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The article conceptualizes the dilemma between exploration and exploitation for flexible knowledge workers. At a time when work is fragmented and society is individualized, we consider, besides the strategies of organizations, also those of workers and the ways in which they move among organizations in an attempt to ‘get by’ between increased margins of autonomy and a lack of the resources necessary to pursue their passions and to fulfil their projects. Through analysis of the life stories of flexible knowledge workers and their relationships with the organizations for which they work, the article illustrates how flexible knowledge workers handle the tension between exploration and exploitation and how organizations resist their attempts. The purpose is to interpret the pervasiveness of individualization processes that prompt individuals to think of themselves as organizations, while human resource management claim that people are their most valuable resource but treat them as disposable workers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two financial inclusion measures adopted within the local welfare context of the city of Milan, Italy, examining their functioning and underpinning representations. The aim is also to understand how such representations take concrete shape in the practices of local actors, and their implications for the opportunities and constraints regarding individuals' effective inclusion. To this end, this paper takes a wide-ranging look at the interplay between the rise of financial inclusion and the individualisation and responsibilisation models informing welfare policies, within the broader context of financialisation processes overall.

This paper draws on the sociology of public action approach and provides a qualitative analysis of two case studies, a social microcredit service and a financial education programme, based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy actors.

This paper sheds light on the rationale behind two financial inclusion services and illustrates how the instruments involved incorporate and tend to reproduce, individualising logics that reduce the problem of financial exclusion, and the social and economic vulnerability which underlies it, to a matter of personal responsibility, thus fuelling depoliticising tendencies in public action. It also discusses the contradictions underlying financial inclusion instruments, showing how local actors negotiate views and strategies on the problems to be addressed.

The paper makes an original contribution to the field of sociology and social policy by focusing on two under-researched instruments of financial inclusion and improving understanding of the finance-welfare state nexus and of the contradictions underpinning attempts at financial inclusion of the most vulnerable.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices. The authors begin with a critical review of the relevant management literature aiming to establish the discursive normalization and individualization of (un)employment. The authors then use secondary sources to reflect on the downsizing process. A process that, as the authors argue, is distinguished into three separate but interconnected phases: corporate memos (phase 1), termination scripts (phase 2) and the role of outplacement services (phase 3). By examining this process, the aim is to point to the mechanisms through which downsizing practices are neutralized and depoliticized.

This is a conceptual work that provides a systematic overview of the existing management literature on downsizing and guilt. Use of other secondary sources (corporate memos and termination scripts) is also employed to draw links between the discursive normalization of downsizing as identified in the relevant literature and the specific organizational processes and practices implemented by corporations during downsizing. The authors identify common ideas and themes that cut across the relevant literature and the secondary sources and aim to offer a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices.

This paper argues that downsizing discourses and practices contribute to the feelings of personal responsibility and self-blame, reinforcing an individualistic understanding of work and unemployment that excludes more structural ones, and that it helps in reproducing the existing structures of power.

The study recognizes that employees’ reactions are not only unpredictable but also constantly evolving, depending on personal and social circumstances. The authors also recognize that the work is based on secondary sources much of which talk about practices in US companies, and thus the authors are and should be cautious of generalizations. The authors hope, however, that the authors will encourage further empirical research, particularly among organization studies and critical management scholars, on downsizing practices and guilt. For the authors’ part, the authors have tried to offer a critical reflection on how guilt is produced through corporate discourses and practices, and the authors believe that further empirical investigation on the three phases of the downsizing process (as identified in our work) and the lived experience of (un)employment is needed. As corporate downsizing discourses and practices frame (un)employment in strictly individualist and behavioral terms, the authors wish to emphasize the need for further theoretical investigation and political contestation. The authors, therefore, hope that the work will contribute to the relevant literature on downsizing practices and open up the discussions around layoff policies and the structural conditions of (un)employment.

The paper shows that downsizing practices and feelings of guilt are strongly linked to and exemplify the “individualization” of social and political issues such as work and unemployment. The authors suggest that individualization signifies, in some sense, a retreat from organized collective resistance and mobilization based upon class and that the prevalence of the ideology of individualism (and its correlative, meritocracy), over alternative explanations and solutions to such public issues, helps in reproducing existing structures of power and inequity.

While economists are increasingly acknowledging the importance of distributional issues, the distribution of the consumption of food items has largely been neglected. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that important insights can be obtained by analysing the distribution of consumption of food products within society.

This study was conducted by analysing food consumption in two very different countries: Romania, a middle-income country and Switzerland, one of the most prosperous countries in the world. In order to test the formulated hypotheses, consumption per capita was calculated, as a base for the calculation of the Gini coefficient of consumption for each product. A mixed effect model was applied for total food and for meat, computing the predictors for the variable “consumption distribution”.

Using the Gini coefficients of food and drink item consumption by Romanian and Swiss households, the authors tested the hypothesis that in prosperous middle-income countries the homogeneity of food consumption is growing over time as a sign of consumption democratisation, whereas in high-income countries a growing degree of individualisation is leading to decreasing homogeneity. For meat, the bifurcation of consumption patterns between vegetarians and hedonists leads to a growing Gini coefficient over time for both countries. The analysis controls for factors such as the products’ importance in the diet and their price.

The paper approaches a new subject and raises a new research question that may be relevant for structural issues of contemporary society. Both the comparative analysis of food distribution in two different societies and their dynamics is a novelty.

This research sought to determine the impact of the management of electronic customer relationships through applying 5IS model on the mental image of Umniah Mobile Network Operator Company’s customers in Amman City. To fulfill the goals of the study, the researcher adopted the descriptive, analytic method. He developed an instrument to collect the data through a questionnaire, which was distributed through the simple, random sampling method over 700 customers of Umniah Company, in the City of Amman, out of which 400 analyzable questionnaires were retrieved. The researcher further employed the convenient statistical methods applying SPSS 22 Program for data analysis. The study concluded many results such as there is statistically significant impact at the significance level (α < 0.05) for the administration of consumer relationships through the use of 5IS model on the mental image of the provided services of Umniah Mobile Network Operator Company in Amman city. In this concern, the integration component is the most influential in the mental image with the customers of Umniah Company. Therefore, the study recommended the need Umniah Telecom Company has to search for the best means to positively influence shaping the mental image of its products, especially the means through which it can provide more information about its services.

Assuming that organizations are open and have increasingly permeable boundaries, one risks overlooking the strategies employed by organizations to defend their own logics and routines, as illustrated by the example of the implementation of active labor market policies. It is often assumed that only open, networked organizations can fulfill the demand of offering individualized employment and social services to citizens. On the basis of an in-depth case study, we show how a jobcenter organization dealt with these challenges by developing its own decision-making criteria on a procedural, structural, and personal dimension. This implies not only cognitive openness but also operational closure and increased internal “requisite variety,” in the language of systems theory.