Negotiation and autonomy in a fast food restaurant

This study is an attempt to apply the negotiated order perspective to the analysis of the lived experience of workers in two franchised fast food restaurants. Drawing primarily on the work of Anselm Strauss (1978) and D. H. J. Morgan (1975), I have examined data taken from auto-ethnographic and overt observation. I found that workers in different negotiation contexts would use implicit and explicit negotiation to achieve internal and external goals. Worker's negotiation strategies depended on the actor's individual proclivities and their interpretation of the negotiation context. Issues subject to negotiation included wages, the schedule, the amount of effort expended, and the definition of deviance. Employees may occupy core or peripheral status within the restaurant, and their status relates to what types of goals may be achieved within the setting. Autonomy may become a bargaining piece in the ongoing negotiations, with employees and franchisees often trading autonomy for wages or number of hours.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

2002

Author dc:creator

• Silva, Eric Orion

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ronald W. Smith

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/1399

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2398