Efficiency and "The Fix": Informal Intergroup Relations in a Piecework Machine Shop

Abstract

Conflict relations between the informal work group and plant management may involve the participation of other groups of the factory's social structure. It was found, through participant observation, that the machine operatives of one shop received surreptitious assistance from five "service groups" in a subversion of formally instituted rules and procedures. This informally organized intergroup "ring" was able to frustrate a series of managerial attempts to effect new designs of production control.