Alan Felstead - Böcker

This book provides the first systematic assessment of trends in inequality in job quality in Britain in recent decades. It assesses the pattern of change drawing on the nationally representative Skills and Employment Surveys (SES) carried out at regular intervals from 1986 to 2012. These surveys collect data from workers themselves thereby providing a unique picture of trends in job quality. The book is concerned both with wage and non-wage inequalities (focusing, in particular on skills, training, task discretion, work intensity, organizational participation, and job security), and how these inequalities relate to class, gender, contract status, unionisation, and type of employer. Amid rising wage inequality there has nevertheless been some improvement in the relative job quality experienced by women, part-time employees, and temporary workers. Yet the book reveals the remarkable persistence of major inequalities in the working conditions of other categories of employee across periods of both economic boom and crisis. Beginning with a theoretical overview, before describing the main data series, this book examines how job quality differs between groups and across time.

The places and spaces of managerial and professional work are changing rapidly. Long-established routines and disciplines of the personal office are being superseded in a multiplicity of new locations, such as 'hot desks', 'touchdown areas', 'home offices', motorway service stations, airport lounges, cars, trains and planes. Drawing on original research, this book analyses the impact of these developments on the experience of time and space, privacy and surveillance, freedom and constraint in everyday working life.

More and more people are choosing to earn a living at home. In Work, At Home explores the meaning and experience of this type of employment by covering a wide range of issues including:* social relationships* current research methodologies* statistical analyses of global labour markets* the emotional and psychological processes of self-management* home relations.Presenting statistical analyses of labour markets in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, In Work, At Home provides a valuable introduction to the issues and debates surrounding homeworking and will appeal to students across a range of disciplines, including sociology, business studies and women's studies.

More and more people are choosing to earn a living at home. In Work, At Home explores the meaning and experience of this type of employment by covering a wide range of issues including:* social relationships* current research methodologies* statistical analyses of global labour markets* the emotional and psychological processes of self-management* home relations.Presenting statistical analyses of labour markets in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, In Work, At Home provides a valuable introduction to the issues and debates surrounding homeworking and will appeal to students across a range of disciplines, including sociology, business studies and women's studies.

Interest in learning at work has captured the attention of many people around the world, often taking centre stage in policy debates about improving economic performance, prosperity and well-being. This book is about the learning that goes on in workplaces – ranging from offices, factories and shops to gyms, health centres and universities – and how it can be improved. Such learning includes everyday work activity, on-the-job instruction and off-the-job training events. Improving Working as Learning is the first book to analyze systematically learning at work in different settings by developing and applying a new analytical framework. The Working as Learning Framework connects the particularities of work tasks with the way jobs are organized and the wider pressures and constraints organizations face for survival, growth and development. The authors convincingly demonstrate that the framework offers a sophisticated understanding of how improving the work environment – both within the workplace and beyond – can enhance and sustain improvements in learning at work. Each chapter presents evidence – taken from both private and public sectors – to illustrate how the Working as Learning Framework provides a means by which employers, researchers and policy-makers can Improve the conditions for nurturing and sustaining learning at workBuild appropriate workforce development plans within given constraintsRecognize that the creation and use of knowledge is widely distributedMobilize existing workplace resources to support learningEnhance and extend our understanding of how workplace learning is shaped by relationships at, and beyond, the workplaceThis topical book will appeal to an international readership of undergraduate and postgraduate students, vocational teachers and trainers, human resource professionals, policy-makers, and researchers.

Interest in learning at work has captured the attention of many people around the world, often taking centre stage in policy debates about improving economic performance, prosperity and well-being. This book is about the learning that goes on in workplaces – ranging from offices, factories and shops to gyms, health centres and universities – and how it can be improved. Such learning includes everyday work activity, on-the-job instruction and off-the-job training events. Improving Working as Learning is the first book to analyze systematically learning at work in different settings by developing and applying a new analytical framework. The Working as Learning Framework connects the particularities of work tasks with the way jobs are organized and the wider pressures and constraints organizations face for survival, growth and development. The authors convincingly demonstrate that the framework offers a sophisticated understanding of how improving the work environment – both within the workplace and beyond – can enhance and sustain improvements in learning at work. Each chapter presents evidence – taken from both private and public sectors – to illustrate how the Working as Learning Framework provides a means by which employers, researchers and policy-makers can Improve the conditions for nurturing and sustaining learning at workBuild appropriate workforce development plans within given constraintsRecognize that the creation and use of knowledge is widely distributedMobilize existing workplace resources to support learningEnhance and extend our understanding of how workplace learning is shaped by relationships at, and beyond, the workplaceThis topical book will appeal to an international readership of undergraduate and postgraduate students, vocational teachers and trainers, human resource professionals, policy-makers, and researchers.

The coronavirus pandemic forced work back into the home on a massive scale. The long-held belief that work and home are separate spheres of economic life was turned on its head overnight. Many employees were new to this way of working and many employers had to manage a disparate workforce for the first time. This book reviews what impact this shift had on the lives of millions of employees, the organisations which employ them and the societies in which they live. It also looks to a future in which more work is carried out remotely – at home, in the local café, restaurant or bar, or while moving from place to place. The book syntheses the existing evidence in an accessible and easy-to-read way. It will appeal to all those who want a quick and concise introduction to the major themes associated with remote and hybrid working. This will include teachers, lecturers, students, academics and policy-makers as well as those who have experienced the challenges and benefits of homeworking first-hand.

The coronavirus pandemic forced work back into the home on a massive scale. The long-held belief that work and home are separate spheres of economic life was turned on its head overnight. Many employees were new to this way of working and many employers had to manage a disparate workforce for the first time. This book reviews what impact this shift had on the lives of millions of employees, the organisations which employ them and the societies in which they live. It also looks to a future in which more work is carried out remotely – at home, in the local café, restaurant or bar, or while moving from place to place. The book syntheses the existing evidence in an accessible and easy-to-read way. It will appeal to all those who want a quick and concise introduction to the major themes associated with remote and hybrid working. This will include teachers, lecturers, students, academics and policy-makers as well as those who have experienced the challenges and benefits of homeworking first-hand.

First published in 1993, The Corporate Paradox is the first major, in-depth study of the franchise relationship and how it functions. While past debates have focused on the question: ‘What do bosses do?’, we are now being asked: ‘Who really is the boss?’. Since the late 1970s the emergence of franchising arrangements has been a major part of the wider process of change taking place in the nature of modern business organization. The names of franchise companies are familiar to most people: Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Pepsi cola, Body Shop, to name but a few. But how many people realize that each such outlet is a separate legal entity owned by a local franchisee? Franchising remains, at best, little understood.In this book, Alan Felstead explores who controls what, why and how, setting his discussion within the context of the many current changes affecting traditional contractual bonds between employers and employees, producers and buyers, owners and managers. This is a must read for students of management, organizational studies, marketing, industrial sociology and commercial law.