The Meaning of Work in the New Economy

The Meaning of Work in the New Economy

Author: C. Baldry

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-03-27

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0230210643

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This book analyzes the multiple levels of meaning which people attach to work today, and the role of work in people's lives. By looking at call centres and software development, the book evaluates some of the claims made for the knowledge economy and argues that defining the work-life boundary is a constant problem for many workers


Down and Out in the New Economy

Down and Out in the New Economy

Author: Ilana Gershon

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2024-07-06

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0226833224

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Finding a job used to be simple. You’d show up at an office and ask for an application. A friend would mention a job in their department. Or you’d see an ad in a newspaper and send in your cover letter. Maybe you’d call the company a week later to check in, but the basic approach was easy. And once you got a job, you would stay—often for decades. Now . . . well, it’s complicated. If you want to have a shot at a good job, you need to have a robust profile on LinkdIn. And an enticing personal brand. Or something like that—contemporary how-to books tend to offer contradictory advice. But they agree on one thing: in today’s economy, you can’t just be an employee looking to get hired—you have to market yourself as a business, one that can help another business achieve its goals. That’s a radical transformation in how we think about work and employment, says Ilana Gershon. And with Down and Out in the New Economy, she digs deep into that change and what it means, not just for job seekers, but for businesses and our very culture. In telling her story, Gershon covers all parts of the employment spectrum: she interviews hiring managers about how they assess candidates; attends personal branding seminars; talks with managers at companies around the United States to suss out regional differences—like how Silicon Valley firms look askance at the lengthier employment tenures of applicants from the Midwest. And she finds that not everything has changed: though the technological trappings may be glitzier, in a lot of cases, who you know remains more important than what you know. Throughout, Gershon keeps her eye on bigger questions, interested not in what lessons job-seekers can take—though there are plenty of those here—but on what it means to consider yourself a business. What does that blurring of personal and vocational lives do to our sense of our selves, the economy, our communities? Though it’s often dressed up in the language of liberation, is this approach actually disempowering workers at the expense of corporations? Rich in the voices of people deeply involved with all parts of the employment process, Down and Out in the New Economy offers a snapshot of the quest for work today—and a pointed analysis of its larger meaning.


Outsourcing and Service Work in the New Economy

Outsourcing and Service Work in the New Economy

Author: José-Luis Álvarez-Galván

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1443838179

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This book examines the impact of outsourcing on workers and their employment conditions in the new economy. To do so, the call centre industry in Mexico City is analysed through a large number of in-depth interviews with workers and managers, available statistics and visits to leading firms in the sector. The case of call centres is paradigmatic as it is often seen as a flag-ship industry of the new economy, rapidly growing and subject to high pressures for costs reduction. The Mexican experience is crucially relevant to understand employment conditions in a weak institutional setting where labour protection is low and business competition intense. Overall, outsourcing has gained popularity as a mechanism to deal with the uncertainty of increasingly challenging business environments. Nonetheless, the practice of outsourcing also raises important concerns. This book identifies those managerial practices which have a substantial impact on workers and their employment conditions such as: job designs; customer segmentation; non-standard contracts; intensified supervision; union avoidance; limited career opportunities; and strict social divisions in the workplace. These findings also suggest that a number of practices that were common in the ‘old’ economy are still dominant in the organisation of work in the twenty-first century. The book is a useful reference for scholars and students concerned with employment and labour studies, economic development, and globalisation.


The New Ruthless Economy

The New Ruthless Economy

Author: Simon Head

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0195179838

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This text provides an examination of the business practices which led to the economic boom of the 'new economy' in the later half of the 1990s and into the 21st century.


Masters of Craft

Masters of Craft

Author: Richard E. Ocejo

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691183198

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In today’s new economy—in which “good” jobs are typically knowledge or technology based—many well-educated and culturally savvy young people are instead choosing to pursue traditionally low-status manual labor occupations as careers. Masters of Craft looks at the renaissance of four such trades: bartending, distilling, barbering, and butchering. In this engaging book, Richard Ocejo takes you into the lives and workplaces of these people to examine how they are transforming once-undesirable jobs into “cool” and highly specialized upscale occupations. He shows how they find meaning in these jobs by enacting a set of “cultural repertoires,” resulting in a new form of elite taste-making. Focusing on cocktail bartenders, craft distillers, upscale men’s barbers, and whole-animal butcher shop workers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Masters of Craft provides new insights into the stratification of taste, the spread of gentrification, and the evolving labor market in today’s postindustrial city.


Changing Contours of Work

Changing Contours of Work

Author: Stephen Sweet

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2015-12-16

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1483358267

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In the Third Edition of Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy, Stephen Sweet and Peter Meiksins once again provide a rich analysis of the American workplace in the larger context of an integrated global economy. Through engaging vignettes and rich data, this text frames the development of jobs and employment opportunities in an international comparative perspective, revealing the historical transformations of work (the “old economy” and the “new economy”) and identifying the profound effects that these changes have had on lives, jobs, and life chances. The text examines the many complexities of race, class, and gender inequalities in the modern-day workplace, and details the consequences of job insecurity and work schedules mismatched to family needs. Throughout the text, strategic recommendations are offered to improve the new economy.


Gender and Innovation in the New Economy

Gender and Innovation in the New Economy

Author: Seppo Poutanen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-06-05

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1137527021

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This book provides a thorough and novel examination of the gendered nature of innovations in the new economy. It tracks the contemporary shift from heavy industry to game industry and how this has altered relationships between gender, identity, corporate culture, creative work, and the future of business. Through empirical research and theoretical analysis, the authors present their own carefully contextualized cases and conceptual frameworks relating themes of innovation and gender to recent theories concerning globalization and transnationalism. This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary text provides readers with insightful entries on what innovations are and the ways innovation processes become gendered. It explores the business landscape based on creative work and offers a wealth of information for scholars of entrepreneurship, management, sociology, cultural studies, and communication.


The Work of the Future

The Work of the Future

Author: David H. Autor

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2022-06-21

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 0262367742

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Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem. The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher paid knowledge workers. What’s wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation. Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.


Precarious Work, Women, and the New Economy

Precarious Work, Women, and the New Economy

Author: Judy Fudge

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2006-04-26

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1847312152

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Globalisation, the shift from manufacturing to services as a source of employment, and the spread of information-based systems and technologies have given birth to a new economy, which emphasises flexibility in the labour market and in employment relations. These changes have led to the erosion of the standard (industrial) employment relationship and an increase in precarious work - work which is poorly paid and insecure. Women perform a disproportionate amount of precarious work. This collection of original essays by leading scholars on labour law and women's work explores the relationship between precarious work and gender, and evaluates the extent to which the growth and spread of precarious work challenges traditional norms of labour law and conventional forms of legal regulation.The book provides a comparative perspective by furnishing case studies from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Quebec, Sweden, the UK, and the US, as well as the international and supranational context through essays that focus on the IMF, the ILO, and the EU. Common themes and concepts thread throughout the essays, which grapple with the legal and public policy challenges posed by women's precarious work.


Work and Family in the New Economy

Work and Family in the New Economy

Author: Samantha K. Ammons

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2015-02-25

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1784416290

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This volume will focus on innovative research examining how the nature of paid work intersects with family and personal life today. This collection of cutting-edge research will be instrumental in shaping the next wave of work-family scholarship.