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As postmodernity is increasingly discussed in the management disciplines, there is growing acceptance that the postmodernity debates challenge the adequacy of traditional research and teaching practices. Argues that, to date, this has been interpreted primarily as a need for new theoretical and/or pedagogical content. Believes the issue is more fundamental. Contrasting modernist and postmodernist theories of post‐industrialism, argues that postmodern transformations of work and society throw the very forms, even the existence of organizational theorizing, academic business education, and “management” as it is currently understood into question. While it is directed at those who have some background with these debates, attempts to provide background and citations sufficient to point the new reader towards other commentary on these issues.

Proposes that changes are usually encapsulated in the classical theory of post‐industrialism, with regard to the information revolution. States there are two different information models: the service economy model; and the industrial production model. Looks at global interdependencies in work, citing the three mechanisms working on global labour interdependence: the multinational corporations; international trade; and global competition. Uses highlighted boxes in explaining the three various dimensions of: value‐making; relation‐making; and decision‐making. Concludes that labour is more important than ever to the value‐making process — but workers are more vulnerable than ever to organizations and the effect of global competition.

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.

Analyses, critically, the interest in “knowledge work” and the “knowledge age”. Arguing that definitions of “knowledge work” and predictions regarding the future trajectories of knowledge organizations are characterized by confusion and ambiguity, calls for a quite different form of analysis. Argues that energy should be directed away from the study of “knowledge work” ‐ the privilege of a minority élite ‐ and redirected to acknowledge the extent of working knowledge across the workforce as a whole.

The Drifters are ten long-term unemployed British men. The Drifters’ unemployment is consensual: the men believe they have chosen to “not work” and rely upon welfare benefits for their socio-economic survival. The purpose of this paper is to present micro sociological analysis of the Drifters’ existences which focuses upon first, exploring why the Drifters’ consensual unemployment has resulted in them experiencing high levels of stigma in their everyday lives; second, analysing the Drifters’ (micro) relationships with (macro) unemployment policies.

Primary, qualitative data were elicited from the Drifters during two phases of fieldwork. In both phases of fieldwork, the author conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews and participant observation-based research with the Drifters to generate data on how the men subjectively experience and account for the intersection of consensual non-work, welfare reliance and stigma in their lives.

In the pseudonymous locale where the Drifters reside (Dramen) displaying a willingness to work is – despite high rates of local unemployment – a social expectation and marker of “respectable” masculinity. By living lives of consensual non-work and welfare reliance, the Drifters violate a localised cultural code and are accordingly stigmatised. Rather than attempting to manage their stigma, the Drifters ritually indulge in secondary deviant behaviours. This amplifies the Drifters’ statuses as reviled agents. The Drifters lack employment options. The Drifters have been able to successfully exploit unemployment benefits. Accordingly, the Drifters’ non-work is somewhat inevitable, rather than lamentable, as many citizens in Dramen believe; and as wider current right-leaning political and media rhetoric relating to unemployment implies.

Examinations into the lives of non-consensually unemployed males exist. However, the lives of males who are unemployed apparently consensually – i.e. out of choice – remain under-researched. This paper functions as a micro empirical corrective, which diversifies the way male unemployment in capitalist societies can be viewed; and which offers a fresh look at how proposed unemployment welfare reform may impact the Drifters and the group in British society which the Drifters represent more broadly.

Purpose – In this chapter, we examine individual- and country-level differences in 4 work attitudes (work centrality, work commitment, job satisfaction, and autonomy) among 31 European countries in 1999 using a multilevel framework.

Design/methodology/approach – We utilize the 1999/2000 European Values Study to investigate individual- and country-level determinants of work values and job rewards. Our analysis contains 17 traditionally capitalist and 14 post-socialist countries. At the country level, we consider 11 institutional processes as possible explanations for variations in work values and job rewards: post-socialist status, continuous democracy, contentious politics, state capacity, socialist ideology, union density, economic integration, service employment, income inequality, linguistic heterogeneity, and population density.

Findings – We find that traditionally capitalist countries tend to score lower on work values and higher on job rewards than post-socialist countries. Our analyses show that each of the 11 institutional processes, especially continuous democracy and economic integration, has statistically significant effects on the four dependent variables.

Research limitations/implications – Of the 44 hypotheses we made, 23 were supported by statistically significant effects in the predicted direction, 16 were not significant, and 5 were statistically significant in a direction unanticipated by our theory. We discuss possible reasons for the results that did not conform to our expectations.

Originality/value – The study is one of the most comprehensive multination studies of work values and job rewards in that it examines the impact of 11 institutional processes on four different work attitudes among 31 European countries. It is the only study of this scope to rigorously examine the differences between traditionally capitalist and post-socialist countries.

Purpose – We study the determinants of growing wage inequality in 16 OECD countries in the past two decades of the twentieth century. The main independent variables that we consider are those pertaining to labor market institutions, to international trade with less developed nations, and to deindustrialization.

Methodology – We specify a statistical model of pay differentials using first differences over five-year periods. The main estimation method used is weighted ordinary least squares. Where necessary, we use instrumental variables and two-stage least squares. We also undertake extensive robustness exercises, including a version of extreme bounds analysis and deleting each individual country from the analysis.

Findings – The determinants of wage inequality are different in the 1980s and in the 1990s. In the 1980s, growing wage dispersion is due to changes in the institutions of the labor market, including declining unionization and declines in the level at which wages are bargained collectively. In the 1990s, increases in pay inequality are due to increasing trade with less developed nations and weakening of social insurance programs.

Originality – This is the first study to report that the causes for pay inequality differed between the 1980s and the 1990s. It is also the first to document statistically that trade with the less developed nations systematically increases pay inequality in the developed world in the 1990s.

The paper aims to expand the public service principle to cover labour and worker organizations in the communication industry. It also aims to demonstrate the value of labour convergence as an instrument to advance the interests of knowledge workers and the public interest in communication.

The paper draws from conceptual debates around the nature of knowledge labour and of convergence. It draws from interviews and documentary evidence to determine the value of trade union convergence and new forms of worker organization in the communication industries.

The paper finds that communication workers are engaging in their own form of convergence and are using it to advance the public service principle in knowledge labour. In doing so, they are expanding the public interest in communication.

The paper is one of the only studies that connects the public service principle and convergence to knowledge and communication workers. It demonstrates that, despite significant challenges, these workers are a significant force in the communication arena.

It is difficult, both from a layman's point of view and from the perspective of work psychology and sociology, to provide a definition of the concept of work. Various factors contribute to this difficulty. The first problem lies in the use of employment and work as synonyms. Even though some authors have established distinct differences between these terms in the sense that employment implies remunerative work, thus excluding other types of work in which a contractual relationship of the definition of employment does not exist, the truth is that indiscriminate use is still a characteristic feature of the bibliography of work psychology and sociology (see Jahoda, 1987). In addition to this confusion, we have to confront the problems originating from the conceptual distinction between work in an abstract sense of the word and work considered as a category of subjective experience.