The thesis explores the way in which work tensions are managed and negotiated within the industrial organization in modem capitalist societies. The subjects are cross-border truck drivers in Hong Kong. Work tensions in this industry are constantly generated and expressed and yet alleviated, diluted and diverted through the employer's managerial strategies of soft control, and the drivers' everyday strategies of compliance, negotiation, resistance, solidarity building, and identity formation. The thesis integrates the idea of masculine work culture into the labor process approach with an emphasis on production politics, especially the work strategies of the drivers, and further integrates it with the ideas of work identity and fragmented solidarity. It shows that the operation of power a...[ Read more ]

The thesis explores the way in which work tensions are managed and negotiated within the industrial organization in modem capitalist societies. The subjects are cross-border truck drivers in Hong Kong. Work tensions in this industry are constantly generated and expressed and yet alleviated, diluted and diverted through the employer's managerial strategies of soft control, and the drivers' everyday strategies of compliance, negotiation, resistance, solidarity building, and identity formation. The thesis integrates the idea of masculine work culture into the labor process approach with an emphasis on production politics, especially the work strategies of the drivers, and further integrates it with the ideas of work identity and fragmented solidarity. It shows that the operation of power and control is not just a matter of class, but work tensions underlay with class, gender, locality and work culture.