‘If you are having a go at me, I am going to have a go at you’: The changing nature of social relationships of bank work under Performance Management

Over the last three decades work and employment in the private and public sector are increasingly subject to marketisation processes. A defining feature of marketised employment is the rise of performance management systems (PMS). This article utilises a novel framework of Sayer’s moral economy approach and labour process theory to explore the changing nature of bank work and social relationships between branch managers and branch workers before and after the implementation of PMSs in UK banks. This article illustrates how the social and moral texture of the social relationships between branch workers and their managers deteriorated after the implementation of PMS, resulting in the rise of hostile forms of engagement

Zum unterschiedlichen Umgang mit Unsicherheit: IT-Spezialisten und Ingenieure als Solo-Selbstständige

First paragraph: In den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten haben arbeitssoziologische Diskurse rund um den Wandel der Arbeitswelt Konjunktur. Insbesondere im ausgehenden Jahrtausend wurde das Ende der Arbeit prognostiziert und nach Alternativen zur Arbeitsgesellschaft gesucht und zum Teil in der Freizeit- und Kulturgesellschaft auch gefunden

A neglected pool of labour? Frontline service work and hotel recruitment in Glasgow

The article presented considers soft skills in the hospitality sector and explores how managers in four hotels in Glasgow, Scotland enact recruitment and selection processes. Empirically, the analysis is based on a rich cross case comparison including interviews, observations, attendance at training events and analysis of hotels' recruitment and selection policies. Conceptually, the analysis draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Andrew Sayer, portraying an understanding of social class as a social, economic, and cultural category and people's agency as shaped by their habitus and lay normativity. Crucially, the paper reveals the pivotal role individual managers play in enabling and constraining opportunities for employment in the enactment of hotel recruitment policy and engagement with job applicants and new recruits. Overall, the analysis suggests that, despite many deterministic analyses of class, an organisation's recruitment, learning and development strategies, plus management's commitment to make a difference, can positively impact on those who might otherwise be part of a neglected pool of labour

Quality Work and the Moral Economy of European Employment Policy

Following a decade of radical economic and workplace restructuring, it is important to understand how state employment policies support or deny human flourishing. This article utilizes a realist document analysis approach and reviews European employment policy through a moral economy lens. It fuses different moral economy approaches, drawing together the work of Karl Polanyi and Andrew Sayer a multi-layered conceptual lens is offered that explores the tensions between a commodification of labour and human needs. A dominant market ideology is revealed, highlighting how quality work has been subsumed by the flexicurity agenda in the E

Absolute autonomy, respectful recognition and derived dignity: Towards a typology of meaningful work

Theoretical and empirical contributions to meaningful work (MW) have flourished in the last two decades; investigating how the interplay of organizational factors with employee attitudes and experiences enables or denies MW. This paper reviews MW literature in the fields of management and organizational behaviour, political philosophy, the humanities and sociology with the aim of identifying and comparing conceptualizations of MW and how they relate to low-skilled work. The review illustrates that a wide range of MW concepts either interpret low-skilled work as bereft of essential sources for MW, or focus exclusively on workers’ innate drive to make meaningful experiences and thereby neglect the politics of working life. Making the point that low-skilled work can also be meaningful, the paper develops a framework for low-skilled work that has at its heart the interplay between the unique characteristics and dynamics of the labour process and workers’ agential responses. The framework rests on a combination of labour process analysis and industrial relations approaches, along with sociological concepts of agency. It develops three interdependent conceptual dimensions of core autonomy, respectful recognition and derived dignity that aim to capture MW in low-skilled work settings. The framework contributes to vibrant debates in the MW literature by showcasing how meaningfulness emerges through bottom-up collective and individual practices, relations and strategies that are reflective of the formal structures, demands and relations of low-skilled work.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

The relational work of compassion and toxicity at a pupil referral unit

This article contributes to the literature on compassion in organisations by exploring, through the sociology of relational work, how compassion emerges against the backdrop of what is described as structural toxicity; that is, structures, policies and practices that create the material stage upon which compassion may, or may not, materialise. Underfunding, social deprivation and draconian performance measures are all examples of structural toxicities that may trigger relational toxicity, that is conflict, suffering and disconnection at work but also where compassion may emerge in various forms. It is against this backdrop that we seek to address the conceptual and empirical gap in current understandings of compassion in organisations. Theorising from the empirical field, a case is presented in which compassion emerges as a product of the ongoing relational work of teachers in response to structural toxicities that trigger repeated instances of emotional pain and suffering but also joy and engagement with their work and each other

'Customers were not objects to suck blood from': Social relations in UK retail banks under changing performance management systems

Utilising an analytical framework informed by a moral economy approach, this article examines the social relationships between bank workers and customers in the context of changing performance management. Informed by 46 in‐depth interviews with branch workers and branch managers from UK banks, this article focusses on the interplay of the pressures arising from an intensified and all‐encompassing performance management system and bank workers lay morality. The article seeks to analyse why one group of bank workers engages with customers in a primarily instrumental manner, while another group tends to mediate and engage in oppositional practices which aim to avoid such an instrumentalisation. The article argues that moral economy gives voice to the agency of workers and the critical concerns of the social, economic and moral consequences of market‐driven and purely profit‐oriented workplace regimes

The moral economy of work and employment in banks

Considering the backdrop of volatile markets, the endurance of economic recession, and intensified radical economic and workplace restructuring, it is ever more important to understand how contemporary and past employment relationships enable or constrain people's flourishing. The aim of this research study is to capture the dynamic relationship between the organisation and nature of bank work and workers' moral economy between the late 1970s and 2000s. The research is underpinned by a novel, holistic, theoretical framework that brings together moral economy and labour process approaches. The moral economy is at the heart of the framework and is informed by three key thinkers: Karl Polanyi and E. P. Thompson, who capture the ubiquitous tension between a stable, moral and human society and the economic practices of liberalised markets, and by Andrew Sayer's consideration of lay morality. The moral economy and labour process framework provides insightful analysis of how and why the material reality of economic practices and the organisation of work are experienced, mediated and re-shaped by different groups of actors. By utilising a realist and deeply qualitative approach, the research is informed by thirty-nine work oral history interviews with different generations of bank workers. It examines the radical transformation of the organisation of work and its moral economy in clearing banks between the late 1970s and 2000s. Thereby, the thesis offers a critical analysis of the bureaucratic and paternalistic principles that guided bank work until the late 1980s but also provides insights into the dynamics of social connection between workers and people's attachment to the occupation. These findings are set in contrast to the organisation of work in the 1990s and 2000s and their disconnection from the moral economy of the past. It is suggested that bank work has been radically re-structured and is dominated by a marketized labour process that instrumentalises human engagement and social relations that, in turn, fosters disconnection and individualisation. Nevertheless, the thesis suggests that even under poor working conditions social and moral dimensions of humanity persist and enable workers to humanise the labour process.Considering the backdrop of volatile markets, the endurance of economic recession, and intensified radical economic and workplace restructuring, it is ever more important to understand how contemporary and past employment relationships enable or constrain people's flourishing. The aim of this research study is to capture the dynamic relationship between the organisation and nature of bank work and workers' moral economy between the late 1970s and 2000s. The research is underpinned by a novel, holistic, theoretical framework that brings together moral economy and labour process approaches. The moral economy is at the heart of the framework and is informed by three key thinkers: Karl Polanyi and E. P. Thompson, who capture the ubiquitous tension between a stable, moral and human society and the economic practices of liberalised markets, and by Andrew Sayer's consideration of lay morality. The moral economy and labour process framework provides insightful analysis of how and why the material reality of economic practices and the organisation of work are experienced, mediated and re-shaped by different groups of actors. By utilising a realist and deeply qualitative approach, the research is informed by thirty-nine work oral history interviews with different generations of bank workers. It examines the radical transformation of the organisation of work and its moral economy in clearing banks between the late 1970s and 2000s. Thereby, the thesis offers a critical analysis of the bureaucratic and paternalistic principles that guided bank work until the late 1980s but also provides insights into the dynamics of social connection between workers and people's attachment to the occupation. These findings are set in contrast to the organisation of work in the 1990s and 2000s and their disconnection from the moral economy of the past. It is suggested that bank work has been radically re-structured and is dominated by a marketized labour process that instrumentalises human engagement and social relations that, in turn, fosters disconnection and individualisation. Nevertheless, the thesis suggests that even under poor working conditions social and moral dimensions of humanity persist and enable workers to humanise the labour process

Breaking away or holding on to the past? Exploring HRM systems of export-oriented SME in a highly uncertain context: insights from a transition economy in the periphery

This article advances understanding of the interplay between high levels of environmental uncertainty and HRM challenges and practices of exporting SMEs in the garment industry of Kyrgyzstan. Uncertainty in this post-Socialist country emanates from the complex, conflict-ridden and ongoing process of transition from planned to market-based economy, resulting in a volatile institutional environment with under-developed formal institutions at its core. Drawing on qualitative data and framed by a novel theoretical framework consisting of HRM systems theory, North’s institutional approach and the concept of path-dependency, the article advances knowledge of the distinctive set of HRM challenges faced by SMEs and the contrasting HRM systems adopted by them. The article draws particular attention to how the embeddedness of socialist-era norms and the diffusion of new market-oriented institutional features influence the utilisation of HRM systems in SMEs, whilst also revealing their evolutionary nature in a transition economy context. The article contributes by extending the scope of HRM research to the little-explored transitional periphery of Central Asia and adds to the nascent body of knowledge on HRM in SMEs by offering a more nuanced understanding of HRM systems in exporting SMEs in a highly uncertain context