Structure at Work: Organizational Forms and the Division of Labor in U.S. Wineries

We show how organizational forms, social codes about organizational categories that audiences use to evaluate organizations, shape job structures, specifically the variety of jobs employees hold and the types of jobs (which function, whether idiosyncratic to the industry or standard across industries). By shifting attention to organizational forms as categories, we extend previous research on job structures in four ways. First, we show that the codes associated with wineries’ generalist and specialist forms constrain the number of distinct jobs and the number of detailed functional areas delineated by job titles; these codes also constrain which functions are present in wineries’ job structures and how idiosyncratic their jobs are. Second, we demonstrate that form-based constraints are weakened by institutional rules that impose categorical distinctions on organizations without specifying form-based social codes in detail. Third, we show that these constraints are stronger when there is more consensus around forms. Fourth, we show that these constraints are contingent on the legitimacy and resources garnered by organizations of varying ages and sizes. In addition to advancing research on job structures, we extend research on organizational forms as categories by demonstrating that all organizations with a particular form are not equally affected by violations of or adherence to that form’s social code. We also show that product-based social codes influence organizational behavior in labor markets in addition to their well-documented effects in product markets.