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This introduction unpacks the key question that informs the articles in this special issue. How does a social sphere inform regulation and, more specifically, how can the regulatory capacity of a social sphere be harnessed, as an alternative or significant complementary force to state regulation and reliance on the self-regulatory capacity of markets? This question is salient and topical also in light of the search for new regulatory strategies and perspectives in the aftermath of the 2007 financial and subsequent EU sovereign debt crises, which have led to a major realignment of economy and society in a number of countries.

This introduction argues that economic sociology is a crucial reference point for understanding more about the social practices that constitute business behavior. It enables to explore the scope and significance of often interlinked social and legal norms for regulating various transnational risks that economic activity can give rise to. The introduction therefore locates the quest for understanding more about the regulatory capacity of a social sphere in debates that draw on Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the embedding, disembedding, and re-embedding of economic activity into social norms. The introduction highlights one of the key themes developed in this special issue, the idea of society within economy which questions an assumed conceptual distinction between economy and society.

This introduction concludes by specifying how the accounts of risk regulation developed in this special issue chart a path that is different from recent explorations of the role of a social sphere in regulation, which were conducted under the banner of “the sociological citizen,” “regulatory sociability,” and “collaborative governance.”

The term “crowdwork” describes a new form of digital work that is organized and regulated by internet-based platforms. This chapter examines how crowdwork platforms ensure their virtual workforce’s commitment and control its performance despite its high mobility, anonymity, and dispersion. The findings are based on a case study analysis of 15 microtask and macrotask platforms, encompassing 32 interviews with representatives of crowdwork platforms, and crowdworkers, as well as an analysis of the platforms’ homepages and community spaces. The chapter shows that performance control on crowd platforms relies on a combination of direct control, reputation systems, and community building, which have until now been studied in isolation or entirely ignored. Moreover, the findings suggest that while all three elements can be found on both microtask and macrotask platforms, their functionality and purpose differ. Overall, the findings highlight that platforms are no neutral intermediaries but organizations that adopt an active role in structuring the digital labor process and in shaping working conditions. Their managerial structures are coded and objectified into seemingly neutral technological infrastructures, whereby the underlying power relations between capital and labor become obscured.

To discuss the historical roots of contemporary geopolitical economy, this paper aims to explore the complex and influential analysis of Tilly's formation of European national states as a predominant type of territorial political organization in contemporary world. To do this, Tilly described different eras of dominant organization of warfare in relation to state organization: patrimonialism, brokerage, nationalization, specialization. In this paper, we explore the link between the organization of military power and trade policy. We are trying to answer the question, if it is possible to credibly state a connection between the trade policy types pursued by selected states in specific historical periods and Tilly’s eras of dominant form of organization of warfare. For this purpose, we developed a typology of trade policies of important states throughout the history, using the economic history research of leading experts in the field. Our conclusion is that such a connection – between trade policy and Tilly’s eras of organization of warfare – can be made and that this connection is solidly supported by economic history. Our analysis may be of value for any critical assessment of international trade relations in contemporary geopolitical economy – and of influential cosmopolitan interpretations of the liberal trade regime of 19th century or globalization in 20th century.

This article provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis revisited classical and Marxian concepts such as productive/unproductive labor, economic surplus, subsistence wages, reserve army, and capital accumulation in his investigation of economic development. The Lewis 1954 development model is compared to other models advanced at the time by Harrod, Domar, Swan, Kaldor, Solow, von Neumann, Nurkse, Rosenstein-Rodan, Myint, and others. Lewis applied the notion of economic duality to open and closed economies.

During the last few decades, rising intra-regional volumes of trade as well as air passenger traffic have been key characteristics of Asia-Pacific’s economic development. Although conceptual and empirical linkages between rising levels of trade and air passenger flows are often assumed, relatively little is known about the potential causality in these parallels. In this chapter, we seek to empirically uncover this causality through the application of heterogeneous Time Series Cross Section Granger causality analysis for the period 1980–2010. Four scenarios are found amongst the different country-pairs: (1) there is no co-evolution, implying that both patterns develop independently (e.g. Japan–Australia); (2) there is ‘real’ co-evolution in that both patterns influence each other through feedback loops (e.g. South Korea–Philippines); (3) air passenger traffic is facilitated by trade (e.g., South Korea–Philippines); or (4) trade is facilitated by air passenger traffic (e.g. Australia–Malaysia). Some possible interpretations of this heterogeneity are discussed.

This chapter draws on longitudinal case study research that focused on the experiences of hospitality employees working in a UK university who worked split shifts in the morning and evening while completing NVQ 2 and 3 apprenticeship training. We show how fragmented working time (Rubery, Grimshaw, Hebson, & Ugarte, 2015) rather than long hours led to the apprenticeship training further eroding an already blurred work-life boundary as workers were required to complete training activities in their non-work time which for them is during the middle of the day. We argue current depictions of the positive impact of training and development on low paid workers are decontextualized from the challenges and priorities of workers whose work-life interface is already complex because of working fragmented hours across the day. This is complicated even further by the dynamic and evolving experiences of workers themselves as they experience the highs and lows of combining paid work and training. We situate the research in the context of wider conceptual debates that call for a more inclusive approach to research on the work-life interface (Warren, 2021) and highlight implications for HR practitioners who want to offer such opportunities to low paid workers in sectors such as hospitality, while also recognizing the complex challenges such workers may face.

This study addresses the debate regarding employee discretion and neo-normative forms of control within interactive service work. Discretion is central to core and long-standing debates within the sociology of work and organizations such as skill, control and job quality. Yet, despite this, the concept of discretion remains underdeveloped. We contend that changes in the nature of work, specifically in the context of interactive service work, require us to revisit classical theorizations of discretion. The paper elaborates the concept of value discretion; defined as the scope for employees to interpret the meaning of the espoused values of their organization. We illustrate how value discretion provides a foundational basis for further forms of task discretion within a customized service call-centre. The study explores the link between neo-normative forms of control and the labour process by elaborating the concept of value discretion to provide new insights into the relationship between managerial control and employee agency within contemporary service labour processes.

On rent, Seligman's claim is based on the fact that in the first edition of the Essay on the External Corn Trade (1815) Torrens conceives rent as a ‘net surplus’, which is undoubtedly true, but not in itself very significant: Adam Smith had already written of rent as surplus produce,¹⁸ and following Smith the same conception is to be found in a number of authors, for instance in Spence's 1807 tract Britain Independent of Commerce, which Torrens certainly knew, having written The Economists Refuted against it in 1808. Spence in fact speaks of rent as ‘the surplus produce paid to [the class of land proprietors] under the denomination of rent’ (Spence, 1807, p. 17).¹⁹