying. Conversely, 40-60% of the class gap can be explained by experienced subordination, which is widely seen as a negative element of culture, but unequally distributed by class. Workplaces with more blue-collar workers have more experiences of subordination, characterizing negative relationships of supervision, disrespect, and favoritism. is It the distribution of relationships of subordination, rather than differing class values, which explain class differences in evaluations of organizational culture.