This book presents new theories and international empirical evidence on the state of work and employment around the world. Changes in production systems, economic conditions and regulatory conditions are posing new questions about the growing use by employers of precarious forms of work, the contradictory approaches of governments towards employment and social policy, and the ability of trade unions to improve the distribution of decent employment conditions. The book proposes a 'new labour market segmentation approach' for the investigation of issues of job quality, employment inequalities, and precarious work. This approach is distinctive in seeking to place the changing international patterns and experiences of labour market inequalities in the wider context of shifting gender relations, regulatory regimes and production structures. -- .

A much-needed addition to literature, this timely edited collection aims to provide clarity and understanding on how modern organizations work. The authors explore the characteristics of hybrid organizations in contemporary society, taking into account the complex societal challenges that face businesses today. Arguing that hybrid organizations are in fact not a new phenomenon, this thought-provoking collection goes beyond existing research and re-evaluates our traditional understanding of this concept. Scholars of organization, management and innovation will find this book an insightful read, as it sheds light on the fundamental aspects that shape today's hybrid organizations.

The primary purpose of Issues in Career Development is to provide a broad look at the field of career development including career counseling, career guidance, career education, and general career development programming, and to examine some of the field's major themes, approaches, and assumptions. We will examine both knowledge from the past as well as what the future might bring. We will bring together a variety of experts/authors from the area of interest and try to provide readers with a framework for action based on the best available research information. The concept of career development is in a period of dramatic transition resulting from equally dramatic changes in the labor market and the socio-cultural environment. Work has a different meaning today than it had one hundred, fifty, or even ten years ago. Career is now much more tightly interwoven with life, and lifestyle. In that context, career development can only be understood when viewed as a part of the broader concept of human development. Past research clearly indicates that interventions can and do have a significant impact on a variety of career development areas (e.g. job satisfaction, worker productivity), however, there are significant questions that are yet to be answered, and given the changing career/work landscape, significant questions that are not yet known. Particular areas of interest for the future relate to the changing nature of the labor market, gender and minority group issues, socio-economic trends, etc. Historically, much of the research on career development has assumed that psychological factors play the major role in a person's career choices. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the environment plays a much bigger role than previously assumed. This monograph series will examine these and other relevant issues in the years to come.

This open access book explores the historical, cultural and philosophical contexts that have made anti-poverty the core of Chinese society since Liberation in 1949, and why poverty alleviation measures evolved from the simplistic aid of the 1950s to Xi Jinping's precision poverty alleviation and its goal of eliminating absolute poverty by 2020. The book also addresses the implications of China's experience for other developing nations tackling not only poverty but such issues as pandemics, rampant urbanization and desertification exacerbated by global warming. The first of three parts draws upon interviews of rural and urban Chinese from diverse backgrounds and local and national leaders. These interviews, conducted in even the remotest areas of the country, offer candid insights into the challenges that have forced China to continually evolve its programs to resolve even the most intractable cases of poverty. The second part explores the historic, cultural and philosophical roots of old China's meritocratic government and how its ancient Chinese ethics have led to modern Chinese socialism's stance that "poverty amidst plenty is immoral". Dr. Huang Chengwei, one of China's foremost anti-poverty experts, explains the challenges faced at each stage as China's anti-poverty measures evolved over 70 years to emphasize "enablement" over "aid" and to foster bottom-up initiative and entrepreneurialism, culminating in Xi Jinping's precision poverty alleviation. The book also addresses why national economic development alone cannot reduce poverty; poverty alleviation programs must be people-centered, with measurable and accountable practices that reach even to household level, which China has done with its "First Secretary" program. The third part explores the potential for adopting China's practices in other nations, including the potential for replicating China's successes in developing countries through such measures as the Belt and Road Initiative. This book also addresses prevalent misperceptions about China's growing global presence and why other developing nations must address historic, systemic causes of poverty and inequity before they can undertake sustainable poverty alleviation measures of their own.

With economies and organizations undergoing change, understanding the nature of work and its significance to people presents a critical intellectual challenge with strong implications for policy and practice. Debates surrounding meanings and relevance of work in its contemporary setting have been hampered by a shortage of solid research findings. By drawing on a substantial body of evidence, this book challenges recent assumptions about work and raises the issues of work and employment onto broader policy and management agendas.

Rumours of the death of the global labour movement have been greatly exaggerated. Rising from the ashes of the old trade union movement, workers' struggle is being reborn from below. By engaging in what Karl Marx called a workers' inquiry, workers and militant co-researchers are studying their working conditions, the technical composition of capital, and how to recompose their own power in order to devise new tactics, strategies, organisational forms and objectives. These workers' inquiries, from call centre workers to teachers, and adjunct professors, are re-energising unions, bypassing unions altogether or innovating new forms of workers' organisations. In one of the first major studies to critically assess this new cycle of global working class struggle, Robert Ovetz collects together case studies from over a dozen contributors, looking at workers' movements in China, Mexico, the US, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Italy, India and the UK. The book reveals how these new forms of struggle are no longer limited to single sectors of the economy or contained by state borders, but are circulating internationally and disrupting the global capitalist system as they do.

Based on two unique survey studies of elites in Norway, this book examines whether elite attitudes towards central national issues have changed in the wake of international and national events and developments since 2000. The chapters examine elite integration and relations between elites and citizens in Norway as a means to discuss the continued viability of the Nordic welfare state model. This insight into how elites relate to central issues in Norwegian society and how they look upon citizens' political interest and competence in general, will be of interest to academics within sociology and political science, as well as journalists and commentators and policy makers.

This book presents a new intellectual history of neoliberalism through the exploration of the sovereign consumer. Invented by neoliberal thinkers in the interwar period, this figure has been crucial to the construction and legimitization of neoliberal ideology and politics. Analysis of the sovereign consumer across time and space demonstrates how neoliberals have linked the figure both to the idea of democracy as a method of choice, and also to a re-invention of the market as the democratic forum par excellence. Moreover, Olsen contemplates how the sovereign consumer has served to marketize politics and functioned as a major driver in a wide-ranging transformation in political thinking, subjecting traditional political values to the narrow pursuit of economic growth. A politically timely project, The Sovereign Consumer will have a wide appeal in academic circles, especially for those interested in consumer and welfare studies, and in political, economic and cultural thought in the twentieth century.

This book contributes to the ongoing discussion around so-called precarious or venture work, as the proportion of those employed by start-ups and thinly-capitalized firms continues to grow. Filling a gap in literature, the author explores the relationship between venture co-workers and examines how they cope with economic uncertainty, moving away from the previous focus on entrepreneurs and investors. Presenting empirical data from several life science start-ups in Sweden, this book illustrates the impact of institutional and regulatory changes in the finance industry, and demonstrates how these effects can ultimately reshape the meaning of employment.

Work is, and always will be, a central institution of society. What makes a capitalist society unique is that it treats the human capacity to engage in labor as a basic commodity. This can be a source of dynamism, as when innovative firms raise wages to attract the best and brightest. But it can also be a source of misery, as when one's skills are suddenly rendered obsolete by forces beyond one's control.

Jeffrey J. Sallaz asks us to rethink our basic assumptions about work. Drawing on cutting-edge theories within economic sociology and through the use of contemporary examples, he conceptualizes labor as embedded exchange. This draws attention to issues that all too frequently are overlooked in our public discourse and private imaginations: how various forms of work are classified and valued; how markets for labor operate in practice; and how people can challenge the central fiction that their work is simply a commodity to be bought and sold.

This readable and engaging book is suitable for both graduate and advanced undergraduate students. It will be of interest to economic sociologists, scholars of labor, and all of those who find themselves working for a living.

This book is a cultural critique of labor and globalization that considers whether one can represent the other. The cultural representation of labor is a challenge in how globalization is understood. Workers may be everywhere in the world but cultural correlatives are problematic. By elaborating cultural theory and practice this book examines why this might be so. If globalization unites workers via production and capital flows, it often writes over traditional or progressive forms of unity. Worlds of work have expanded in the last half century, yet labor has receded within cultural discourse. By considering critical and historical concepts in the workers' inquiry, the subject, and value, and provocative projects in cultural representation itself, this study expands our lexicon of labor to understand more fully what "workers of the world" means under globalization. As such the book offers broad appeal to students and teachers of Global and Cultural Studies and will interest all those who take seriously how the worker is articulated at a global scale.

Based on ethnographic work in a Moldovan winemaking village, Wine Is Our Bread shows how workers in a prestigious winery have experienced the country's recent entry into the globalized wine market and how their productive activities at home and in the winery contribute to the value of commercial terroir wines. Drawing on theories of globalization, economic anthropology and political economy, the book contributes to understanding how crises and inequalities in capitalism lead to the 'creative destruction' of local products, their accelerated standardization and the increased exploitation of labour.

This research-to-practice text explores how coaching can support thriving in the workplace. It focuses on positive psychology coaching in the workplace in relation to: the convergence with organisational psychology and coaching psychology, professional and ethical practices, resilience and wellbeing, team and systemic approaches, leadership, tools of intervention, convergence of clinical interventions and virtuousness, and the future of thriving workplaces. The chapter contributions represent a truly international scholarship and bring together complementary perspectives from the fields of positive psychology, coaching psychology, organisational psychology, organisational scholarship, neuroscience, education and philosophy. Written in a scholarly but accessible style, this text is of interest to a wide readership, including academics, professionals and postgraduate students of positive psychology, organisational psychology, counselling and coaching psychology, human resource management, mental health, health and social welfare. "Smith, Boniwell and Green have brought together an outstanding collection of thought leaders from the field of positive psychology coaching to craft an in-depth exploration of the contribution positive psychology can make to delivering transformation change through coaching conversations. A fascinating read, full of evidence and insight". Jonathan Passmore Professor of Coaching & Behavioural Change Director Henley Centre for Coaching, Henley Business School

Organization theories have given only brief attention to the role of professionals in the workplace. When mentioned, it is posited that major differences exist between professionals and nonprofessionals owing their loyalties more to their discipline/profession than to the organization for which they work. For this reason professionals are thought to be a breed apart who must be treated differently by administrators. Guy, basing her conclusions on studies conducted at two hospitals, shows that these assumptions are not completely true. She finds that the urgency of the task at hand determines priorities much more than does professional identification. She also found that many professionals within an organization had as much in common with staff from other disciplines as they had with professional colleagues. These findings have important ramifications for managers, program planners and researchers in organizational behavior.

This book investigates the life trajectories of Generation X and Y Australians through the 1990s and 2000s. The book defies popular characterizations of members of the 'precarious generations' as greedy, narcissistic and self-obsessed, revealing instead that many of the members of these generations struggle to reach the standard of living enjoyed by their parents, value learning highly and are increasingly concerned about the environment and the legacy current generations are leaving for their children and remain optimistic in the face of considerable challenges. Drawing on data from the Life Patterns longitudinal study of Australian youth (an internationally recognized study), the book tells the story of members of these 'precarious generations'. It examines significant dimensions of young people's lives across time, comparing how domains such as health and well-being, education, work and relationships intersect to produce the complex outcomes that characterize the lives of members of each of these generations. It also explores the strategies these generations use to make their lives and the ways in which they remain resilient. While the book is based on Australian data, the analysis draws on and contributes to the international literature on young people and social change.

This book explores new forms of popular organisation that emerged from strikes in India and Brazil between 2011 and 2014. Based on four case studies, the author traces the alliances and relations that strikers developed during their mobilisations with other popular actors such as students, indigenous peoples, and people displaced by dam projects. The study locates the mass strikes in Brazil's construction industry and India's automobile industry in a global conjuncture of protest movements, and develops a new theory of strikes that can take account of the manifold ways in which labour unrest is embedded in local communities and regional networks. "Joerg Nowak has written an ambitious, wide-ranging and very important book. Based on extensive empirical research in Brazil and India and a thorough analysis of the secondary literature, Nowak reveals that numerous labour conflicts develop in the absence of trade unions, but with the support of kinship networks, local communities, social movements and other types of associations. This impressive work may well become a major building block for a new interpretation of global workers' struggles." -Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands "Nowak's book meticulously details the trajectory of strikes and its resultant new forms of organisations in India and Brazil. The central focus of this analytically rich and thought provoking book is to search for a new political alternative model of organising workers. A very good deed indeed!" -Nandita Mondal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India "Joerg Nowak analyses with critical sense forms of popular organization that often remain invisible. It is an indispensable book for all those who are looking for more effective analytical resources to better understand the present situation and the future promises of the workers' movements." -Roberto Veras de Oliveira, Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil "In this timely and important study, Nowak convincingly challenges the dominant Eurocentric approach to labour conflict and calls for a new theory of strikes. He stresses the need to engage in a wider perspective that includes social reproduction, neighbourhood mobilisations, and the specific traditions of struggles in the Global South." -Edward Webster, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

This book presents a synopsis, with an innovative approach, of abundance, types and conditions of work performed in the tropical plantation and natural forests. It covers work of formally and informally employed, and of own-account small-scale forest users, women and children. Activities in tree harvesting are analyzed, also on-site conversion by pitsawing, planting and pruning. The abilities of the workers and their efforts while fulfilling their tasks, resulting in performance and workload, are described with many examples of published studies. Influencing variables from organizational, technical and managerial sides are considered as much as included in the studies. The detailed descriptions demonstrate the methodical state of ergonomic research. For better understanding of the coverage the background of the development of forest work science is described. The lasting influence of Taylorism and the roles of ILO and FAO as well as NGOs, e.g. in certification, are pointed out.

This volume presents original theory and research on precarious work in various parts of the world, identifying its social, political and economic origins, its manifestations in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Global South, and its consequences for personal and family life. In the past quarter century, the nature of paid employment has undergone a dramatic change due to globalization, rapid technological change, the decline of the power of workers in favor of employers, and the spread of neoliberalism. Jobs have become far more insecure and uncertain, with workers bearing the risks of employment as opposed to employers or the government. This trend towards precarious work has engulfed virtually all advanced capitalist nations, but unevenly so, while countries in the Global South continue to experience precarious conditions of work. This title examines theories of precarious work; cross-national variations in its features; racial and gender differences in exposure to precarious work; and the policy alternatives that might protect workers from undue risk. The chapters utilize a variety of methods, both quantitative statistical analyses and careful qualitative case studies. This volume will be a valuable resource that constitutes required reading for scholars, activists, labor leaders, and policy makers concerned with the future of work under contemporary capitalism.

'Pop-up' is a fully-fledged, new urbanism. Celebrated as a flexible and exciting new form of place making, pop-up culture includes temporary or nomadic sites such as cinemas, container malls, supper clubs, even pop-up housing and is now ubiquitous in cities across the world. But what are the stakes of the 'pop-up' city? Traversing a wealth of fascinating case studies, Rebranding Precarity shows how pop-up works to rebrand insecurity and encourages us to embrace precarity as the new normal. Revealing how urban crisis has particular temporal and spatial characteristics, defined by uncertainty, instability, fractures and gaps, it illuminates how those markers of crisis have been optimistically reimagined over the last few years, through an examination of seven logics that rebrand insecurity including within housing, labour economies and gentrifying areas. In doing so, it paints a frightening picture of how crisis conditions have become not just accepted, but are in fact desired, in today's metropolis.

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of methodological issues and empirical methods of practice-oriented research. It examines questions regarding the scope and boundaries of practice-oriented approaches and practice theory. It discusses the potential advantages and disadvantages of the diversity resulting from the use of these approaches, as well as method and methodology-related issues. The specific questions explored in this volume are: What consequences are linked to the application of a praxeological perspective in empirical research when it comes to the choice of methods? Is there such a thing as an ideal path to follow in praxeological empirical research? What relationship is there between qualitative and quantitative approaches? What differentiates practice-based social research from other perspectives and approaches such as discourse analysis or hermeneutics? The contributions in this book discuss these questions either from a methodological point of view or from a reflective perspective on empirical research practices.

This book examines the intellectual and institutional transformations of four British think tanks in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. In the context of a crisis of expert authority, Gonzalez Hernando demonstrates how these organisations modified their mode of public engagement to be seen as authoritative as possible by an ever more mistrustful public. British Think Tanks After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis connects sociological thinking on knowledge with research on policy change and the economic debate, through careful analysis of interviews, public accounts, and the 'products' of think tanks themselves. Gonzalez Hernando argues that demands for knowledge and advice that arose after the crisis energised the work of all four think tanks while also exposing internal tensions, affecting their sources of funding, transforming their institutional structure, and shaping how they engage with their audiences. It will appeal to students and scholars of sociology of knowledge, political sociology, policy studies, economic history, communication, political economy, organisational sociology, and British politics

This book brings together the theory and practice of managing public trust. It examines the current state of public trust, including a comprehensive global overview of both the research and practical applications of managing public trust by presenting research from seven countries (Brazil, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey) from three continents. The book is divided into five parts, covering the meaning of trust, types, dimension and the role of trust in management; the organizational challenges in relation to public trust; the impact of social media on the development of public trust; the dynamics of public trust in business; and public trust in different cultural contexts.

Among many factors contributing to a corporation's success, none is more crucial than reputation. It affects the way management makes decisions and the positions it takes, and how it takes them, on critical issues. A good reputation is also a signal to the market--one way that stakeholders will know that a corporation is successful. Riahi-Belkaoui looks at the most crucial functions and influences that determine corporate reputation, among them, the way it affects a firM's market value; the quality of its disclosures; how well its earnings are managed, how its executives are compensated. He also addresses other processes, such as international production, the informativeness of earnings, accounting choices, and the characteristics of earnings forecasts. The result is a succinct, readable, probing study for corporate decision makers in various functions of the firm, their academic colleagues, and knowledgeable onlookers who need ways to evaluate and buttress their investment decisions.

Riahi-Belkaoui examines the process of reputation-building first, then the role of corporate reputation and how market value and accounting value differ. He moves to the impact of contextual factors of multinationality and corporate reputation on accrual and cash flow valuation models. In Chapter Four he shows how corporate audiences construct the reputations of firms by interpreting information signals about the firms from various monitors. He then reports the result of an empirical study of the 100 most international firms, which supports the general hypothesis that corporate audiences construct reputations on the basis of information and firms' earnings management. In Chapter Six he turns to the relationship between the level of corporate reputation and managers' ccounting choices, and in Chapter Seven examines the value relevance of earnings, cash flows, multinationality, and corporate reputation. Chapter Eight advances the hypothesis that corporate boards control top management behavior by means of compensation, but also by judging them on organizational effectiveness and social performance. He restates a general model of international production, and in Chapter 10, hypothesizes that the level of corporate reputation affects both the informativeness of earnings and the magnitude of discretionary accounting accrual adjustments. He ends the book by providing empirical evidence of the relationship between economic performance and organizational effectiveness, a measure of overall social performance.

The places and spaces of managerial and professional work are changing rapidly. Long-established routines and disciplines of the personal office are being superseded in a multiplicity of new locations, such as 'hot desks', 'touchdown areas', 'home offices', motorway service stations, airport lounges, cars, trains and planes. Drawing on original research, this book analyses the impact of these developments on the experience of time and space, privacy and surveillance, freedom and constraint in everyday working life.

This edited collection explores different strands of social constructionist theory and methods to provide a critique of the prevailing discourse of work stress, and introduces a radical new approach to conceptualizing suffering at work. Over the last three decades, stress and other forms of suffering at work (including burn-out, bullying, and issues relating to work-life balance) have emerged as important social and medical problems in Western countries. However, stress is a contested category, not (as many argue) a well-defined clinical, biological and psychological state that affects people in the same way in different cultures and at different times. Thus, a social constructionist perspective helps to shed light on new approaches to prevention and interventions of work stress. This book will be of great interest for students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, social history, history of science, psychology, communication and management, as well as to practitioners (doctors and psychologists), policy makers and employers.