Europe's mass unemployment and the call for extensive labour market de-regulation have, perhaps more than any other contemporary issue, impassioned political debate and academic research. With contributions from economists, political scientists and sociologists, Why Deregulate Labour Markets? takes a hard look at the empirical connections between unemployment and regulation in Europe today, utilizing both in-depth nation analyses and broader-based international comparisons. The book demonstrates that Europe's mass unemployment cannot be directly ascribed to excessive worker protection. Labour market rigidities can, however, be harmful for particular groups. The weight of the evidence suggests that a radical strategy of de-regulation would probably cause more harm than benefits for European economic performance.

This series, originally published between 1990 and 1994 arose out of the increasing need for the international debate and dissemination of on-going empirical and theoretical research associated with rural areas in advanced societies. Rural areas, then, as now, their residents and agencies, are facing rapid social, economic and political change. Local, national and international political forces have direct influence upon rural areas, not only for those concerned with agriculture but also regarding rural development initiatives, overall economic and social policy and regional and fiscal arrangements. The volumes are designed to appeal to a wide audience associated with international comparative research. They provide reviews of research available at the original time of publication, taking as their focus one major theme per volume.

This book outlines a possible future theoretical perspective for systemics, its conceptual morphology and landscape while the Good-Old-Fashioned-Systemics (GOFS) era is still under way. The change from GOFS to future systemics can be represented, as shown in the book title, by the conceptual change from Collective Beings to Quasi-systems. With the current advancements, problems and approaches occurring in contemporary science, systemics are moving beyond the traditional frameworks used in the past. From Collective Beings to Coherent Quasi-Systems outlines a conceptual morphology and landscape for a new theoretical perspective for systemics introducing the concept of Quasi-systems. Advances in domains such as theoretical physics, philosophy of science, cell biology, neuroscience, experimental economics, network science and many others offer new concepts and technical tools to support the creation of a fully transdisciplinary General Theory of Change. This circumstance requires a deep reformulation of systemics, without forgetting the achievements of established conventions. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, examines classic systemic issues from new theoretical perspectives and approaches. A new general unified framework is introduced to help deal with topics such as dynamic structural coherence and Quasi-systems. This new theoretical framework is compared and contrasted with the traditional approaches. Part II focuses on the process of translation into social culture of the theoretical principles, models and approaches introduced in Part I. This translation is urgent in post-industrial societies where emergent processes and problems are still dealt with by using the classical or non-systemic knowledge of the industrial phase.

Elinor C. Ostrom, a Nobel prize winning political economist, made important contributions to common pool resources, economic governance, and polycentricity. Viviana A. Zelizer, a prominent economic sociologist, has done groundbreaking work on how culture shapes our economic lives. Together, the work of Ostrom and Zelizer spans the disciplines of economics, sociology, political science, and public policy by exploring the social relations and community-based organization of everyday life. Both scholars examine the norms, social connections, and cultural impacts of exchange and governance. This volume explores their contributions and builds off of their research programs to explore the social movements, community recovery, and war, and women's issues across a variety of disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, history, and archaeology. Inspired by Zelizer's 2019 Ostrom Speaker Series lecture for the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, this volume explores the connections between the work of Elinor Ostrom and Viviana Zelizer. Beginning with a lead chapter by Zelizer where she reflects on the connections between her work and Ostrom's oeuvre, the volume brings together scholars who tease out some of the important concepts and implications of Ostrom and Zelizer's research. This volume furthers economic inquiry by ensuring that the critical examinations of these timely and important themes are made available to students and scholars.

Primarily on the basis of ethnographic case-studies from around the world, this volume links investigations of work to questions of personal and professional identity and social relations. In the era of digitalized neoliberalism, particular attention is paid to notions of freedom, both collective (in social relations) and individual (in subjective experiences). These cannot be investigated separately. Rather than juxtapose economy with ethics (or the profitable with the good), the authors uncover complex entanglements between the drudgery experienced by most people in the course of making a living and ideals of emancipated personhood.

Employment security is under pressure in public and private sectors because of fluctuating economic conditions and unstable markets. According to Loseby, the proponents of employment security have been lacking in substantive evidence justifying its existence. The majority of big business explicitly displays its disbelief in the practice through employee lay-off at first sign of economic adversity. Lay-offs are shown to create and prolong a number of socio-economic problems for society. Lack of employment affects personal ego, personal and family stress, and self-identity, as well as financial and economic factors associated with basic needs and success. The analyses of data provides focus on intangible and difficult-to-identify criteria such as employee morale and company loyalty. Productivity and financial ratios are also identified, analyzed, and compared. The author continues to review recommended and widely used strategies. Strengths and weaknesses are analyzed and compared, and successful national and global application of strategies are cited. The evolving corporation of the twenty-first century is reviewed to discern its needs, and to determine applicability of employment security to public or private enterprise. The book will be of interest to executives and all levels of management, human resource executives and personnel staff, in addition to professors of management and their students.

In this potentially controversial book, Berch Berberoglu argues that the internationalization of U.S. capital via worldwide expansion of U.S. transnational monopolies has led to the decline of the U.S. domestic economy--bringing about class polarization between labor and capital. The process of decline and polarization was accelerated during the 1980s under the Reagan administration, when a major transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthy owners of the transnational corporations ushered in a period of irreversible decline and decay. This incisive volume untangles the complex web of social-economic connections that are, at their base, the manifestations of relations of production, distribution, and exchange.

Following a theoretical chapter which outlines the liberal, world system, and class analysis approaches--the three major positions on the rise and fall of global empires--Berberoglu provides an empirical account of the position of the United States in the world political economy in the postwar period. While the bulk of the middle chapters examines this decline and its consequences for the working people of the United States, subsequent chapters address the response of the state and of the labor movement to the social and economic crisis. This highly informative book contains the latest data presented in tables and charts that draw out the most critical elements in the economic and social trends evolving in the United States, and stands alone in its provocative treatment of the current crisis of U.S. capitalism.

By assessing the transition in enterprise-employee relations in China over the six decades since the founding of the nation and the three decades since the implementation of a reform and opening up policy, this book investigates these changes from three key perspectives: occupation, operation and governance. The book chiefly analyzes the unit system structure of enterprises and mechanisms such as apprentice systems inside organizations and proposes a combination of systematic governance and civic governance. Further, it investigates in detail the transition in labor relations in township, state-owned and private enterprises under the contract system, market system and project system, reviews the factors contributing to contradictions in labor relations at different periods, and puts forward options for modifying labor relations in various ways, including their system and structure.

Pearl Jephcott (1900–1980) was a pioneer of sociological research, largely forgotten in recent times, her works paved the way for many of the subsequent developments that were to come in the sociology of gender, women’s’ studies, urban sociology, leisure studies and the sociology of youth. An originator and an early adopter of many research methods, Pearl Jephcott, deserves to be rediscovered. This collection of 5 books, each with a new foreword, were originally published between 1954 and 1971. Including one previously unpublished work from 1954, they are a selection of her most important work and a fascinating record of sociological research in action.

This volume presents for the first time a collection of historically important papers written on the concept of rationality in the social sciences. In 1939-40, the famed Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter and the famous sociologist Talcott Parsons convened a faculty seminar at Harvard University on the topic of rationality. The first part includes their essays as well as papers by the Austrian phenomenologist Alfred Schutz, the sociologist Wilbert Moore, and the economist Rainer Schickele. Several younger economists and sociologists with bright futures also participated, including Alex Gerschenkron, John Dunlop, Paul M. Sweezy, and Wassily W. Leontief, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize for developing input-output analysis. The second part presents essays and commentaries written by today's internationally noted social scientists and addressing the topic of rationality in social action from a broad range of perspectives. The book's third and final part shares the recently discovered correspondence between the seminar principals regarding the original but failed plan to publish its proceedings. It also includes letters, not previously published, between Richard Grathoff, Walter M. Sprondel and Talcott Parsons on the rationality seminar and the exchanges between Parsons and Schutz.

Traces labor migration of women from Eastern Caribbean to oil-producing countries such as Venezuela, Trinidad, Curaðcao, and especially Aruba. Discusses women's participation in the labor force, gender relations, domestic service, the social and economic position of the migrants, and motherhood. Argues that US investments are an important factor in the migration of Caribbean women"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

This book offers the first ethnographic account of prison managers in England. It explores how globalised changes, in particular managerialism, have intersected with local occupational cultures, positioning managers as micro-agents in the relationship between the global and local that characterises late modernity. The Working Lives of Prison Managers addresses key aspects of prison management, including how individuals become prison managers, their engagement with elements of traditional occupational culture, and the impact of the 'age of austerity'. It offers a particular focus on performance monitoring mechanisms such as indicators, audits and inspections, and how these intersect with local culture and individual identity. The book also examines important aspects of individual agency, including values, discretion, resistance and the use of power. It also reveals the 'hidden injuries' of contemporary prison managerialism, especially the distinctive effects experienced by women and members of minority ethnic groups.

This book draws on a wide range of practical examples to describe how conflicts within organisations are traditionally managed and the complementary conflict management methods that can be employed. Stephan Proksch clearly explains these innovative methods and their potential applications. The central focus is on mediation as an effective form of conflict resolution. Discussion and questioning techniques as conflict management tools are explained in simple and concise terms.

This book examines the new ways of working and their impact on employees' well-being and performance. It concentrates on job demands and flexible work emanating from current economic and organizational change, and assesses impact on workers' health and performance. The development of issues such as globalization, rapid technological advances, new management practices, organizational changes and new job skills are addressed. This book gives an overview and discusses the potential negative and positive effects of such new job demands and new forms of work.

"When it comes to the issues confronting working people and their unions today, Phil Cohen knows what he's talking about as few people do . . . through knowledge born of bare-knuckle experience." --Si Kahn The Jackson Project is a dramatic, hard-hitting account of a brutal labor dispute at a West Tennessee textile mill. A historically accurate page turner, this is one of the few books about unions written by a frontline participant. In the spring of 1989, union organizer Phil Cohen journeyed to Jackson, Tennessee, to rebuild a troubled local and the problems were daunting: an anti-union company in financial disarray, sharply declining union membership, and myriad workplace grievances. In the tumultuous months ahead, as ownership of the plant twice changed hands, shutting down and then reopening to exclude union leaders and senior employees, he would risk his life and consider desperate measures to salvage the unions cause. In this riveting memoir, Cohen taken the reader from the union hall and factory gates to the bargaining table and courtroom, and ultimately to the picket line. We get to know the millworkers with whom he formed close bonds, including a stormy romance with a young woman at the plant. His up-close account brims with vivid descriptions of the negotiating process, the grinding work at the textile mill, the lives of its employees, and the grim realities of union busting in America. The last generation of the old south and it's textile subculture are portrayed as they come to terms with a changing economy, racial dynamics, and the introduction of hard drugs to their community. When the organizer's four year old daughter accompanies him to the field, a unique and unexpected dimension is added to the tale. The Jackson Project offers readers a rare insider's view of the American labor movement in action.

This book is the first in a series on Chinese management based on the Global Chinese Management Conferences (from 2015 to 2017), an annual conference organized by the Sun Tzu Art of War Institute. The first volume is by FOO Check Teck, professor at Fudan and Hunan University and founding editor of Chinese Management Studies (SSCI), who encourages readers to broaden their minds to embrace the Universe as a Community. The book argues that the lives of all beings are worth preserving and urges the academic community to recognize the ideologies at heart of management and to see research as a deep, reflective thinking process that goes far beyond the testing of hypotheses - great works, lasting 2,500 years are the result of deep reflection upon experiences. It also calls for the re-framing of management integration of a variety of ideological strands, typically in topics in MBA or MPA programs: earnings, mobility of human capital, complex adaptive systems, HRM (in small high-tech firms), technology standardization, Xin (trust: labor relations), multi-leveling, re-forming (hospitals), He-Xie (doctoral work), upgrading (automobile industry). The major consequential consideration must be what it means for people.

Work and Family - Allies or Enemies? offers a new lens for viewing the real struggles that business professionals - particularly women - face in their daily battle to find ways of 'getting a life' and 'having it all'. Based on a pioneering study that surveyed more than 800 business professionals, this volume will help readers understand and deal with the effects of gender, professional culture, and social expectations, on the evolving roles of men and women in crafting an integrated life.

This book offers a critical perspective on the issues related to women's empowerment, microfinance, and entrepreneurship in India. Written by distinguishing experts in this field, this book highlights women's empowerment, which is a process of entrusting power to an individual on the control over resources and decisions. However, these two factors are less effective in a society where religion and cultural dominance is high. The book sheds light on the social security measures undertaken by the government aiming to the right to work helped women who are bounded by social restrictions. Over time there is a shift in rural occupational structure towards non-farm activities, which is largely distress driven self-employment. Access to credit is a great source to provide self-employment that develops self-esteem among women and uplift their position. The book highlights the discrimination against women entrepreneurs in access to credit led to gender biased entrepreneurial society. Association with self-help groups (SHGs) has made women more socially empowered. SHG members help them to change their life in a positive manner through micro-entrepreneurial activities. The book has emphasized on the role of microfinance, which has served the poor to become financially self-reliant. It is observed that for second generation borrowers, the impact of microfinance seems to fizzle out, where MFIs who are gaining efficiency are diverting their objective of servicing poor, signalling a sign of mission drift.

The purpose of the book is to devise an alternative conceptual vocabulary for studying innovation by stressing the role of social, contextual and cultural perspectives. This vocabulary is drawn on a service and on sociological perspectives on innovation based on the ontological assumption that innovation is a value co-creation matter and that it takes place in a reality that is multiple, constructed and socially embedded. The aim is to tackle key issues such as social construction, service innovation, knowledge and learning processes, value (co) creation, innovating and innovation activities networking and collaborative innovation.

On Coerced Labor focuses on those forms of labor relations that have been overshadowed by the "extreme" categories (wage labor and chattel slavery) in the historiography. It covers types of work lying between what the law defines as "free labor" and "slavery." The frame of reference is the observation that although chattel slavery has largely been abolished in the course of the past two centuries, other forms of coerced labor have persisted in most parts of the world. While most nations have increasingly condemned the continued existence of slavery and the slave trade, they have tolerated labor relationships that involve violent control, economic exploitation through the appropriation of labor power, restriction of workers' freedom of movement, and fraudulent debt obligations. Contributors are: Lisa Carstensen, Christian G. De Vito, Justin F. Jackson, Christine Molfenter, David Palmer, Nicola Pizzolato, Luis F.B. Plascencia, Magaly Rodriguez Garcia, Kelvin Santiago-Valles, Nicole J. Siller, Marcel van der Linden, Sven Van Melkebeke.

The historian Wolfgang Mommsen was one of the foremost experts on Max Weber as well as an insightful and accessible interpreter of his work. Mommsen's classic book, first published in 1974 under the title The Age of Bureaucracy, not only concisely explains the basic concepts underlying Weber's worldview, but also explores the historical, social, and intellectual contexts in which he operated, including Weber's development as an academic, his relationship to German nationalism, and his engagement with Marxism. Supplemented with a new foreword, a bibliography that includes recent studies, and a postscript by Volker Berghahn that surveys the most important debates on Weber's work since his death, this short volume serves as an excellent resource for scholars and students alike.

This book examines cooperation among rival partners in a Northeastern US corporate law firm. Members are portrayed as interdependent entrepreneurs who build social niches in their firm, and both cultivate and mitigate status competition among themselves. This behaviour generates informal social mechanisms that help a flat organization to govern itself. The resulting theory of the collegial organization generalizes its results to partnerships, larger multinational professional services firms, and collegial pockets in flattening bureaucracies.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor. The essays deal with five major themes: the production of specific commodities or services (diamonds, indigo, cigarettes, mail delivery by road runners); occupational groups (informal street vendors, prostitutes, soldiers, white-collar workers in the Dutch East India Company, VOC); geographical and social mobility (career opportunities on non-Dutch officers in the VOC, immigration into early-modern Holland; the influence of migrants on labor productivity; income differentials as migration incentives); contexts of labor relations (late medieval labor laws, subsistence labor and female paid labor, Russian peasant-migrant laborers, diverging political trajectories of cane-sugar industries); and the origins of labor-history libraries and archives.

In the digital age tasks are increasingly modularised and consumers are increasingly becoming prosumers. Replacing digital labour and prosumption within an American context and the wider political economy, this volume presents a critical account of the forces which shape contemporary subjects, networks, and labour practices.