China's 30-year market transition and its integration into the world economy provide a unique opportunity for exploring the nature of large-scale economic and political transformation and the mechanisms underlying organizational behavior during such a transition. Management and Organizations in Transitional China explores how managers and firms cope with transition-related challenges by adapting to, manipulating, or even creating the complex institutional environment. This book examines the way transitional institutions shape individual decisions and organizational strategies, the mechanisms that promote the diffusion of innovative management practices and economic policies, and the formation and evolution of interfirm networks. Based on a comprehensive review of the studies on market transition, this book investigates how firms manage their relationship with important stakeholders in the environment. It highlights the importance of network-based strategies for institutionally less-advantaged actors (like private firms, foreign entrants, and entrepreneurs) to establish legitimacy, gain institutional support, and mobilize financial resources. Moreover, this book studies the mechanisms that facilitate the adoption of innovative management practices and economic policies in the transitional context, comparing the mainstream diffusion theories and evaluating the relative potency of the diffusion drivers. Furthermore, Management and Organizations in Transitional China provides empirical analyses using longitudinal data of alliance formation, network evolution, and the effect of both alliance formation and network evolution on firm decision-making and performance. Combining theory, data analysis, and rich contextual description to provide a comprehensive understanding of the organizational transition process, this book will appeal to scholars and practitioners in general management, organizational studies, international business, entrepreneurship, and related disciplines.

China's 30-year market transition and its integration into the world economy provide a unique opportunity for exploring the nature of large-scale economic and political transformation and the mechanisms underlying organizational behavior during such a transition. Management and Organizations in Transitional China explores how managers and firms cope with transition-related challenges by adapting to, manipulating, or even creating the complex institutional environment. This book examines the way transitional institutions shape individual decisions and organizational strategies, the mechanisms that promote the diffusion of innovative management practices and economic policies, and the formation and evolution of interfirm networks. Based on a comprehensive review of the studies on market transition, this book investigates how firms manage their relationship with important stakeholders in the environment. It highlights the importance of network-based strategies for institutionally less-advantaged actors (like private firms, foreign entrants, and entrepreneurs) to establish legitimacy, gain institutional support, and mobilize financial resources. Moreover, this book studies the mechanisms that facilitate the adoption of innovative management practices and economic policies in the transitional context, comparing the mainstream diffusion theories and evaluating the relative potency of the diffusion drivers. Furthermore, Management and Organizations in Transitional China provides empirical analyses using longitudinal data of alliance formation, network evolution, and the effect of both alliance formation and network evolution on firm decision-making and performance. Combining theory, data analysis, and rich contextual description to provide a comprehensive understanding of the organizational transition process, this book will appeal to scholars and practitioners in general management, organizational studies, international business, entrepreneurship, and related disciplines.

This second of two companion volumes places the labor markets, workplaces, jobs and workers of Europe in comparative perspective. It focuses on the politics, economics, sociology, and history of work and workers in Europe. It contains both qualitative and quantitative studies as well as explicitly theoretical work, and compares contemporary patterns and the recent history of European workers with other models of work worldwide. Authors contribute a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, with papers that push the boundaries of evidence and argument. Specific topics in "Comparing European Workers Volume 2: Policies and Institutions" include: the political economy of active social policy in postindustrial democracies; social protection dualism, deindustrialization and cost containment; organized labor in Europe; and, unionization in East European ex-communist countries. It asks such questions as 'does European-style welfare generosity discourage single mother employment?', 'whose interests do unions represent?' and 'are trade unions still redistributive?'.

This first of two companion volumes places the labor markets, workplaces, jobs and workers of Europe in comparative perspective. It focuses on the politics, economics, sociology, and history of work and workers in Europe. Authors contribute a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, with papers that push the boundaries of evidence and argument. In order to place European workers in comparative perspectives, the volume features articles that analyze specific European countries, industries and firms, analyze Europe as one of a few cases, and analyze many European countries within a cross-national sample. Specific topics in 'Comparing European Workers Volume 1: Experiences and Inequalities' include: a multilevel study of perceived job insecurity in 27 European countries; work values and job rewards among European workers; explaining cross-national variation in wage inequality; managerial intensity and earnings inequality in affluent democracies; cross-national patterns in individual and household employment and work hours by gender and parenthood; and domestic and international causes of the rise of pay inequality in OECD nations.

In this volume, we examine how the institutional environment affects entrepreneurial organizations, and vice-versa. This includes not only how the institutional environment constrains both founding processes and the type of organizations founded, but also how institutional dynamics construct new entrepreneurial opportunities, empower and facilitate action, and how entrepreneurs manipulate the institutional environment to serve their own ends. This institutional approach to entrepreneurship shifts attention away from the personal traits and backgrounds of individual entrepreneurs, and towards how institutions shape entrepreneurial opportunities and actions; how entrepreneurs navigate their cognitive, normative, and regulatory environments; and, how actors modify and build institutions to support new types of organizations.

Thirty years of economic change have fundamentally altered the nature of organizations and work in China. This volume brings together current research by many of the top scholars studying these issues and provides a glimpse into the state of thinking on organizations and work at the start of the fourth decade of transition. The topics covered include the continued transition of State Owned Enterprises, the emergence of asset management companies, the adoption of innovative labor structures, connections between organizational processes and worker outcomes, the changing use of networks in job search, and role of work and work units in creating and maintaining inequality.

Work behaviours and inequality in work-based rewards are essential to financial security and general well-being. Although the benefits of receiving work-based rewards, such as income, benefits and retirement packages, are significant, they are not enjoyed uniformly. Scholars have invested considerable resources in studying the processes that lead to differential work outcomes, and we know a considerable amount about what places people in the distributions of income and wealth. However, religion is a critical determinant of these outcomes that has attracted little attention. It seems logical that a person's general approach to the world - their religious beliefs or cultural orientation - would be an important determinant of their wealth. After all, the things we consider important and our operating assumptions about how the world does work and how it should work are certain to affect the goals we pursue, our decisions about critical life events, and, ultimately, how well-off we are. This volume brings together major thinkers in the field of religion, work and inequality to explore current research and to articulate an agenda for better understanding these essential social processes.

This volume features sociological research and theory on gender and sexuality in the workplace, and identifies how organizations can achieve a gender-balanced and sexually-diverse work force. While identifying characteristics of work organizations that have made important strides to achieving equality in the workplace, articles also detail how women and sexual minorities continue to face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion. Special attention is paid to how race and class shape the experience of discrimination for these groups. Topics discussed are wide-ranging and include: gender discrimination and the wage gap; sexual minorities (LGBT workers); homophobic and 'gay friendly' workplaces; sexual harassment; sex in the workplace; sex work and sex workers; gender equity policies; transgender workers; men and women in non-traditional jobs; occupational gender segregation; and, gender difference in work hours. "The Research in the Sociology of Work" series is proud to publish the works of new and established scholars on these important topics, including both quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as review essays that set the agenda for future sociological analysis.

Entrepreneurship, the creation of new economic entities, is central to the structure and functioning of organizations and economies. New business formation also shapes the nature of social and economic stratification in an economy and may be an important vehicle for social mobility. The papers in this volume explore many of the issues that are central to the study of entrepreneurship today and also break new ground in the field. The papers explore the importance of entrepreneurship, the process by which entrepreneurship occurs, and the way both meaning and process vary with context and opportunity structures. These papers address long-standing controversies in the study of entrepreneurship, and they also identify new, innovative questions and approaches. As a result, both seasoned entrepreneurship researchers and those who are new to the field will find the papers interesting and useful.
Research in the Sociology of Work is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online of volumes 10 onwards.