Collection: Organisation Studies Collection
As a taster of our publishing on Organisation Studies, we put together a collection of free articles, chapters and open access titles. If you are interested in trying out more content from our Business, Management and Economics Collection, Work in the Global Economy journal or Global Social Challenges themes, ask your librarian to sign up for a free trial.
Organisation Studies Collection
In focusing on menopausal women in the labour market and specific workplaces, this edited volume aims to re-theorize the management of people as it relates to the connections between gender, age and the body in organizations. The ‘bodily turn’ in management and organization studies is now nearing the end of its fourth decade (see, for early examples of this research, Burrell, 1984; Hearn et al, 1989; Acker, 1990; Brewis and Grey, 1994), and work which critically unpicks diversity initiatives dates back at least to the early 2000s (for example Kersten, 2000; Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000; Dick and Cassell, 2002). Despite this, the menopause is still rarely discussed in management and organization studies, the sociology of work and employment literature or HRM research. In this introduction, we outline exactly why menopause is a workplace issue as well as reviewing both contemporary UK organizational practice and recent academic research in this space. The introduction concludes with an overview of the volume chapter by chapter.
The idea for this book was originally formulated in March 2020, when, surprised by the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, we realized there was a unique opportunity to document the impact of the pandemic on people working in various parts of public welfare. The chapter introduces the focus of our field studies on workers who were acting in the shadow of the pandemic – that is, in areas of welfare that are not usually associated with professions and occupations fighting COVID-19 ‘on the front line’. As social scientists who had studied the Swedish public welfare sector for many years, we saw an opportunity to follow challenges and changes in work tasks and working conditions for teachers and healthcare professionals, as well as librarians, day-care staff, government investigators, municipal administrators and many other public sector workers.
The chapter poses two interrelated questions: why have organization scholars abandoned the study of political parties, and what might we learn from rediscovering the value of party organization research? To answer the first, I begin by chronicling the rise of party organizations in Western democracies and conclude that the nature of political parties runs counter to the dominant conception of society as a unified whole that must resist partisanship. To answer the second, I compile a list of characteristics that make parties valuable study objects for organization scholars. Here, I focus on parties as organizations that (1) are explicit about the inclusions and exclusions that constitute them, (2) conduct much of their infighting in the media and other open spaces, (3) rely heavily on normative modes of control to keep members in line, (4) use normative modes of commitment to keep members on board, and (5) experience rapid and ongoing institutional change. These five characteristics, I argue, make parties ‘critical cases’ of organizing. In conclusion, I introduce the book’s main case: the Danish green party Alternativet.
This chapter provides the second half of the analysis of the Amazon warehouse case study by focusing on how such a platform provides both challenges and possibilities for these workers to express their agency. It examines their four power resources in relation to the organization of the platform: structural power, associational power, institutional power and societal power. It integrates in its analysis the larger political–economic context, the larger (trans)national context and Amazon’s union-busting, which can prove to be additional obstacles to the organization of workers, as Amazon continuously attempts to disrupt, undermine and diminish their efforts. Despite weak marketplace power workers may navigate their material obstacles and Amazon’s counterstrategies to instrumentalize their workplace and disruptive power derived from their assembly within warehouses. While labor organizations, from traditional and grassroots unions to transnational and digital movements, support associational and institutional powers to improve their working conditions and fight back against the various facets of alienation, workers are increasingly gaining momentum in organizing themselves and making their movement intrinsic to the wider public debate. In doing so, they are claiming their agency and conceiving of it more holistically in terms of a possible transnational, inter-platform and inter-sectoral movement.
This chapter begins the book’s challenge to conventional theories of the firm by arguing that the central problem of the firm lies in purpose, which is more complex and provocative than typically assumed. The chapter examines the battle over corporate purpose between advocates of shareholder value maximization and stakeholder obligation, highlighting the clash of ideologies and the significance of purpose in shaping the identity and trajectory of a firm. It then delves into firms’ ontological multiplicity, emphasizing that purpose is not singular but rather takes different forms, manifests differently in various practices, and is influenced by a range of forces beyond human actors. It argues for the importance of developing a new theory of the firm that aligns with critical projects and offers alternative perspectives on corporate purpose.
This introductory chapter advocates for a new framework that ties together the core questions of why firms exist, how they operate internally, where their boundaries lie, and how they secure profitability. It establishes the need to develop a Communicative Theory of the Firm (CTF) that responds to the shifts in capitalism’s communicative foundation.
This chapter sets out to redefine generosity by offering insights to developing a business that is committed to bringing people comfort and doing good. In managing the Moomin ecosystem of companies, generosity plays out as a determined and persistent approach to act responsibly and sustainably. Rather than heroic efforts of individuals, generous management the Moomin way is about creating conditions that enable and give rise to acts of generosity. When the environment and humankind are facing unprecedented challenges, and we are surrounded by sadness and grief, managing with generosity is as timely and relevant as it ever was.
This chapter outlines and discusses the emergence of ‘new actors’ within industrial relations. Such actors include civil society organizations, law firms, employment agencies, employer forums and other bodies outside a traditional focus on employers, workers and unions, and the state. The chapter contextualizes these actors with the traditional actors involved in the management of the employment relationship. The label ‘new’ can be applied to such actors (which can be individuals, organizations, institutions or movements), which either did not used to have much of a role within traditional industrial relations or did have one but were neglected. Therefore, the chapter argues that these ‘new actors’ play an increasingly significant role in the employment relationship.
This chapter starts by emphasizing the importance of work and employment before outlining a conceptual approach based on Colin Hay’s (1999) distinction between ‘failure’ and ‘crisis’. The chapter explains how the current crisis of work has been produced by three crises which are at work – intensified neoliberalization and its consequences, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating climate emergency. While capitalism is structurally prone to periodic crises, the current crisis of work concerns the antagonism that has arisen between the degradation, in the sense of a process of worsening, of work and employment under conditions of intensified neoliberal capitalism – in the context of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating climate emergency – and workers’ aspirations for decent work and to have their labour valued.
