Showing papers in "Work, Employment & Society in 2011"
TL;DR: In this paper, the relevance of different types of support for satisfaction with work life balance was investigated, based on a survey of 7867 service-sector workers in eight European countries.
Abstract: This article studies the relevance of different types of support for satisfaction with work life balance. More specifically, it investigates the relevance of state, instrumental and emotional workplace and family support, based on a survey of 7867 service-sector workers in eight European countries. The article starts by mapping available state, workplace and family support in order to determine which source dominates in which country and whether these sources match Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology. The impact of the different support sources is then examined. Findings indicate that support for employee work-life balance satisfaction has a direct and moderating effect. Finally, results show that emotional support and instrumental support in the workplace have a complementary relationship. Whereas emotional family support has a positive impact on work-life balance satisfaction, instrumental family support does not.
236 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a survey of graduate careers suggests that for a cohort of recent business and management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is far from straightforward, regardless of the extent to which graduates develop employability skills during their undergraduate studies.
Abstract: Two dominant rationales are offered by UK policymakers for the continued expansion of higher education: to service the high-skill labour requirements of a knowledge economy, and to increase educational and employment opportunities for under-represented groups. The discourse of employability connects these two rationales in a simplistic manner. Individual employability is described as both the means by which to obtain and maintain high-quality employment and to eradicate the social reproduction of inequality. However, evidence drawn from a survey of graduate careers suggests that for a cohort of recent business and management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is far from straightforward. The data suggest that traditional labour market disadvantage still appears to be an impediment to achievement, regardless of the extent to which graduates develop employability skills during their undergraduate studies.
214 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an alternative reading of silence is offered which focuses on the role of management in structuring employee silence, highlighting the ways in which management, through agenda-setting and institutional structures, can perpetuate silence over a range of issues.
Abstract: A growing literature has emerged on employee silence, located within the field of organisational behaviour. Scholars have investigated when and how employees articulate voice and when and how they will opt for silence. While offering many insights, this analysis is inherently one-sided in its interpretation of silence as a product of employee motivations. An alternative reading of silence is offered which focuses on the role of management. Using the non-union employee representation literature for illustrative purposes, the significance of management in structuring employee silence is considered. Highlighted are the ways in which management, through agenda-setting and institutional structures, can perpetuate silence over a range of issues, thereby organising employees out of the voice process. These considerations are redeployed to offer a dialectical interpretation of employee silence in a conceptual framework to assist further research and analysis.
177 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the trajectories of spatial and labour market mobilities of central eastern European workers in the UK. And they showed that the newly acquired freedom of movement has improved the mobility rights of CEEs and showed how CEE workers take advantage of EU citizenship.
Abstract: Since European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004, over a million mobile central eastern Europeans (CEEs) have found employment in Britain. This unprecedented wave of labour mobility could be interpreted equally as labour migration and as an exercise of the right of freedom of movement extended by EU citizenship. While recognising that the newly acquired freedom of movement has improved the mobility rights of CEEs and showing how CEE workers take advantage of EU citizenship, the analysis reveals the diverging trajectories of spatial and labour market mobilities.
131 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the impact of harassment on job burnout and turnover intentions among a large sample of hospital nurses in Britain and found that effective anti-harassment policies do reduce turnover intentions, particularly for minority ethnic nurses.
Abstract: This article analyses the impact of harassment on job burnout and turnover intentions among a large sample of hospital nurses in Britain. It compares the effects of insider-initiated harassment from managers and colleagues with outsider-initiated harassment from patients and their relatives. The article also examines the effect of ethnicity and the impact of effective anti-harassment policies on job burnout and quit intentions. Results suggest firstly, that the insider or outsider characteristics of the perpetrator do help to shape the consequences of harassment for nurses and secondly, that effective anti-harassment policies do reduce turnover intentions, particularly for minority ethnic nurses.
124 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that the perpetrators of workplace bullying in Britain are mainly managers, contrary to the predominant view in workplace bullying literature and despite cost and time cost, despite the cost of bullying.
Abstract: Previous research strongly indicates that the perpetrators of workplace bullying in Britain are mainly managers. Contrary to the predominant view in workplace bullying literature and despite cost i...
124 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between parents' non-standard work hours and the time they and their spouse spend in paid work, housework, childcare (subdivided into routine tasks and talk-based interaction) and in their children's company.
Abstract: What effect do non-standard work schedules have on how parents of young children can meet the combined and growing demands of work and family? This article uses the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006 to explore the relationship between parents' non-standard work hours, and the time they and their spouse spend in paid work, housework, childcare (subdivided into routine tasks and talk-based interaction) and in their children's company. Parents who work non-standard hours spend significantly longer in paid work and less time on housework and childcare than those who work standard hours. Spouses' schedules impact much more on mothers' than on fathers' time. When fathers work non-standard hours, mothers do more housework and routine childcare, so the gendered division of household labour intensifies. Mothers' non-standard hours allow them to schedule their own paid work and family responsibilities around each other, with little effect upon fathers' unpaid work. © The Author(s) 2011.
121 citations
TL;DR: The role of employer discrimination in matching is often acknowledged but challenging to quantify as mentioned in this paper, and it is difficult to quantify what part of the "ethnic penalty" in the labour market is due to recruitment discriminators.
Abstract: The role of employer discrimination in labour market matching is often acknowledged but challenging to quantify. What part of the ‘ethnic penalty’ in the labour market is due to recruitment discrim...
114 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that those countries that have maintained relatively strong employment protections have tended to experience fewer labour market disruptions than countries with weaker employment protections, while there has been some convergence in employment and social protection policy across Europe, the trend has been towards less security rather than "flexicurity".
Abstract: The concept of ‘flexicurity’ has become ubiquitous in the labour market policy recommendations of the European Commission. EU member states have been encouraged to increase labour market flexibility while maintaining security through the promotion of ‘employability’ and an ‘adequate’ floor of unemployment benefits. The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has, however, provided flexicurity measures with a strenuous test. As this article demonstrates, those countries that have maintained relatively strong employment protections have tended to experience fewer labour market disruptions than countries with weaker employment protections. The article also suggests that while there has been some convergence in employment and social protection policy across Europe, the trend has been towards less security rather than ‘flexicurity’.
113 citations
TL;DR: Work-life balance debates continue to proliferate but give relatively little critical attention to managerial workers as discussed by the authors, who tend to assume the perfect manager who is able and willing to create a symmetrical balance between different spheres of life.
Abstract: Work-life balance debates continue to proliferate but give relatively little critical attention to managerial workers. This article draws on research into the experiences of managers in a local government organization revealing an intricate, multifaceted and heterogeneous picture of fragmentation, conflicting demands, pressures and anxieties. The study highlights the importance of paid work for public sector managers; the concomitant difficulties in controlling working hours for those in managerial roles and the extent to which shifts in work orientation occur during managers’ careers. Research findings suggest that in practice work-life balance initiatives may only serve to increase managerial anxieties and pressures, the very opposite outcome to that intended. These themes do not feature in many work-life balance debates, which tend to assume the perfect manager who is able and willing to create a symmetrical balance between different spheres of life.
113 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a study of ten Polish entrepreneurs operating in Leicester, UK is reported, where the concepts of social, cultural and economic capital are used as the lens through which to explore the way the capital they access is employed and converted into entrepreneurial activity.
Abstract: A study of ten Polish entrepreneurs operating in Leicester, UK is reported in this article. The concepts of social, cultural and economic capital are used as the lens through which to explore the way the capital they access is employed and converted into entrepreneurial activity. Ethnic entrepreneurship takes place within wider social, political and economic institutional frameworks and opportunity structures and so this is taken into account by differentiating two groups – post-war and contemporary Polish entrepreneurs. The differing origins and amounts of forms of capital they can access are shown as is how these are converted into valued outcomes. Combining the mixed embeddedness approach with a forms-of-capital analysis enables looking beyond social capital to elaborate on intra-ethnic variation in the UK’s Polish entrepreneurial community.
TL;DR: The authors examined three types of adjustment involving segmentation, working hours and unemployment/underemployment in six representative European Union countries from the EU15, which reflect the persistence of three varieties of capitalism in Europe.
Abstract: The economic crisis that beset Europe in 2007 had a considerable impact on employment. Since 2008, unemployment has increased throughout Europe, but adjustment mechanisms affecting the labour market have varied from one country to another. By examining six representative European Union countries from the EU15, this article examines three types of adjustment involving segmentation, working hours and unemployment/underemployment. These adjustment systems, which originate from business strategy and which are partly supported by public policy measures, reflect the persistence of three varieties of capitalism in Europe.
TL;DR: The global economic crisis that exploded in 2008 dramatically changed the context for international migration as discussed by the authors, and this review article addresses four related questions about migration in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Abstract: The global economic crisis that exploded in 2008 dramatically changed the context for international migration. In that context, this review article addresses four related questions about migration ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how employee participation influences the quality of the work environment and workers' well-being at 11 Danish workplaces from within six different industries, and found that work environment quality and high levels of participation go hand in hand.
Abstract: The article explores how employee participation influences the quality of the work environment and workers’ well-being at 11 Danish workplaces from within six different industries. Both direct participation and representative forms of participation at the workplace level were studied. Statistical as well as qualitative comparative analyses reveal that work environment quality and high levels of participation go hand in hand. Within a typology of participation models the highest level of participation, including strong elements of collective participation, and also the best work environment, measured as ‘psychosocial well-being’, were found at workplaces managed in accordance with democratic principles.
TL;DR: This paper examined the emotional complexities and stresses associated with national identity management (accent modification, the use of western pseudonyms and location masking) and customer-instigated racial abuse in offshored Indian call centres.
Abstract: This article examines the emotional complexities and stresses associated with national identity management (accent modification, the use of western pseudonyms and location masking) and customer-instigated racial abuse in offshored Indian call centres. Drawing on 77 semi-structured interviews with frontline employees in Bangalore, the research reveals that although call centre agents can find identity management beneficial in easing customer apprehensions and in achieving organizational performance targets, such identity regulation can result in the experience of stress, role ambiguity and work alienation. The article demonstrates that employees need to manage the stigma relating to their ‘Indian’ identity in order to fulfil the challenges of aesthetic and emotional labour. Furthermore, the article explains how the mobilization of aesthetic labour through stigma management can intensify frontline worker experiences of emotional labour.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the capabilities approach is best thought of not as offering a detailed road map for policy, but as providing a critically different conceptualization of the purpose and principles of public policy.
Abstract: Even before the onset of economic downturn in 2008–9, UK policy on employment, work and welfare had reached an impasse, with little evidence of new ideas, either in relation to the final years of New Labour or the Coalition Government, as to how to tackle deeply entrenched problems beyond adherence to neo-liberalism. This article explores whether a capabilities approach, as originally developed in the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, offers a potential framework for new thinking. It is argued that the capabilities approach is best thought of not as offering a detailed road map for policy, but as providing a critically different conceptualization of the purpose and principles of public policy. In seeking an alternative to neo-liberal hegemony a capabilities approach therefore can provide a framework for new thinking, and an underpinning ideological narrative from which policy development can flow.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted interviews with 83 British and American fathers to understand the complexity of such decision-making, focusing on the need for two incomes, the importance of paid health care and childcare costs and the potential role of part-time work.
Abstract: Both Britain and the USA are described as market-oriented or ‘liberal’ welfare regimes. However, there are important variations within these two countries: although both have high rates of maternal employment, part-time work is much more common in the UK than in the USA, where dual-earner (full-time) couples are the norm. Part-time employment can help to ease work-family conflict for women, while simultaneously contributing to the household income. However, part-time work is limited in its economic benefits, is also career limiting, and, in the USA, it generally comes without health insurance. While most of the current research regarding maternal employment decisions focuses on women, this research involves interviews with 83 British and American fathers, to better understand the complexity of such decision-making. Men’s attitudes and experiences are examined in detail, focusing on the need for two incomes, the importance of paid health care and childcare costs and the potential role of part-time work.
TL;DR: In this paper, detailed retrospective data from the Polish School Leavers Survey are used to analyse the dynamics of entry and exit from fixed-term contracts, showing that neither firm-based vocational training nor diplomas from more selective tertiary education institutions provide graduates better access to secure entry positions.
Abstract: Poland has become an interesting outlier in Europe in terms of employment flexibility, with an extremely high incidence of fixed-term contracts, particularly at labour market entry. In this article, detailed retrospective data from the Polish School Leavers Survey are used to analyse the dynamics of entry and exit from fixed-term contracts. The results show that neither firm-based vocational training nor diplomas from more selective tertiary education institutions provide graduates better access to secure entry positions. Regarding exit dynamics, transition patterns from fixed-term contracts into unemployment suggest that the timing of exits often coincides with the date of becoming eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The results also imply that, in Poland, fixed-term contracts might serve employers by helping them to identify the best workers.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the way communities of practice function in a labour market dominated by small firms and freelancers and argue that the experienced workers who would normally be central to skills development are simply not available to consult or observe, since they are employed on freelance contracts.
Abstract: Learning at, and through, work is a key part of the skills literature. However, the idea and ideal of the ‘community of practice’ assumes that workplaces are coherent communities where the skilful are available for novices to consult and observe. This is not always the case. This research note, drawing on three months of detailed ethnographic research in a TV production company, explores the way communities of practice function in a labour market dominated by small firms and freelancers. It argues that the experienced workers who would normally be central to skills development are simply not available to consult or observe, since they are employed on freelance contracts. The novices’ community is one with a ‘missing middle’.
TL;DR: This article explored why violence is tolerated in non-profit care settings and provided insights into how workers' orientations to work, the desire to care and the intrinsic rewards from working in a nonprofit context interact with the organization of work and managerially constructed workplace norms and cultures to offset the tensions in an environment characterized by scarce resources and poor working conditions.
Abstract: Drawing on comparative data from Canada and Scotland, this article explores reasons why violence is tolerated in non-profit care settings. This article will provide insights into how workers' orientations to work, the desire to care and the intrinsic rewards from working in a non-profit context interact with the organization of work and managerially constructed workplace norms and cultures (Burawoy, 1979) to offset the tensions in an environment characterized by scarce resources and poor working conditions. This article will also outline how the same environment of scarce resources causes strains in management's efforts to establish such cultures. Working with highly excluded service users with problems that do not respond to easy interventions, workers find themselves working at the edge of their endurance, hanging on by their fingernails, and beginning to participate in various forms of resistance; suggesting that even among the most highly committed, 'white knuckle care' may be unsustainable.
TL;DR: Young people are arguably facing more complex and contested transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of "non-linear" paths as discussed by the authors, and education and training have been extended, identity is increasi...
Abstract: Young people are arguably facing more ‘complex and contested’ transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of ‘non-linear’ paths. Education and training have been extended, identity is increasi...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review and critique the literature on employer associations and explain how the traditional concept of countervailing power can be developed to reconceptualise employer coordination.
Abstract: The decline of institutional industrial relations has led to a major reassessment of the way that traditional industrial relations actors operate. Yet, the debate about institutional change has been characteristically asymmetrical in as much as some institutional actors have figured extensively while others have been much less prominent. Historically, employer coordination has not captured the attention of the industrial relations community and there are relatively few contemporary studies of the activities of employer associations. The purpose of this article is to review and critique the literature on employer associations and explain how the traditional concept of countervailing power can be developed to reconceptualise employer coordination. We then argue for a research agenda to re-examine employer associations in light of ongoing changes to employment relations systems that require these bodies to revise the ways that they coordinate employer interests.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the deconstruction of social models to implement neoliberalism and reconstruction to meet new needs are often two sides of the same process, and that reform to meet these new needs may take a neoliberal form, and neoliberal reforms may generate new needs.
Abstract: This article makes two key arguments. First, European social models are being asked to extend social support to meet new needs associated with the ageing society, changes in citizens’ aspirations and behaviour and the reduced reliability of support from employers and the family. How nations respond to these new needs varies according to current gaps in provision and to political will, but most states up to the crisis were expanding their range of social interventions, sometimes leading to hybridization of their traditional social models. Second, deconstruction of social models to implement neoliberalism and reconstruction to meet new needs are often two sides of the same process. Reforms to meet new needs may take a neoliberal form, and neoliberal reforms may generate new needs. European social models may have to respond to these pressures for, unlike those of the USA, European citizens still look to the state to ensure their social citizenship rights.
TL;DR: The literature on the role of customers in service work has neglected work that does not involve significant face-to-face interaction, assuming it to be distant from customer influence and thus hig...
Abstract: The literature on the role of customers in service work has neglected work that does not involve significant face-to-face interaction, assuming it to be distant from customer influence and thus hig...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse industrial relations at the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant construction site in Finland and argue that national unionism is inappropriately structured for the transnational construction industry.
Abstract: This article argues, through analysing industrial relations at the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant construction site in Finland, that national unionism is inappropriately structured for the transnational construction industry. Olkiluoto 3 is being built by a French/German consortium employing mostly posted migrants via transnational subcontractors from around Europe. Despite the strong Finnish unions, contractors successfully contested the right of Finnish actors to regulate the site, placing labour relations in a deregulated space between national systems. Although the posted migrants eventually self-organized, Finnish unions remained unresponsive, reluctant to act outside the normal Finnish social partnership industrial relations paradigm. The case illustrates how the nationally based structure of the labour movement is ill-suited to represent a pan-European labour force.
TL;DR: In this paper, the significance of workblogging as a window to understand social questions is discussed, and the importance of worker narratives as a means of understanding social questions are discussed.
Abstract: In keeping with this journal’s recent attempt to revive worker narratives as a means of understanding social questions, this research note reflects on the significance of workblogging as a window o...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the question of how sociologists of work might research those who constitute the substance of our labour process and argue that there is a link between this debate and the wider politics of labour process discussion both within and beyond the labour movement.
Abstract: In this article we explore the question of how as sociologists of work we might research those who constitute the substance of our labour process. We approach this question through an examination of the new management practices debate, principally in the labour movement where a distinctive and critical view of NMP developed in the late 1980s. Second, we argue that there is a link between this debate and the wider politics of labour process discussion both within and beyond the labour movement which has witnessed a shift away from an earlier engagement with worker interventions. In response we suggest the need to re-evaluate the nature of academic engagement with labour thus reanimating a closer engagement with labour-in-work and collective worker narratives.
TL;DR: The authors explored how participation in the transnational interactive services industry impacts on the social identifications of Indian call centre workers, and concluded that Indian call center workers can be characterized as part of an emergent global middle class sharing common lifestyles and values with their counterparts in western countries.
Abstract: The article explores how participation in the transnational interactive services industry impacts on the social identifications of Indian call centre workers. The article’s analytical framework builds from Bourdieu’s work on social stratification, contemporary theorizations of aesthetic labour and conceptualizations of the commodification of self as integral to aesthetic labour. The research data are drawn from a large scale survey and in-depth interviews with Indian call centre workers, focusing on their lifestyles and social values. Comparison is made with Indian and international youth cohorts. The research findings demonstrate the extent to which this group has adopted transnational middle class values and lifestyles. The article concludes that Indian call centre workers can be characterized as part of an emergent global middle class sharing common lifestyles and values with their counterparts in western countries.
TL;DR: In the early 1980s, a preoccupation was with the way a large section of the workforce had been removed from employment altogether as mentioned in this paper, and over time, researchers paid more attention to groups which remained marginal to the workforce even when unemployment fell: who, or what, was keeping them at the margins?
Abstract: This e-special features examples from unemployment research published in Work, Employment and Society since the late 1980s. An early preoccupation was with the way a large section of the workforce had been removed from employment altogether. Over time, researchers paid more attention to groups which remained marginal to the workforce even when unemployment fell: who, or what, was keeping them at the margins? Similarly, early attention to policy adjustments that might make it easier for people to live with unemployment was replaced by research of much broader policy relevance as researchers felt able to move beyond the defensive position they had adopted in response to the neo-liberal public policy agenda. Much of the research published after 2000 was characterised by greater confidence in social science but also by higher expectations of public policy.