Abstract
This is a discussion about productivity variation among U.S. industries. Sociologists rarely study productivity, and when they do, it is most often in the terms and using the theories of economists (e.g., Galle, Wiswell, and Burr, 1985). The most common notion of productivity is that it reflects the effort of productive actors in organizational settings (i.e., firms), particularly the quality of labor and the extent of capital investment. This chapter argues that variations in productivity must be understood in terms of the power that producers have to set prices as well. In effect, I am extending the intra-organizational analysis of productivity as the efficiency with which products are created to an interorganizational sensibility that value is determined by the power of sellers in product markets. The degree of market concentration for a product, the structural power of producers (i.e., industry) in the larger economy, and the concentration of consumers will all effect the price for which a product can be sold.
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Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (1988). Market Concentration and Structural Power as Sources of Industrial Productivity. In: Farkas, G., England, P. (eds) Industries, Firms, and Jobs. Springer Studies in Work and Industry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3536-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3536-6_7
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