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Sociologists studying the rise of postmodernism have generally concentrated on either macro-level structures of economy or micro-level subjectivities of individuals. Few have specified how meso-level actions within concrete institutions have produced both these macro- and micro-changes. Bourdieu's concept of field provides a meso-level concept that allows sociologists to explain the transition to a postmodern society by changes in the composition and competition of producers and consumers struggling for advantage in the economy and culture. The chapter focuses on architecture, revealing that the rise of a postmodern aesthetic was the result of internal changes of this field and their complex interrelation with the external changes of an economy in transition from Fordism to post-Fordism.

This paper aims to provide a critical overview of the diverse visions of the future of employment.

A conceptual framework is presented for understanding the common narrative structure that underpins a multitude of contrasting visions on how employment will be organized in the future.

This paper shows how the diverse stories about the future of employment adopt a similar storyline, and reveals how most visions: firstly squeeze all forms of employment into one side or other of some dualism; secondly, order the two sides into a temporal and/or normative sequence in which one side is seen as universally replacing and/or more progressive than the other; and finally, represent this one‐dimensional linear trajectory by concocting some label to represent their vision, which usually involves using some ‐ism, ‐ation or post‐something‐or‐other.

Visions of the future of employment are shown to be grounded in some binary hierarchy (e.g. from Fordism to post‐Fordism, bureaucracy to post‐bureaucracy), all of which over‐simplify lived practice. To offer a way forward that transcends these one‐dimensional and linear stories, this paper argues for a more kaleidoscopic understanding that recognizes the heterogeneous and multiple directions of employment and opens up the future to new possibilities.

This paper highlights how a common storyline underpins a diverse array of competing visions of the future of employment.

This paper is an attempt to theorise the recent changes to accounting practices in local government in the UK. The principal theory used is regulation theory, which incorporates aspects of hegemony theory and governance. Regulation theory attempts to explain major changes in national economic structures by examining underlying systems of capital accumulation, regulation and hegemony. Central to these structures and systems are the role and operation of the state and its institutions. Changes in economic structures will result in conditions, which favour different governance structures for these institutions; comprising markets, hierarchies, civil society, and heterarchic combinations. Several researchers in these areas have characterised “traditional” institutional practices as Fordist and are associated with a particular approach to regulation. However, the underlying economic structure is seen to be in crisis and a new Post‐Fordist regime may be emerging. Post‐Fordism is associated with new institutional practices, particularly decentralised management, contracting out of public services, extended use of public private partnerships and concerns for value for money, charters and league tables. The introduction of such practices may therefore be explained by the changes in underlying structures rather than as a teleological development of accounting. Moreover, some researchers have characterised such changes as representing a fundamental shift from government to governance. The very nature of the relationship between governance, accountability and accounting may therefore have also changed. These issues are explored in the paper.

Consider the post‐Fordism/flexible specialisation hypothesis. Examines how it can shed light on future changes in the property industry. Concludes that changes in the global economy – notably the integration of circuits of financial capital and the reorganisation of manufacturing industry – have potentially significant impacts on the property market.

Economic globalization is making Strategic Management researchers increasingly aware of the important extent to which international business strategies are shaped by national, regional, and international institutions — by differing business‐state and management‐labor regimes, industrial organization, and capital allocation systems, techno‐economic processes, etc. As yet, however, relatively limited attention to the “institutional embeddedness” of corporate strategy has developed within Strategic Management education. This paper seeks to encourage debate on incorporating analysis of the institutional shaping of corporate strategies by discussing four issues recommended to be systematically addressed in Strategic Management texts, lectures, and case work. The topics are: (1) the transition from the “Fordist” to “Post‐Fordist” global economy; (2) comparative business systems analysis; (3) political forces of the global economy; (4) global warming and environmental management.

Attempts to reformulate the notion of organizational control considering the new dictates of the post‐Fordist agenda. Ideology, as a control mechanism, takes on a secondary role with the body (re‐)emerging as the ontological priority for the examination of human subjectivity, or more importantly the lack thereof. The major implication is the recognition that post‐Fordism, at least for the labour force, is nothing more than a ploy by the advocates of capital to further perpetuate control relationships. Identifies and discusses repercussions for postmodern organization “theory”.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of French School Regulation theory for questions of relevance to researchers and practitioners working in the field of information policy in general and public librarianship in particular.

The paper is divided into two parts. Part one outlines Regulation theory's twin analytic tools of Fordism and post‐Fordism and its value for questions about the evolution of the public library. Part two provides an example of the approach's explanatory potential when applied to a series of public library planning documents produced by the Government of Ontario, Canada from the 1950s.

An interpretation of the evolution of the identity of the library user from patron to customer to information producer‐consumer is proposed at the intersection of the neoliberal state's austerity in social spending, the ubiquity of the new information and communication technologies, and fundamental changes in libraries as sites of waged‐work.

The research facilitates the development of a political economy of the contemporary public library of potential value to the international public library community. Also, conceiving of the public library as first and foremost a site of productive work forces one to re‐engage with the meaning of shifting relations between the library user and the institution on working conditions.

The applicability of a relatively under‐utilized theoretical framework is modelled that enables one to ask new questions of relevance to the field of library and information science.

The office as a workplace has reached a critical point in its evolution. The requirement of the conventional office would appear to be holding back the near applications of IT and organisational creativity, which aim to promote a much freer and more dynamic relationship between space and time for the office workplace. Henry Ford′s mass production of the 1920s laid the foundations of the modern office as we know it, but “post‐Fordism” is challenging the rigid patterns then ordained, especially the traditional notions of work time and space. To this end not only must the office be redesigned but also the nature of work itself must be redefined.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to show how patterns of union organization vary over time and across countries in the economically advanced world, with a focus on Europe.

Methodology/approach – The data analysis uses the “Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts” dataset to report on patterns of union density in 16 economically advanced countries between 1960 and 2006 and draws on the European Social Survey to show how union membership is segmented by gender, educational attainment and economic sector in 13 European economically advanced countries during the 2000s.

Findings – The chapter demonstrates more clearly than in previous work that trends of decline in union density cut across national varieties of capitalism; on average, the trends look quite similar in Anglo-American liberal countries and the coordinated countries of Continental Europe. On the other hand, cross-national differences are still important, as evident in the fact that the Nordic countries have not experienced substantial declines.

Originality/value – Current work in political economy is marked by a dividing line between those who see change over time or cross-country differences as the primary axis of variation in contemporary capitalism. Some focus on differences between periods of embedded liberalism and neoliberalism, while others key on distinctions between liberal and coordinated national models. This chapter advocates an integrated approach that captures more fully the ways in which forms of organization in different institutional domains vary across both time and space.