Professionals in Bureaucracy: Alienation Among Industrial Scientists and Engineers

The relationship between alienation from work and two dimensions of organizational structure-degree of organizational control and number of professional incentives-is examined for scientists and engineers employed by a major American aerospace company. This relationship is examined for professionals differing in length and type of professional training and for professionals working in two very different organizational units within the larger organization. The data suggest that work alienation is associated with type of organizational structure, but that scientists and engineers differ less in their experiencing of alienation than previous research would indicate, and that there may be as much structural variation within a particular organization as there is between different types of organizations.