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The Ramifications Of Alienation Within Organizations

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The Ramifications of Alienation in Organizations

Ms. Zamora K. Green
Student Identification #: 100120221

Acadia University

Dr. Dye Kelly
Organizational Behaviour (Busi 2733 X2)
March 5th, 2015

Organizational Behavior is “a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations” (Colquitt, LePine, & Wesson, 2013, p. 7). One way in which we can understand an individual’s behaviour in an organization is by researching why workers may feel alienated on the job. Kai Erickson, an American sociologist who studied workers in the workplace, once said “Alienation, then, is disconnection, separation---the process by which human
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287). In other words, the organization in which a worker belongs leaves them feeling worthless, insecure, useless and empty .It may even leave them feeling aggravated and inadequate of actually making a difference in the product that they are making. Erickson explained why this happens by stating “For one thing, people can be said to be alienated when they lose contact with the product of their own labour” (Erickson, 1986, p. 2). In Fact ,these feelings may become apparent when workers are given tedious tasks to perform with no rewards or consideration to how they feel. For example, the following excerpt relates the personal experience of Xu Lizhi an employee of Foxann Company that produces I-phones in China:
“Even the machine is nodding off ,Sealed workshops store diseased iron ,Wages concealed behind curtains , Like the love that young workers bury at the bottom of their hearts ,With no time for expression, emotion crumbles into dust they have stomachs forged of iron Full of thick acid, sulphuric and nitric Industry captures their tears before they have the chance to fall Time flows by, their heads lost in fog Output weighs down their age, pain works overtime day and night In their lives, dizziness before their time is latent The jig forces the skin to peel And while it 's at it, plates on a layer of aluminum alloy Some still endure, while others are taken by illness I am dozing between them, guarding The last graveyard of our youth.” (Lizhi, 2015)
This
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