Sociology: Work & Labour books

How does organizations' embeddedness in broader social and cultural communities influence their behavior? And how has this changed with recent communication technology advances and globalization trends? In this volume, we consider how diverse types of communities influence organizations, as well as the associated benefit of developing a richer accounting for community processes in organizational theory. One goal of the volume is to move beyond the focus on social proximity and networks that has characterized existing work on communities. The papers in this volume consider specific topics that expand the definition of community beyond geography to include how transnational communities form and affect organizations' perception, the development of a community-form (C-form) organization as an important organizational architecture for understanding twenty-first century business, and how virtual communities influence key organizational processes. While there has been a recent revival of research into the effects of both geographic and non-geographic communities on organizational behaviors, this volume is the first effort to bring both perspectives together in order to aid in the identification of common and disparate mechanisms across multiple types of communities and how community as an organizing logic sits vis-a-vis other logics related to the market, corporation, family and religion.

Editorial Objectives This series aims to present the latest research on entrepreneurship, innovation and the impact on economic performance.   Topicality  Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth (ASEIEG) provides a timely and relevant discussion and exploration of entrepreneurial topics, their impact, and ties to key values in today’s society, such as social, environmental and economic issues and challenges. Topics range from aspects of entrepreneurial behavior to determinants of entrepreneurial research with contributions from top scholars across the US and the globe.  Key Benefits  Organization and history of series allows a rich, multi faceted foundation for entrepreneurial topics in a rapidly changing information age. Research can be disseminated in a clear and effective manner to promote communication between the business and academic communities and to foster entrepreneurship within the society.  Key Audiences  Key audiences range from private industry to policy officials to researchers and educators. The role and understanding of entrepreneurship, the implications for current critical conditions and sustained vibrant economies, is rapidly growing. This series provides each with a highly useful blend of topics and scholarly perspectives.  Coverage  The series includes related articles and papers, frequently driven by organized colloquia and other business/academic exchange, with interdisciplinary perspectives including those of economics, marketing, law, finance, management, history, science, higher education administration and sociology. Coverage includes but is not limited to:  Institutional entrepreneurial development  Intellectual property concerns, patenting, and other property rights issues  Environmental entrepreneurship and innovation  Innovation within and across firms  Effect of government regulation and tax policies  Organizational factors, market structure effects and marketing strategies  Entrepreneurship programmes and other educational activities  Relative performance of entrepreneurial firms.

The ten papers in "Gender Realities: Local and Global" document the types of work in which women engage, and gender equity issues they face. They show both the importance of considering the uniqueness of cultural contexts for understanding and resolving problems and how global interdependence affects local gender realities. The papers fall into two broad and overlapping categories: gender, work and development, and gender and discrimination. Papers related to particular settings focus on the resettlement of villagers in Lesotho, the development of welfare policies in Puerto Rico, the experiences of fishery workers in Newfoundland and of immigrants to Maritime Canada, decisions made by retired couples in the United States, problems faced by academics in Finnish universities, classroom interaction in Canadian law schools, and attitudes of and about school children in Nepal. Other papers examine the role of gender in the informal economy worldwide and the globalization of sexual harassment. Authors based in the United States, Canada and Finland employ a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods including extensive field work, interviews, surveys, and literature reviews. An introduction by the editors relates the papers to one another and to broad gender themes. Each paper includes an extensive reference list and the volume index allows readers to track specific topics from one paper to the next.

The articles in the volume examine the intersection of gender with other characteristics in a variety of settings including factory floors and corporate offices, welfare offices, state legislatures, the armed forces, universities, social clubs and playing fields. Central themes running through several of the articles include how men and women conceive their identities and their futures and talk about and manage their work, family and leisure lives, how women view their bodies and images, and the progress women have - or have not - made in over-coming poverty and advancing in the corporate, legislative and military worlds. The research sites include Canada, Cuba, England, Greece, Israel, Mexico and the United States. As in previous volumes in the series, the authors employ a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and build on the current literature. Most of the articles have policy implications and are designed to stimulate further research. The volume is introduced with an essay by the editor and framed by an article about feminist intersectional research.

This is the tenth volume in a series discussing research on occupations and professions. Topics covered in this title include: rural Chinese household workers in Beijing; immigration, tradition, community and gender; the professionalization of real estate sales work; and, legal practice boundaries.

This work examines variations among nations in the wide array of initiatives labour unions and labour movements are taking to strengthen themselves and recruit new members. Moving beyond previous research on the factors leading to union decline, the international group of scholars who have contributed to this volume present a research agenda on the many initiatives unions are taking - and the different social, economic, and political challenges they face in several world regions, as labour movements endeavor to revitalize themselves. These revitalizing initiatives include changing labor leadership and membership organizing strategies; "social movement unionism"; broadening the range of services provided to union members; and pursuing political and legal reform that achieves freedom of association. The contemporary cases of labour revitalization in this volume have occurred in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela. The research agenda presented here rests on the conceptualization of labour revitalization as "socially embedded action," or strategic action taken by labor unions to strengthen themselves by redefining their relationships with workers, employers and states. Each of the three parts of "Labor Revitalization" addresses labour's changing relationships with workers, employers, and states, respectively.

Middlemen in international markets are one of the most critical components of firms' international marketing strategy. They constitute the main link between the exporter and the local market, and are thereby the 'extended arm' of the exporter organisation. This volume of AIM analyses different aspects of relations between exporters and their middlemen: selection and governance, information exchange and learning, cultural aspects and finally, the dynamics of such relations. The volume should be seen as a continuation of a stream of literature that has emerged over the last five to ten years. This volume is more concerned with the phenomena under study than with casting light on one particular theoretical perspective. The contributions represented here are therefore drawing on a number of different theoretical streams: agency theory, transaction cost economics, network theory, economic sociology, resource base theory and its applied 'offspring', Internationalisation Process school of thought. It features researchers from universities in nine different countries, representing both well-established and young academicians. This is a manifest indication of the importance of this field of research. The book is an invaluable asset to students both at the graduate and doctoral levels, and should be a must for researchers in this particular field. Also practitioners will find this book stimulating in their quest for improvements to their relations with their foreign middlemen.

This volume contains in-depth or comparative case studies of specific occupations in America and other countries. The special emphasis of this collection is upon unusual occupations and unusually organized occupations. Through the focus on the unusual, our volume brings into focus the usual taken-for-grantedness of the occupational world, which is typically seen only from the focus on prestigious professions. Included are analyses of tattoo artists, exotic dancers, sex workers, correctional officers, catholic liturgists, marginalized computer workers, university professors in foreign military extension programs, product protectors, traveling nurses and clerical temporary workers. The audience for this book includes university students and faculty.

This volume contains 15 essays devoted to a number of multifaceted issues regarding how public policy affects worker well-being. Of the 15 chapters, the first two are the more general, dealing with overall earnings distribution and overall changes in welfare policy. The remaining chapters examine specific aspects of human welfare. They cover: fertility, disability, minimum wage, pension wealth, human capital investment, migration, health, and earnings. The book culminates with four chapters relating to gender and the family. Ultimately, determining who works, how much is earned, and how these earnings get distributed define the components of individual and social welfare. The topics covered in this volume shed light on these questions.