Relational Inequalities

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has been a leading proponent of organizational approaches to inequality. His work major works include examinations of the birth of what we now call neoliberalism, the financialization of the US economy, and workplace racial and gender desegregation since the 1964 US Civil Rights Act. Currently he is developing general theory around inequality as well as deepening scholarly and public access to organizational data on inequalities. Dustin Avent-Holt is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Augusta University. He focuses on the causes and consequences of social inequalities, particularly as they intersect with organizations and markets. His empirical work has primarily examined the various processes through which social relations within workplaces produce income inequalities.

Brilliant book.

• Chapter 1. Generating InequalitiesRelational Inequality TheoryHow Else Do Social Scientists Think About Inequality? Status Attainment and Human Capital Theories Conventional EconomicsHeterodox EconomicsInstitutional Political Economy Thinking Relationally Plan of the Book Chapter 2. Observing InequalitiesFrom There to Here?Comparative Organizational Research Exemplars Class Inequality Regimes in Institutional Context Inequality Regimes in Interactional Context Comparisons of Ethnographic Cases Chapter 3. Relational Inequality TheoryBuilding Blocks of Relational Inequality Categorization OrganizationsGeneric Inequality Generating Processes Exploitation and Social Closure Claims-MakingContextual Variation in Generic Processes Organizational Resources Institutional Variation Chapter 4. Organizational Inequality RegimesThe Ubiquity of Regime Variation Gender Wage Gaps in Japan and the U.S. Immigrant Status and Skill Distinction in Sweden Education, Gender and Immigrant Status and German Wage GapsElements of Inequality Regimes Resource Levels National Institutions Organizational Rules and Practices Local Organizational Cultures Intersectionality Chapter 5. ExploitationConceptualizing ExploitationObserving Exploitation Comparing Firm Productivity to Wages Paid and Profits Extracted Rising Income Inequality Exploitation across Categorical Distinctions in Linked Employer-Employee Analyses How does Exploitation Happen? Exploitation on the Shop Floor and in the Office Corridor Total Exploitation Exploitation in Institutional Context Chapter 6. Social ClosureConceptualizing Social ClosureObserving Closure Processes Organizational Data Matched to Employees Ethnographic accounts of closure processes Integrating Science and Engineering Fields Gender and Engineering in the Age of Affirmative Action Chapter 7. Relational Claims MakingConceptualizing Claims Making Legitimacy and Claims-MakingObserving Claims Making Claims Making and the Labor Process Negotiating Work-Family Relationships Claims Making and Wages Claims Making and DignityNeoliberalism and the Legitimacy of Claims Organized Labor Financialization Mobilizing Claims in Cultural Context Chapter 8. Organizational Surplus and Rising InequalitiesMarket Power Closure, Exploitation, and Power in Markets Relationality and Market Closure in Biotech Innovation Institutionalizing Airline Monopolies Embedded Exchange and the Limits of ExploitationLinking Organizational Inequality and Resource Pooling Financialization and Shifting Claims Reconfiguring Organizational Boundaries to Monopolize Surplus Chapter 9. Expanding the Moral CircleImplications for Social ScienceRIT and the Politics of Egalitarianism From Tribalism to Universalism From Hierarchy to Organizational Citizenship From Markets to DignityInstitutional and Organizational Politics Destabilize Status Hierarchies Increase the Bargaining Power of the Least Powerful Reduce Organizational Resource Inequalities