They argued that people's social experiences outside work determined what expectations they brought to employment, and these influenced how they reacted to the work context. Orientations were a mediating variable between workplace structure and employees' perceptions and behaviour. These conclusions have been questioned by later research. Among those few people who do display identifiable orientations, these are usually multi-stranded and combine both solidaristic and instrumental elements. Solidarism is a composite of two different sets of attitudes, one concerned with intrinsic job satisfaction and the other with sociability.
Most studies deal with men in manual work.
Evidence of the situation among women and non-manual employees is scarcer. Female socialization contains expectations that work will be secondary to marriage. The employment opportunities open to women are more restricted than for men. Women usually acquire different responsibilities during the domestic life-cycle which reduce the centrality of work. The jobs available to women are likely to be less interesting than men's.