The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Michele Lamont New York: Russell Sage Foundation and Harvard University Press, 2000. 391 pp.

The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration.

This article empirically tests the effects of exchange relationships between managers and public sector employees working in seven local government departments. Social exchange theory is used as a framework for predicting three outcomes of Human Resource Management (HRM) practice: employee commitment, employee motivation and desire to remain with the organization. The statistical models were found to predict 58 percent of the variation in employee commitment, 53 percent variation in motivation and 41 percent of the variance in respondents' desire to remain with the organization. Consistent with social exchange theory, the results highlight the importance of trust in management, which was found to predict positively all three outcomes. Team-working was found to predict employee commitment and motivation, with employee involvement, empowerment, the offer of fair rewards and job security having significant effects on worker motivation. The implications of these findings for management practice and theory are discussed.

Using social exchange theory to predict the effects of hrm practice on employee outcomes

Ideas about what makes a good teacher are important in thinking about educational reform, and have come into focus recently. These ideas are contested and open to change. The first part of this paper traces models of the good teacher in Australia from the colonial-era good servant, through an ideal of the autonomous scholar-teacher, to contemporary lists of teacher competencies. The second part looks more closely at the incoherent but insistent way the good teacher is now defined under neoliberal governance by teacher registration authorities. The third part of the paper makes proposals for a new understanding of good teachers: based on understanding the labour process and occupational dynamics of teaching, the intellectual structure of Education studies, and the overall logic of education itself.

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Good teachers on dangerous ground: towards a new view of teacher quality and professionalism

Literature on the psychological contract has blossomed progressively over the last ten years to the extent that it is now firmly located within the lexicon of the Human Resource Management (HRM) discipline. Yet as this review indicates, the theoretical assumptions that seem to pervade the psychological contract literature are not without major deficiencies, which in turn pose serious questions around the continued sustainability of the construct as currently constituted. This paper addresses some of the central problems presently confronting the theoretical side of the psychological contract literature. In seeking to advance knowledge and understanding, this review calls for an alternative approach to studying the psychological contract on the basis of a more critical and discursive literature analysis. From this, the authors unpick the construct of the psychological contract as portrayed in much of the extant literature and argue that, in its present form, it symbolizes an ideologically biased formula designed for a particular managerialist interpretation of contemporary work and employment.

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The psychological contract: a critical review

The 80 partners from 40 romantic relationships were independently interviewed using the RIT procedure with regard to the turning points of their respective relationships; 26 types of turning points were found, which reduced to 14 supra-types. These supra-types differed in their association with relational commitment, with some events strongly positive, some strongly negative, and others relatively modest in reported change in commitment. About half of the turning points involved explicit metacommunication between the relationship parties, but the likelihood of relationship talk varied by turning point type. About half of the 759 identified turning points were agreed upon by relationship partners, but agreement differed depending on turning point type. Neither partner agreement nor the presence of explicit metacommunication was related to the respondent's current satisfaction with the relationship. However, the proportion of total turning points that were negative correlated negatively with current satisfaction. Two turning point events, Exclusivity and Disengagement, individually differentiated more from less satisfied relationship parties.

Turning points in developing romantic relationships

This article explores the extent to which a new contractual approach to delivering public services, through public private partnerships (PPPs), is transforming the traditional values underpinning t...

PPPs and the changing public sector ethos: Case-study evidence from the health and local authority sectors

Intersectional analysis has been developing since its emergence from critical race feminism in the 1980s when it was used to conceptualize the inter-relationship of race and gender and, particularly, the experiences of discrimination and marginalization of black women in employment. While its contribution has been much debated within sociological and gender specific journals, its use still remains relatively limited within studies of work and employment relations. It is argued here that this field of study would benefit from greater engagement with and understanding of an intersectional approach to both the design and interpretation of research. Two lines of reasoning are put forward for this contention: firstly, that the intersectional approach contains an important caution against over-generalization that has been obscured; secondly, that separating the challenge for all academics to be more intersectionally sensitive from the methodological challenges of taking an intersectional approach brings the significance of intersectionality into sharper relief.

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Intersectionality: are we taking enough notice in the field of work and employment relations?

This article uses the concept of emotional labour to understand some of the changes that are ongoing in the teaching profession. While research has explored the impact of the new performance culture upon teachers’ work and identified a marginalisation of the caring and emotional aspects of teaching, the concept of emotional labour allows us to extend this argument. Using interviews with teachers who have had their capability questioned, in the majority of cases through the threat or implementation of capability procedures, this article draws upon newer conceptualisations of emotional labour to analyse some of the changes teachers are experiencing with the introduction of new accountability and performance systems. Utilising Bolton’s typology of different forms of emotion management in the workplace, we argue it is possible to recognise the distinctiveness of the emotion work carried out by teachers and identify why teachers’ emotion work is particularly vulnerable to the educational reforms associated wit...

Too emotional to be capable? The changing nature of emotion work in definitions of ‘capable teaching’

Drawing on a multilevel study of commissioning, employers, and care staff, this
article explores the role of time in the management of domiciliary care work for
older adults in England and the consequences for the employment conditions of
care staff. An index of fragmented time practices among 52 independent-sector
domiciliary care providers reveals widespread tendencies to use zero-hours contracts
and limit paid hours to face-to-face contact time, leaving travel time and
other work-related activities unpaid. Care staff interviews reveal how fragmented
time creates insecurities and demands high work engagement. Time management
practices are shown to derive directly from strict time-based local authority
commissioning. Subcontractors, both independent small fi rms and those
belonging to national chains, can at best adopt human resource (HR) policies that
are partial routes to failure, as evident in widespread recruitment and retention
problems. Informal HR practices to accommodate working-time preferences help
to retain individual staff, but adjustments are often marginal, adversely affect
other staff and fail to expand the recruitment pool for social care. Labor shortages
are likely to persist as long as workers are required to adapt to a regime of
fragmented time and to work more hours than are paid, even at pay rates close
to the national minimum wage.

?It?s All About Time?: Time as Contested Terrain in the Management and Experience of Domiciliary Care Work in England

Studies of care workers frequently reveal relatively high levels of job satisfaction despite poor employment conditions. The rewarding nature of care work, altruistic motivations and gendered social norms have all been used to explain why subjective job satisfaction is high despite poor pay and terms and conditions. Using data collected in case-study research with domiciliary and residential care workers, this article offers a new direction for care worker research that contextualizes the taken-for-granted assumption that care workers tolerate poor pay and conditions because women find the work satisfying and intrinsically rewarding. The article draws on cultural analyses of class to offer an alternative framework that identifies the wider social processes that can shape care workers’ job satisfaction.

Gail Hebson

Papers

PPPs and the changing public sector ethos: Case-study evidence from the health and local authority sectors

Intersectionality: are we taking enough notice in the field of work and employment relations?

Too emotional to be capable? The changing nature of emotion work in definitions of ‘capable teaching’

?It?s All About Time?: Time as Contested Terrain in the Management and Experience of Domiciliary Care Work in England

Rethinking job satisfaction in care work: looking beyond the care debates: