Transport and deregulation

The concept of ‘deregulating’ transport industries is examined, drawing examples from the principal modes (bus and coach, rail, air), and a range of countries, to identify the elements and outcomes of this process. Experience in the British case is used as a starting point. A distinction is drawn between ‘deregulation’ (which may apply both to publicly and privately owned operations), and 'privatization' (the transfer of assets and/or operations to the private sector). Outcomes are shown to differ substantially in different market sectors, especially in contrasting the long-distance and intra-urban markets. Price competition may function more effectively in the former. It is important to distinguish impacts of deregulation from those of other factors which will also affect the performance (such as trends in ridership) of the industries concerned, in drawing conclusions about its role

The European airline industry: law and economics of low cost carriers

Liberalization, Contestable markets theory, Core theory, Low cost carriers, Barriers to entry,

Gendering Teamwork: Rewriting the Feminine

Recognizing the neglect of gender in the prescriptive and critical fields of teamwork, this article explores the gendered processes of teams. The argument presented in this article challenges masculinist discourse inherent in team theorizing and empirical research. This masculinism, we argue, stems from the so-called gender-neutral performance criteria and practices of team organization and management. Analysing The Wisdom of Teams (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993) highlights the implicit gendering processes of the team rhetoric. To illuminate the latent gendered practices a case study, Nylons, is discussed. Both methods of analysis unveil the dominance of masculinist discourses that subjugates and suppresses femaleness and femininity. The article concludes by highlighting areas for furthering critical debates in the teamwork arena that centre on analysing the complex and ambiguous power relations that influence, and are influenced by, the construction and re-construction of gendered identities in teamwork and the gendered relations of power in teamwork practice

Don't screw the crew: exploring the rules of engagement in organizational romance

Thirty years ago sociological research began to discover what workplace romance might mean for the participants. Since then management research has tended to adopt a functionalist approach, using survey methods, or third-party approaches to ask about company policy and negative consequences of workplace romance, warning of the dangers and consequences of romance and offering solutions for managers on how to deal with this potential problem. Drawing on the sexuality of organization and critical literature, and adopting a position of constructivist structuralism with a qualitative research method, this research looks at how the concept of workplace romance is defined and negotiated within a public-house setting. It examines the 'rules of engagement', the personal experiences and views of both managers and workers, as well as first-hand stories of workplace romance. Romance was conceptualized as 'natural' and something that could not be legislated for, where unwritten rules were defined but often ignored. However, the 'rules of engagement' emerged as favouring particular groups depending on gender, position in the hierarchy and sexual identity. Subjective value judgements are made, often resting on gendered assumptions of male and female behaviour