About

Martha Crowley is a sociologist specializing in how social inequality influences experiences, opportunities, and behaviors within institutions and organizations. Her research focuses on power and inequality in workplaces, changes in work organization and economic structures, and their implications for emotional well-being, physical health, community well-being, and disparities related to class, gender, and race. She has longstanding interests in spatial inequality, particularly concerning poverty and disadvantageous employment in rural areas, as well as social reproduction in families and schools that perpetuate class and racial inequalities among youth. At NC State, Crowley teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses on classical sociological theory, work, education, and youth. Her scholarly work centers on the implications of work and industrial structure for individual and community well-being. Her research explores complex control structures in workplaces, gender and class disparities in opportunities for dignity at work, and the effects of organizational practices on workplace relationships and employee effort. She has investigated issues such as sexual harassment, teamwork, and the impact of neoliberalism on work environments, demonstrating how these factors influence worker health, beliefs about inequality, and workplace behavior. Crowley's work also examines broader societal shifts, including post-Fordist changes, neoliberal managerial practices, and their costs to workers and firms. She has studied the effects of industrial restructuring on rural communities, particularly the formation of Latino destinations in response to labor market changes, and the socio-economic impacts of demographic shifts. Her research has contributed to understanding how economic and racial/ethnic diversity influence community vitality, trust, and economic well-being, often challenging common assumptions about diversity's effects. Recognized as a University Faculty Scholar in 2023, she has received awards for excellence in teaching and is noted for her contributions to understanding social inequality and organizational change.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Labour economics
• Engineering
• Management
• Business
• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Workplace Age Discrimination and Social-psychological Well-being

  Society and Mental Health · 2022 · 21 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology

  The research literature on workplace inequality has given comparatively little attention to age discrimination and its social-psychological consequences. In this article, we highlight useful insights from critical gerontological, labor process, and mental health literatures and analyze the patterning of workplace age discrimination and its implications for sense of job insecurity, job-specific stress, and the overall mental health of full-time workers 40 years old and above, covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Our analyses, which draw on two decades and five waves of the General Social Survey (2002–2018), reveal (1) the prevalence of self-reported workplace age discrimination and growing vulnerability particularly for those 60 years and above, (2) clear social-psychological costs when it comes to job insecurity, work-specific stress, and overall self-reported mental health, and (3) dimensions of status and workplace social relations that offer a protective buffer or exacerbate age discrimination’s corrosive effects. Future research on age as an important status vulnerability within the domain of employment and the implications of unjust treatment for well-being and mental health are clearly warranted.

  PublisherDOI

• Manufacturing Discontent: The Labor Process, Job Insecurity and the Making of “Good” and “Bad” Workers

  Research in the sociology of work · 2020 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Labour economics

  Abstract Labor process research has documented a shift in the nature of control – from techniques that aim to limit worker discretion to consent-oriented controls that are believed to generate greater effort by increasing intrinsic rewards or bonding employees to managers and/or the firm. Over the past several decades, however, growing pressure to increase profits has prompted firms to adopt cost-cutting strategies that have eroded job security, relationships with management and commitment to organizational goals. This study investigates how a changing labor process and rising job insecurity shape workers’ orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and in turn influence workplace behavior. Analyses of content-coded data on 212 work groups confirms that discretion-limiting controls (supervision, technology and rules) are associated with more negative orientations and/or reductions in effort (with variations across distinct forms of control), while investment in workers’ human capital (but not involvement of workers in decision-making) has the reverse effect – ­generating more positive orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and (in turn) promoting discretionary work effort and limiting covert effort restriction. Implications of insecurity are more complex. Both layoffs and temporary employment reduce commitment to the organization, but layoffs generate conflict with management without reducing effort, whereas temporary employment limits effort without producing conflict. We illuminate underlying processes with evidence from the qualitative case studies.

  PublisherDOI

• Retail Sector Concentration, Local Economic Structure, and Community Well-Being

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2019-05-13 · 20 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The rise and expansion of large retail firms mark a significant shift in economic organization across communities in the United States. In this article, we describe this shift and discuss implications for local economic structure and community well-being. We present theoretical perspectives on the concentration of productive resources and review findings from empirical studies linking retail-sector concentration to wages, jobs, and small firms as well as a host of community well-being outcomes, such as poverty, civic participation, health, and crime. Although most scholarly and public attention to this issue has focused on understanding impacts of Walmart in particular, our review seeks to highlight more general processes of rationalization, concentration, and a changing industrial structure. We conclude with a critique and directions for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Introduction from the New Editors

  Social Currents · 2019-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Strangers in their hometown: Demographic change, revitalization and community engagement in new Latino destinations

  Social Science Research · 2018-12-13 · 15 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Woodcock, Jamie, Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centres.

  The Canadian Journal of Sociology · 2018-03-31 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  F or the millions of individuals employed in call centers worldwide, work can feel like a draining, daily grind.Detailed scripts, electronic surveillance, direct supervision, and demanding targets strip autonomy from workers and apply continuous performance pressure.Demeaning treatment from supervisors, threat of termination for engaging in misbehavior, and demands for emotional labor in customer interactions present additional challenges.What is it like to work in such a place?How, when and to what end do workers engage in resistance?Why do they so seldom organize and form unions?Jamie Woodcock seeks to answer these questions with a detailed investigation of insurance sales in a high-volume call center located in London.. Woodcock situates the project, which began as research for his doctoral dissertation, in relation to Karl Marx's account of conditions faced by nineteenth century factory workers and the struggle between capital and the working class over the limits of the working day.His more direct inspiration, however, is "Italian workerism."Rooted in twentieth-century efforts to understand the effects of Taylorism and other emerging forms of control in Italian factories, this tradition seeks to illuminate the experience of work from workers' own perspective and to reveal the basis for new forms of organization.Drawing on data collected via six months of covert participant observation, he explains how rules, technology and supervision mire workers in a web of coercive controls and apply continuous pressure to perform.Each day began with a "buzz session" in which supervisors would review rules, emphasize quality, and play games aimed at drumming up enthusiasm among employees, who then moved to workstations, where a computer placed, recorded, and logged time spent on calls.Employees worked from scripts, supplemented by semi-scripted guides for handling pushback from potential customers.Supervisors listened in on calls, coached employees on the call-center floor, evaluated recorded calls, and provided weekly instruction on how to improve sales.A typical shift involved 300 to 400 phone calls, and workers faced constant pressure to keep going, remain alert and, when they reached a customer, to make the

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Issue Information

  Family Relations · 2017-02-01

  paratextOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ford, Henry (1863–1947)

  The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology · 2017-09-14

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Henry Ford (1863–1947) incorporated assembly lines, interchangeable parts, division of labor, and other innovations, enabling the Ford Motor Company to mass produce automobiles and dominate the automobile market for several years in the early twentieth century. Although highly productive, Ford's manufacturing process came at a considerable cost to workers. Ford instituted the famous “Five‐Dollar Day” in 1914 to stem the resulting high rates of absenteeism and turnover. Following economic recession and increases in worker activism, he reverted to more repressive and violent measures to quell resistance and thwart unionization.

  PublisherDOI

• Alienation

  The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology · 2016-08-01

  other1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Alienation is a psychological condition reflecting disconnect from other people, institutions, or one's natural state of being. Rooted in Marxist theory, the concept traditionally focused on subjective work experiences, but its use has expanded to encompass separation from social, civil and political life – often drawing from Durkheimian or Durkheimian‐derived theory. The scope of alienation has expanded in workplace research as well, as scholars develop the concept for application across occupational sectors and over time.

  PublisherDOI

• Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2016-02-24

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel T. Lichter

  Cornell University

  28 shared

• Zhenchao Qian

  John Brown University

  21 shared

• Randy Hodson

  6 shared

• Daniel Tope

  Film Independent

  5 shared

• Lindsey Joyce Chamberlain

  The Ohio State University

  5 shared

• Julianne Payne

  RTI International

  3 shared

• Earl Kennedy

  3 shared

• Feinian Chen

  University of Maryland, College Park

  1 shared

Labs

• Research and EngagementPI

Awards & honors

• University Faculty Scholar (2023)
• Awards for excellence in teaching from the university, colle…