In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Work as Agency: the Structure of Action Eli BERNIKER The behavioral sciences lack a useful definition and model of human work to guide theory development, research, and work design. A science of work would have to deal with the vast variety and inventiveness of the work that transforms nature to produce the artificial world that served as the human habitat. Work is creative in the very same sense that language is creative: in “its unboundedness and freedom from stimulus control” (Chomsky, 1976). The issue, then, is to develop a scientific perspective which can allow for the creativity of human work and still have explanatory power. This paper develops definitions of work that are consistent with our experience of work as purposeful and causal activity. Work is modeled as a process of creating correlations between behavior and environmental states and as a Piagetian process of equilibration. Work is the primary form of human agency ; the actions of purposeful self-conscious and reflective actors. It will be argued that, while the content of work is subject to conscious control, the patterns of interaction with the material environment exhibit characteristics suggestive of a deep generative structure. But, an issue crucial to human agency and structuralist thought arises: What is the source of human recursivity, of the self-referential character of language and other structures? Toolmaking, as a process of working on work itself, is proposed as an evolutionary and theoretical bridge between work and language. The purpose of this paper, then, is to expand our understanding of the nature of human work and to contribute to the debate on the source of deep structures in mental processes. The behavioral sciences have definitions of tasks, jobs, roles, and labor but no model of human work to guide research. Neff (1968) defined work as an instrumental activity of human beings intended to maintain and preserve life and characterized by a “planful alteration of certain features of man’s environment”. Srivastva and his colleagues (1977), after reviewing 2000 literature references, suggest that “work ...involves some form of organized activity aimed at a specific goal”. Recently Rice, et al (1985) defined organizational work as “...human activities in the context of a formal organization performed with the intention of producing something of acknowledged social value” (p. 296-297). Most behavioral scientists do not make explicit their definitions or models of work even though that conceptualization is central to work and organizational psychology. These definitions provide little basis for discovering the characteristics of work as a creative activity. In the interests of generality, work will be modeled as an effective interaction with the material world and abstracted from its economic and organizational settings. Work occurs in all cultures, individually and in groups, in production of economic goods, of artistic and cultural products, in the maintenance of families. Nouvelles théories et méthodologie 37 and in play. Paid work is but a subset of this domain. The narrow focus on physical work activities results in a conceptualization that can only be complementary to psychological and sociological explanations of workplace behavior. While the analysis of work may be logicall abstracted from its societal context, in practice. human work is necessarily a social activity. WORK Humanity has evolved countless ways of working. The problem is to discover common characteristics of all human work; to develop a general defi nition of work. In common usage, the verb “work” has many meanings among which are: to cause to be, to make, to change (Oxford. 1971). Work is experienced as more than effort. “Getting work done” means making something happen that would not have happened by itself. We experience work as an interaction with an external world which we shape to suit our purposes. These meanings, the earlier definitions, and general systems theory lead to a descriptive definition of work: Work is a purposeful transforming interaction between a person and an environment that produces changes in that environment valued by the person. Work, so defined, is human agency. The agent is defined as “one who does the actual work as distinguished from the instigator or employer” and is contrasted with the “patient” who is acted upon or the “instrument” who is moved by the will of others (Oxford, 1971). Work, as purposeful action, implies that actors have some freedom in choosing their goals, the means to pursue those goals, and the environments in which they act (Ackoff and Emery. 1972). Goal-directed behavior manifests what Bertalanffy (1980) calls “equifinality”. the multiple paths by which...

Share