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Keywords: political economy; knowledge-based economy; discourse; power; trade unions; co-determination; J5 labor-management relations; and collective bargaining; O330 Technological change: Choices and consequences; diffusion processes; J63 Turnover; vacancies; layoffs EN political economy knowledge-based economy discourse power trade unions co-determination J5 labor-management relations and collective bargaining O330 Technological change: Choices and consequences diffusion processes J63 Turnover vacancies layoffs 1257 1268 12 06/09/23 20230401 NES 230401 What white-collar workers and the workplace tell us about the politics of capitalism Correspondence: arianna.tassinari4@unibo.it Large-scale layoffs, restructurings and downsizings in the tech sector have been a staple item of the news cycle recently, hard to ignore for even the most distracted observers of the tech world. The core insight in Rothstein's analysis is that while worker power is based on collective action, this is grounded in a very basic way in a long and hard process of convincing workers that this action is worthwhile and will actually achieve something. In the IBM Burlington case, the union was able to mobilize workers against layoffs by pointing out contradictions with a more traditional normative discourse based on long-term, mutual commitments between managers and workers. Second, even though Rothstein deserves kudos for reintegrating the workplace into an analysis of worker power, I Recoding Power i ultimately presents us with an unhelpful duality or opposition between the national level and the workplace. [Extracted from the article]

The paper addresses an understudied but highly relevant group of people within corporate organizations and society in general—the marginalized—as well as their narration, and criticism, of personal lived experiences of marginalization in business. They are conventionally perceived to lack traditional forms of power such as public influence, formal authority, education, money, and political positions; however, they still possess the resources to impact their situations, their circumstances, and the structures that determine their situations. Business ethics researchers seldom consider marginalized people's voices and experiences as resources to understand their lives, as demonstrated through a review of 7500 articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics Quarterly (2000–2019). Only 78 studies included aspects of marginalized groups. 69 of those studies discussed the topic of marginalized groups of people, but without integrating their explicit voices into the text. Only 9 of the 78 articles featured marginalized people's explicit voices about their marginalization experiences incorporated into the text as a source for exploration. None of the identified studies discussed the potential for theorizing based on such voices. This paper contributes to business ethics theory by developing four theoretical possibilities vis-à-vis the critical voices of marginalized people's experiences in business: (a) marginalized theory on critical agency and freedom of speech; (b) the gatekeeping role of academia; (c) primary sources; and (d) a participative perspective. Discussing the theoretical potential of quoting the above voices can enrich business ethics research in terms of the theoretical understanding of marginalized groups in business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the discussion between labour lawyers and labour sociologists about the company's limits, emphasizing how the topics concerning company assets and conformation have long remained left out from this dialogue. The organizational changes of the 1990s prompted a reflection from both sectors, however they mostly proceeded on the parallel paths with extremely rare and episodic references and quotations from each other, largely limited to referring to a different perspective of investigation. The comparison has become more relevant only in the last few years with regards to the aggravation of outsourcing phenomenon and the consequent evasion from specific regulation, thanks to the possibility of organizing production by exploiting the existing regulatory and wage differentials between different companies, different industrial sectors and also between different countries. The paper therefore looks at the differentiations and asymmetries that have arisen by exploiting the boundaries and the differentials associated with them, investigating the use of various legal instruments, from contracts to business networks to global value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article identifies common problems of human resource management that seem to plague rapid growth companies, and then discusses solutions that some of the more successful companies have used to deal with these conflicts. It is based on experiences with twelve companies that have grown on the average at 40 percent per year for five or more years. Rapid growth companies are of considerable importance to managers, investors, and the public at large. Rapid growth companies offer the public at large a significant source of expanding employment. Just a few rapidly growing companies in the same geographic region can sometimes make the difference between a stagnant economy with high unemployment and a robust economy with low unemployment.

George Wieland's survey of organization sociology texts represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the essential nature of sociology that distinguishes it from other academic disciplines and psychology in particular. Wieland's confusion probably represents the management field's thinking about organization sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual model reflects a representative behavioral pattern for "the independent entrepreneur" re the venture construct. The model includes a five-stage sequence beginning with the pre-venture set up and extending through the anxious moments of re-negotiation or termination of the venture, resulting from the entrepreneur's rapacious act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess how employees from historically marginalized groups (men and women of color and white women) perceive Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”® (BCWF) in terms of two outcomes that are related to diversity and inclusion: fairness and camaraderie. The authors focus on fairness as a way to measure perceptions of general treatment with respect to demographic characteristics associated with bias and discrimination, and on camaraderie as a way to measure perceptions of the inclusiveness of coworker relationships.Design/methodology/approach Hierarchical linear regression models are used to analyze survey responses from 620,802 employees in 1,054 companies that applied for the BCWF list between 2006 and 2011 in the USA. The authors compare the perceptions of employees in firms that are selected for the list to those of their demographic counterparts in firms not selected for the list. The authors also compare the perceptions of employees from historically marginalized groups to those of white men within firms that make the list and examine how these differences compare to the same differences within firms that do not make the list.Findings The findings reveal that the perceptions of men and women of color and white women in companies that make the “best” list are more positive than their demographic counterparts in companies that do not make the list. The authors also find, however, that the perceptions of employees from historically marginalized groups are more negative than those of white men in the “best” workplaces, and these patterns are similar to those in firms that do not make the list. For perceptions of fairness, the differences between employees from historically marginalized groups and white men are smaller in companies that make the list.Research limitations/implications The findings are based on average effect sizes across a large number of companies and employees, and the data do not provide insight into the actual organizational processes that are driving employee perceptions. In addition, the employee survey data are self-reported, and may be subject to recall and self-serving biases. Finally, the authors use measures of fairness and camaraderie that have not been rigorously tested in past research.Practical implications Managers seeking to improve experiences of fairness and camaraderie should pay particular attention to how race/ethnicity and gender influence these experiences, and how they do so intersectionally. Attending to these differences is particularly important to the extent that experiences of fairness and camaraderie are related to organizational trust, the key metric on which companies are selected for the “best” workplaces list, and a quality of organizational relationships that previous research has found to be positively related to key individual and firm-level outcomes.Originality/value The paper provides the first assessment of demographic variation in the outcomes of employees in companies selected for the BCWF. Since selection to this list is based on the presence of trust, the authors’ findings also provide potential insight into how informal organizational processes that are associated with trust, such as leadership behaviors, peer relationships, and workplace norms, are viewed and experienced by men and women of color and white women. Finally, the authors analyze outcomes relating to camaraderie, a construct that has received little attention in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I model the relation between the dissemination of social norms of work effort (work ethic) in a given society and the choice of incentives by firms, and I motivate it by presenting evidence from three different datasets that suggests that work ethic is correlated with the intensity of firms’ incentives. When the effort choices of different agents in a firm are complementary, having hard-working coworkers makes an agent more productive. Therefore, in equilibrium, she will work harder. Foreseeing that a work ethic is more useful to hard-working agents, parents will be more willing to transmit it in societies in which the probability that their offspring will have coworkers with strong work ethic is higher. I then expand the model to incorporate the firm technology choice, allowing firms to decide between complementary and separable production processes. In societies with wide dissemination of work ethic, firms will want effort to be complementary (as in modern production processes), while the opposite is true when the dissemination of work ethic is narrow. Finally, I investigate the comparative dynamics of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because most researchers have conducted the increasing number of studies on the relationship between authentic leadership and work-related outcomes at an individual level, little is known of the mechanisms by which authentic leadership influences work-related outcomes at the group level. We conducted this empirical study at the group level using data from 301 employees of Chinese companies. Results indicated that each dimension of authentic leadership and authentic leadership as a whole had a significant impact on collective efficacy and group performance. Collective efficacy also had a significant positive impact on group performance, and partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and group performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the influence of workplace ostracism (WOS) on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and the mediating effect of state self-control (SSC) on the above relationship, in a Chinese cultural context. We based our study on the theory of self-control resources. To avoid common method bias, we examined our hypotheses with 356 pairs of supervisor-subordinate dyads and collected data from 26 enterprises in central China. We used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that WOS was positively related to both organizational and interpersonal employee CWB. In addition, the results showed that SSC mediated the relationship between WOS and CWB. Implications for theory and management are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, the paper studies the extent to which German employers insure workers against transitory and permanent firm level shocks. Particular emphasis is given to the question of whether the amount of wage insurance depends on the nature of industrial relations. Adopting the identification strategy that was introduced by Guiso and co-workers, it is shown that industry level contracts and local works councils are important insurance providers. These findings lend support to the notion that collective institutions may mitigate the enforcement problems that typically arise within risk sharing agreements. Moreover, the ability of industry level contracts to insulate workers' wages from shocks appears to decrease with plant size, whereas works councils' ability to provide insurance increases with plant size. This latter finding is consistent with works councils having, by law, more information rights at larger employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo enfoca en los valores de las empresas grandes y su efecto en el éxito de la compañía y en la competición para consumidores. Se afirma que los valores más citados por las empresas en sus declaraciones de principios incluyen la integridad, el respeto y el enfoque al cliente. También se ofrece una perspectiva de la jerarquía de los tipos de valores, incluyendo los referidos a las entidades, las actitudes y las virtudes.

Relational identity (viewing the self in terms of relationships) has become increasingly important in organizations today as a result of business demands that involve relationship building and maintenance. At the same time, collective identity (thinking of the self based on group memberships) continues to be influential in many organizations and cultures due to leadership or historical influences. This study examines the relationship between relational and collective identity in two Taiwanese financial services firms and tests the number of coworkers and individual-level power distance as moderators of this relationship. Results show that relational identity is positively related to collective identity and high collective individuals with a large or small number of coworkers (or with low power distance) have strong relational identities. Implications for selection and job design are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the longevity implication of exploration. An analysis of 1980-1999 data from the hard disk drive industry suggests that exploitation to the exclusion of exploration generally undermines firms' long-term viability. However, this general pattern does not guarantee the long-term benefit of each individual exploration attempt. Depending on how long an exploration process overlaps an exploitation process, the longevity implication of exploration varies: If the temporal overlap is too long or too short, a firm tends to lose its longevity; however, if the temporal overlap remains at a moderate level, a firm can extend its longevity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors examine whether the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity is related to the prior career experiences of an individual worker's coworkers and the role of workplace interactions in influencing the decision to become an entrepreneur. The authors believe that coworkers will increase the likelihood that an individual will see entrepreneurial opportunities and will be more motivated to seek such opportunities. The study found that peer influences in the workplace are strongest for those who have had little or no exposure to entrepreneurship.

The paper offers reflections on the author's working experience as an industrial sociologist from the 1960s. It seeks to contextualise this in more general considerations of the part played by industrial sociology in the development of sociology in the UK. This is evidenced in thematic concerns, the importance of historical perspectives as well as the use of case studies and the development of ethnographic work. It discusses the role which industrial sociology has played in bringing issues of power, authority, control and class into sharp focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article opens by suggesting that the decline in the sociology of work in the UK has been overstated; research continues, but in locations such as business schools. The continued vitality of the field corresponds with material changes in an increasingly globalized capitalism, with more workers in the world, higher employment participation rates of women, transnational shifts in manufacturing, global expansion of services and temporal and spatial stretching of work with advanced information communication technologies. The article demonstrates that Labour Process Theory (LPT) has been a crucial resource in the sociology of work, especially in the UK; core propositions of LPT provide it with resources for resilience (to counter claims of rival perspectives) and innovation (to expand the scope and explanatory power of the sociology of work). The article argues that the concept of the labour power has been critical to underpinning the sustained influence of labour process analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article charts the historical and contemporary absences in the sociology of service work. Although studies of service work have now become the empirical mainstream in the sociology of work, there have been few attempts to conceptualize broad patterns of worker--customer relations in service work. This neglect is to be regretted because whether the customer is an alienating figure for service workers constitutes a key unasked question in contemporary sociology of work. The article highlights three factors that are likely to have a key influence on workers' sense of alienation vis-a-vis the customer. It highlights divergent literature in each of these areas and hence ends with a call for research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of DYNA - Ingeniería e Industria is the property of Publicaciones Dyna SL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As corporate governance is more driven by shareholder-oriented principles, managers are expected to adopt new attitudes and to be more accountable to shareholders in terms of their strategies and decisions. Yet, when governance is seen primarily as a 'corporate matter', it exclusively concerns the coalition of shareholders. This convergence towards the model of the public corporation raises major questions as it leaves aside collective activities and their value creation processes. Coordination, capabilities development and innovation are omitted in the prevalent representation of the corporation. This omission is symptomatic of the confusion between the legal corporate model and the actual activities of the firm. In their own ways, both shareholders' and stakeholders' approaches of the firm refer to the legal framework of the public corporation. This article argues that the concept of the firm should be distinguished from its corporate forms. Going back to the basic nature of the firm, it suggests that a firm is a collective endeavour whose activities are directed by management to create new potentials. By challenging the public corporation as a relevant model for the governance of the firm, it indicates new possible and pluralist norms of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - As the number of studies reported on the new leadership approach in the South Asian region and especially in Sri Lanka is very limited, the present study aims to explore to what extent the Conger and Kanungo (C-K) model can be employed to explain the leadership phenomenon in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach - A survey was undertaken among 53 managers who are reading for MBA degrees using the questionnaire devised and validated by Conger and Kanungo, and the data were subjected to principle component factor (varimax rotation) analysis. Findings - The paper finds that the Sri Lankan version of charismatic leadership is found to be similar to the C-K model in terms of personal risk, sensitivity to member needs and sensitivity to the environment. However, it differs from the C-K model, as it does not contain unconventional behavior and articulation of vision, and contains a new dimension - creating excitement. The variation is attributed to some aspects of culture i.e. conservative, hierarchical, caring and less futuristic. Originality/value - There have not been very many attempts at replicating new leadership theories in the South Asian region that is in some ways, i.e. level of development, religion and cultural values, different from the rest of the world. The present study fills this empirical gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been no studies in organization research of conferences as part of the world of work. This paper describes a reflexive ethnographic study of one management conference. It finds that upon arrival at the places and spaces of the conference processes of self-making as conference attendee are set in train. Self-making subsequently takes place within processes of domination and subordination, achieved through fear, infantilization, disparagement and seduction. Reading this through the lens of Freudian-informed interpretations of the Hegelian master/slave dialectic, the paper argues that conferences are one of the means of control over academic, managerial and professional employees. Control is achieved through dialectical interactions between conference and employee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some feminist writings have claimed that `bureaucracy' is inherently 'patriarchal'. This article challenges this argument by comparing the experience of women in Ireland in a state sector organization and in a cluster of software firms. While the bureaucratic state company has been reformed to incorporate equal opportunities, in the individualized or 'marketized' software companies women's progress is at the whim of individual managers and motherhood and a career are largely incompatible. If bureaucratic organizations can be reformed in this way, it cannot be claimed that there is anyinherent link between bureaucracy and patriarchy. In stead organizations can be either bureaucratic ormarketized, and either patriarchal or woman-friendly. These are two separate dimensions which change independently of each other. On this basis the article suggests that the contemporary 'remasculinization' of management occurs because earlier reforms in bureaucratic organizations are now being eroded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores four different images of the relationship between market economy and gift economy drown from economic sociology and anthropology. Second, it presents a case study of an office hotel, which experimented with the relationship between markets and gifting by urging the companies it hosted to share knowledge and commercial contacts. Drawing on Gallon's notions of framing and overflowing, the article shows how various interactions (`overflows') either displaced, supported or reinvigorated the boundaries between market and gifting at the office hotel. It notes that these overflows characteristically involved the sharing of access to interactional spaces and information about interaction partners. Finally, it suggests that a particular form of politics of exchange comes into view in the empirical case. This politics centres on the discovery of pragmatic and relatively benign forms of parasitism between modes of exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the standpoint that all organizations have some kind of moral principles and norms governing what their members are supposed to do and how they should be rewarded, the paper analyses a university example of the moral economy of organizations-the rationales of points systems for governing the workloads of academics and the dilemmas they create. These systems are supposed to value and allocate work according to principles of fairness, but have typically to be modified to take account of personal and economic pressures on individuals and their departments. The design and limits of such systems reveal a `normative partitioning' of activities, with different moral economic criteria being applied to work inputs, to the distribution of economic rewards, and to norms of collegiality. The motivational effects of using or doing without points systems are explored in relation to different management styles. The paper concludes with comments on approaches to ethics and organizational work, arguing that Aristotelian and Smithian approaches are superior to those of Weber and Durkheim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the long-term relationship and support of the knowledge management (KM) to the enterprise of the future over the next ten to 15 years. It identifies several topic areas in KM that can provide significant support to the enterprise of the future's productivity and growth goals. According to the author, some of the leading future KM capabilities needed by future enterprises include: advancing in the areas of raising the value of work, advancing workplace/workspace performance, reducing and streamlining work complexity, and early detection of emerging market changes and disparities.

Copyright of Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas is the property of Centro de Investigacao e Estudos de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper draws on a 1995 survey of 141 Canadian firms to address the extent to which the rationales and processes associated with workplace reform programmes matter to their success. Specifically, I explore the extent to which implementation rationales predict implementation processes, whether and how both appear to be associated with managerial evaluations of the effectiveness of workplace reforms, whether these associations are contingent on the intensity with which these reforms are adopted or on establishment size, and whether results are sensitive to the measure of effectiveness employed. Overall, I find that, although implementation rationales and processes may 'matter', the extent to which this is the case is limited and varies depending on intensity of adoption, on establishment size, and on the definition of effectiveness employed. I also find that, while adherence to a 'processually rational' model bears some association with effectiveness, this association tends to be uneven. I conclude that, although implementation rationales and processes may help to account for the uneven diffusion and success of reforms, much may also depend on the context and the actors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been recognised that management training and development in SMEs is a relatively poorly researched area and that the influencing factors for SMEs are not well understood. This paper outlines a regional study of the interest in competence based management development amongst SMEs. This is compared with a study of the providers' approach to management development provision for the SME market. It is apparent, from the study, that the value of Management NVQs remains unclear both to the provider and the SME recipient. Unless a means can be found to demonstrate value and benefits to both sides it is unlikely that take-up will improve significantly within the SME community or that quality providers will continue to deliver to the sector. The paper highlights the major issues to be addressed for, and with, both parties if progress is to be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Journal of Sociology / Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The management of the work-force in businesses has (re-)appeared in the last decade as a true problem for social science. Two dominant approaches have emerged: one that considers that a transition towards 'a flexible workforce management' is taking place and the other that analyses this transition as a move towards a new kind of management called 'Human Resource Management'. But both approaches are suspect from a sociological point of view. This criticism rests, in the last analysis, on a theoretical reconsideration of the concept and meaning of labour force management within commercial enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is presented that examines female absence in the workplace in hopes of identifying causes that would lend themselves to social science theory and management practice. The variables that the authors on are lateness, age, length of service, domestic responsibility, job content, work status, pay levels, hours of work and home area. They discuss their findings which suggests that outside factors can be largely responsible for absenteeism.

This article examines ways in which work organizations have been affected by people born between 1946 and 1964. The baby boomers' values, behaviors, and family orientations are significantly impacting industry. Over the next ten years, this group faces the likelihood of serious career plateauing. The difference in career orientation and advancement prospects equates to a growing value and opportunity gap in management. While the number of ways of achieving promotional success is finite (and shrinking), we believe that the number of ways of achieving psychological success is infinite. In addition, many people in this age group have a good sense of where they want to head with their protean or self-directed careers. The key is to discourage long-term career planning and instead to facilitate managers and employees in self-assessment, empowering them to take advantage of opportunities for psychological success, as they arise. The challenge for organizations is to match human resource practices with these new career values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines paths to ownership, demographic characteristics, work attitudes, and motivations of a sample of 172 minority business owners. Results were compared with Cooper and Dunkelberg's earlier study examining alternative paths to ownership in a predominantly nonminority sample of 1,756 owner-managers. Differences were found in the paths to ownership used by the minority and nonminority sample groups. Minority business people became owners in most cases by starting their own business (88 percent). Also, several differences were found in minority and nonminority ownership profiles, including industry representation, parents as role models, education, length of apprenticeship, negative pushes encountered, sources of financing, and a desire to build a successful organization. Few differences were found between the four different minority groups examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton's words have been quoted widely since he wrote them in the 1880s. Niro Sivanathan was part of a research team that tested whether power, indeed, can go to one's head. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses topics related to advantages of teamwork in business. It states that organizations at present rely mainly on teams and teamwork to conduct much of the organization's business. On the hand, it explains that a critical challenge for leaders and teams today is how to get the best from the inevitable difference and disagreement that arise. It elaborates various topics related to teamworking which include the challenges of team conflict, creating a right environment for the team, and engaging constructively.

The article focuses on five behaviors that help businesses build up trustworthy relationships with colleagues in order to ensure prompt delivery and protect a company's reputation. One is behaving in a transparent manner instead of making undelivered promises in order to enable people to make informed decisions. Others include discovering what is important to the other person and behaving accordingly, clarifying exact deadlines, outcomes and expectations and realizing that each one is just as important in contributing to a successful outcome.