Chris Baldry

Bio: Chris Baldry is an academic researcher from University of Stirling. The author has contributed to research in topics: Class (computer programming) & Identity (social science). The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 12 publications receiving 521 citations.

Getting on or getting by? Employee flexibility and coping strategies for home and work

Abstract: Recent speculation about the impact on family life of contemporary patterns of work has prompted considerable and concerted social research activity in which the workplace and household have figured prominently. This article extends these studies to examine employment in prototypical new sectors of the economy, namely call centres and software, which at the time of the study were enjoying spectacular growth. Employees in both sectors reported spillover from work to home, though the extent, nature and intensity of spillover varied significantly between the sectors. The study identified the different and hitherto unexplored ways in which employees in these different sectors attempt to cope with complex articulations between home and work, and the varying resources which they bring to bear in doing so. Contemporary work settings indicate little change from more established sectors in that gender, status and labour market strength are important factors in offering work boundary discretion.

`Space - The Final Frontier'

Abstract: For too long the built working environment has been excluded from the analysis of work organisations. Buildings, like other cultural artefacts, encapsulate social and economic priorities and values, and represent prevailing power structures. Work buildings, such as offices and factories, both make possible the organisation of the labour process and also serve as structures of non-verbal communication, providing cues on hierarchy, status and appropriate behaviour. Control over the working environment can be seen as a constituent part of the control of the labour process, displaying similar cyclical movements. Human resource management and information technology are currently combining to encourage a reappraisal of the working environment, but one that is not without its own contradictions.

'A unique working environment': health, sickness and absence management in UK call centres

Abstract: This article fills an important gap in our knowledge of call centres by focusing specifically on occupational ill-health. We document the recent emergence of health and safety concerns, assess the responses of employers and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), critique the existing regulatory framework and present a holistic diagnostic model of occupationally induced ill-health. This model is utilized to investigate quantitative and qualitative data from a case study in the privatized utility sector, where the relative contributions to employee sickness and ill-health from factors relating to ergonomics, the built environment and work organization are evaluated. The principal conclusions are that the distinctive character of call-handling is the major cause of occupational ill-health and that effective remedial action would involve radical job re-design. Finally, the limitations of recent HSE guidance are exposed and industrial relations processes and outcomes analysed.

The open-plan academy: space, control and the undermining of professional identity:

Abstract: The introduction of open-plan (OP) academic offices is critically examined through interviews undertaken in Scotland and Australia. The development is discussed in the context of the increased managerialism in higher education. The conclusion is that, despite a rhetoric of synergy, the dominant rationale for OP is one of cost reduction and that the experience for many academics is proving detrimental to both scholarship and professional identity.

Stuck in the middle with who? The class identity of knowledge workers

Abstract: The coming of the information age has been associated with widespread social transformation and new, or dissolved, class structures. Central to this claim is the emergence of `knowledge workers' including information technology professionals. While previous discussion has focused on the paradox faced by IT workers as both professionals and employees, this article, using empirical data from five software organizations in Scotland, examines their perceptions of class structure and their own class position. It finds that participants clearly retained varying class models of society but expressed conflict between their own self-rated class identity and that which they awarded to their occupation and profession.

A Space for Place in Sociology

Abstract: Sociological studies sensitive to the issue of place are rarely labeled thus, and at the same time there are far too many of them to fit in this review. It may be a good thing that this research is seldom gathered up as a “sociology of place,” for that could ghettoize the subject as something of interest only to geographers, architects, or environmental historians. The point of this review is to indicate that sociologists have a stake in place no matter what they analyze, or how: The works cited below emplace inequality, difference, power, politics, interaction, community, social movements, deviance, crime, life course, science, identity, memory, history. After a prologue of definitions and methodological ruminations, I ask: How do places come to be the way they are, and how do places matter for social practices and historical change?

The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender.

Abstract: Prosocial behavior consists of behaviors regarded as beneficial to others, including helping, sharing, comforting, guiding, rescuing, and defending others. Although women and men are similar in engaging in extensive prosocial behavior, they are different in their emphasis on particular classes of these behaviors. The specialty of women is prosocial behaviors that are more communal and relational, and that of men is behaviors that are more agentic and collectively oriented as well as strength intensive. These sex differences, which appear in research in various settings, match widely shared gender role beliefs. The origins of these beliefs lie in the division of labor, which reflects a biosocial interaction between male and female physical attributes and the social structure. The effects of gender roles on behavior are mediated by hormonal processes, social expectations, and individual dispositions.

Time for space: A narrative review of research on organizational spaces

Abstract: This paper presents an integrated framework for studying organizational spaces. It suggests that existing research can be classed into three categories: studies of space as distance; studies of space as the materialization of power relations; and studies of space as experience. These approaches are drawn together using Henri Lefebvre's theory of spatial production to argue that an adequate understanding of organizational spaces would investigate how they are practised, planned and imagined. Moreover, an adequate theory of space would account for multiple spatial levels, or scales. To illustrate the potential of the synthetic framework, a reading of three exemplary studies of multiple organizational spaces, from social anthropology and economic geography, is presented. The paper concludes by presenting a research agenda that indicates how data collection and analysis in established fields such as employee relations and international business might become more 'space sensitive' by integrating such theorized cross-scale analysis.

Work–Life, Diversity and Intersectionality: A Critical Review and Research Agenda

Abstract: Work–life issues have important implications at both organizational and individual levels. This paper provides a critical review of the work–life literature from 1990 onwards through the lens of diversity, with a particular focus on disparities of power induced by methodological and conceptual framings of work and life. The review seeks to answer the following questions: What are the gaps and omissions in the work–life research? How may they be overcome? To answer these questions, the review scrutinizes blind spots in the treatment of life, diversity and power in work–life research in both positivist and critical scholarship. In order to transcend the blind spots in positivist and critical work–life research, the review argues the case for an intersectional approach which captures the changing realities of family and workforce through the lens of diversity and intersectionality. The theoretical contribution is threefold: first, the review demonstrates that contemporary framing of life in the work–life literature should be expanded to cover aspects of life beyond domestic life. Second, the review explains why and how other strands of diversity than gender also manifest as salient causes of difference in experiences of the work–life interface. Third, the review reveals that social and historical context has more explanatory power in work–life dynamics than the micro-individual level of explanations. Work–life literature should capture the dynamism in these contexts. The paper also provides a set of useful recommendations to capture and operationalize methodological and theoretical changes required in the work–life literature.

India calling to the far away towns: the call centre labour process and globalization

Abstract: In recent years prominent companies have migrated call centre services to India provoking much-publicized fears for the future of UK employment. This article challenges the widely-held assumption that offshoring voice services is a seamless undertaking, principally through an investigation of the Indian call centre labour process. This enquiry is informed initially by an analysis of the political-economic factors driving offshoring and shaping the forms of work organization to have emerged in India. A critical review of literature on call centre work organization provides a conceptual framework, through which Indian developments are analysed. Data comes from fieldwork conducted in India and a complete audit of the Scottish industry, through which UK trends can be evaluated. We conclude that the Indian industry reproduces in exaggerated and culturally-distinctive forms, a labour process that has proved problematical for employers and employees alike in the UK and elsewhere.