Most workers are conditioned to view themselves as one-dimensional in relation to their company—as a salesperson, or an engineer, or a manager. But imagine the possibilities if everyone in your organization started thinking and acting like entrepreneurs—like owners of the business. Imagine if your employees shared the same beliefs, both in their abilities and in the purpose of your business, and focused all their energies on making that business successful—knowing that they, in turn, would become successful as well. That is the power of an ownership culture, and this book will show you how to mobilize human intellect and ingenuity for competitive advantage.

Act Like an Owner is an action guide to building a culture of employee ownership within an organization. Authors Blonchek and O'Neill present their business model, "Act Like an Owner," which grew out of their experience building information technology service businesses. This model is a roadmap for applying today's most important management practices in a competitive, rapidly changing environment. The authors use this approach as part of their consulting practice, and are the first to detail how to implement such a program company-wide.

Act Like an Owner introduces the internal franchise framework that can be used for unlocking the entrepreneurial spirit in your organization. From this book, you'll learn how to define your company's operating model—the way you choose to do business—and then extend the model to your employees. The authors then explain how to link employee behaviors to each element of business performance. They demonstrate how to focus your entire organization on a business goal while addressing employees' individual needs for opportunity and growth. You'll learn how to attract and hire people with a positive, entrepreneurial attitude who can create an environment that establishes the values and behaviors you need.

At the heart of the internal franchise is the ownership culture, a corporate culture built on principles and values that compel everyone in your organization to think and act like an owner of the business. The authors describe the impact of an ownership culture on an organization, illustrating how you can build equity in that culture and make it part of your company's brand identity. They explore the power of such a culture to create an environment of shared values and goals. You'll learn the formula for creating an ownership culture and putting it to work in your organization, and you'll hear the perspectives of senior executives at companies currently adopting the "Act Like an Owner" program, including those at Aspen Systems, CACI, STAC, PSINet, and ConSonics. In addition, the authors apply the ownership culture model to one of the most pressing problems facing business today: attracting and retaining skilled workers.

Filled with examples, anecdotes, and techniques, Act Like an Owner will motivate anyone trying to build a successful business that starts with people. "What a wonderful book. The only way organizations will be able to compete in the future is if their people act like owners and they create an ownership culture. A must read for the 21st century." —Ken Blanchard, coauthor, The One Minute Manager.

"A terrific addition to any library. Marty O'Neill and Robert Blonchek have crafted an elegantly simple and uniquely powerful approach to enhancing the performance of any organization—large or small. I wholeheartedly recommend it." —Douglas R. Conant, President, U.S. Foods Group, Nabisco.

"The new workplace demands that businesses find effective ways to release the power of people. Blonchek and O'Neill's 'Internal Franchise' idea turns the franchise concept inside out and provides a roadmap for ownership and empowerment in any organization." —Alan Randolph, coauthor, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute.

"Act Like an Owner gives you a treasure map to unlocking the fortunes that lie throughout an organization." —Bill Toler, President, Campbell Sales Company.

"An insightful look at the elements of an ownership culture and how to put them to work in your company in order to attract, retain and motivate talented people." —J. Robert Beyster, Founder, Chairman and CEO, SAIC.

"Act Like an Owner gives you the tools you need to develop and empower your employees to think and act like entrepreneurs." —Andrew C. Taylor, President and CEO, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and 1997 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner.

The Industrial Democracy in Europe project offers a unique opportunity to assess the changes in European industrial relations systems in general, and participation schemes in particular. In 1981 the Industrial Democracy in Europe team (IDE) reported their findings on the extent of industrial democracy in ten European countries during the 1970s. The present volume reports the findings for the subsequent decade. It is particularly useful to have a longitudinal research project that analyses the changes in participation schemes. The research team have looked at ten European countries (including Poland) and also comment on the situation in Israel and Japan. Contributors: B. Wilpert, E. Rosenstein, P. Drenth, R. Peccei, F. Heller, M. Warner

This book provides a set of proposals for how best to guarantee effective enforcement of labour rights worldwide. The linkage between labour standards and global trade has been recurrent for some 200 years. At a time when the world is struggling to find a way out of crisis and is striving for economic growth, more than ever there is a need for up-to-date research on how to protect and promote labour rights in the global economy. This book explores the history of the field and also provides an overview of emerging trends and opportunities. It discusses the most recent problems including: the effectiveness and the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the second century of its existence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its potential relevance in the protection of labour rights, the effectiveness of the US and the EU Generalised System of Preferences, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments on labour rights, and labour provisions in the international trade agreements concluded by the US and the EU. The book argues, inter alia, that trade agreements seem to be a useful tool to help pave the way out of the crisis and that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) can be perceived as a model agreement and a symbol of a shift in perspective from long global supply chains to a focus on regional ones, local production, jobs and a rise in wages. The book will be essential reading for academics and students in the fields of human rights law, international labour law, industrial relations law, international sustainable development law, international economic law and international trade law. It will also be of interest to practitioners, non-government organisations (NGOs) and policy makers.

The role of cognitive and socioemotional skills alongside education in determining people's success in the labour market has been the topic of a growing body of research - but previous studies have mostly missed middle-income countries and the developing world because measures of those skills and data on employment and earnings on large enough samples of adults have typically not been available. Using comparable survey data on these schooling, skills and labour market outcomes from 13 developing and emerging economies worldwide, this book revisits human capital and gender inequality models. It presents new estimates of the returns to different levels of schooling as well as cognitive and socioemotional skills for women and men. It examines whether those returns are due to levels of human capital or to structural bias in labour markets, and how these two factors work across the earnings spectrum. The book examines the existence of 'glass ceilings' and 'sticky floors' for women using this expanded measure of human capital. Further, by analyzing a group of countries of wide-ranging levels of economic development and socio-political contexts, the book reveals patterns and insights into how context mediates the relationship between skills and gender gaps in labour market outcomes. This book will be of interest to scholars of human capital and gender inequality in the labour market and development economics, as well as gender and development policy makers.

Comprising five thematic sections, this volume provides a critical, international and interdisciplinary exploration of employment relations. It examines the major subjects and emerging areas within the field, including essays on institutional theory, voice, new actors, precarious work and employment. Led by a well-respected team of editors, the contributors examine current knowledge and debates within each topic, offering cutting-edge analysis and reflection. The Routledge Companion to Employment Relations is an extensive reference work that offers students and researchers an introduction to current scholarship in the longstanding discipline of employment relations. It will be an essential addition to library collections in business and management, law, economics, sociology and political economy.

This book offers a critical and comparative understanding of post-industrial development, highlighting the driving forces and limitations, strategies, sources of funding, tools and technologies for its implementation. It presents the results of research on the formation and functioning of post-industrial development institutions in developed countries and developing countries as integral elements of the national innovation system, and implementation of economic modernization and transformation of business models taking into account contradictions between modern productive forces and getting out of date production relations. This book also explores the widespread impact of new technologies on various areas of modern society, which is often impaired by its conservatism. Comprising contributions from experts across various disciplines including economics, public administration, law, and psychology, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with the modern development of society, production, and consumption. It is a book with appeal to scholars and students of economics, business and public administration, interested in post-industrial development in developed and developing countries, and the specifics of implementing strategies for technological improvement in industry and the service sector.

The relationship between fertility and the participation rate of women in the workforce is an increasingly important area of study for economists, demographers and policy-makers. Recent data show important differences in the relationship between employment rates of women and fertility across Europe. For example, in southern Europe, low fertility rates are combined with low rates of female participation. In contrast, Nordic countries are experiencing relatively high fertility rates combined with high female labour market participation. Social Policies, Labour Markets and Motherhood analyses the effects of policies aimed to reconcile motherhood and labour market participation. Making extensive use of European Community Household Panel data, it compares the outcomes of policies in several European countries, analysing why they succeed in some environments but not in others. It will be of interest to researchers, policy-makers and graduate students working on labour markets, population economics, demography and the methodology of applied microeconomics.

Organized labor is about the collective efforts of employees to improve their economic, social, and political position. It can be studied from many different points of view historical, economic, sociological, or legal but it is fundamentally about the struggle for human rights and social justice. As a rule, organized labor has tried to make the world a fairer place. Even though it has only ever covered a minority of employees in most countries, its effects on their political, economic, and social systems have been generally positive. History shows that when organized labor is repressed, the whole society suffers and is made less just. The Historical Dictionary of Organized Labor looks at the history of organized labor to see where it came from and where it has been. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a glossary of terms, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on most countries, international as well as national labor organizations, major labor unions, leaders, and other aspects of organized labor such as changes in the composition of its membership. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about organized labor."

The volume introduces a new analysis of interconnected labour and economic history of colonial India and Scandinavia. From a recently found archive of a railway contractor's private and business papers, the studies revise both Indian labour history and Scandinavian modern history, and ties south Sweden into the British Empire. With deep insights into everyday work practices of Indian and European contractors and manual labourers, the book establishes a bridge across the globe, between two poor regions as sites of extraction and industrial transformation, resulting from global migration and capital flows. Drawing on rich archival sources such as the Joseph Stephens Archive, Maharashtra State Archives, the National Archives of India, and the British Library, the book offers deep insights into everyday business practices of European contractors in India, which were rarely documented and have remained largely inaccessible so far. A unique look into the labour and entrepreneurship practices under British colonial rule in India, as well as its impact on the most transformative years of modern southern Scandinavia, the book will be of great interest to students, academics, and teachers of history, labour studies, subaltern studies, colonialism, imperialism, economic history, railways, economics, and Scandinavian and South Asian studies.

This book reappraises the Japanese employment system, characterized by such practices as the periodic recruiting of new graduates, lifetime employment and seniority-based wages, which were praised as sources of high productivity and flexibility for Japanese firms during the period of high economic growth from the middle of the 1950s until the burst of bubbles in the early 1990s. The prolonged stagnation after the bubble burst induced an increasing number of people to criticize the Japanese employment system as a barrier to the structural changes needed to allow the economy to adjust to the new environment, with detractors suggesting that such a system only serves to protect the vested interests of incumbent workers and firms. By investigating what caused the long stagnation of the Japanese economy, this book examines the validity of this currently dominant view about the Japanese employment system. The rigorous theoretical and empirical analyses presented in this book provide readers with deep insights into the nature of the current Japanese labor market and its macroeconomic impacts.

An overview of many currently topical issues around food and agriculture, with particular emphasis on their implications for development. These include Nobel Laureate Robert Fogel's discussion of nutritional standards and the implications of new theories of evolution in assessing the extent of malnutrition. Historical analysis informs contemporary surveys, including Yair Mundlak's comparison of the postwar record of 130 countries in agricultural technology and outputs. The important implications of labour markets, income distributions and the impact of welfare states on these issues are considered by a number of papers. The contributors include many leading academics from North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Israel.

This book addresses the educational, occupational, and income progress of Jews in the American labor market. Using theoretical and statistical findings, it compares the experience of American Jews with that of other Americans, from the middle of the 19th century through the 20th and into the early 21st century. Jews in the United States have been remarkably successful; from peddlers and low-skilled factory workers, clearly near the bottom of the economic ladder, they have, as a community, risen to the top of the economic ladder. The papers included in this volume, all authored or co-authored by Barry Chiswick, address such issues as the English language proficiency, occupational attainment and earnings of Jews, educational and labor market discrimination against Jews, life cycle and labor force participation patterns of Jewish women, and historical and methodological issues, among many others. The final chapter analyzes alternative explanations for the consistently high level of educational and economic achievement of American Jewry over the past century and a half. The chapters in this book also develop and demonstrate the usefulness of alternative techniques for identifying Jews in US Census and survey data where neither religion nor Jewish ethnicity is explicitly identified. This methodology is also applicable to the study of other minority groups in the US and in other countries.

This is the first comparative study of the background, development, laws, structure, and impact of teacher unionism in nations around the world. This ground-breaking analysis offers an international perspective on the world's most populous profession--teaching--and its halting but powerful efforts to form unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to win a decent living for its millions of members. Teachers, union leaders, policymakers, and all who are interested in the issues surrounding education as a profession, the operation of schools, the role of government in education, and the complexities of labor relations in education should make this book must reading. An introduction provides an overview of labor relations in education world-wide, and then separate chapters by experts on education and labor relations in fifteen different countries analyze current policies and problems in places as diverse as China, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States. Specific country studies and the overall conclusion at the end of the book point to past trends and future possible reforms. This unique study emphasizes the importance of unions in national affairs and describes the relationships between governments and the labor movement. A bibliographic essay completes the work.

These continue to be difficult times for the labor markets of the industrialized nations. Shifts in labor demand, deregulatory impulses, and the ongoing process of globalization have each impacted the labor markets of the United States and Europe. In the face of the globalization of economic relations and the challenge of the NICs, employment has stagnated in some member states of the EU - in sharp contrast to the United States. Even though several European countries have introduced seemingly successful labor market reforms, whether Euroland as a whole will be able to cope with heterogeneous labor market dynamics and rising immigration is an open question. This theme provides the backdrop to this book. Its main focus is on labor market rules, unemployment, and aspects of the social security system. Theory and practice receive equal attention. Options for reforming labor markets and the social security system provide the policy content.

This volume explores the work environment in multinational corporations. To do so, it integrates studies on the organizational sciences, cross-cultural management, positive psychology and sociology within a single comprehensive framework. Twenty-two authors from six countries identify the challenges in multicultural workplaces, the positives of interactions, cultural clashes and their organizational preconditions. They add inter-organizational, institutional and critical perspectives to the analysis within the framework of multinationals and complex, hybrid cultural environments. The book addresses the needs of researchers in the areas of intercultural management, and those of practitioners in international human resource management.

This book demonstrates how rethinking and adapting basic employment services into labor intermediation services can help address the many labor market disconnections of developing country economies. It addresses how scarce resources required to escape poverty - good jobs, schools, and training - more often go to the privileged and well-connected than to those who need them most. With jobs now at the top of development debates, this is a rare book on how to practically adapt one key labor market policy to very different developing and emerging country markets. It shows through examples how developing countries can build in stages from basic employment services to diverse labor intermediation services - opening up job listings, stimulating public-private partnerships, and making job connections for those who don't have a "cousin Vinny who knows a guy". This book is for policy practitioners, development organizations, and academics who are ready to think differently about one of the policies that needs to change so that developing economies can better meet the employment and higher skill challenges of the global age.

This book addresses the question of how it is that so much growth and technical change can take place in agriculture and yet leave the position of agricultural labourers relatively unchanged. Much has been written on farmers and employers in LDC agriculture, but little that focuses on employees - this book will thus stimulate contribution to the study of labour markets and to development studies. In an area described as in the vanguard of agricultural development in Southern India, the author shows in some detail how limited the changes in the situation of labourers have been as agriculture has developed, and how serious the constraints still are. There is full discussion of central concerns such as the increase in numbers and proportions of agricultural labourers, the stagnation and marginal decline of wage rates and earnings, the property-less status of agricultural labourers, consumption and indebtedness, and labour relationships and processes.

This open access book examines the challenges and issues caused by a move to a marketized education system in Sweden. Observing the introduction of the school voucher system and a postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge, the move away from objective knowledge is identified as the core reason for Sweden's current education crisis. The impact of declining education standards on the labor market is also discussed. This book highlights the issues seen in Sweden and suggests policies that can improve education in the rest of the Western world as well. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in education and labor economics.

Originally published in 1982, this was the first in-depth study of the labour system of the South African gold mining industry during the crucial years 1886 to 1906. It provided an insight into the early period but was relevant for much longer, as many of the policies decided upon in the formative years of the industry persisted. The book traces the growth of deep-level mining and covers the conflicts between miners and mine-owners . It discusses the effects on the gold mining industry of the Anglo-Boer War, and the role of the mine-owners in that conflict. It also examines the role of Chinese labour as a strategy in the defence of the labour structure and finally discusses the origins of the racially discriminatory legislation which characterized the Apartheid system.

This volume examines the economics of aquatic sports. Covering topics ranging from youth participation, collegiate level amateurism, and professional performance issues, to the history of Olympic level swim and water polo programs, the chapters illuminate economic motivations behind the behavior and performance characteristics of this industry. Labor-related themes regarding compensation, exploitation and discrimination are examined. The volume is also especially timely, including discussions of the impacts of technological change, the hot hand effect, confirmation bias, and doping. By answering questions about these key issues in sport, this book hopes to shed light on behaviors outside of sport and provide an enhanced understanding of individual, group, and industry decision making and performance under conditions of scarcity and uncertainty. This book will be of interest to those studying sports economics, sports management, or applied microeconomic theory as well as professionals in the sports field: sports managers, agents, media experts, coaches, athletic directors and development leaders.

This book evaluates the global labour market in the context of gender equality, and the associated policies and regulations, particularly in developing markets, to recommend measures for encouraging gender equality. It exposes the barriers that women employees encounter as well as some of the societal and workplace policies they, specifically, are subject to. Important themes within this topic include participation rates, the looming gap in hourly pay, availability of part-time and full-time positions, value, and social status associated with jobs held by men and women. The book examines how global gender policy objectives, such as gender equality in careers, gender balance in decision-making, and gender dimensions in research, can be incorporated into policy frameworks. The book analyzes the gendered nature of assumptions, processes and theories. The juxtaposition between family and work, tradition and modernity, and dependency and autonomy, clearly still seems to be misunderstood. Therefore, the book asks whether work improves women's positions in society and/or changes their roles in their families. The authors explore and uncover the connections among employment, entrepreneurship, migration economies, and gender global labour markets and provide helpful solutions to the perceptions surrounding women's status, risks, and inequality that limit their economic participation. This insightful read provides comprehensive details on a variety of themes and encourages further research on policies that are key to promoting gender equality. The book will appeal to postgraduate students and researchers of labour and feminist economics, the economics of gender, women's studies and sociology.

Black Families and the Recession in the United States goes beyond the massive loss of property among African Americans during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. It connects the housing experience to broader systems of inequality in America. Following the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the US elections of 2008, the impact of COVID-19, and widespread demonstrations resulting from the murder of George Floyd by police, the sociopolitical and economic status of Blacks in the United States is at a critical point in history, with demand for major transformation. The authors reveal a history of racist practices against Blacks in many systems, including education, policing, incarceration, wealth transmission, voting restrictions, and housing segregation. The social costs of the recession are manifested in the daily lives of African American families. In addition to financial losses, African Americans are more likely to be plagued with issues related to poverty, chronic illnesses, and lack of trust of social and economic institutions. Research, policy, and practical implications of this research include identifying social and economic supports unique to African Americans and determining strategies to strengthen families; paramount to addressing racial disparities. The interdisciplinary focus of this book appeals to a wide audience and areas of study.

The chapters in this book provide in- depth insight into the gender norms and contexts in which women work in the expanding informal mining sector in sub- Saharan Africa. Collectively, the research here provides a nuanced account of women's livelihood strategies in artisanal and small- scale mining (ASM, as its generally known) in ways that challenge images of women- as either victimized by mining or empowered by mining livelihoods, or both- that tend to dominate the growing array of donor and policy interventions in this sector. The authors come from different disciplinary traditions- anthropology, economics, political science, mining engineering, law- but all place questions of gendered power front and centre in their analyses of sociocultural, institutional, economic and political relationships, practices and arrangements within which women navigate their mining livelihoods. The physical or representational presence (and sometimes absence) of women in ASM sites is a linking theme, with the chapters exploring different dimensions of mining and gender- the gendered divisions of labour, migration, land ownership, cultural norms, and gendered authority relations- but also how 'women' materialize and are seen and unseen in the growing array of transnational interventions in this sector. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies.

The radical transformations to which the economy and society have been subjected for decades have gained momentum in recent years, not least because of the coronavirus pandemic, the consequences of which are yet to be fully understood. As a result, certain economic models and business practices are becoming less sustainable. One of the reasons for this is the rapid advance of Revolution 4.0. The issues raised in this book are central to understanding the theoretical and practical aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its overwhelming impact on emerging socio-economic relations. The book addresses the future and flexibility of the labour market in the era of digital transformation; issues related to the emergence of new patterns of production and the distribution of public services. It examines the impact of Revolution 4.0 on the global business services sector and business project management models, in times of increasing complexity. The book covers a broad spectrum of concerns associated with Industry 4.0, such as social, economic, technological, and environmental, making it a comprehensive resource offering state-of-the-art knowledge. Further, it includes a discussion on the perspectives for the development of Revolution 4.0 in the context of the post-pandemic world. This book skillfully combines theoretical considerations with practical applications, offering a valuable, engaging and accessible resource for researchers, scholars, students, policymakers, public decision-makers, and businesspeople alike.