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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Work & labour
In recent years, volunteering and voluntary organizations have come to play an increasingly important role in British society. But this recognition has come at the cost of losing sight of the distinctive characteristics of voluntary action and its claims to independence of thought and action. Drawing on 45 years' experience of working in and researching the sector, Colin Rochester shows how conventional wisdom about how voluntary action is understood and undertaken ignores a variety of important activities which have contributed so much to our quality of life and living conditions. He revisits the history of voluntary action; identifies the forces that have created modern misunderstandings and misrepresentations; explores the role of voluntary action and the forms it takes; and argues that the reality of voluntary activity is very different from the picture painted by contemporary researchers and practitioners. In a final chapter Rochester spells out the implications of his vision for research and practice.
In the second half of the 1980s Japan has emerged as one of the new major destination countries for migrants from Asia. The migrant labour pool was then joined by Japanese descendants from South American countries in the 1990s. Japan's policy of keeping the labour market closed to foreign unskilled workers has remained unchanged despite the 1990 immigration policy reform, which met the growing need for unskilled labour not by opening the 'front-door' to unskilled workers but by letting them in through intentionally-provided 'side-doors'. This book throws light on various aspects of migration flows to Japan and the present status of migrant workers as conditioned by Japan's immigration control system. The analysis aims to explore how the massive arrival of migrants affected Japan's immigration policy and how the policy segmented the foreign labour market in Japan.
Learning outcomes in Lebanon have been lower than the international average and with a declining trend since 2007. This volume uses a political economy approach and a system-level analysis to uncover why the education system in Lebanon is not reaching its full potential.
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21st century Western neoliberalism has seen the transformation of self-interest from an economic imperative to a centrally constitutive part of dominant modes of subjective existence. Against this celebration of competitive individualism, Emmanuel Levinas' philosophy stands as a haunting reminder of an ethics that passively disturbs the self from its egoistic slumber, awakening it to the incessant demands of the other. Ethics stands as an anxious affective state of being where one is held to account by others, each one demanding care, attention and respect. Focussing on business activities and organizations, this book explores how this ethical demand of being for the other becomes translated, in a necessarily impure way, into political action, contestation and resistance. Such a response to ethics invokes a disturbance of organizational order, including an order that might itself be labelled 'ethical'. On these grounds, the book offers an explication of an ethics for organizations which disturbs the selfishness of neoliberal morality, and can inform a democratic politics rested on a genuine concern for the other and for justice. Disturbing Business Ethics: Emmanuel Levinas and the Politics of Organization offers an unconventional and enlightening approach to ethical thinking and practice in politics and organisations, and will be of interest to students of business, management, leadership, political science and organizational theory.
This book analyses the circular migration of care workers in Central Europe using the example of Slovak carers in 24-hour care provision for the elderly in Austria. Challenging analyses that focus primarily on care drain and care regimes, Bahna and Sekulova supplement quantitative methodology with qualitative fieldwork to demonstrate the importance of the sending country's economic context. The authors discuss the dynamics of economic differences between Austria and its post-communist neighbors as preconditions of the crossborder care provision, bridging analyses of policy and legal frameworks with approaches from labor migration study. Even as they scrutinize the relevance of care drain-based analyses, Bahna and Sekulova bring to the fore the interplay of economic differences, social policies, gender and migration regimes with geographic proximity to study long-term impacts of care work, including an analysis of employment after care work.
The sharing economy is one of the most influential developments of the last decade. The emergence of new forms of organizing it brings with it has affected modern (business) life at multiple levels: Sharing organizations have blurred the distinction between the individual roles of provider, user, and employee; they have introduced organizational practices of coordinating members and communities; and they have sparked societal, political, and economic debates in multiple fields. These dynamics at the individual, organizational, and field level provide an opportunity for organization scholars to take stock of and theorize the sharing economy. This volume takes advantage of this opportunity by presenting a collection of empirical and conceptual work that explores the variety and the trajectories of new forms of organizing in the sharing economy, and in doing so builds on, rejuvenates, and refines existing organization theories. Together, the chapters included in this volume offer a comprehensive overview of theoretically grounded research that deepens our understanding of new forms of organizing and indicates future avenues for research.
The notion of microfoundations has received growing interest in neo-institutional theory (NIT) along with an increasing interest in microfoundational research in disciplines such as strategic management and organizational economics. However, despite reference to the same term, there are decisive differences in how microfoundations have been addressed across different disciplines. The aim of this double volume is to explore in more depth what the microfoundations of institutions are and what it takes to actually develop sound microfoundations. To this end, this double volume sets off by exploring the recent well-spring of micro-level research in NIT (i.e., research on the individual, practice and group level). While intimately related, micro-level research and microfoundations are not necessarily the same thing. Hence, the double volume seeks to bring to the fore different perspectives in micro-level research in order to tease out what these perspectives imply for building microfoundations, where they converge and where they diverge.
This title was first published in 2003. The problem of illegal labour immigration is one of the most controversial and hotly debated issues to confront the EU. This book examines the Scandinavian model of social partnership by which labour market relations are governed, creating an effective barrier to the employment of illegal immigrants. Using Denmark, Portugal and Germany as case studies it questions the impact of illegal immigrants and whether they pose a serious threat to the free movement of labour, capital and commodities. It will prove invaluable to those interested in labour market relations throughout the world.
Seismic changes in ideology and economic policy in China followed the death of Mao Zedong but one aspect of culture has remained constant: the use of 'Model Workers' for the purposes of propaganda and more recent public relations campaigns. In both a political and commercial context, the use of these individuals continues to thrive, and although the messages they promote have largely changed, their continued use indicates the extent to which they are believed to be an effective form of persuasion. Model Workers were deployed at key points in China's recent history and served to embody the Party's vision of the ideal Chinese citizen as they attempted to reshape the nation following a 'Century of Humiliation,' a ruinous war with Japan and a divisive civil war. This volume utilises the detailed analysis of posters, cinema and translations of related propaganda material to explore the extent of the influence of the Model Worker as a concept, on both propaganda and national policy.
Inextricably linked to neoliberal market economies, public relations' influence in our promotional culture is profound. Yet many aspects of the professional role are under-researched and poorly understood, including the impact on workers who construct displays of feeling to elicit a desired emotional response, to earn trust and manage clients. The emotionally demanding nature of this aspirational work, and how this is symptomatic of "always on" culture, is particularly overlooked. Drawing on interviews with practitioners and agency directors, together with the author's personal insights from observations in the field, this book fills a significant gap in knowledge by presenting a critical-interpretive exploration of everyday relational work of account handlers in PR agencies. In underscoring the relationship-driven, highly contingent nature of this work, the author shows that emotional labour is a defining feature of professionalism, even as public relations is reconfigured in the digital age. In doing so, the book draws on a wide range of related contemporary social and cultural theories, as well as critical public relations and feminist public relations literature. Scholars, educators and research students in PR and communications studies will gain rich insights into the emotion management strategies employed by public relations workers in handling professional relationships with clients, journalists and their colleagues, thereby uncovering some of the taken-for-granted aspects of this gendered, promotional work.
Bringing together important contributions from leading Israeli Jewish and Palestinian scholars, this comprehensive and multi-disciplinary volume addresses the most recent developments and outcomes of the labor market integration of the Palestinian minority inside Israel. The volume covers a wide range of topics (ethnicity, religion, racism, gender, and spatial segregation), groups (Jews and Palestinians, men and women), disciplines (sociology, law, and geography), and methodologies (quantitative and qualitative). The authors examine the sources of labor market inequality in terms of employment and unemployment, occupational concentration, segregation, exclusion, and wages. They provide insight into recent trends and analyze changing patters of inequality and economic activity within households. The chapters further underscore the role of residential segregation in producing labor market inequalities between Jews and Palestinians, who are separated both socially and spatially.
Critical Perspectives on the Management and Organization of Emergency Services makes an important contribution to the subject of emergency services management and to public administration and organization studies more generally. It critically assesses developments in emergency services management by examining the multi-dimensional nature of the provision of emergency services and their connectedness in advanced western democracies. The effective management of emergency services has never been more important than in today's high-pressured and cost-conscious public sector. The authors of this volume forensically analyse the challenges of delivering emergency services within this context. This book provides an in-depth, scholarly and comprehensive analysis of the changing landscape of emergency service provision and clearly addresses a gap in the market for a critical volume on the emergency services. For anyone seeking to understand why and how the management of emergency services matters, this collection is essential reading.
This edited collection provides a series of accounts of workers' local experiences that reflect the ubiquity of work's digitalisation. Precarious gig economy workers ride bikes and drive taxis in China and Britain; call centre workers in India experience invasive tracking; warehouse workers discover that hidden data has been used for layoffs; and academic researchers see their labour obscured by a 'data foam' that does not benefit them. These cases are couched in historical accounts of identity and selfhood experiments seen in the Hawthorne experiments and the lineage of automation. This book will appeal to scholars in the Sociology of Work and Digital Labour Studies and anyone interested in learning about monitoring and surveillance, automation, the gig economy and the quantified self in the workplace.
EURAM's Book of the Year in 2020, Hierarchy takes readers on a journey which traverses how this idea has evolved, is understood in various disciplines, and is applied in practice. Referring a wide range of sources, the book provides an inspirational introduction to understanding what is perhaps the key idea in business and management. As a fundamental organizational principle, hierarchy is everywhere. Perhaps because of its ubiquity, the significance of hierarchy has become under-analyzed in view of the growing strains on society imposed by organizational inequality. This book analyzes the advantages and disadvantages that hierarchy brings as a form of organization, providing an accessible overview of this fundamental idea within both business and society. This concise book provides a useful overview of existing research, for both students and scholars of business.
In Latino Professionals in America, Maria Chavez combines rich qualitative interviews, auto-ethnographic accounts, and policy analysis to explore the converging oppressions that make it difficult for Latinos to become professionals and to envision themselves as successful in those professions. Recounting her own story, Chavez interviews 31 Latino professionals from across the nation in a variety of occupations and careers, contextualizing their experiences amid family struggles and ongoing racism in the United States. She addresses gender inequality within the Latino community, arguing that by defending, rationalizing, or ignoring patriarchy within the Latino community perpetuates systems of oppression-especially for women; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals; and others at the intersections. The experiences of these Latino professionals and the author's analysis provide a blueprint for what works-one, both pragmatic and hopeful, that uses real lives to illustrate how a combination of public policies, people, and perseverance increases the presence of America's fastest-growing demographic group in the professional class.
In Latino Professionals in America, Maria Chavez combines rich qualitative interviews, auto-ethnographic accounts, and policy analysis to explore the converging oppressions that make it difficult for Latinos to become professionals and to envision themselves as successful in those professions. Recounting her own story, Chavez interviews 31 Latino professionals from across the nation in a variety of occupations and careers, contextualizing their experiences amid family struggles and ongoing racism in the United States. She addresses gender inequality within the Latino community, arguing that by defending, rationalizing, or ignoring patriarchy within the Latino community perpetuates systems of oppression-especially for women; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals; and others at the intersections. The experiences of these Latino professionals and the author's analysis provide a blueprint for what works-one, both pragmatic and hopeful, that uses real lives to illustrate how a combination of public policies, people, and perseverance increases the presence of America's fastest-growing demographic group in the professional class.
Within contemporary culture, 'leadership' is seen in ways that appeal to celebrated societal values and norms. As a result, it is becoming difficult to use the language of leadership without at the same time assuming its essentially positive, intrinsically affirmative nature. Within organizations, routinely referring to bosses as 'leaders' has, therefore, become both a symptom and a cause of a deep, largely unexamined new conceptual architecture. This architecture underpins how we think about authority and power at work. Capitalism, and its turbo-charged offspring neo-liberalism, have effectively captured 'leader' and 'leadership' to serve their own purposes. In other words, organizational leadership today is so often a particular kind of insidious conservativism dressed up in radical adjectives. This book makes visible the work that the language of leadership does in perpetuating fictions that are useful for bosses of work organizations. We do this so that we - and anyone who shares similar discomforts - can make a start in unravelling the fiction. We contend that even if our views are contrary to the vast and powerful leadership industry, our basic arguments rest on things that are plain and evident for all to see. Critical Perspectives on Leadership: The Language of Corporate Power will be key reading for students, academics and practitioners in the disciplines of Leadership, Organizational Studies, Critical Management Studies, Sociology and the related disciplines.
Politics is an aspect of everyday life within organizations, and is a force that inhibits individual and collective behaviour. If not fully understood, it can impede organizational change and development. In order to minimise the political aspects of organizational dynamics there is a need to understand the extent to which organizational culture brings about politicised conformance and how individuals shape their behaviour through self-interest to conform-sense-giving and sense-making nexus-thus moderating the degree of change initiatives. The Politics of Organizational Change explores the relationship between self-interest, power, politics and managing organizational change from a theoretical perspective. It encourages the fundamental questioning of the relationship between self-interest, power and control inherent within organizational change, and discusses the attendant implications for managing change. It will be of value to those who require a text that goes beyond set patterns of coverage found in textbooks dealing with managing change.
This book explores the 'backstage' of transnational legal practice by illuminating the routines and habits that are crucial to the field, yet rarely studied. Through innovative discussion of practices often considered trivial, the book encourages readers to conceptualise the 'backstage' as emblematic of transnational legal practice. Expanding the focus of transnational legal scholarship, the book explores the seemingly mundane procedures which are often taken for granted, despite being widely recognized as part of what it means to 'do transnational law'. Adopting various methodologies and approaches, each chapter focuses on one specific practice: for example, mooting exercises for law students, international travel, transnational time, the social media activities of lawyers and legal scholars, and the networking at the ICC's annual Assembly of States Parties. In and of themselves, these chapters each provide unique insights into what happens before the curtain rises and after it falls on the familiar 'outputs' of transnational law. It does more, however, than provide a range of different practices: it takes the next step in theorizing on the importance of the marginal and the everyday for what we 'know' to be 'the law' and what the international legal field looks like. Furthermore, by interrogating undiscussed academic practices, it provides students with a candid view on the perils and promises of transnational legal scholarship, inviting them to join the discussion and to practice their discipline in a more reflexive way. Written in an accessible format, containing a readable collection of personal and recognizable accounts of transnational legal practice, the book provides an everyday insight into transnational law. It will therefore appeal to international legal scholars, alongside any reader with an interest in transnational law.
This widely acclaimed book, first published in 1974, was a classic from its first day in print. Written in a direct, inviting way by Harry Braverman, whose years as an industrial worker gave him rich personal insight into work, Labor and Monopoly Capital overturned the reigning ideologies of academic sociology. This new edition features an introduction by John Bellamy Foster that sets the work in historical and theoretical context, as well as two rare articles by Braverman, "The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century" (1975) and "Two Comments" (1976), that add much to our understanding of the book.
Originally published in 1990. Why has the pattern of ownership in British industry changed so dramatically in recent years? This high-level and wide-ranging discussion on the developments of the industrial scene in Britain investigates why such changes have occurred, and explores their impact on management and work relations. The contributors consider whether this trend will continue, arguing that these changes will have far-reaching consequences for both western and eastern political economies in the twenty-first century. This title will be of interest to students of business, economics and management.
In this title, first published in 1987, the author discusses the economic and industrial circumstances in Britain under which profit-sharing and co-partnership came into being. He explores the merits and drawbacks of the system as both advocates and opponents saw them, the motivations of employers in introducing profit-sharing schemes, and the implementing of such notable schemes as that of Lever Brothers, a multinational corporation based in Britain. The author also assesses the role of profit-sharing and co-partnership in the development of modern management practices and industrial relations.
First published in 1975, Workers' Participation in Industry provides a fresh perspective on a highly significant issue. Its principal argument is that developments in workers' participation and control cannot be satisfactorily understood except by reference to broader questions concerning the exercise of power in industry and in society at large. The book's approach is sociological and explanatory, and it is written for the general reader as well as for students and specialists on both sides of industry.
This title, originally published in 1986, explores the political and economic conditions of the 1980s, and reflects the world-wide interest in industrial democracy. Each chapter analyses the main adaptations in policy, theory and experimentation that have occurred in industrial democracy in the 1980s. In particular, the role of managers is examined in depth and detail, since these personnel have been responsible for a number of recent initiatives. The themes covered are vital for all those seeking new directions in the reform of modern industrial relations in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. |
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