Work Behavior in a Service Industry

Two general patterns of work behavior in the postal service are described. These are (1) the pattern of sorting and delivering mail and (2) the various hierarchical relationships among letter carriers. Actual behavior is determined by official rules and regulations supplemented and modified by unofficial norms and standards. Parallels are drawn between these patterns in the postal service and those found in other settings. The persistence of these patterns is explained in terms of the motivations of postal workers. I ndustrial sociologists have described in detail the organization of work behavior of those in nianufacturing and production industries. These studies have outlined the formal or official organization of activities on the assembly line or in the shop and have indicated how an informal or unofficial organization of work activities develops to supplement, modify, or oppose the formal organization.1 However, little work has been done on workers in service industries which is comparable to that obtained from research on manufacturing and production workers.2 This paper will be concerned with the organization of work behavior in one large public service industry-the postal service.3 It will focus on the recurring patterns of behavior of postal workers and on how these are determined by the official rules and regulations supplemented and modified by unofficial norms and standards. The purpose of this paper is (1) to contribute to the literature of industrial sociology a further illustration of the emergence of unofficial organization in an official context and (2) to make some theoretical observations on the factors underlying this belhavior. By providing a further example of this phenomena the range of situations where such behavior is found will be extended. This, in turn, slhould contribute to a better understanding of such behavior. The examiple whichi will be reported in this paper has beeni drawn from the authors' re1 For a good review of somne of this work see William Foote Whyte, Money and Motivation (New York: Harpers, 1955), Part 1, "The Worker and his Work Group." More recently, research on the activities of the executive in the manufacturing concern have been reported. For example, see Melville Dalton, Men Who Manage (New York: Wiley, 1959). 2 There has been somne research on the organization of work behavior of public employees but this research has typically been motivated out of a concern with problems of bureaucratic change. For example, see Peter M. Blau, The Dynam?ics of Bureaucracy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955). 3 The study of work behavior in the public service is of considerable significance for industrial sociology. This is evident, if for no other reason, from the fact that in 1961 over 13 percent of the labor force in the United States worked for national, state, or local governments. See U.S. Departmenit of CommIierce, Survey of Current Business, Vol. 42 (August 1962), pp. S11-S12. This proportion has increased over the years and will undoubtedly continue to grow. Of the 9.2 million people in public employment, about 2.4 million work for the federal government with about a quarter of these in the Post Office Department. See U.S. Senate, Conmmiittee on Government Operations, Organli2tation of Federal Executive Departnieizts atd Agencies, Report No. 22, 87th Congress, 2nd Sessioni, Marclh 28, 1962 (Washington: Governmlient Printing Office, 1962). Of the executive departments only the Department of Defense has more employees than the Post Office Department. The Post Office Department has nearly as many employees as the largest private industrial concern -General Motors. In 1959 General Motorsreported 577,218 employees. See Fortune, Vol. 66 (July 1962), p. 173. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.211 on Mon, 08 Aug 2016 05:15:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms