Networks and networking are essential concepts that transform organizational, economic, and social practices. Human capital is both a source of competitive advantage and a value that allows individual employees to develop their careers and find satisfaction in their employment. The book addresses the vital issue of changes occurring in management and employment, with the growing career individualization, focus on future professional challenges, importance of knowledge workers, and possibilities of functioning in social and organizational networks. Workers' networking competence is the main theme of this book. Much attention is put on differentiating it from other types of competence and other network objects, and identifying its behavioral manifestations, as the frequency of such behaviors can be used as a measure of an individual's networking competence level. Employment-related variables and characteristics that affect networking competence are analyzed in depth, as is the impact of networking competence on career success and employability - thus laying a foundation for transformation in network organization management, employee relations, and individual career development. It will be of interest to researchers and students alike, as it clearly demonstrates a way to solve research problems in management science and provides new instruments for further research on networks and networking; and to organization managers and employees, as it offers insights into management and employment-related trends as well as guidelines for managing network organizations and building one's career within social and organizational networks.

Nonprofit organizations are conventionally positioned as generators of social and cultural forms of capital for the common good. As such they occupy a different space to other types of organizations such as corporate firms that exist primarily to generate economic capital for private owners/shareholders. Recent years, however, have seen professionalization promoted widely by funders, policy-makers and nonprofit practitioners across the globe. At the same time, there has been an increasing cross-over of employees from private and public bodies into nonprofits. But do such shifts open up space for the wholesale importation of managerialism into and commercialization of the nonprofit sphere? Are nonprofits at risk of being reconstituted as primarily economic entities, serving the interests of a leadership elite? How are such changes in an organization's trajectory brought about? What are the consequences for trustees, staff, members and the nature of managerial work? The authors engage with critical questions such as these through a unique insider account of one professional institute experiencing unprecedented changes that challenge its very reason for being. Drawing on a three-year ethnography, they narrate organizational inhabitants' struggles in their search for purpose and analyze the myriad of changes within different aspects of organizing including structure, strategizing, pay and reward, governance and leadership. The book will enable readers to reframe and rethink organizational change as a process involving power, persuasion and authority, and will be of value to researchers, students, academics and practitioners interested in managerial work and organizational change in non-profit organizations.

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. -- .

This book is about accounting in an alternative libertarian socialist economic system. It explores what information and transactions we need to enable democratic and effective financial decisions by those affected by the decisions. Based on the economic model, participatory economics, the author proposes a set of accounting principles for an economy comprised of common ownership of productive resources, worker and consumer councils, and democratic planning, promoting the model's core values. The author tackles questions such as how accounting could be organised in an economy with no private equity owners or private lenders and creditors that is not based on greed and competition but instead on cooperation and solidarity. A large part of the book is focused on issues regarding investments; thus, he asks how and on what basis decisions are made about the allocation of an economy's production between consumption today and investments that enable more consumption in the future, and how investments are accounted for. He also considers how investments in capital assets and production facilities would be decided, financed, and valued if they are not owned by private capital owners and if allocation does not take place through markets but through a form of democratic planning. In answering these questions and more, the author demonstrates that alternative economic systems are indeed possible, and not merely lofty utopias that cannot be put into practice, and inspires further discussion about economic vision. By applying accounting to a new economic setting and offering both technical information and the author's bold vision, this book is a comprehensive and valuable supplementary text for courses touching on critical accounting theory. It will also appeal to readers interested in alternative kinds of economies.

This book critically interrogates the role of religious faith in the experiences and practices of migrant entrepreneurs against the backdrop of neoliberal Britain. Focussing on Pentecostalism, a popular Christian denomination amongst migrant groups in the UK, the authors draw on primary qualitative data to examine the ways in which Pentecostal beliefs and values influence the aspirations and practices of migrant entrepreneurs. The book also explores the role of Pentecostal churches in supporting entrepreneurial activities among migrant communities, arguing that these institutions simultaneously comply and contest the formation of neoliberal subjectivities: providing cultural legitimacy to the entrepreneurial subject, whilst also contesting the community erosion of neoliberalism, (particularly in an austerity context) and fostering a strong a sense of belonging among congregants. The book offers an interdisciplinary perspective spanning sociology, geography and entrepreneurship studies to explain how values and faith networks shape everyday life, work and entrepreneurial practices.

"Gender, Work and Space" explores how boundaries are constructed between women and men, and among women living in different neighborhoods. Focusing on work, the segregation of men and women into different occupations, and variations in women's work experiences in various parts of the city, the authors argue that these differences are grounded, are constituted in and through space, place and situated networks.
The authors use a case study of a contemporary city to establish that many women are dependent on extremely local employment opportunities, especially those women with heavy household responsibilities. Women's dependence on locally available jobs focuses attention on the existence of different employment districts throughout the city. The argument is that social, economic and geographic boundaries are overlaid and intertwined. This book contributes to debates about the geography of labor market segmentation, to our understanding of sex-based occupational segregation and, in the close attention given to the construction of social, geographic, economic and symbolic boundaries in ordinary lives, provides a counterbalance to the focus on mobility within contemporary feminist theory.

The Social and Spatial Ecology of Work is an important contribution to the P- num Studies in Work and Industry. It is a theoretically informed case study, unique in that it takes full measure of the importance of physical space and the built environment for the quality of people's daily working lives and the attainment of organizational goals. Rita Gorawara-Bhat provides us with a theoretical framework for understanding how important space and envir- ment are for experiential aspects of work as they are contextualized in social relations, linked to status and role, and embedded in organizational culture and bureaucratic structure. Her framework is a creatively synthetic one that draws notably from traditions in social psychology, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgical sociology, and social ecology. Sociologists will find themselves in comfortable surroundings; this is a case study of a major social science research center affiliated with a prominent midwestern university. Studies carried out by psychologists and social psychologists in the - cades of the 1960s and 1970s held great promise for introducing a language and methodology for inquiry about the importance of the physical envir- ment for social life. However, the overall impact of this research turned out to be short lived, perhaps owing to overly deterministic assumptions about space and spatial constraints.

This book provides a novel approach to unemployment as a contested political field in Europe and examines the impact of welfare state regimes, conceived as political opportunity structures specific to this field, public debates and collective mobilizations in unemployment politics.

This book studies the dramatic changes in consumption patterns in Vietnam over the past decades, combining a focus on everyday practices and societal transformations. Zooming in on the new urban middle classes, and through in-depth case studies in the realms of mobility, food and energy, the book brings new insights to some of the most urgent global sustainability challenges. Based on a decade of research in Vietnam, the book aims to contribute to better understanding one of the most fascinating 'development success stories' in the world. It introduces the term 'consumer socialism' to analyse some of the contradictions embedded in the socialist market economy. Simultaneously, the book aims to contribute to strengthening consumption research in and on emerging economies, and for this purpose develops a theoretical approach focusing on social practices and the political economy of consumption.

A new book, "The Work/Life Dichotomy," explores the redesign of mundane jobs; studies the trends in work/life relationships; and examines the link between training and the supply and demand of skilled and unskilled labor. Because business has shifted to a human development orientation, the book is of great value to HR professionals. . . . This book should be required reading for those concerned with the gap between work and life and reuniting the two for a healthier society, one in which human growth and development are as important as corporate productivity gains. "HR Magazine"

In his provocative new book, Morf argues that the severe productivity problems being experienced in Western economies--particularly in the United States--result from an entrenched perceived dichotomy between work and life in our society. Further, he asserts, social problems such as lack of competitiveness in world markets and low worker morale and individual concerns like low job satisfaction can only be attacked effectively when seen for what they are: manifestations of this deep gap between work life and home life which began to develop during the industrial revolution. Morf's sober, well-researched, yet eminently readable book synthesizes information from a variety of disciplines ranging from history to industrial psychology to offer a groundbreaking presentation of the complex relationship between society, culture, and the work sphere.

Morf looks closely at current efforts to increase productivity as they are practiced within organizations, demonstrating that most are doomed to failure because they neglect to address the basic problem. He presents an interactive systems view of the relationship between work and life and between job and worker, a perspective familiar to the Japanese, but largely ignored in the United States. This interactive systems view leads Morf to a consideration of the positive effects of well-designed work on the personality and long-term productivity of the worker, an approach which must be taken, he argues, if the United States is to regain its standing in world markets. Finally, Morf offers a systematic set of strategies for reintegrating people and jobs, ranging from importing selected ideas and practices on worker participation from abroad, to traditional methods of organizational development and job design. An important contribution to the human resources literature, this book brings a new voice to the debate over America's increasingly troublesome productivity levels.

This accessible introductory text offers an engaging and thought-provoking discussion of class in relation to several cultural, sociological and political schools of thought and draws upon the works of a broad range of key theorists as well as contemporary thinkers to restate the ongoing importance of class as a sociological concept. Class has long been a key focus of sociological and political studies. This book explores what it might mean today in a 21st century context. Is class really disappearing? Is class morally justifiable? What impact has globalisation and neoliberalism had on the restructuring of class-based social relationships? These questions and others are explored in this short but lively book. Stevenson reviews a number of normative traditions including anarchist, Marxist, social democratic and citizenship-based forms of understanding of class in order to shed light on the themes of class-based experiences, health and inequality, work, class struggle, social movements and the possibility of developing more egalitarian and just societies in the future. This short book will be invaluable to general readers and students in the humanities and social sciences seeking an accessible introduction to the central problems raised by discussions of class in the 21st century.

Trade unions in Europe face a range of cross-cutting challenges. This includes the near-universal contraction in union membership; the related decline of traditionally highly unionised blue-collar industries; and the rise of automation, microprocessing, and digitalisation, which can make it cheaper for employers to invest in machines than to pay humans to work. The breakdown of the standard contract of employment and increasing rates of precarious work have further transformed the world of work. Taken together, this makes any collectivist vision of society, and the notion of solidarity upon which trade unionism is built, difficult to sustain. All this raises tough questions for trade unionists, policy-makers, and researchers alike regarding the future of trade unions, the oldest and largest civil society movement in Europe. The contributions in this volume explore the prospects for union revival across a range of cases, including by focusing on the pursuit of legal remedies and on the opportunities associated with the network society to defend the interests of workers. This interdisciplinary volume includes contributions that consider the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the EU level by researchers coming from a range of disciplines and backgrounds. The volume should especially appeal to researchers and practitioners working in the fields of political science, sociology, law, and business studies.

This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Denmark's solitary experiment with Indian indentured labor on St. Croix during the second half of the nineteenth century. The book focuses on the recruitment, transportation, plantation labor, re-indenture, repatriation, remittances and abolition of Indian indentured experience on the island. In doing so, Roopnarine has produced a compelling narrative on Indian indenture. The laborers challenged and responded accordingly to their daily indentured existence using their cultural strengths to cohere and co-exist in a planter-dominated environment. Laborers had to create opportunities for themselves using their homeland customs without losing the focus that someday they would return home. Indentured Indians understood that the plantation system would not be flexible to them but rather they had to be flexible to plantation system. Roopnarine's concise analysis has moved Indian indenture from the margin to mainstream not only in the historiography of the Danish West Indies, but also in the wider Caribbean where Indians were indentured.

This book describes the early career outcomes for female creative graduates in Australia and the UK. It applies the international UNESCO model of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) to national graduate destination survey data in order to compare creative women's employment outcomes to those of men, as well as non-creative graduates. Chapters focus on opportunities for creative and cultural work, including salaries, geographic mobility, graduate jobs, underemployment, and skills transferability. The model covers a broad range of cultural and creative domains such as heritage, the performing arts, visual arts and craft, publishing and media industries, fashion, architecture and advertising. The book's purpose is to provide an informed discussion and empirical report to key stakeholders in the topic, such as academic researchers, teachers and students, as well as cultural sector organisations and education departments.

This book describes the social and economic issues that emerge from mothers in labor markets. It provides insight in what the quantitative effect of motherhood on the decline in mothers' earnings is, and how things differ for mothers with lower income and lower levels of education. It also sheds light on how this effect varies for different countries and/or cultural areas, and what the impact of socio-economic policies on mothers' labor supply is and how it changes in different family contexts. The book covers topics such as labor participation and hours of work, paid-work and home production, flexibility and work from home, self-employment and entrepreneurship, fertility and maternity leave, wage-penalty and career interruption, labor supply and childcare, gender norms and cultural issues, intra-household wage inequality and much more. This book provides an interesting read to economists, social scientists, policy makers and HR managers and all those interested in the subject.

This text explores the impact of race and racism in different occupational spheres within the labor market. It reexamines a number of central assumptions about segregation within the labor market and applies the concept of social closure to the analysis of the position of ethnic minority workers within the labor market. Key themes in the book include the effectiveness of equal opportunity and affirmative action policies and the extent to which employment practice has been significantly altered.

This edited collection brings together research findings from a wide range of academics investigating equal opportunities and managing diversity. It explores the impact of gender, race/ethnicity, disability and age on employment opportunities and examines theoretical issues underlying the experience of discrimination. Based on original research, each chapter analyzes a different facet of equality and diversity and draws out the policy implications. The chapters adopt a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze cases from various countries, highlighting differences and similarities in the formulation and implementation of equality and diversity policies.

This book contributes to research on therapeutic culture by drawing on longstanding ethnographic work and by offering a new theoretical reading of therapeutic culture in today's society. It suggests that the therapeutic field serves as a key site in which a number of contradictions of capitalism are confronted and lived out. It shows that therapeutic engagements are inherently ambivalent and contradictory, as they can be articulated and engaged with in many different ways and harnessed for diverse, and often contradictory, political projects. The book takes issue with the interpretation of therapeutic culture as merely individualising, depoliticizing and working in congruence with neoliberalism, and shows that therapeutic engagements may also open up a space for contestation and critique of neoliberal capitalism, animate collective action for social change and articulate alternative forms of life and subjectivities. The book will speak to a wide variety of audiences in the social sciences and will be of particular interest to those working in the fields of sociology, anthropology, critical psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and critical social theory.

Women's work in South Asia often remains invisible in official statistics and development research. This is partly due to the inadequacy of the national data systems and partly because existing sociocultural constraints restrict women's participation in economic activities outside the domain of the family. The pattern of female labour participation in South Asia has distinct spatial dimensions which cannot be explained in terms of economic rationale alone; the region-specific context defining women's roles remains vitally important. This book integrates different scales of analysis and methodologies with indigenous and Western contributors combining macro and micro studies. Highlighting the 'public' and 'private' domains of women's work, the book discusses both the inadequacies of nationally published data at an aggregate level and regional and locally-induced religious, cultural and societal constraints on gender relations. Setting contextually specific studies within a broader geographical framework, Women and Work in South Asia explores the real connection between female autonomy and economic independence.

Considerable social changes are underway as more women, particularly mothers, enter and remain in paid employment. The authors explore these changes (which include an increase in dual-earner families, declining fertility, and growing problems of work-life 'balance'), both comparatively and specifically in a number of European countries (Britain, France, The Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Portugal). Original survey data, and qualitative evidence, is deployed in a series of cutting-edge chapters written by national and international experts.

In this edited collection, Leslie Nichols weaves together the contributions of accomplished and diverse scholars to offer an expansive and critical analysis of women's work in Canada. Students will use an intersectional approach to explore issues of gender, class, race, immigrant status, disability, sexual orientation, Indigeneity, age, and ethnicity in relation to employment. Drawing from case studies and extensive research, the text's seventeen chapters consider Canadian industries across a broad spectrum, including political, academic, sport, sex trade, retail, and entrepreneurial work. Working Women in Canada is a relevant and in-depth look into the past, present, and future of women's responsibilities and professions in Canada. Undergraduate and graduate students in gender studies, labour studies, and sociology courses will benefit from this thorough and intersectional approach to the study of women's labour. Features includes tables, case studies, a glossary of key terms, and chapter introductions and conclusions to assist with student comprehension encourages further learning by concluding each chapter with discussion questions, a list of additional key readings, and an extensive reference list provides a broad portrait of women's work in Canada with contributions from over 20 scholars

"The Women of Azua" studies the effects of male-oriented economic development projects and export processing industries on the traditional family structure in Third World countries. Emphasizing the sexual division of labor, this study is based on field observations and a survey of women in rural communities in the Dominican Republic. The communities studied are all located near large agribusiness food-production facilities. The author studies the impact of these companies--through their employment of women--on families, attitudes, level of living, and the aspirations of the women themselves. While measuring the impact of industrial employment on women and their families, this volume also presents a culture, and its women, not yet studied by North American sociologists.

This study covers a wide range of characteristics including levels of living, employment, marital status and attitudes, household division of labor, nutrition and health, childbearing, aspirations for children, etc. For each topic the author compares two representative samples of women: a community sample and a worker sample. The typical woman in the rural Dominican Republic is seen through the community sample. The worker sample displays the differences in women's lives due to their work for an export food-processing company.

The Jewish Labor Movement was a radical subculture that flourished within the trade union and political movements in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. Jewish immigrant activists--socialists, communists, anarchists, and labor Zionists--adapted aspects of the traditions with which they were raised in order to express the politics of social transformation. In doing so, they created a folk ideology which reflected their dual ethnic/class identity. This book explores that folk ideology, through an analysis of interviews with participants in the Jewish Labor Movement as well as through a survey of the voluminous literature written about that movement.

A synthesis of political ideology and ethnic tradition was carefully crafted by secular working-class Jewish immigrant radicals who rediscovered and reformulated elements of Jewish traditions as vehicles for political organizing. Commonly held symbols of their cultural identity--the Yiddish language, rituals such as the Passover seder, remembered narratives of the Eastern European "shtetl," and biblical imagery--served as powerful tools in forging political solidarity among fellow Jewish workers and activists within the Jewish Labor Movement.

With a particular focus on the British printing industry, this book tackles the ongoing issue of pay inequality and examines the challenges facing many women today. By analysing organisation processes within the workplace, the author considers the unequal allocation of power resources that generate and sustain women's invisibility and argues that women's power is often outflanked by that of their male colleagues. Written by a skilled academic with direct industry experience, this new book is an insightful read for those researching human resource management (HRM), women's studies and diversity, as well as trade union officials and policy-makers.

Through the lens of the fashion industry, Iva Petkova explores not only how institutionalized organizations react and adapt to the rise of start-up outsiders, but also how these outside "disruptors" seek to cultivate legitimacy and win influence. In so doing, she reflects upon a longstanding question in the sociology of organizations and neo-institutional theory: How do institutionalized organizations in creative industries resolve the inherent conflict between art and commerce, particularly in a changing institutional environment? Engineering Legitimacy outlines the processes through which e-commerce and social commerce companies in fashion disturb and reconstruct the industry, crosscutting their technical field of expertise and looking to legitimize their innovative practice in the institutionally elaborated field of fashion. Through an analysis of the emerging culture of innovation collectively created by start-up outsider disruptors, this book contemplates how fashion-technology companies transform their moral narratives into acceptable commercial practice, legitimating a model of profound institutional change over the digital operations of fashion companies.