The Division of Labor as Social Interaction

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Abstract
Adam Smith and Emile Durkheim paid little attention to the concrete substance of the concept of division of labor. What is its empirical referent? Treated as “specialization,” it is historically relative, addressed to the differentiation of social work-roles rather than of technologically “whole” tasks. For human ecologists and structural analysts of organizations, empirical measures of the differentiation of work roles prove to be artifacts of administrative authority: the socially organized power to define work roles and assign people to them. Three different principles and ideologies by which the division of labor can be organized are sketched, along with their consequences for variation in structure and content. Finally, it is noted that the ultimate reality of the division of labor lies in the social interaction of its participants.