Rationalization and Satisfaction in Clerical Work: A Case Study of Wall Street Legal Secretaries

摘要

The research explores the trend toward the rationalized office and its effects on a historically prestigious and skilled group of women workers--Wall Street legal secretaries. The research is based on historical materials, and participant-observation and survey data gathered in a large Wall Street firm (Firm X). Part One provides theoretical and historical background information including a review of the literature on secretaries and a brief history of the Wall Street legal secretary. Part Two focuses specifically on Firm X. It describes how a system of bureaucratized authority relegates secretaries to a low opportunity, socially inferior 'non-legal' caste, subject to the control of a centralized, impersonal and authoritarian personnel department. It also analyzes how the trend toward specialization, such as paralegal and work processing personnel, has resulted in secretarial de-skilling and underutilization. The study examines a number of variables and their relationship to work satisfaction, the most significant of which are age, prior work experience, type of education, level of boss-rapport, the caste-like atmosphere, and certain aspects of the rationalized task structure.