This article investigates how Hong Kong scaffolders navigate and make sense of everyday dangerous work which is stigmatized in a highly aspirational society. With the theoretical lens of ‘dirty work’, we examine what attracts the scaffolders into the occupation, how they perceive and navigate risk, and how they construct the knowledge that enables them to function safely as skilled craftsmen. We found that the sector attracts young men from disadvantaged backgrounds and with links to the criminal underworld, who respond to social stigma by constructing an identity of intrepid performers and enacting unsafe high-risk activities and brinkmanship. Yet, their traditional knowledge and practices now face obsolescence due to pressure to standardize safety training and practice, and also due to an internal crisis of occupational legitimacy. This article contributes to our understanding of the analytical lens of ‘dirty work’ in macho cultures.
AjslevJZNMollerJLPerssonR, et al (2017) Trading health for money: agential struggles in the (re)configuration of subjectivity, the body and pain among construction workers. Work, Employment and Society31(6): 887–903.
3.
AlvessonMWillmottH (2002) Identity regulation as organizational control: producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies39(5): 619–644.
4.
AntonsenS (2009) Safety culture and the issue of power. Safety Science47: 183–191.
5.
AshcraftKL (2005) Resistance through consent? Occupational identity, organizational form, and the maintenance of masculinity among commercial airline pilots. Management Communication Quarterly19(1): 67–90.
6.
AshforthBEKreinerGE (1999) ‘How can you do it?’: dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review24(3): 413–434.
7.
AshforthBEKreinerGEClarkMA, et al (2017) Congruence work in stigmatized occupations: a managerial lens on employee fit with dirty work. Journal of Organizational Behaviour38: 1260–1279.
8.
BartonMASutcliffeKM (2009) Overcoming dysfunctional momentum: organizational safety as a social achievement. Human Relations62(9): 1327–1356.
9.
BorysD (2012) The role of safe work method statements in the Australian construction industry. Safety Science50: 210–220.
10.
BrownADLewisMA (2011) Identities, discipline and routines. Organization Studies32(7): 871–895.
11.
BrunsHC (2009) Leveraging functionality in safety routines: examining the divergence of rules and performance. Human Relations62(9): 1399–1426.
ChenC-JHsiaoY-CChuM-A (2014) Transfer mechanisms and knowledge transfer: the cooperative competency perspective. Journal of Business Research67(12): 2531–2541.
14.
ChowWK (2024) Safety alert on scaffolding practices in Hong Kong. Smart Construction and Sustainable Cities2(4): 1–8.
15.
CollinsonDL (1999) ‘Surviving the rigs’: safety and surveillance on North Sea oil installations. Organization Studies20(4): 579–600.
16.
DaudigeosTJaumierSBoutinotA (2016) Governing workplace safety through apparatuses: a historical study of the French construction industry in the 20th century. Organization24(6): 737–760.
17.
De DreuCKWBeersmaB (2005) Conflict in organizations: beyond effectiveness and performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology14(2): 105–117.
18.
DeerySKolarDWalshJ (2019) Can dirty work be satisfying? A mixed method study of workers doing dirty jobs. Work, Employment and Society33(4): 631–647.
19.
DenzinNKLincolnYS (2011) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
20.
DyerWGJrWilkinsAL (1991) Better stories, not better constructs, to generate better theory: a rejoinder to Eisenhardt. Academy of Management Review16(3): 613–619.
21.
EisenhardtKM (1989) Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review14(4): 532–550.
22.
EzzyD (1997) Subjectivity and the labour process: conceptualizing ‘good work’. Sociology31(3): 427–444.
23.
Fornet-BetancourtRBeckerHGomez-MüllerA, et al (1987) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom: an interview with Michel Foucault on January 20, 1984. Philosophy and Social Criticism12(2–3): 112–131.
24.
ForoughiHAl-AmoudiI (2019) Collective forgetting in a changing organization: when memories become unusable and uprooted. Organization Studies41(4): 449–470.
25.
FoucaultM (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Trans ASheridan). Oxford: Vintage.
26.
FoucaultM (2003) Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975–76. New York, NY: Picador.
27.
GehmanJGlaserVLEisenhardtKM, et al (2017) Finding theory–method fit: a comparison of three qualitative approaches to theory building. Journal of Management Inquiry27(3): 284–300.
28.
GherardiSNicoliniD (2002) Learning the trade: a culture of safety in practice. Organization9(2): 191–223.
29.
GioiaDCorleyKGHamiltonAL (2012) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods16(1): 15–31.
30.
GoffmanE (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor.
31.
GranterEMcCannLBoyleM (2015) Extreme work/normal work: intensification, storytelling and hypermediation in the (re)construction of ‘the New Normal’. Organization22(4): 443–456.
32.
HenriqsonÉSchulerBvan WinsenR, et al (2014) The constitution and effects of safety culture as an object in the discourse of accident prevention: a Foucauldian approach. Safety Science70: 465–476.
33.
HughesEC (1951) Work and self. In: JHRohrerMSherif (eds) Social Psychology at the Crossroads. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 313–323.
34.
IacuoneD (2005) ‘Real men are tough guys’: hegemonic masculinity and safety in the construction industry. The Journal of Men’s Studies13(2): 247–266.
35.
JahnJLS (2019) Shifting the safety rules paradigm: introducing doctrine to US wildland firefighting operations. Safety Science115: 237–246.
36.
JuCRowlinsonS (2020) The evolution of safety legislation in Hong Kong: actors, structures and institutions. Safety Science124: 104606.
37.
KamocheKLeighFSM (2021) Talent management, identity construction and the burden of elitism: the case of management trainees in Hong Kong. Human Relations75(5): 817–841.
38.
KamocheKPangMWongA (2011) Career development and knowledge appropriation: a genealogical critique. Organization Studies32(12): 1663–1677.
39.
KreinerGEAshforthBESlussDM (2006) Identity dynamics in occupational dirty work: integrating social identity and system justification perspectives. Organization Science17(5): 619–636.
40.
KwongCDemirbagMWoodG, et al (2021) Human resource management in the context of high uncertainties. The International Journal of Human Resource Management32(17): 3569–3599.
41.
Labour Department (2017) Code of practice for bamboo scaffolding safety. Hong Kong: Occupational Safety and Health Branch, Labour Department.
42.
MarianoSCaseyAOliveraF (2020) Organizational forgetting Part I: a review of the literature and future research directions. The Learning Organization27(3): 185–209.
43.
MilesMHubermanAM (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
44.
NgoJ (2013) Why is Hong Kong last frontier for bamboo scaffolders?South China Morning Post, 9March.
45.
O’TooleMCalvardT (2020) I’ve got your back: danger, volunteering and solidarity in lifeboat crews. Work, Employment and Society34(1): 73–90.
46.
PengLChanAHS (2020) Adjusting work conditions to meet the declined health and functional capacity of older construction workers in Hong Kong. Safety Science127: 104711.
47.
RandallJMunroI (2010) Foucault’s care of the self: a case from mental health work. Organization Studies39(11): 1485–1504.
48.
RipamontiSCScarattiG (2015) Safety learning, organizational contradictions and the dynamics of safety practice. Journal of Workplace Learning27(7): 530–560.
49.
RochlinGI (1999) Safe operation as a social construct. Ergonomics42(11): 1549–1560.
50.
SimpsonRHughesJSlutskayaN, et al (2014) Sacrifice and distinction in dirty work: men’s construction of meaning in the butcher trade. Work, Employment and Society28(5): 754–770.
51.
StranglemanT (2012) Work identity in crisis? Rethinking the problem of attachment and loss at work. Sociology46(3): 411–425.
52.
StratiA (2007) Sensible knowledge and practice-based learning. Management Learning38(1): 61–77.
53.
StraussAL (1987) Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54.
ThornborrowTBrownAD (2009) ‘Being regimented’: aspiration, discipline and identity work in the British Parachute Regiment. Organization Studies30(4): 355–376.
55.
TurnerBA (1971) Exploring the Industrial Subculture. London: Macmillan Education.
56.
TurnerNGrayGC (2009) Socially constructing safety. Human Relations62(9): 1259–1266.
57.
TurnerNTennantSJ (2009) ‘As far as is reasonably practicable’: socially constructing risk, safety, and accidents in military operations. Journal of Business Ethics91(1): 21–33.
58.
UrickMJHollensbeECMastersonSS, et al. (2017) Understanding and managing intergenerational Conflict: an examination of influences and strategies. Work, Aging and Retirement3(2): 166–185.
59.
WhiteR (2014) Foucault on the care of the self as an ethical project and a spiritual goal. Human Studies37(4): 489–504.
60.
WillisP (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working-Class Kids Get Working-Class Jobs. Farnborough, Hants: Saxon House, Teakfield Ltd.
61.
WongTKMManSSChanAHS (2020) Critical factors for the use or non-use of personal protective equipment amongst construction workers. Safety Science126: 1–12.
