Worker stress-control routines signal how far agency goals are achievable

Evidence

Routines could be structured to maximize the achievement of agency objectives. Or they could be structured to maximize responsiveness to clients. No doubt these competing perspectives do account for workers’ routines to some degree. However, the extent to which routines are structured to maximize worker control over the work context may measure the extent to which articulated agency policy objectives are difficult to achieve. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 635

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core hypothesis that frontline discretion institutionalizes stereotypes faster than cultural narratives change — worker control routines are the mechanism by which this happens. — connects to: Shared working conditions, not individual character, generate rigid bureaucratic patterns. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 234; Rationalized labor discipline requires directing nervous energy away from passion — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1124; Goals change behavior only when paired with performance feedback. (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Is the extent of worker-control-structuring routines a measurable proxy for agency goal failure? Could be operationalized.

Broader Connections

• Rationalized labor discipline requires directing nervous energy away from passion #expands (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1124
• Goals change behavior only when paired with performance feedback. #complicates (0.72)