Emerging from Turbulence
Boeing and Stories of the American Workplace Today
By (author) Leon Grunberg, Sarah Moore
Publication date:
15 October 2015Length of book:
206 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442248540
The book looks at workers in three stages of their careers early career, midcareer, and retirement, sheds light on generational differences in the workplace, and addresses issues such as job training and work moving overseas. Long-time employees reminisce fondly about the family and engineering culture of Heritage Boeing and many are sad and angry about the new, financially driven ethos brought in by the McDonnell Douglas executives after the merger. Newer, younger employees, with no direct memory of Heritage Boeing and more individualistic attitudes, accommodate themselves more easily to the new Boeing.
Employees past and present talk about the exciting challenges of launching new, breakthrough airplanes such as the 777, the thrill they feel when the airplanes they produced take to the skies, and the wrong-headed decisions that plagued the disastrous early development of the 787. The narratives also reveal how workers balance work and home life, navigate changing gender relations, and strive to find meaning in this transformed workplace culture.
Emerging from Turbulence takes readers inside these profound workplace changes and shows both the personal and the national impact of today’s realities.
Employees past and present talk about the exciting challenges of launching new, breakthrough airplanes such as the 777, the thrill they feel when the airplanes they produced take to the skies, and the wrong-headed decisions that plagued the disastrous early development of the 787. The narratives also reveal how workers balance work and home life, navigate changing gender relations, and strive to find meaning in this transformed workplace culture.
Emerging from Turbulence takes readers inside these profound workplace changes and shows both the personal and the national impact of today’s realities.
Grunberg and Moore—professors of comparative sociology and psychology, respectively—[present an] . . . insightful . . . book based on their two decades of research into Boeing's corporate culture. They emphasize changes that have occurred since 1997, when Boeing merged with another aerospace giant, McDonnell Douglas, and shifted from focusing on being a 'great engineering firm' to minimizing risk, pleasing shareholders, and achieving profits. The 'Boeing family' was no more; employees were told by the new president to 'quit behaving like a family and become more like a team. If you don't perform, you don't stay on the team.' The authors set out to chronicle this sweeping shift in one company's social contract using personal narratives from past and current employees, categorizing them by the timing and duration of their employ. Sub-categories include 'No Longer Family,' 'I Work to Live,' and 'Not What I Expected.' The workers'-eye-view is valuable.