Workers resist reform because it threatens routines that make the job bearable.

Evidence

The need to cope acts as a barrier to anomalous information that might challenge the routines and orientations that have been developed over time. Changes in procedures are not necessarily resisted because workers are against change per se, but because change threatens the existence of coping routines and orientations that serve to rationalize the work. Similarly, anomalous information is not heard because it contradicts assumptions that make the job more rewarding or rationalizes its contradictions. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 843

Categorization

• XREF: Directly illuminates the reader’s speed-differential question: coping routines armor practice against new information, so practice outruns narrative change. — connects to: Workers resist algorithmic control by asserting mastery over their trade. — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 104; Street-level workers actively resist managerial attempts to restrict their discretion — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 189; Workers resist procedural change because it threatens coping routines, not novelty — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 843 (+4 more)
• SEED: A piece on why training and reform initiatives fail in street-level agencies: the obstacle is not ideology but the rationalizing function of routine.

Broader Connections

• Workers resist procedural change because it threatens coping routines, not novelty #corroborates (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 843
• Workers defend control routines as necessary and resist abandoning them. #corroborates (0.90) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 902
• Work-control needs turn frontline workers into defenders of the status quo. #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1329
• Workers establish their own norms that blunt management speed-up tactics #exemplifies (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1478
• Workers resist management rationing only when it threatens their own preferred practice #qualifies (0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 729