Defining Global Justice offers the first comprehensive overview of the history of the United States' role in the International Labor Organization (ILO). In this thought-provoking book, Edward Lorenz addresses the challenge laid down by the President of the American Political Science Association in 2000, who urged scholars to discover "how well-structured institutions could enable the world to have 'a new birth of freedom'." Lorenz's study describes one model of a well-structured institution. His history of the U.S. interaction with the ILO shows how some popular organizations, including organized labor, the women's movement, academics, the legal community, and religious institutions have been able to utilize the ILO structure to counter what the APSA president called "self-serving elites and ... their worst impulses." These organizations succeeded repeatedly in introducing popular visions of social justice into global economic planning and the world economy.

By underscoring the role of women in this process, he highlights the importance of gender relations in the development of labor standards policy. Lorenz also shows how transformations in the economic and social reproduction of knowledge gradually displaced academics from the cutting edge of research on labor issues.

Throughout this fascinating study, Lorenz reminds his readers that the development of decent labor standards has come in large part from the efforts of religious groups and a host of other nongovernmental, voluntary civic organizations that have insisted labor is a human activity, not a commodity.

Defining Global Justice reveals why the United States, despite showing exceptional restraint in domestic social policymaking, played a leading role in the pursuit of just international labor standards. Lorenz's lucid volume covers a century's worth of efforts, charting the development of a body of international law and an institutional structure as important to the global economy of the twenty-first century as the battle against slavery was in the nineteenth century.

This book demonstrates how local contexts of urbanization and cultures of work are intimately meshed together. Each chapter explores a discrete dimension of the way people organize their working lives in post-industrial cities, taking close account of the social and environmental impact of this balancing act. The book features cross-national and inter-city comparative household level research, highlighting significant contradictions underpinning the nature of production, consumer expectation, work-life balance and urban environmental quality.

Based on new empirical evidence, this book provides a comparative analysis of the transition from school to work across the European Union. It examines the negative impacts of the recent employment turbulences on school leavers' integration into the labour market, as well as identifying the individual, social, and economic factors that facilitate smooth transitions.

Focusing on the ILO, this volume explores its role as creator of international social networks and facilitator of exchange between various national and international actors since its establishment in 1919. It emphasizes the role played by the ILO in the international circulation of ideas, expertise and practices that foster the emergence and shaping of international social models, and examines the impact of its methods and models on national and local societies. By analysing the case of the ILO, the authors rethink the influence of international organizations in the shaping of the contemporary world and the emergence of a global civil society.

This collection brings together a variety of new scholarship by a group of highly qualified and internationally renowned scholars and supplemented by a set of young researchers entering the field of global history and the history of international organizations.

Using two longitudinal survey projects as examples, the authors describe how to use organizational surveys to assesses employee attitudes and to develop and improve quality of work life programs.

From the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1888 abolition of slavery in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro was home to the largest urban population of enslaved workers anywhere in the Americas. It was also the site of an incipient working-class consciousness that expressed itself across seemingly distinct social categories. In this volume, Marcelo Badaro Mattos demonstrates that these two historical phenomena cannot be understood in isolation. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, Badaro Mattos reveals the diverse labor arrangements and associative life of Rio's working class, from which emerged the many strategies that workers both free and unfree pursued in their struggles against oppression.

This book is a timely revival of the social and political importance of meaningful work, which explores a philosophy of work based upon the value of meaningfulness and argues for the institution of a new politics of meaningfulness.

Nearly half of all physicians and biologists are females, as are the majority of new psychologists, veterinarians, and dentists, suggesting that women have achieved equality with men in the workforce. But the ranks of professionals in math-intensive careers remain lopsidedly male; up to 93% of tenure-track academic positions in some of the most mathematically-oriented fields are held by men.
Three main explanations have been advanced to explain the dearth of women in math-intensive careers, and in The Mathematics of Sex, Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams describe and dissect the evidence for each. The first explanation involves innate ability--male brains are physiologically optimized to perform advanced mathematical and spatial operations; the second is that social and cultural biases inhibit females' training and success in mathematical fields; the third alleges that women are less interested in math-intensive careers than are men, preferring people-oriented pursuits. Drawing on research in endocrinology, economics, sociology, education, genetics, and psychology to arrive at their own unique, evidence-based conclusion, the authors argue that the problem is due to certain choices that women (but not men) are compelled to make in our society; that women tend not to favor math-intensive careers for certain reasons, and that sex differences in math and spatial ability cannot adequately explain the scarcity of women in these fields. The Mathematics of Sex represents the first time such a thorough synthesis of data has been carried out to solve the puzzle of women's underrepresentation in math-intensive careers. The result is a readable, engaging account suitable not only for academics in an array of disciplines, but for general readers as well--including educators, science policymakers, parents of daughters, and anyone intellectually curious about a key controversy of our time.

This timely and innovative book delivers a comprehensive analysis of the non-recognition of the right to a family life of migrant live-in domestic and care workers in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and Ukraine.

Have de-industrialization, expanding services and occupational upgrading put an end to class divisions? Drawing on extensive empirical research, this book adds new insights to the debate about the end of class and shows that Western European societies remain decidedly stratified with respect to material advantages and citizenship rights. Well grounded in theory, it offers a highly original account of today's social stratification and presents novel findings about working conditions, political preferences and pension coverage of different classes in contemporary Britain, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

Based on an extensive national survey of workers and four separate industry-specific surveys, Generations and Work will examine and provide answers to the most common issues and problems of multi generational work by assessing differences and commonalities between and among generations.

"Europeanization, Care and Gender" addresses the recent underexamined developments concerning care as a crucial part of the restructuring of care labour markets in Europe, including contents of care and different forms of care that range from EU legislation level to individual care workers' and cared for experiences. Through a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this collection examines and further develops current theoretical and political debates about complexities of care and the impact of multilevel changes in Europe. This book provides a foundation for understanding the major restructuration of care that is taking place at the European level as part of the global phenomena of care markets and the complexity of care within research and how it is no longer restricted to the domain of social policy but a pertinent issue within political science, sociology, legal studies and feminist research.

This book presents emerging work in the co-evolving fields of design-led systemics, referred to as systemic design to distinguish it from the engineering and hard science epistemologies of system design or systems engineering. There are significant societal forces and organizational demands impelling the requirement for "better means of change" through integrated design practices of systems and services. Here we call on advanced design to lead programs of strategic scale and higher complexity (e.g., social policy, healthcare, education, urbanization) while adapting systems thinking methods, creatively pushing the boundaries beyond the popular modes of systems dynamics and soft systems. Systemic design is distinguished by its scale, social complexity and integration - it is concerned with higher-order systems that that entail multiple subsystems. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centred design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems. As designers engage with ever more complex problem areas, it is necessary to draw on a basis other than individual creativity and contemporary "design thinking" methods. Systems theories can co-evolve with a new school of design theory to resolve informed action on today's highly resilient complex problems and can deal effectively with demanding, contested and high-stakes challenges.

Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task. Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary child-rearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the ideology of intensive mothering - an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive. Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on which this cultural ambivalence is played out.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence In this enlightening study of modern working lives in Britain, leading experts on the sociology of work draw on detailed statistical analyses to assess job quality and job satisfaction. Drawing on decades of research data on hundreds of occupational groups, the authors challenge conventional notions of 'good work' and consider them afresh through the lens of workers themselves. With examples from many professions, the book examines why some occupations feel more rewarding than others, regardless of factors like pay and security. Exploring fresh policies to promote the agenda for fulfilling employment, it builds an important case for genuine and sustained satisfaction in working lives.

The book explores various aspects of cognitive and motivational psychology as they impact entrepreneurial behavior. Building upon the 2009 volume, Understanding the Entrepreneurial Mind, the editors and contributors explore the cognitions, motivations, passions, intentions, perceptions, and emotions associated with entrepreneurial behaviors, in each case preserving their original chapters and enhancing them with thoughtful and targeted updates, reflecting on the most recent developments in theory and practice, telling the story of what has transpired in the last decade in the field of entrepreneurial psychology. The volume addresses such questions as: Why do some people start business and others do not? Is entrepreneurship a natural quality or can it be taught? Do entrepreneurs think differently from others? While there is a great deal of literature exploring the dynamics of new firm creation, policies to promote innovation and technology transfer, and the psychology of creativity; research on entrepreneurial mindset or cognition is relatively new, and draws largely from such related fields as organizational behavior, cognitive and social psychology, career development, and consumer research. In this book, editors Brannback and Carsrud have reassembled the contributors to Understanding the Entrepreneurial Mind to discuss new research paradigms given their vantage point years after the original volume was published. Featuring the most current literature references, Revisiting the Entrepreneurial Mind continues to challenge conventional approaches to entrepreneurship and articulate an agenda for future research.

With so many social challenges facing our world, trying to effect change feels daunting. The problems are complex, the politics murky, and the players innumerable. Yet, every day there are regular heroes making a significant impact on our most intractable social issues. "Can't Not Do" is a catchphrase for the urge that captures the heart of effective social change agents--explaining, in their own words, their passion and drive: "I can't not do this." "It's not that I can do this, it's that I can't not." "I could not imagine not doing something about this issue." The surprising truth from the trenches is: we already have numerous proven solutions for our many social challenges; what our world needs most, and what most changes our children's future, are more people prepared and committed to act on their social impulses for the long haul. Innovation helps. Money helps, too. But greater numbers of committed people help the most. If you feel an internal, persistent call to do more for the world, Can't Not Do will help you to bridge the gap between "wanting to do" and "doing"--to access the drive of an effective change agent, to break through self-imposed barriers, to learn key principles for success, and to start seeing yourself acting as a change agent. There is no "secret sauce" someone is born with and no special club needed to be successful at social change. Rather, successful change agents share some fundamental orientations to the world and to their committed cause and, over time, learn certain lessons that help them become more effective. These lessons are reflected in Can't Not Do in seven seemingly simple questions that provide guideposts and unlock the reader's potential to make a difference for a social cause they care about. This isn't a self-help book. It's an inspiring narrative intertwined with a "street-readiness" dialogue, between the author and you, between you and your inner aspirations. These are authentic success stories, vital questions, and unconventional answers that can guide and inspire you to realize your greatest potential.

Responding to the deteriorating situation of migrants today and the complex assemblages of the geographies they navigate, Coercive Geographies examines historical and contemporary forms of coercion and constraint exercised by a wide range of actors in diverse settings. It links the question of spatial confines to that of labor. This fraught nexus of mobility and work seems self-evidently relevant to explore. Coercive Geographies is our attempt to bring together space, precarity, labor coercion and mobility in an analytical lens. Precarity emerges in particular geographical and historical contexts, which are decisive for how it is shaped. The book analyzes coercive geographies as localized and spatialized intersections between labor regulations and migration policies, which become detrimental to existing mobility frameworks. Contributors include: Irina Aguiari, Abdulkadir Osman Farah, Leandros Fischer, Konstantinos Floros, Johan Heinsen, Martin Bak Jorgensen, Martin Ottovay Jorgensen, Apostolos Kapsalis, Karin Krifors, Sven Van Melkebeke, Susi Meret, and Vasileios Spyridon Vlassis.

Since the 1950s, social scientists have devoted serious attention to the relationship between alcohol and the workplace. In recent years, awareness of the tremendous costs, both human and financial, associated with alcoholism has led to a dramatic increase in both scholarly and practical interest in the field. Although researchers working in this area are relatively few, they have sustained a lively interest in the alcohol/work nexus and have attracted others to the field through conferences where ideas and research strategies are exchanged. The larger part of "Alcohol Problem Intervention in the Workplace" provides an up-to-date thorough examination of the problem, the research, and the possible solutions.

This volume is directed toward both practitioners and researchers, providing a wide range of new data and new ideas that bear upon coping with alcohol problems in the workplace. Part I addresses issues regarding the distribution and correlates of alcohol problems and alcohol use among employees. Part II is centered on issues associated with Employee Assistance Programs. And Part III is a general conclusion and overview offering suggestions and implications for the practitioner in the workplace. Because this collection supplies the most current thinking and information on controlling alcohol problems in the workplace, it will be of particular interest to human resource management and to employee assistance specialists, who are now required to pass a certification examination.

Economic globalization, the adoption of export-oriented industrialism strategies and the global restructuring of manufacturing have resulted in the increased participation of women in the manufacturing sector in Asia. This collection, edited by Armajit Kaur, is an important comparative study that covers the major East, South and Southeast Asian countries. It explores the diversity of women's work in factory and small-batch production and home-based work. It also focuses on women's employment and health conditions in the context of internationally accepted core labor standards.

This book takes a life course perspective, analysing and comparing the biographies of mothers and fathers in seven European countries in context. Based on an innovative, cross-national EU study, it examines the ways in which working parents negotiate the transition to parenthood and attempt to find a 'work-life balance'. Using in-depth qualitative biographical data, the book offers a deep understanding of working parents' real lives by locating them within diverse national, workplace and family contexts. It provides rich insights into how policies and practices at the institutional level play out in individual and family lives, how they shape the decisions during both transition phases and in parents' daily experiences of juggling work and family life. It highlights some difficult and complex issues about the sustainability of contemporary working practices for bringing up children that are highly relevant in times of economic retrenchment. 'Transitions to parenthood in Europe' will be of interest to an academic readership at all levels of the social sciences, as well as employers, managers, trade unions and policy makers.

This volume features sociological research and theory on gender and sexuality in the workplace, and identifies how organizations can achieve a gender-balanced and sexually-diverse work force. While identifying characteristics of work organizations that have made important strides to achieving equality in the workplace, articles also detail how women and sexual minorities continue to face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion. Special attention is paid to how race and class shape the experience of discrimination for these groups. Topics discussed are wide-ranging and include: gender discrimination and the wage gap; sexual minorities (LGBT workers); homophobic and 'gay friendly' workplaces; sexual harassment; sex in the workplace; sex work and sex workers; gender equity policies; transgender workers; men and women in non-traditional jobs; occupational gender segregation; and, gender difference in work hours. "The Research in the Sociology of Work" series is proud to publish the works of new and established scholars on these important topics, including both quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as review essays that set the agenda for future sociological analysis.

Middlemen in international markets are one of the most critical components of firms' international marketing strategy. They constitute the main link between the exporter and the local market, and are thereby the "extended arm" of the exporter organisation. This volume of AIM analyses different aspects of relations between exporters and their middlemen: selection and governance, information exchange and learning, cultural aspects and finally the dynamics of such relations. The volume should be seen as a continuation of a stream of literature that has emerged over the last five to ten years.

This volume is more concerned with the phenomena under study than with casting light on one particular theoretical perspective. The contributions represented here are therefore drawing on a number of different theoretical streams: agency theory, transaction cost economics, network theory, economic sociology, resource base theory and its applied "offspring," Internationalisation Process school of thought. It features researchers from universities in nine different countries, representing both well-established and young academicians. This is a manifest indication of the importance of this field of research.

The book is an invaluable asset to students both at the graduate and doctoral levels, and should be a must for researchers in this particular field. Also practitioners will find this book stimulating in their quest for improvements to their relations with their foreign middlemen.