Workers
versus entrepreneurs
A sociology of psychologies in the working worlds
The whole idea is that certain social worlds are
prone to certain types of psychology. This work is not of a macro kind[1], it is rather based on a collection of data
with a micro focus. This study is the evolution of a model elaborated in a
previous work (Marty, 2002) which led us to distinguish two worlds (“milieux”)
characterized by specifics that opposed them : one world was said to be open, the other one to be
closed.
These
two worlds (the open and the closed ones) are different not only as far as
their physical characteristics are concerned but also in their social structure
and the psychology of the individuals who will probably succeed in each of
them. Our previous work was a study in ethnography, which focused on a group of workers in a French
Guyana tribe. They were working on the construction of a pirogue and we opposed
the closed world of the Amazonian rainforest (the place where they chose the
tree trunk and did the gross digging) and the open world of the pirogues harbor
next to the village (the place where they completed the work on the pirogue).
In the first place, in the world physically enclosed within the rainforest, the
social structure of the group had time to evolve into a complex organization
and the successful workers in this group were said to be ‘climbers’. In the
second place, in the open worlds of the harbor, the group of workers was not
organized and the successful workers were ‘opportunists’ – this being a gross
overview of our model.
We
will now try to apply this three-dimension distinction of closed and open
worlds to another reality. The opposition between physical, sociological and
psychological characteristics can indeed highlights the reality of modern
workers in the internet based new economy.
We
collected data on new economy work environments in previous studies (Marty
2000, 2003 & 2004). These studies were also ethnographical and aiming at
understanding workers and work environments in the new economy. We’ve been
successively hired in two different Start Ups and described what working life
was like for employees day after day. Then we had a few sociological interviews
with entrepreneurs of the new economy.
This new raw material can lead us to distinguish the open world of the market place, not organized and suitable to opportunists; and the closed world of a high tech company, which is well organized and thus adapted to climbers who can make their way up the different positions of the organization. Let’s describe these two kinds of worlds further on so as to develop our model.
A sociological
distinction : two kinds of work environments
The closed world of a company
Our initial study focused on employees’ everyday life in a modern Start Up (Marty 2003, developed in Marty 2004). Young engineers and salespeople were hired in a newly-created, small and dynamic company operating on the market of new technologies. This kind of companies is much less organized than those in the industrial sector or even in the sector of traditional services. Start Ups are not stable institutions: they do not hire many employees and their organization has to be very flexible so as to be able to meet the demand of very volatile markets constantly.
However,
we will consider that they do have an organization. And this very organization
can be easily read in the organizational chart of the company : there is a set
of functions or positions in the company and a map of it can be drawn (see 1 :
organizational chart of a Start Up). This organization appears progressively :
in most cases, first there is a vertical division of work (that is to say a
hierarchy with dominant and dominated workers : salesperson and salesperson
assistant for example) and, secondly, a horizontal division of work (that is to
say a set of complementary functions such as engineers and salespeople). The
whole organization had been structured that way in the two Start Ups we
studied. It is possible to imagine a different construction process with the
apparition of, first, a horizontal division of work and, secondly, a vertical
division of work. That would be the case of an association between an engineer
and a salesperson who want to start a company together and who, after their
association, hire other employees. But the process of building an organization
is not the point of this presentation. The main important fact that we want to
highlight is that a Start Up is organized and that this organization can be
read in the organizational chart.
Example of a closed world
Organizational chart of a French Start Up in
2001
Starting
with this fact, we can consider that this organization is the structure of a
closed world. Indeed, employees, whatever their position in the vertical and
horizontal divisions of work, are to meet their colleagues on a daily basis and
work with them. Their work contract obliges them to be in the company every day
and to respect its rules. It is a juridical obligation which is physically
materialized by the walls of the company’s building : employees have a desk
among other desks and are limited in this space for a long time. In other
words, they have a place in a limited world and all their interactions are
determined by the rules of this closed, or limited, world.
Moreno
set a method to draw the relationships between fellows : through a “sociogram”
the researchers can have a broad vision of the net of links woven between
members of a group. Asking plain questions like “who in this list of colleagues
do you consider as a friend ?” and then drawing lines between people
considering each other as friends, Moreno gave the possibility to visualize the
structure of relationships in a group.
We
can sustain that such a “sociogram” is mainly determined by the organizational
chart in a company’s environment. Who you are related to in the company
depends much more on your status and function that on real affinities. Even
time off relationships, at the coffee machine for example, are determined by
your function : it is hardly possible for you to start a friendly relationship
with someone at a different level of the company’s hierarchy or who even has a
very different position at the same level. The sociogram is determined by the
organizational chart and, further on, the frame of interaction will be driven
by your status : the way you will talk and address people, the topics you will
choose, are strictly determined by the respective status in the company of the
two speakers.
Furthermore,
the multi-level organization that structures the company’s work environment
gives birth to relationships embedded in power : in the organizational chart
that we presented above, the orders of the managers at the top of the chart are amplified by the intermediate layer
before getting to the lowest one dealing with edition. The structure of the
group separates the workers and amplifies power games between them.
A
closed world, be it that of natives digging a tree trunk in the Amazonian or a
set of young engineers in a modern Parisian Start Up, is physically limited :
the group is packed in a limited space and have time to become a well organized
structure with relationships based on status and power games. A closed world is
a structured work environment[2].
Let’s see now another environment of work : open worlds.
The open world of a market place
The other social reality that we want to describe is that of a market place in the new economy. In Paris, between1999-and 2004, an event called First Thursday took place every week. The event was a meeting of investors and businessmen in a reception hall where they could talk and decide to start or develop a new interned based company. Therefore, this First Thursday event worked as a free market : there were money offers which would meet the demands of entrepreneurs who needed some for their business.
As we
can see in the second graph below, this kind of event gives birth to a much
less structured environment : there is not a three-layer organization like the
one we’ve seen in the work environment of a company. Conversely, we have two
kinds of actors, investors and entrepreneurs and their number changes all along
the event. The hall is open and the number of each actor fluctuates in time.
Example of an unclosed world
Networking in a market place of the new
economy
Moreover,
power does not stream down from the top of the organizational chart to its
bottom. On the contrary, the graph of the network is very changeable : the free
businessmen meet various potential investors for their Start Up. At any moment,
they can decide to leave an investor who does not seem to be interested for
another one, more appropriate. And vice-versa. In the graph we present, there
are five investors for three businessmen. As a consequence of the rule of offer
and demand, the businessmen are in a better position than the investors because
the second ones outnumber the first ones. At any moment, there is always an
investor waiting to talk to an entrepreneur and these entrepreneurs can change
easily or go and see the investor who has the most attractive offer.
Our
point is not to describe the mechanisms of a free market through micro
observations. We will just consider that this market place works out as an open
world : any new investor or entrepreneur can be added to it without making any
important change – apart from the change in the balance of power. Indeed, there
is not a well defined structure and the twofold organization is very volatile[3].
However,
there is an invisible structure. Indeed, the market place is shaped and
oriented by values and symbols. Money or high tech gadgets are important as far
as social codes are concerned : they
grant their owners recognition in the group and their use makes them feel part
of the open world. But this invisible structure is not very important for our
study because it is also present in the closed world that we’ve described
in the first part. Symbols and values are shared by closed and open world, they
do not differentiate the two worlds.
We’ve
described two different environments of work that we regarded as examples of
two different kinds or worlds. The closed world of a company (limited by a
legal work contract and tangible with the walls of the company that close the
space) on the one hand and the open world of a market place (open to any new
member, spatially unlimited) on the other hand. We considered that the closed
world had time to get structured and become a stable organization whereas the
open world had no structure and worked out like a net. This was a sociological
distinction where closed and open worlds can be considered as organized and not
organized social spheres. Let’s move on to a psychological distinction through
the presentation of the kind of people who are more likely to succeed in each
of these two worlds. Here the distinction will be between open world minded
people and closed world minded people.
A psychological
distinction : two kinds of successful workers
Climbers
and opportunists : the length of interaction is the main variable
The
first psychological distinction between workers successful in each of the
closed and open worlds concerns the very basis of their success. In a closed
world, the structure of the social group has time to produce power games
(Crozier, 1993) and relies on them. Therefore, a successful person in a closed
world, like a Start Up company, will base his /her career on the patient
acquisition of power. He/she will understand precisely the rules of the game,
what he/she can or cannot do by himself/herself , and what he/she can or cannot
do with the people occupying other positions in the organization. Complying
with these relationships based on power, he/she will make his/her way up the
hierarchy and this is why we propose to call this kind of persons “climbers”.
On
the contrary, success in the open world of markets is much less based on power.
The successful entrepreneur has to seduce, in a very brief time, strangers that
he/she meets in order to finance his/her Start-Up. He/she has not to be “the
best one”, like company’s employees in competition to climb up the hierarchy,
but he/she has to be “the one” in the sense that he/she will find an investor
and seduce him/her into financing his/her company – without being compared to
other ones. He/she does not have to take the time to master the internal rules
of an organization, it is much more useful to know how to start and finish
quickly an interaction, to sneak in and out any group of investors. This is why
we call this kind of people “opportunists”. The interaction is quicker and not
based on power acquisition.
Self esteem
The
second psychological distinction can be found in the way you estimate yourself.
In a closed world, you stay with the same people for a long time and your
relationships are determined by your status. Therefore you will tend to look at
yourself in the same way that people look at you. Your status determines the
interaction and your self esteem. You are not only playing a role : you live it
and consider yourself in the same way that people consider you.
As
for an open world, in a market place for example, interactions are quicker and
you don’t have time to assimilate the way a particular potential partner look
at you. You can be conscious of it and play the role but you will not judge
yourself through his vision. A market place is much more based on independent
self esteem than on one which would be based on the status acquired in an
organization.
Timidity and boast
To
complete our dichotomy of mentalities, we can highlight the fact that a long
interaction with colleagues in a Start Up’s closed environment of work gives
time to an employee to show progressively how good he/she is at his/her job.
The effective strategy is then not to take risks in showing off too much ,
which could trigger jealousy. On the contrary, a timid personality has time to
present gradually, to the decisive colleagues, the best aspects of his/her work
and personality.
This is strictly the contrary in the open world of a market place. Indeed, the quick interaction through which you have to seduce potential investors does not let you time to develop your own presentation. The logic of boasting prevails ; or, at least, the necessity of displaying a maximum of assets in a very brief time. Here the “elevator speech” is not an exception taking place on an particular day : it is the ordinary pattern of behavior of the market.
Criticism
Last but not least, we can present the psychological tendency of being critical and analyze its relevancy in each of the two worlds. In the closed world of a company, you can try, successfully, to manipulate your group of colleagues by criticizing an employee who competes with you for a better position. Even though criticism leads to a bad work atmosphere, it can help you by merely eliminating the chances of your colleague to be promoted to the position your are looking for. Indeed, in a closed world, people cannot flee from the critical individual and the negative rumor once launched has time to produce its nasty effects. Critical individuals can therefore take advantage of this side of their personality to succeed in a closed world.
On
the contrary, we can consider that being a critical personality will not help
you to succeed in an open environment such as the market place. In this case,
the people you talk to can easily escape from the negative atmosphere you
create: the market place is full of different people and maybe some more easy
to get along with. Your potential investor will, for comparable business
opportunities, prefer a warm personality. Secondly, the group being open,
people getting in and out constantly, there is no social structure allowing the
diffusion of a bad rumor about a contender. For these two reasons, being a
critical personality is useless in an open world.
In a nutshell
|
|
Closed world |
Unclosed World |
|
Definition : a physical distinction Closed
versus unclosed spaces |
Group limited in space |
Open group with no spatial
limit |
|
Social characteristics of the worlds Closed
versus unclosed social spheres |
Organized group : structured |
Unorganized group : net |
|
Power amplified by the group
structure |
Power depends on the number
of actors : offer and demand |
|
|
Psychological characteristics of people who will probably succeed
in
these worlds Closed
world minded people versus open world minded people |
Know the rules of the group
and climb slowly |
Take advantage of
opportunities : quickly seduce strangers who are potential business partners |
|
Evaluation of the individual
by the group |
Self confidence |
|
|
Timidity |
Showing off |
|
|
Criticizing is useful
because you can hope to take the place of the
people criticized and because people cannot
flee from you since you are in a closed
world |
Criticizing is an useless
effort in an open world and makes people flee
from you |
In
2002, after a study in ethnography, we defined a three-dimension opposition
between open and closed worlds of work. This opposition was based on physical,
sociological and psychological differences between the two worlds. In this
paper, we applied the model of closed and open worlds to the reality of the
internet based new economy. We, thus, distinguished well organized companies
(closed world) and not organized market places (open world) ; and presented the
abilities needed to succeed in each of them[4].
We
can also imagine a possible adaptation of the model to the worlds of education
and research. On the one hand, secondary schools, limited by the classroom’s
walls and ordered by the grades given by the teachers are more adapted to
climbers who fit in this organization. It is a closed world. On the other hand,
university and research teams could be considered as a much less organized
world and much more suitable to opportunists who know how to get in and out of
different research streams. It is an open world. This would have to be more
thoroughly studied, with a collection of data and an improvement of the model.
For example, criticism between researchers is necessary to make science
progress : it is part of the logic of scientific discovery. Therefore criticism
cannot be excluded of the world of research – even if we describe it as an open
world.
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