Regulation of Work in Small Firms: A View from the Inside

Participant observation was undertaken at Button Co., a small manufacturing firm operating in the clothing sector. The paper explores the impact of external structures on shopfloor control and the ways in which skilled dyers, and less skilled despatch workers, were able to shape the effort bargain and practise fiddles. It shows a particular varient of small firm dynamics. Large retailers were important to the success of Button Co. but its broad customer base and niche market meant that it was not subject to a simple large/small firm dependency relationship. Control was fluid rather than imposed. Relations with large firms did impact upon the shopfloor, but not in a determinate way. Informal negotiation between directors and workers over throughput and quality occurred on a daily basis: as such, it provides some support to the view that the process of negotiating orders described by Ram (1994) is not ethnically specific.