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This paper examines how accounting either contributes to or undermines worker resistance to unfair pay, thereby enhancing our current understanding of the emancipatory potential of accounting.

We apply Jacques Rancière's concept of politics and build on recent calls to introduce Rancière's work to accounting by analysing a case based on workers in an Australian supermarket chain who challenged their employer Coles over wage underpayments.

We find that in this case, accounting is, in part, a means to politics and a part of the police in Rancière's sense. More specifically, accounting operated within the established order to constrain the workers, but also provided workers with a resource for their political acts that enabled change.

This empirical research adds to Li and McKernan (2016) and Brown and Tregidga (2017) conceptual work on Rancière. It also contributes more broadly to emancipatory accounting research by identifying radical possibilities for workers' accounting to bring about change.

We examined the moderating role of age on the politics perceptions—organizational commitment relationship. Confirmatory factor analyses of data collected from 633 office employees of a private sector organization indicated that the scales measuring politics and commitment reflected unique constructs. Perceptions of politics were inversely but weakly related to commitment. However, results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis revealed that perceptions of organizational politics and commitment were essentially unrelated among workers in and above their 40s, but were moderately related among younger workers. Implications of the results and directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to expand previous theories of motivation and religious ethics by examining the moderation effect of Islamic work ethic (IWE) on the relationship between perception of politics (POP) and job satisfaction, and turnover intention and negligent behavior (NB).

The sample consisted of 260 workers employed in various sectors in an Asian country. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to test the main effect of the five hypotheses. In addition, moderated models are used to identify factors (IWE) that may change the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Results revealed that POP was negatively related to job satisfaction, and positively related to turnover intention and NB. IWE was positively related to job satisfaction, and negatively related to turnover intention (confirming previous research findings), and NB (a contribution of the current study). Furthermore, when the moderator variable of IWE was introduced to the relationship between POP and job outcomes, the influence and direction of the POP were altered (a major contribution of this study). In other words, the moderator variable strengthened job satisfaction and reduced both turnover intention and NB of organizational workers.

When the moderator variable of IWE was introduced to the relationship between the POP and job outcomes, the influence and direction of the POP were altered (a major contribution of this study).

This paper delineates the distinctive nature of appraisal politics perceptions (referenced to organizational politics) experienced by appraisees (APAP) as a form of hindrance work stressor that is more episodic than chronic, salient during the PA rating and reward decisions. The study argues and attempts to establish empirically that due to its distinct nature, it causes both short-term episodic strain and long-term chronic strain. Further, the study investigates the distinctive role played by appraisee's hard and soft influence behaviour as a coping mechanism moderating the influence of APAP as a stressor on strain variables in Indian organizational context that ferments politics.

The data was collected using self-reports from 407 employees in Indian organizations using survey method. Multivariate analyses including moderating tests were used for testing the hypotheses.

Only the episodic components of the APAP-appraiser's rating politics and pay and promotion politics were significantly related to anxiety felt by appraisees during PA – an episodic measure of strain. All three APAP components were significantly related to the chronic strain measure of dissatisfaction. There was modest support for the role of influence tactics (IT) as a coping mechanism attenuating the negative relation of APAP with the dissatisfaction variables as chronic strain measures. Contrary to the hypothesis, softer tactics exacerbated the APAP–PA anxiety relation, indicating the episodic nature of stressor and strain.

The study contributes significantly to enhance the understanding about the nature of Appraisal politics.

Accompanying the casino liberalization in Macau has been the massive increase in the importation of migrant workers to drive the labour-intensive, service-oriented economic growth there. Nevertheless, the employment of migrant workers has become an intensely contentious issue. The traditional pluralist approach to migration policy has highlighted a mismatch between restrictive policy pronouncements and actual expansive outcomes. This mismatch has resonated strongly in Macau, where the number of migrant workers skyrocketed in the last decade in spite of repeated guarantees from the government of the adoption of a protectionist labour policy. The pluralist approach has attributed the mismatch to strong constituencies supporting more immigration. The purpose of this paper is to dispute this and maintain that the Macau Government is a capitalist state committed to increasing labour importation to facilitate wealth accumulation.

The paper uses a qualitative approach based on extensive research of news and media reports, facilitated by a close observation of political developments.

The Macau Government started, in 2005, to talk about reforming its labour importation programme by adding a migrant worker levy, a ratio mechanism and a six-month waiting period. This paper investigates how the capitalist state navigated the reform process by promising changes and building consent with the working classes. The author maintains that “a game of protection” has been constructed and played to secure the consent of the local working classes for the migrant worker programme.

Very little literature is available that has studied the changes made to the migrant worker system in Macau. This paper will help to close this gap.

Purpose – This chapter explores the nature of dualism as it operates in post-Katrina New Orleans. In particular, the chapter suggests that the combination of the push toward a tourism and services dependent economy and the failure to regulate labor markets has created an especially detrimental situation for both workers and the long-term development of the city.

Design/methodology – To explore dualism in sectors and employment, this chapter applies survey methods to three areas of the New Orleans economy: food service, construction, and manufacturing. Survey methods vary slightly across sectors, due to the ease or difficulty of applying random sampling methods in each context. The surveys were applied anonymously by trained interviewers, and additional information from qualitative interviews and focus groups was also included.

Findings – Without regulation of labor markets and efforts to sustain and expand sectors characterized by decent livelihoods, New Orleans working conditions and development will continue to decline.

Originality/value – This chapter offers an original application of theories of dualism in development and labor markets. In development, dualism refers to sectoral division between high-value, cosmopolitan activities and low-productivity sectors, with few prospects for growth or employment. In labor markets, dualism characterizes the distinction between well-remunerated jobs with opportunities for decent livelihoods and other jobs that are precarious and vulnerable. The chapter also provides results from original surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

This is the second volume in the Research in the Sociology of Work set on “Comparing European Workers.” The first volume focused on experiences and inequalities (Brady, 2011). This volume concentrates on policies and institutions. While the first volume identified many of the problems and challenges that European workers face, this volume considers potential solutions. Of course, the social policies and labor unions of Europe are hardly panaceas for the variety of challenges that European labor markets face. Nevertheless, this volume explores how well policies and institutions can address those challenges. In the process, it appraises how the classic solutions for workers are undergoing transformations and what those transformations mean for the future of work in Europe.

Democratic renewal in Sri Lanka as well as a cross the Global South depends on strengthening democratic social movements within varieties of patrimonial capitalism. Patrimonial capitalism, emphasising patron–client relations, coincide with weakening democratic institutional cultures and practices. The dominant corruption/anti-corruption narrative is bracketed with elite class strategies aimed at negotiating a ‘managed corruption’. The realm of representative politics creating consent for patrimonial capitalism is shaped by: ethnic and class relations; the weakening of working-class parties; patriarchal cultures within parties; links with criminal networks; opaque finances and the integration of mainstream media with party patronage.

Democratising the realm of representative politics points towards democratic social movements. The internal dynamics of social movements, their relationships with political parties and collective learning are significant factors that shapes the strategic orientation of social movements. State repression of social movements highlights the need for demilitarisation and the abolition of prisons. The global sense of this local struggle relates to transforming financial markets and platform economies towards notions of financial and digital commons. The integration of different realms of politics, such as representative, movement, life and emancipatory politics, is vital for reinforcing solidarity as the basis for counter-hegemonic struggles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of one personal variable (locus of control) and two relationship variables (leader-member exchange and co-worker cooperation) on perceptions of organizational politics in Lebanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Survey data was collected from 300 Lebanese employees from different SMEs located between Tripoli and Beirut.

Results of regression analysis indicated that all the three variables were significant predictors of perceptions of politics, and that perceptions of politics affected employee outcomes. More specifically, higher levels of politics are associated with higher turnover intention and lower job satisfaction.

Results of this study raise several implications for companies and employers. Perceptions of politics were found to have a negative impact on employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, employers must examine the factors that affect employee perceptions of politics in the workplace. Since leader-member exchange and co-worker cooperation were found to predict politics, management's efforts should focalize on improving the relationships between employees and their supervisor as well as their relationships with each other. Management should develop strategies to create an atmosphere of cooperation and support in the organization.

There is paucity of studies on organizational politics in Arabic cultures. This study extends the organizational politics literature by investigating antecedents and outcomes of politics in Lebanon, a country that differs in its culture from US and European contexts.