Through a rich ethnography of street and working children in Calcutta, India, this book offers the first sustained enquiry into postcolonial childhoods, arguing that the lingering effects of colonialism are central to comprehending why these children struggle to inhabit the transition from labour to schooling.

Flexibility has become a key concept in discourses on developments in working life. However, it is an ambiguous concept in several ways, and theoretical clarity is lacking. Further, large parts of the literature are prescriptive and ideological rather than empirical and analytical. This book contributes both theoretically and empirically to expound the importance of clearer concepts in the national and international debates on economic systems, labour markets, work organisations, and experiences of work.

This book is for upper-level students, managers and academics who are interested in exploring the 'messy reality' of the contemporary workplace and in considering how things might be done differently. In particular, it offers a critical perspective on organisational behaviour and the sociology of work. By challenging common sense ideas about management, this textbook offers an up-to-date view of the complex problems and dilemmas facing managers and workers in the contemporary world. Providing a fresh analysis and overview of several core themes, the chapters focus on applied ethics, social issues, diversity, continuity and change. Theoretical reflections are combined with detailed ethnographic studies to offer both breadth and depth. Individual chapters present studies on issues as diverse as teleworking, apprentices, paternalism, migration, animal charities, factory work and farm work. Underpinning all of these studies is a sense that the world of work could be a better place and that students, practitioners and tutors all have an obligation to question the assumptions in business and management. Key features include: * Original in-depth qualitative cases * Critical approach * Non-standard work situations * Presents lived experience rather than 'model' or 'idealised' problems * Focus on context, understanding and interpretation of complex situations * Examples of a variety of management practice * Discussion of management issues in wider philosophical and political context Contemporary Issues in Management would be suitable for those studying organisational behaviour, management, ethnography and sociology of work. The book will also be of interest to the general reader with an interest in developing a broader awareness of contemporary management.

Companies and work have undergone significant change in the last two decades, and a new productive model has emerged. This book shows how this model works and argues that it has a high degree of coherence in terms of the integration of functions within companies. It also addresses the relation between 'just in time' teamwork and new ways of employee mobilization which together lead to increased productivity. From this evidence, Durand creates a new and challenging theory of services which is nevertheless firmly rooted in the concrete experience of workshops and offices.

The essays in this collection represent a major contribution to our understanding of youth and transitions to key areas of adult citizenship, including employment, independent living arrangements and political participation. The education of children and young people in 'citizenship' usually emphasizes either rights or responsibilities, through the concept of 'active citizenship'. The central concern of the book is to address the tensions and contradictions between the teaching of active citizenship and the real life difficulties many young people face in the practical transition to being adult citizens in modern life.

Pastoralism has shaped livelihoods and landscapes on the African continent for millennia. Mobile livestock husbandry has generally been portrayed as an economic strategy that successfully met the challenges of low biomass productivity and environmental variability in arid and semi-arid environments. This volume focuses on the emergence, diversity, and inherent dynamics of pastoralism in Africa based on research during a twelve-year period on the southwest and northeast regions. Unraveling the complex prehistory, history, and contemporary political ecology of African pastoralism, results in insight into the ingenuity and flexibility of historical and contemporary herders.

Global Histories of Work is the first title in the new series "Work in Global and Historical Perspective". This collection of selected articles written by leading scholars in different disciplines provides both an introduction and numerous insights into themes, debates and methods of Global Labour History as they have been developed over the last years. The contributions to the volume discuss crucial historiographical developments; present different professions that have gained new attention in the context of an emerging Global Labour History; critically engage the boundaries of "free" labour and the ambiguities contained in this concept; and take up and historicize current debates about "informal labour". Global Histories of Work will familiarize readers with a burgeoning fi eld of high academic, social, and political relevance.

This book considers patterns of women's employment in the period 1700-1850. Focusing on the county of Essex, material on the worsted industry, agriculture, fashion trades, service, prostitution, and marriage and family life will shed light on contemporary debates in history such as the sexual division of labour, controversy over continuity or change in women's employment, the importance of ideas of 'separate spheres' and 'domestic ideology', and the overall effects of capitalism on women's employment.

Since the Late 1980s incomes have fallen sharply in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with unemployment and poverty rates rising dramatically. The ILO's Central and Eastern European Team has conducted a series of studies concerning the role of minimum wages in the countries of this rapidly transforming region, in particular looking at ways in which this role should be revised. Based on this research, Minimum Wages in Central and Eastern Europe examines the most crucial issues in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldavia, Poland, Romania and Russia, and compares their systems with those of western industrialized economies. Bringing together primary data so far unknown beyond a small circle of policymakers and officials, the contributors consider the evidence and the implications of new developments and recommend a series of reforms.

"Sisters in the Brotherhoods "is an oral-history-based study of women who have, against considerable odds, broken the gender barrier to blue-collar employment in various trades in New York City beginning in the 1970s. It is a story of the fight against deeply ingrained cultural assumptions about what constitutes women's work, the middle-class bias of feminism, the daily grinding sexism of male coworkers, and the institutionalized discrimination of employers and unions. It is also the story of some gutsy women who, seeking the material rewards and personal satisfactions of skilled manual labor, have struggled to make a place for themselves among New York City's construction workers, stationary engineers, firefighters, electronic technicians, plumbers, and transit workers.Each story contributes to an important unifying theme: the way women confronted the enormous sexism embedded in union culture and developed new organizational forms to support their struggles, including and especially the United Tradeswomen.

Travelling intensively to and for work helps but also challenges people to find ways of balancing work and personal life. Drawing on a large European longitudinal study, Mobile Europe explores the diversity and ambivalence of mobility situations and the implications for family and career development.

This book examines gender and professions in the 21st century. Historically the professions encompassed law, medicine and the church, all of which excluded women from participation. Industry and the 20th century introduced new professions such as engineering and latterly information technology skill and, whilst the increase in credentialism and accreditations open up further avenues for professions to develop, many of the 'newer' professions exhibit similar gendered characteristics, still based on a perceived masculine identity of the professional workers and the association of the professional with high level credentials based on university qualifications. In contrast, professions such as teaching and nursing, characterized as women's professions which reflected women's socially acceptable role of caring, developed as regulated occupations from the late 19th century. Since the 1970s and the women's movements, anti-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation and policies have aimed to break down the gendered bastion of the professions and grant women entry. With growing numbers of women employed in a range of professions and the political importance of gender equality gaining prominence globally, Gender and the Professions also considers how women and men are faring in a diverse range of professional occupations. Aimed at researchers, academics and policy makers in the fields of Professions, Gender Studies, Organizational Studies and related disciplines. Gender and the Professions provides new insights of women's experiences in the professions in both developed and less developed countries and in professions less often explored.

The first edition of Spatial Divisions of Labour rapidly became a classic. It had enormous influence on thinking about uneven development, the nature of economic space, and the conceptualisation of place arguing for an approach embedding all these issues in a notion of spatialised social relations. This second edition includes a new first chapter and an extensive additional concluding essay addressing key issues in the debates and controversies which followed initial publication.

The purpose of this contributed volume is to consider how global consumption patterns will develop in the next few decades, and what the consequences of that development will be for the economy, policymakers, and society at large. In the long run, the extent to which economic growth translates into better living conditions strongly depends on how rising affluence and new technologies shape consumer preferences. The ongoing rise in household income in developing countries raises some important questions: Will consumption patterns always continue to expand in the same manner as we have witnessed in the previous two centuries? If not, how might things evolve differently? And what implications would such changes hold for not only our understanding of consumption behavior but also our pursuit of more sustainable societies?

This book presents the findings, applications, and theoretical underpinnings of a unique leadership communication model: motivating language theory. Drawing from management, social science, and communication theories, motivating language theory demonstrates how leader-to-follower speech improves employee and organizational well-being and drives positive workplace outcomes (such as employee performance, retention, and job satisfaction) in a wide array of settings. It presents an integrated model based on empirical findings and theoretical developments from the past three decades to explore the three dimensions of motivating language: direction giving language, empathetic language, and meaning-making language. It will be a comprehensive source for its empirical relationships, generalizability, theoretical basis, and future directions for research and practice.

Examining the debate on quality of jobs in Europe, this book focuses on the work-life balance-a central element of the EU agenda. It addresses tensions between work and private life, examining job quality, job security, working conditions and time-use patterns of individuals and households as well as institutional contexts.

"Mining Women "presents eighteen new essays that illuminate how gender identities and inequality have been constructed historically and sustained in what could be hailed as the first truly global enterprise and arguably the most "masculine" of industries--mining. These essays explore gender relations and women's work and activism in different parts of the world and from multiple perspectives. They investigate not only gender's role in the domestic and cultural aspects of mining communities, but also its impact on the emerging industrial and capitalist system from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Each essay is important for understanding the ways in which gender is imagined, lived, inscribed, and contested in specific historical and material contexts. As a whole, the volume reveals that despite the tremendous variation between industries, cultures, and national experiences, women have challenged the constraints of gender definitions on their lives and work.

The last century has seen radical social changes in Ireland, which have impacted all aspects of local life but none more so than traditional Irish music, an increasingly important identity marker both in Ireland and abroad. The author focuses on a small village in County Clare, which became a kind of pilgrimage site for those interested in experiencing traditional music. He begins by tracing its historical development from the days prior to the influx of visitors, through a period called "the Revival," in which traditional Irish music was revitalized and transformed, to the modern period, which is dominated by tourism. A large number of incomers, locally known as "blow-ins," have moved to the area, and the traditional Irish music is now largely performed and passed on by them. This fine-grained ethnographic study explores the commercialization of music and culture, the touristic consolidation and consumption of "place," and offers a critique of the trope of "authenticity," all in a setting of dramatic social change in which the movement of people is constant.

This book uses the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to analyze the situation of individuals and institutions in the context of the employment relationship. It is based on the premise that both employer and employee are vulnerable to various social, economic, and political forces, although differently so. It demonstrates how in responding to those complementary institutional relationships of employer and employee the state unequally and inequitably favors employers over employees. Several chapters included in this collection also consider how the state shapes, creates and maintains through law the social identities of employer and employee and how that legal regime operates as the allocation of power and privilege. This unique and fundamental role of the state in defining the employment relationship profoundly affects the respective abilities and degree of resiliency of actual employers and employees. Other chapters explore how attention to the respective vulnerability and resilience of those who do and those who direct work in assessing the employment relationship can raise fundamental questions of social justice and suggest new avenues for critical engagement with labor and employment law. Collectively, these pieces articulate a framework for imaging what would constitute an appropriately "Responsive State" in the employment context and how those interested in social justice might begin to use the concepts of vulnerability and resilience in their arguments.

This book makes the case that far too much work undertaken under the banner of 'behavioural safety' is overly person-focused. 'If you can walk on hot coals, you can do anything - so be safe' needs to be dismissed out of hand, but also more advanced techniques based on coaching and empowerment fail to reflect the fact that, as 'Just Culture' models show, the great majority of causes of unsafe behaviour are environmental. Our methodologies mustn't focus on the person with an open mind that there may be an underlying root cause; they must start from the statistically proven assumption that there is an underlying cause. This shift in mindset has a profound impact on the type of methodologies we must lead with, how they are used, how they are perceived, and last but certainly not least, their efficacy. A Definitive Guide to Behavioural Safety is a one-stop guide to all of the core theories and principles that underpin behaviour-based safety. All front-line behaviours that lead to incidents and injury are covered by the term behavioural safety, and getting to grips with the behaviours that might lead people to engage in unsafe or risky behaviour is crucial to prevention. In this book, internationally acclaimed behavioural safety expert Tim Marsh leads the reader through the three main strands: The awareness approach. The walk-and-talk approach. The Six Sigma safety or the Deming-inspired 'full' approach. Going through the very latest innovations in the field, the book covers the systemic approach to safety observation, measurement, intervention and analysis, but also incorporates emotional intelligence training aimed at enhancing supervisor-worker trust and communication more generally. A Definite Guide to Behavioural Safety is a perfect guide for any professional, whether you're aiming to set up an ambitious and wide-ranging behavioural safety programme from scratch or you're looking to refresh or extend an existing approach.

This book aims to provide the reader with an insight into the relevance of a section of the economy, which is often referred to as the 'social and solidarity economy' (SSE); and highlight some of the current issues in the field, how they are being addressed and some of their future implications. Using case studies from around the world, this book 'Social and Solidarity Economy: The World's Economy With a Social Face' provides an up-to-date account of the strengths and weaknesses of these initiatives across four continents including issues that have not been researched sufficiently before (e.g. circular economy, social propaganda and its dangers, social enterprise as a panacea for NGOs in developing countries, and 'new' social movements). There is growing interest in SSE initiatives among policymakers, foundations, researchers and academic institutions around the world. Despite this interest, SSE related research remains scarce. There are concerned that SSE initiatives, which contribute significantly to their local communities' development, need to be more widely disseminated amongst the general public. The Social and Solidarity Economy: The World's Economy With a Social Face will help promote the ground-breaking work being done by organisations and individuals but which remain undocumented and help to raise awareness of such initiatives as well as contribute to academia with a critical approach to the sector covering issues that have not been covered much before, such as the circular economy and the dangers of social propaganda. Aimed at researchers, academics and policy makers in the fields of Social Enterprise, CSR, Tourism, International Economics as well as supporting disciplines 'Social and Solidarity Economy: The World's Economy With a Social Face' looks to establish and help define the field.

Since Vietnam introduced economic reforms in the mid-1980s, domestic service has become an established sector of the labour market, and domestic workers have become indispensable to urban life in the rapidly changing country. This book analyzes the ways in which the practices and discourses of domestic service serve to forge and contest emerging class identities in post-reform Vietnam. Drawing on a rich and diverse range of qualitative data, including ethnographies, interviews, and narratives, it shows that such practices and discourses are rooted in cultural notions of gender and rural-urban difference and enduring socialist structures of feeling, which, in turn, clash with the realities of growing differentiation. Domestic workers' experiences reveal negotiations with class boundaries actively set by the urban middle class, who seek distinction through emerging notions and practices of domesticity. These boundaries are nevertheless riddled with gender and class anxiety on the side of the latter, partly because of the very struggles and contestations of the domestic workers. More broadly, Minh T. N. Nguyen links the often invisible intimate dynamics of class formation in the domestic sphere with wider political economic processes in a post-socialist country embarking on marketization while retaining the political control of a party-state. As a pioneering ethnographic study of domestic service in Vietnam today, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian culture & society, social anthropology, gender studies, human geography and development studies.

The promotion of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship in India in recent decades has had far-reaching implications beyond the economy, and transformed social and cultural attitudes and conduct. This book brings together pioneering research on the nature of India's enterprise culture, covering a range of different themes: workplace, education, religion, trade, films, media, youth identity, gender relations, class formation and urban politics. Based on extensive empirical and ethnographic research by the contributors, the book shows the myriad manifestations of enterprise culture and the making of the aspiring, enterprising-self in public culture, social practice, and personal lives, ranging from attempts to construct hegemonic ideas in public discourse, to appropriation by individuals and groups with unintended consequences, to forms of contested and contradictory expression. It discusses what is 'new' about enterprise culture and how it relates to pre-existing ideas, and goes on to look at the processes and mechanisms through which enterprise culture is becoming entrenched, as well as how it affects different classes and communities. The book highlights the social and political implications of enterprise culture and how it recasts family and interpersonal relationships as well as personal and collective identity. Illuminating one of the most important aspects of India's current economic and social transformation, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Development Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

Dear Reader This is a book about mobile virtual work. It aims at clarifying the basic concepts and showing present practices and future challenges. The roots of the book are in the collaboration of few European practitioners and - searchers, who met each other under the umbrella of the Swedish SALTSA programme (see next page) in January 2002 in Stockholm. The group was first called 'ICT, Mobility and Work Organisation' but redefined itself quickly as 'Mobile Virtual Cooperative Work' group. The change of the name reflects the development of reasoning in the group. We could not find much material on mobile work, certainly not systematic studies, - though a growing interest in mobile technologies and services could be found. Practices of telework and virtual organizations were better known, but we were convinced that the combination with mobile work was so- thing different and new. Our main target became to understand what it was all about. The next step was an expert meeting in October 2004 at Ranas Castle again in Sweden. A wider group of experts was invited to present their views on mobile virtual work and ideas about book chapters from different perspectives of working life. Some of the expertise could be found through the network of the AMI@Work family created by the New Working En- ronments unit of the European Commission's Information Society Dir- torate-General. Also close collaboration was developed with the related MOSAIC program."