1,721,055 research outputs found
"Getting by" in time and space: fragmented work in local authorities
No full textManual work in British local authorities has been substantially restructured since the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) in 1988. The central argument of this paper is that CCT has led to an increasing fragmentation of work, employment, and labor markets. Drawing primarily upon interviews with cleaning and catering employees in three case study councils, I demonstrate that labor forces are now highly diversified as wage and other divisions have emerged among groups of workers both between and within different local labor markets. The employment experiences of individual workers also have become fragmented. Not only is job tenure limited to the length of a contract, but also private contractors frequently seek to alter employees' terms and conditions of work during the life of the contract itself. Additionally, many cleaning and catering workers must now combine multiple part-time, frequently insecure jobs in an attempt to obtain a living wage. Extending the work of Mingione, the paper stresses the complexity of restructuring within what have been low-wage, low-status, and highly gender-segregated sectors of employment
Working in a risk society
No full textThrough much of the 1980s, discussions of transformations within work and employment debated the emergence of a new, more 'flexible' era - or, at a different level of analysis, the growth of more 'flexible' working practices. Recent accounts of contemporary socio-economic change have been framed within new sets of theoretical contexts, such as Ulrich Beck's notion of 'social risk'. The central aim of this paper is to evaluate the utility of such an approach, drawing upon empirical work which has investigated changes to terms and conditions of manual employment in British local authorities as a result of the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering
Contract service firms in local authorities: evolving geographies of activity
No full textContract service firms in local authorities: evolving geographies of activity, Reg. Studies 33 , 121-130. The introduction of compulsory competitive tendering has significantly reshaped the nature of manual service provision in local authorities. Since 1989, private firms have won an increasing share of contracts, particularly within the cleaning and catering sectors. The paper evaluates the activities of large national and multinational companies, and both considers the reasons why such firms have taken on local government contracts, and examines decisions to bid for contracts in particular places. It is suggested that cleaning and catering firms have been influenced by perceptions about the political control of local authorities and by the shape of the management structures of firms' existing contracts. The paper indicates that a previous north-south split in tendering patterns has been replaced by more complex geographies of private sector activity
Employer strategies and the fragmentation of local employment: the case of contracting out local authority services
No full textFashioning furniture: restructuring the furniture commodity chain
No full textThe paper explores intersections between the fashion and furniture industries as manifest across magazine, retail and manufacturing spaces. We argue that the temporality and spatiality of furniture have begun to shift. As a result, furniture retailers and manufacturers in Canada and the UK have been required to restructure their methods of operating
Spatializing commodity chains
No full textThere has been a growing interest in connecting production and consumption through the study of commodity chains. We identify three distinct approaches to the chain and review debates concerning the merits of a ‘vertical’ rather than a ‘horizontal’ approach. Drawing upon the example of the home furnishings commodity chain, the article highlights the importance of including horizontal factors such as gender and place alongside vertical chains. We consider geographical contingencies which underpin commodity chain dynamics, the role of space in mediating relationships across the chain and the spatialities of different products. <br/
Software for qualitative research: 2. Some thoughts on ‘aiding’ analysis
No full textIn this paper the author examines how Korea's export-oriented economy has laid its new foundation for global competitiveness by deepening interfirm linkages. Korea's interfirm linkages refer mainly to the relationship between large and small firms. Recent corporate restructuring in the large and small firm sectors has caused denser and highly dynamic intercorporate networks to arise. The author argues that the globalizing of economy in Korea is encouraged by efficacious global - local transactions via large - small firm networks, a matter ignored by most analysts. Major foci are on analyzing the forms, structures, governing mechanisms, and function of large - small firm networks
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