Research on Behaviour and Opinions of Workers in a Polish Factory

Preliminary results of a res project re the soc org of a State-owned, large, Polish engineering plant are reported. Random samples of both workers (N=300) & management (N=50) were studied by participant-observation & questionaire methods to determine the behavior of the workers in small groups, their att's towards fellow workers, their job, & manag, & to determine S's opinions re worker- management relations, the firm, & their jobs. It was observed that regulation of output & rhythm of work are determined by the soc norms of informal groups. Re S's opinions, it was found that: (1) 50% of the workers are dissatisfied with their pay, while 33.3% of management is dissatisfied, (2) the diff in SS between management & workers is not a factor affecting their attitude to pay, since the same % of each group view their pay as generally fair, & (3) management rated the nature of the job as most important, & pay 2nd, whereas workers placed pay at the top of the list, with job character in 3rd place. Job security was 2nd in importance to the workers, & `self-esteem' was 3rd for manag. Workers showed a consistently higher % of `don't know' answers than manag, in all cases. J. Atkins.