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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Work & labour
This volume brings together new research that bridges the domains of stakeholder theory, non-market strategy and social movement theory. Although these three research domains have developed via relatively distinct academic communities, they speak to a common set of phenomena at the intersection of business, markets, civil society, and the state. This collection sets an agenda for a more holistic theory of business and society - a theory that takes seriously the various kinds of stakeholders that make up society and have claims over business, that incorporates the goals and objectives of businesses to survive and thrive, and that places an important role on the process of mobilization and contentious interaction between actors whose goals inherently conflict. Using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, contributors focus on a phenomenon at the intersection of business, civil society, and government. Examining markets shaped by heavy stakeholder involvement and contention, chapters explore topics such as markets for electric vehicles, medical marijuana, municipal drinking water, and cigarettes along with controversial business practice, including employment practices for LGBT workers and racial/ethnic minorities, and working conditions in global supply chains.
This book takes a critical view on corporate practice, governmental action and the general approach to Corporate Social Responsibility. It draws on experience from the Workplace Innovation movement and argues that, as with motherhood and apple pie, it is hard to oppose CSR, with a community of well-meaning people. It is however necessary to challenge the foundations on which it is based. Many accounts of CSR assume a consistent model of capitalism around the world. It is suggested that capitalism can be given a human face, as companies adopt programmes which go beyond the minimum legal requirements. This builds on traditions of optional corporate philanthropy. However, without changing the underlying working of the company, only cosmetic changes are made. In the author's words: "lipstick is applied to the capitalist pig." It can be a mistake to read too much into "Responsible Management," when the culture of management is designed around irresponsibility. Companies have developed elaborate schemes of outsourcing, in an environment of limited liability. This cannot easily be overcome through gestures. This book seeks to engage readers and to provoke thoughts. It can be angry and polemical, but it points a finger directly at ongoing superficial developments.
1) This is a data-rich book on declining labour force participation of women in India. 2) It looks at themes like care work and unpaid labour by women. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of gender and labour studies.
This book argues that employers' organizations are resilient organizations that adapt to changing circumstances by developing new practices. Adaptation has been prompted by changing economic and social contexts, including state interventions and union activities. Contexts vary over time, across countries and world regions. The purpose of the book is to explore these variations and their impacts on employer organization. The book covers the following themes across four book sections: theoretical perspectives on employer collective action; employers' organizations in different types of capitalism; different types of employers' organizations; and international and comparative employer interest representation. Theoretical explorations examining employer power, political preferences, meta-organizing, and ideological foundations are complemented by studies of employers' organization in China, Denmark, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Canada, and the UK. Different types such as regional and international employers' organizations are also examined. The book is one of the few edited volumes to examine employer collective action within work and employment, and is the first since 1984 to consider western and non-western contexts. The book will be of interest to employment relations and sociology of work researchers, scholars, advanced students, and practitioners as it brings new perspectives to an understudied actor in employment relations: employers' organizations.
Leadership, Psychoanalysis, and Society describes leadership as a relationship between leaders and followers in a particular context and challenges theories of leadership now being taught. This book includes essays that view leadership from psychoanalytic, social psychological, sociological, evolutionary, developmental anthropological, and historical points of view to fully describe the complexity of leadership relationships and personalities. These essays analyze the different kinds of leadership needed in organizations; the development of Black Leadership that provides hope for people who have been oppressed; the difference between charismatic and inspirational leadership and the kind of training needed to develop leaders from diverse backgrounds who inspire followers and collaborate with them to further the common good. This book offers a guide to understanding the different types of leadership and will be of interest to business, government, health care, universities, and other organizations.
Leadership, Psychoanalysis, and Society describes leadership as a relationship between leaders and followers in a particular context and challenges theories of leadership now being taught. This book includes essays that view leadership from psychoanalytic, social psychological, sociological, evolutionary, developmental anthropological, and historical points of view to fully describe the complexity of leadership relationships and personalities. These essays analyze the different kinds of leadership needed in organizations; the development of Black Leadership that provides hope for people who have been oppressed; the difference between charismatic and inspirational leadership and the kind of training needed to develop leaders from diverse backgrounds who inspire followers and collaborate with them to further the common good. This book offers a guide to understanding the different types of leadership and will be of interest to business, government, health care, universities, and other organizations.
1) This is a data-rich book on declining labour force participation of women in India. 2) It looks at themes like care work and unpaid labour by women. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of gender and labour studies.
The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity. The Handbook maps the current state of the field and presents a visionary agenda for future research by mingling the voices and perspectives of founding and emerging scholars. In addition to a framing Introduction and Conclusion written by the co-editors, the volume is divided into six sections: Methods and principles of research in working-class studies; Class and education; Work and community; Working-class cultures; Representations; and Activism and collective action. Each of the six sections opens with an overview that synthesizes research in the area and briefly summarizes each of the chapters in the section. Throughout the volume, contributors from various disciplines explore the ways in which experiences and understandings of class have shifted rapidly as a result of economic and cultural globalization, social and political changes, and global financial crises of the past two decades. Written in a clear and accessible style, the Handbook is a comprehensive interdisciplinary anthology for this young but maturing field, foregrounding transnational and intersectional perspectives on working-class people and issues and focusing on teaching and activism in addition to scholarly research. It is a valuable resource for activists, as well as working-class studies researchers and teachers across the social sciences, arts, and humanities, and it can also be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.
This book argues that we need to focus attention on the ways that workers themselves have invested subjectively in what it means to be a worker. By doing so, we gain an explanation that moves us beyond the economic decisions made by actors, the institutional constraints faced by trade unions, or the power of the state to interpellate subjects. These more common explanations make workers and their politics visible only as a symptom of external conditions, a response to deregulated markets or a product of state recognition. Instead - through a history of retailing as a site of nation and belonging, changing legal regimes, and articulations of race, class and gender in the constitution of political subjects from the 1930s to present-day Wal-Mart - this book presents the experiences and subjectivities of workers themselves to show that the collective political subject 'workers' (abasebenzi) is both a durable and malleable political category. From white to black women's labour, the forms of precariousness have changed within retailing in South Africa. Workers' struggles in different times have in turn resolved some dilemmas and by other turn generated new categories and conditions of precariousness, all the while explaining enduring attachments to labour politics.
This book provides a unique contribution to the controversial discussion that surrounds the digitalisation and virtualisation of work. With a focus on the new formation of space and place, it critically discusses the idea that places in the context of work are increasingly losing their importance, and becoming more arbitrary with new technical possibilities. Theoretical considerations that deal conceptually with the understanding of space and work are taken into account, as well as empirical results from different professional and work fields across various regions of our globalised world. The book is applicable to researchers and students of sociology of work, media and communications, organization studies, workplace studies, labour process studies, economics, human geography, anthropology and learning sciences. Chapter 1, 4 and 11 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Understanding experience at work, especially in toxic organizations, is a multidimensional undertaking that must include all senses. The use of applied poetry has its primary value as an evocative approach to sensing, knowing, and understanding workplace experience. Poetry at its best condenses into relatively few words, metaphors, and images what conventional social science narratives would take much longer to articulate. Where poetry often hints and alludes, narrative seeks to spell out, expound, and complete. Where poetry leaves much mental space for the listener or reader to fill in with one's imagination, narrative fills in the spaces with rich detail. Applied poetry and its contextual stories offer a way of accessing workplace experience that is unique and valuable in terms of understanding lives at work. The use of complementary psychodynamic theories, like all theories, is a way of trying to account for what we have found and experienced and in particular why it happened. "Why," the authors suggest, is critical in terms of understanding the sensing, images, and metaphors evoked by the poetry and stories that may resonate with hearers and readers for reasons that are unconscious and are rooted in the past. These transferences that come forward from life experience into the present are the critical data we work with. These are the data of psychoanalysis. This book both widens and deepens the scope of organizational research offered by other researchers, theorists, and approaches to understanding, interpreting, explaining, leading, and consulting with workplace organizations. Its triangulating integration of applied poetry, experience and stories behind the poetry, and the three psychoanalytic models of explaining life in workplaces, is a new and distinct contribution to organizational research, leadership, and consulting efforts to help organization members solve real, underlying problems and not offer simplistic, formulaic solutions based solely on a study of the organization's surface. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of organizational studies, leadership, and management.
Amidst the exponentially growing interest in "work as a calling," contemporary discussions have taken an individualistic turn away from the earlier prosocial character that once marked this orientation to work. Now, discussions about "work as a calling" mostly prioritize personal fulfilment via the pursuit of deeply "meaningful work." Excessive focus has been placed on the experience of meaningful work in ways that are detached from the genuinely good workplace ends that allow for such a meaningful experience to ensue. This book provides a novel paradigm for reimagining the idea of "work as a calling," which serves as a corrective that better supports the individuals' search for meaning and their contribution to the common good, arguing that the two go hand in hand, and so they cannot be separated. Thus, the key idea captured herein is not simply that scholars have misunderstood the very notion of "work as a calling" by implying that it is essentially just synonymous with meaningful work, but, even more importantly, the point is that scholars and laypersons alike often fail to realize how true meaning ensues as a result of a genuine concern for contributing to human flourishing and the common good through one's work. Providing a new perspective on "work as a calling" by examining the issue from the perspective of morality rather than self-actualization, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of business ethics, management, leadership, and organizational studies.
Sustainable Work in Europe brings together a strong core of Swedish working life research, with additional contributions from across Europe, and discussion of current issues such as digitalisation, climate change and the Covid pandemic. It bridges gaps between social science and medicine, and adds emphasis on age and gender. The book links workplace practice, theory and policy, and is intended to provide the basis for ongoing debate and dialogue.
Positioned within the discourse of neoliberalism and precarious work, this book draws on Guy Standing's notion of "the precariat" in an examination of the role of recruiting individuals as the key actors in labour recruitment and management practices that produce precarious work conditions. Based on extensive empirical work on migrant construction workers and their recruiters in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, it explores the ways in which exploitative employment relationships contribute to various pressures and insecurities amongst migrant workers and limit the scope for labour protection. Offering new insights into the field of labour migration by unpacking the interconnections between rural-urban labour migration, recruitment and precarious employment, The Construction Precariat conceptualises the domination of recruiters as producing "hyper-individualised employment", and sheds light on the manner in which this relationship of domination and dependence contributes heavily both to the conditions of precariousness and to the control and exploitation of migrant workers.
In many European countries, the process of financialisation has been exacerbated by the project of closer EU integration and accelerated as a result of austerity policies introduced after the Euro crisis of 2010-2012. However, the impact has been felt differently in core and peripheral countries. This book examines the case of Portugal, and in particular the impact on its economy, work and social reproduction. The book examines the recent evolution of the Portuguese economy, of particular sectors and systems of social provision (including finance, housing and water), labour relations and income distribution. In doing so, it offers a comprehensive critical analysis of varied aspects of capital accumulation and social reproduction in the country, which are crucial to understand the effects of the official 'bail-out' of 2011 and associated austerity adjustment program. The book shows how these have increasingly relied on deteriorating pay and working conditions and households' direct and indirect engagement with the global financial system in new domains of social reproduction. Through its exploration of the Portuguese case, the book presents a general theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of financialisation processes in peripheral countries. This text is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, development, geography, international relations and sociology with an interest in examining the uneven mechanisms and impacts of global finance.
The development of international business and of globalization in every field of activity requires the interaction of individuals and groups with diverse cultural, religious, ethnic and social characteristics in different institutional contexts. Cross-cultural Challenges in International Management addresses the various difficulties that may impede smooth communication and cooperation of those involved in such interactions. It examines what types of resources are mobilized to overcome such difficulties. The cultural and societal challenges of international management must be considered at different levels, the one of strategy, which the first part of the book is devoted to, but also that of management and business practices, addressed in the third part of the book. Both strategic decisions and daily business practices, however, in the particularly fluctuating and incompletely defined international context, gain from being framed by ethical and corporate social responsibility, which the second part of this book is devoted to. Cross-cultural Challenges in International Management provides an analysis of specific situations revealing such cultural or societal challenges. Thus, the reader will benefit not only from advanced theoretical knowledge in the field, but also from practical applications in various professional context and various countries. Practitioners, students in various fields of social sciences, particularly in management, communication, international relations, and researchers will widely benefit from this book.
System, Actor and Process: Keywords in Organization Studies is intended as an epistemological 'compass' to navigate through the multifaceted key concepts typically used in organizational practice and research. The book illustrates thirty-four keywords using a tripartite structure: each keyword is briefly discussed from three points of view, namely the system-centered, actor-centered and process-centered conception of organization, which reflects the options emerging from contemporary epistemological debate in organizational studies and, more generally, in social sciences, namely objectivism, subjectivism, and the Weberian "third way". Primarily addressed to researchers and academics in organization studies, this book is also a useful resource for undergraduate or postgraduate students, for whom it may represent a thorough introduction to organizational concepts. It will also be a valuable tool for managers to apply in their everyday practice.
This edited volume builds on the previously published Self-Initiated Expatriation: Individual, Organizational, and National Perspectives, which served to give in-depth insights into the concept and the processes of self-initiated expatriation and presented different groups undertaking self-initiated foreign career moves. While more than a hundred articles on self-initiated expatriation (SIE) have been published in the meanwhile, an examination of the research questions and samples of SIEs in published SIE research shows that the role of context and its impact on SIEs' career-related decisions and behaviors has not been explored sufficiently. This raises the question in how far existing research results are comparable. The aim of this follow-up volume is to deepen the understanding of SIEs' careers, focusing on the contextual influences of space, time, and institutions on the heterogeneous SIE population. More specifically, the editors aim to shed light on spatial conditions in terms of the home and host country conditions on the self-initiated expatriation experience and examine developments over time in terms of temporality of conditions and SIEs' life-course. Moreover, the influence of the institutional context in terms of occupational, organisational, and societal specificities will be analysed. All chapters are based on strong theoretical foundations that serve to conceptualise "context" and are written by both established and emerging global academics and researchers. Self-Initiated Expatriates in Context contributes to conceptual clarity in the burgeoning field of SIE research by drawing attention to the importance of exploring context and, thus, boundary conditions to careers. It offers specific guidance for an improvement of future SIE-related research in order to enhance the validity of future empirical studies as well as for an improvement of managerial practice. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of international business, human resource management, organisational studies, and strategic management.
This book chronicles the evolution of women's participation in the labour force in Ireland over the last five decades. This was largely spearheaded by married women and mothers, leading to many related social issues including childcare, flexible working, the sharing of domestic work and work-life balance. The book presents empirical data on these topics, drawn from the author's research spanning several decades, and shows how attitudes have evolved and influenced the development of social policy. The book begins by exploring the factors which predisposed some married women to enter the workplace in the early 1970s while most did not and examines the relative well-being of housewives and employed married women. It demonstrates the effects the anti-discrimination legislation of the 1970s had on women's perceived discrimination over time, showing that women initially denied their own discrimination. The history of childcare policy is examined from the early Government Working Party reports of the 1980s to the evolution of childcare policy in Ireland. Issues of work-life balance are presented through cross-cultural comparisons from Ireland and several European countries, and key questions are asked, such as "are men who work part-time seen as less serious about their careers?" The concluding chapter focuses on how women's role in the workplace impacts on men and gender relations. Questions are posed concerning the ways in which men's roles need to adapt and the extent to which workplaces and social policy also need to change to accommodate men and women's needs for work-life balance. The book will be of interest to social scientists and to students. It will be a valuable resource for courses in the sociology of work and the family, gender studies, social psychology and Irish studies. By providing quantitative data in an accessible form, it will also provide a valuable case study for courses in social research methods.
This book examines teaching practices in international education, focusing on two significant meanings of the notion of 'practice': the concrete activities used by university lecturers and the role of education as a platform for transferring particular skills or approaches. In addition to discussing techniques involved in programme design, curricular development, course activities, multicultural teamwork and examination, the author explores the idea of the lecturer as an actor communicating practices, considering the role and responsibility of academic staff in the development of successful international education. With attention to the importance of the context of internationalisation, the book draws on research from two major research projects, presenting extensive interview material with teaching staff engaged in international education and projects of internationalisation. Combining the approaches of 'pragmatism' and practice theory, as developed by Bourdieu and Schatzki, among others, Teaching Practices in a Global Learning Environment addresses themes including the international-ness of academic disciplines, the biographies of international educators, and language issues emerging in international education. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and policy makers with interests in pedagogy, internationalisation and higher education.
An increasingly important and often overlooked issue in science and technology policy is recognizing the role that philanthropies play in setting the direction of research. In an era where public and private resources for science are strained, the practices that foundations adopt to advance basic and applied research needs to be better understood. This first-of-its-kind study provides a detailed assessment of the current state of science philanthropy. This examination is particularly timely, given that science philanthropies will have an increasingly important and outsized role to play in advancing responsible innovation and in shaping how research is conducted. Philanthropy and the Future of Science and Technology surveys the landscape of contemporary philanthropic involvement in science and technology by combining theoretical insights drawn from the responsible research and innovation (RRI) framework with empirical analysis investigating an array of detailed examples and case studies. Insights from interviews conducted with foundation representatives, scholars, and practitioners from a variety of sectors add real-world perspective. A wide range of philanthropic interventions are explored, focusing on support for individuals, institutions, and networks, with attention paid to the role that science philanthropies play in helping to establish and coordinate multi-sectoral funding partnerships. Novel approaches to science philanthropy are also considered, including the emergence of crowdfunding and the development of new institutional mechanisms to advance scientific research. The discussion concludes with an imaginative look into the future, outlining a series of lessons learned that can guide how new and established science philanthropies operate and envisioning alternative scenarios for the future that can inform how science philanthropy progresses over the coming decades. This book offers a major contribution to the advancement of philanthropic investment in science and technology. Thus, it will be of considerable interest to researchers and students in public policy, public administration, political science, science and technology studies, sociology of science, and related disciplines.
This book explores the identified research gap and new field of study of organizational reliability. It develops a definition and theoretical internal structure of the notion of organizational reliability as well as a theoretical background describing the structure of its three pillars, and it showcases a set of organizational solutions dedicated for the enhancement of organizational reliability. The book explores the idea that there are new capabilities needed in every organization: reliability capabilities aiming at enhancing and sustaining the reliability of entire organizations and reliability of management, information technology and human resources. The reliability capabilities are understood as the abilities to anticipate and explore potential and occurring hazards, prevent and resolve disruptions, and learn from the problems in order to maintain a proper organizational performance in both normal and abnormal situations. Based on these three pillars, the book concerns the issue of various organizational solutions in order to indicate a set of them, which supports obtaining and maintaining organizational reliability. The book is recommended reading for researchers, academics and students in the fields of management, and entrepreneurs trying to boost the reliability of their organizations.
Coaching has become a global business phenomenon, yet the way that coaching has evolved and spread across the globe is not unproblematic. Some of these challenges include: different types/genres of coaching; understanding and relevance of different coaching philosophies and models in different cultural contexts; equivalency of qualifications and coach credentials, as well as questions over standards and governance, as part of a wider debate around professionalization. Coaching then, as with the transfer of knowledge and professionalization in other disciplines, is not immune to ethnocentricity. Through a combination of adopting a meta-analysis of coaching, supported with narratives of coaching practice drawn from different socio-political/cultural contexts, the aim of this book is to challenge current knowledge, understanding and norms of how coaching is, or should, be practised in different cultural contexts. This book will provide a foundation for further research in coaching as an academic field of study and as an emerging profession. It will resonate with critical scholars, coach educators, and coach practitioners who want to develop their praxis and enhance their reflexivity and be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of business and leadership, human resource development, organizational learning and development, mentoring and coaching.
Management and the Sustainability Paradox is about how humans became disconnected from their ecological environment throughout evolutionary history. Begining with the premise that people have competing innate, natural drives linked to survival. Survival can be thought of in the context of long-term genetic propagation of a species, but at the same time, it involves overcoming of immediate adversities. Due to a diverse set of survival challenges facing our ancestors, natural selection often favored short-term solutions, which by consequence, muted the motivations associated with longer-range sustainability values. Managerial decisions and choices mostly adopt a moral calculus of costs versus benefits. Managers invoke economic and corporate growth to justify virtually any action. It is this moral calculus underlying corporate behavior that needs critical examination and reformation. At the heart of it lie deep moral questions that we examine in this book, with the goal of proposing ethical solutions to the paradox. Management and the Sustainability Paradox examines the issue that there appears to be an inherent paradox between what some businesses view as "a need for progress" and " a concern for sustainability". In business, we often see a collision between ideas of progress and sustainability which shapes corporate actions, and managerial decisions. Typical corporate views of progress involve the creation of wealth, jobs, innovative products, and social philanthropic projects. On the basis of these "progressive" actions they justify their inequitable distribution of surpluses by paying low wages and exploiting ecological resources. It is not difficult to see the antagonistic interplay between technological and social innovation with our values for social and environmental well-being and a dualism that needs to be overcome. This book is intended for a broad appeal to an academic and policy maker audience in the sustainability and management fields. The book will be of vital reading for managers seeking to reconnect our human chain with the natural environment in the cause of sustainable business.
This book is the first volume to explore criminal justice work and criminological research through the lens of emotional labour. A concept first coined 30 years ago, emotional labour seeks to explore the ways in which people manage their emotions in order to achieve the aims of their organisations, and the subsequent impact of this is on workers and service users. The chapters in this edited collection explore work in a wide range of criminal justice institutions as well as the penal voluntary sector. In addition to literature review chapters which consolidate what we already know, this book includes case study chapters which extend our knowledge of how emotional labour is performed in specific contexts, and in relation to certain types of work. Emotional Labour in Criminal Justice and Criminology covers topics such as prisoners who die from natural causes in prison, to the work of independent domestic violence advisors and the use of emotion by death penalty lawyers in the US. An accessible and compelling read, this book presents ground-breaking qualitative and quantitative research which will be critical to criminologists, criminal justice practitioners, students of criminology and academics in the fields of social policy and public service. |
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