Globalization of trade and organizational change increase the impact of markets in people's lives. But in what ways do markets matter? This book is about how financial analysts, marketing people, corporate leaders and other actors in Western market economies perceive, model, and use markets. It provides an ethnographic window into the cultural processes of contemporary markets; how people employ the market to solve problems, create capital, gain political ends, challenge economic processes, and delineate moral values and responsibilities.

The scholarship of Ulf Hannerz is characterized by its extraordinary breadth and visionary nature. He has contributed to the understanding of urban life and transnational networks, and the role of media, paradoxes of identity and new forms of community, suggesting to see culture in terms of flows rather than as bounded entities. Contributions honor Hannerz' legacy by addressing theoretical, epistemological, ethical and methodological challenges facing anthropological inquiry on topics from cultural diversity policies in Europe to transnational networks in Yemen, and from pottery and literature to multinational corporations.

Organisational Anthropology is a pioneering analysis of doing ethnographic fieldwork in different types of complex organizations. The book focuses on the process of initiating contact, establishing rapport and gaining the trust of the organization's members. The contributors work from the premise that doing fieldwork in an organization shares essential characteristics with fieldwork in more "classical" anthropological environments, but that it also poses some particular challenges to the ethnographer. These include the ideological or financial interests of the organizations, protection of resources and competition between organizations. Organisational Anthropology brings together and highlights crucial aspects of doing anthropology in contemporary complex settings, and will have wide appeal to students, researchers and academics in anthropology and organization studies.

Over the past two decades the use of flexible employment relations has increased in most developed countries. The growth of temporary agency work constitutes a significant component of this development. Organizations are now facing the challenges of managing a blended workforce, i.e. a workforce consisting of both direct hires and contractors. At a time when Europe, as well as the rest of the world, is facing enhanced global competition and a severe labor market crisis, an understanding of temporary employment practices becomes all the more acute. With the evolution of the use of agency work in the Western world over the past decade, the chapters in this volume show how a focus on the management and organization of temporary agency work can be helpful to see possibilities and pitfalls for the use of temporary employment in the wake of changed employment practices and challenges to labor market stability and welfare structures.

Together, the new case studies presented in this volume provide a wide scope of analysis of the organization and management of temporary agency work, offering a much-needed contribution to the discussion of issues and priorities that guide and shape organizational practices today. Its particular uniqueness lies in the empirical richness and variety of local case studies and the way in which these are related to wider policy aims, ideological shifts, and the dynamics of organizational practice, with a particular focus on the organization and management of blended workforces .

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This exciting new text engages with the issue of ethical dilemmas encountered in different organizations. Rather than exploring the definition of ethical conduct, this book focuses on the way in which the process of organization produces dilemmas of ethical behaviour. Using illustrative accounts from corporate settings as a basis, the book explores the conditions that lead to ethical dilemmas and the strategies organizations adopt to deal with these dilemmas or steer away from them. The book suggests that ethical dilemmas are often dealt with by directing attention away from the core problem, rather than engaging with and solving it. This is a fascinating text, which raises important questions and provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics of ethical processes. A company's ethical behaviour is a major criterion by which the company, its products and services are judged and is therefore crucial to sound management in today's organizations. Ethical Dilemmas in Management is essential reading for all students of business and management and ethics.

In Discreet Power, Christina Garsten and Adrienne Soerbom undertake an ethnographic study of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Accessing one of the primary agenda-setting organizations of our day, they draw on interviews and participant observation to examine how the WEF wields its influence. They situate the WEF within an emerging system of "discretionary governance," in which actors craft ideas and entice formal authorities and top leaders in order to garner significant sway. Yet in spite of its image as a powerful, exclusive brain trust, the WEF has no formal mandate to implement its positions. It must convince others to advance chosen causes and enact suggestions, rendering its position quite fragile. Garsten and Soerbom argue that the WEF must be viewed relationally as a brokering organization that lives between the market and political spheres and that extends its reach through associated individuals and groups.They place the WEF in the context of a broader shift, arguing that while this type of governance opens up novel ways of dealing with urgent global problems, it challenges core democratic values.

In Discreet Power, Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom undertake an ethnographic study of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Accessing one of the primary agenda-setting organizations of our day, they draw on interviews and participant observation to examine how the WEF wields its influence. They situate the WEF within an emerging system of "discretionary governance," in which actors craft ideas and entice formal authorities and top leaders in order to garner significant sway. Yet in spite of its image as a powerful, exclusive brain trust, the WEF has no formal mandate to implement its positions. It must convince others to advance chosen causes and enact suggestions, rendering its position quite fragile. Garsten and Sörbom argue that the WEF must be viewed relationally as a brokering organization that lives between the market and political spheres and that extends its reach through associated individuals and groups.They place the WEF in the context of a broader shift, arguing that while this type of governance opens up novel ways of dealing with urgent global problems, it challenges core democratic values.

This exciting new text engages with the issue of ethical dilemmas encountered in different organizations. Rather than exploring the definition of ethical conduct, this book focuses on the way in which the process of organization produces dilemmas of ethical behaviour. Using illustrative accounts from corporate settings as a basis, the book explores the conditions that lead to ethical dilemmas and the strategies organizations adopt to deal with these dilemmas or steer away from them. The book suggests that ethical dilemmas are often dealt with by directing attention away from the core problem, rather than engaging with and solving it. This is a fascinating text, which raises important questions and provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics of ethical processes. A company's ethical behaviour is a major criterion by which the company, its products and services are judged and is therefore crucial to sound management in today's organizations. Ethical Dilemmas in Management is essential reading for all students of business and management and ethics.

Information and communication technologies have completely revolutionized our working practices. Career patterns, professional identities, speed of communication, time management, and mobility have been irrevocably changed in an amazingly short period. Drawing on worldwide case studies, this fascinating book explores these transformations and looks to what developments are in store for us in the future. Flexible hours, email, virtual meetings rooms, and working from home are all relatively new additions to our professional lives. The effects of these technological advances have been dramatic and far-reaching. Not only have they helped to connect organizations and institutions in developing countries to the rest of the world, but they also allow people to maintain extensive geographical networks with friends, families, and colleagues. The use of virtual reality and multimedia has had a huge impact on careers ranging from investment banking to molecular biology, and has brought fundamental changes to education and training, the generation of new ideas, and problem solving. This book investigates both the impact of information technology on working practices and, more complexly, how I.T. is bound up in social, political, and economic issues. How are power relations established and maintained through transnational networking? Can the Internet be used as a political tool to manipulate the masses? In what ways has digital technology changed the aesthetics and practices of the Euro-American dance world? What initiatives have been undertaken to ensure people arent excluded from the digital world and have they succeeded? Through answering these and many more questions, this groundbreaking book is an essential guide to the modern day world.

Information and communication technologies have completely revolutionized our working practices. Career patterns, professional identities, speed of communication, time management, and mobility have been irrevocably changed in an amazingly short period. Drawing on worldwide case studies, this fascinating book explores these transformations and looks to what developments are in store for us in the future. Flexible hours, email, virtual meetings rooms, and working from home are all relatively new additions to our professional lives. The effects of these technological advances have been dramatic and far-reaching. Not only have they helped to connect organizations and institutions in developing countries to the rest of the world, but they also allow people to maintain extensive geographical networks with friends, families, and colleagues. The use of virtual reality and multimedia has had a huge impact on careers ranging from investment banking to molecular biology, and has brought fundamental changes to education and training, the generation of new ideas, and problem solving. This book investigates both the impact of information technology on working practices and, more complexly, how I.T. is bound up in social, political, and economic issues. How are power relations established and maintained through transnational networking? Can the Internet be used as a political tool to manipulate the masses? In what ways has digital technology changed the aesthetics and practices of the Euro-American dance world? What initiatives have been undertaken to ensure people arent excluded from the digital world and have they succeeded? Through answering these and many more questions, this groundbreaking book is an essential guide to the modern day world.

In Economics and Morality, the authors seek to illuminate the multiple kinds of analyses relating morality and economic behavior in particular kinds of economic systems. The chapters explore economic systems from a variety of diverse indigenous and capitalist societies, focusing on moral challenges in non-Western economic systems undergoing profound change, grassroots movements and moral claims in the context of capitalism, and morality-based movements taking place within corporate and state institutions. The anthropological insights of each chapter provide the value of firsthand fieldwork and ethnographic investigation, as well as the tradition of critically studying non-Western and Western societies. Because the moral challenges in a given capitalist society can no longer be effectively addressed without considering the interaction and influences of different societies in the global system, the international ethnographic research in this book can help document and make sense of the changes sweeping our planet.

Over the past two decades the use of flexible employment relations has increased in most developed countries. The growth of temporary agency work constitutes a significant component of this development. Organizations are now facing the challenges of managing a 'blended workforce', i.e. a workforce consisting of both direct hires and contractors. At a time when Europe, as well as the rest of the world, is facing enhanced global competition and a severe labor market crisis, an understanding of temporary employment practices becomes all the more acute. With the evolution of the use of agency work in the Western world over the past decade, the chapters in this volume show how a focus on the management and organization of temporary agency work can be helpful to see possibilities and pitfalls for the use of temporary employment in the wake of changed employment practices and challenges to labor market stability and welfare structures. Together, the new case studies presented in this volume provide a wide scope of analysis of the organization and management of temporary agency work, offering a much-needed contribution to the discussion of issues and priorities that guide and shape organizational practices today. Its particular uniqueness lies in the empirical richness and variety of local case studies and the way in which these are related to wider policy aims, ideological shifts, and the dynamics of organizational practice, with a particular focus on the organization and management of 'blended workforces'.

Globalization of trade and organizational change increase the impact of markets in peoples' lives. But in what ways do markets matter? This book is about how financial analysts, marketing people, corporate leaders and other actors in Western market economies perceive, model, and use markets. It provides an ethnographic window into the cultural processes of contemporary markets; how people employ the market to solve problems, create capital, gain political ends, challenge economic processes, and delineate moral values and responsibilities.

Organisational Anthropology is a pioneering analysis of doing ethnographic fieldwork in different types of complex organisations, focusing on the process of initiating contact, establishing rapport and gaining the trust of an organisation's members. The thirteen contributors work from the premise that doing fieldwork in an organisation shares essential characteristics with fieldwork in more 'classical' anthropological environments, but that it also poses some particular challenges to the ethnographer, with barriers including the ideological or financial interests of the organisations, protection of resources and competition between organisations. A number of organisational contexts - including corporations, EU policy arenas, think tanks and the public sector - are explored in case studies from the UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Mexico and the USA.

In Economics and Morality, the authors seek to illuminate the multiple kinds of analyses relating morality and economic behavior in particular kinds of economic systems. The chapters explore economic systems from a variety of diverse indigenous and capitalist societies, focusing on moral challenges in non-Western economic systems undergoing profound change, grassroots movements and moral claims in the context of capitalism, and morality-based movements taking place within corporate and state institutions. The anthropological insights of each chapter provide the value of firsthand fieldwork and ethnographic investigation, as well as the tradition of critically studying non-Western and Western societies. Because the moral challenges in a given capitalist society can no longer be effectively addressed without considering the interaction and influences of different societies in the global system, the international ethnographic research in this book can help document and make sense of the changes sweeping our planet.