Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence. Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works. Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own "employability." The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, "matrix economy" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise.

"A stranger enters your world, and starts asking questions you would prefer not to answer. What do you do? Mostly, when an interloper appears, communities find ways to resist: they obstruct investigations and hide evidence, shelve complaints and silence dissent, even forget their own past and deny having done so. Such resistance-that is, the social mechanisms deployed by social groups to maintain the status quo-is the bane of field researchers everywhere, for it often seems to slam the door in their face. How can one learn about a community when they resist so very strongly? The answer is that, sometimes, the resistance is itself the key. By closing ranks and creating obstacles, community members often disclose more than they meant. This book shows how such resistance manifests itself, how researchers can respond to it, and, most importantly, what it all reveals. To do so, The Interloper draws insights from diverse stories of resistance and research inquiries-everything from Nazi rocket scientists to Disney union-busters, Harvard professors to those securing cadavers for medical school dissection-to draw attention to field resistance and help analyze it. Offering a window into such research for readers of many disciplines, this book, ultimately, is intended both as a practical and theoretical guide for field researchers. All these stories and more reveal a common truth: When any field researcher tries to gain access to a field, they are sure to meet resistance to their investigations. The Interloper brings together all these instances of resistance that he encountered or witnessed, alongside accounts from other published work. The book organizes them around ideal forms of resistance and details their unique implications. Ultimately, The Interloper argues that such resistance contains way more analytical possibilities than most interlopers (including field researchers) envision"--

Comprising original empirical studies of career-making in the creative sector, this book takes in theatre, music, film, TV, visual arts, fashion design, and architecture as creative industries. This format facilitates comparative analysis of central features of career-making within as well as across both specific industries and national contexts. The book is at the forefront and intersection of contemporary career research and research on work in creative industries / the cultural economy, intertwining both subjective and objective approaches to and dimensions of career. The contributors move beyond the dichotomies that have characterized recent career theory and work on creative industries to examine factors that facilitate and restrict horizontal and vertical mobility. Spanning a diverse range of case studies, from German theatre to Danish fashion, this book is a valuable reference for scholars of the creative and cultural industries and important reading for thoser interested in careers more generally.

"This is an anthropological study of the culture of public health governance in the Northern Territory of Australia. It asks what it takes to become a helping white bureau-professional in Australias post-colonial frontier - someone who passionately cares about and resolutely strives toward improved health for Indigenous people and how their determination to help is sustained in the face of a self-declared history of failure."--Provided by publisher.

At a time when the bulwarks of the music industry are collapsing, what does it mean to be a successful musician and artist? How might contemporary musicians sustain their artistic communities? Based on interviews with over seventy-five popular-music professionals in Nashville, Beyond the Beat looks at artist activists—those visionaries who create inclusive artist communities in today's individualistic and entrepreneurial art world. Using Nashville as a model, Daniel Cornfield develops a theory of artist activism—the ways that artist peers strengthen and build diverse artist communities. Cornfield discusses how genre-diversifying artist activists have arisen throughout the late twentieth-century musician migration to Nashville, a city that boasts the highest concentration of music jobs in the United States. Music City is now home to diverse recording artists—including Jack White, El Movimiento, the Black Keys, and Paramore. Cornfield identifies three types of artist activists: the artist-producer who produces and distributes his or her own and others' work while mentoring early-career artists, the social entrepreneur who maintains social spaces for artist networking, and arts trade union reformers who are revamping collective bargaining and union functions. Throughout, Cornfield examines enterprising musicians both known and less recognized. He links individual and collective actions taken by artist activists to their orientations toward success, audience, and risk and to their original inspirations for embarking on music careers. Beyond the Beat offers a new model of artistic success based on innovating creative institutions to benefit the society at large.

The book presents a series of epistemological, conceptual and methodological explorations appropriate to the development of critical organizational analysis.

This book documents the emergence of doulas as care professionals in Italy, considers their training, practices, and representation, and analyses their role in national and international context. Doulas offer emotional, informational and practical support to women and their families during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Pamela Pasian explores the development of this ‘new’ profession and how doulas are defining their space in the Italian maternity care system. Whilst doulas are gaining recognition they are also facing opposition. The book reflects on the conflicts and collaborations between doulas and midwives, as well as relations between different doula associations. Interweaving ethnography and autoethnography, it will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and those working in health and maternity care.

Corps de ballet literally means the "body" of the ballet company, and it refers to the group of dancers who are not principals. Another large group of dancers puts together portfolios of work, often across several dance companies. These categories of dancers typically don't have name recognition and yet comprise the majority of professional dancers today. The ways that they stitch together careers, through dedication, grit, and no small amount of skill – and the reasons they have for doing so without the promise of fame or fortune – are telling of broader trends that shape the precarious labor of professional dance, and creative careers more generally. In Passionate Work, dance hobbyist and sociologist, Ruth Horowitz captures their stories. When creative labor is studied, it is often thought of in opposition to more conventional work, and the primary metric that distinguishes them is passion. Professional creatives are not working in the traditional sense because they are following their passion. By tracing the careers of such dancers, Horowitz troubles the binary understanding of passion and work. A career in dance requires both, and approaching her subjects through this lens allows her to explore their strategies for sustaining passion through the ups and downs of a career. Horowitz explores how dancers evaluate the rewards and challenges of a notoriously underpaid, and uncertain profession. Horowitz considers major dimensions of a career in a performing art, documenting each stage in a dancer's life. Above all, she shines a light on the strategies used to achieve a sense of biographical continuity in a world often marked by discontinuity and rupture.

′Erudite and accessible, McCann demonstrates how the national gets reconfigured around the global without losing some of its unique features. Far from being a one-size-fits-all Anglo-American template, neoliberalism comes in many different hues and variations. This is by far the best textbook in the field and is destined to become a classic for years to come.′ Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai′i-Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai’i, USA ′A sweeping examination of systems of capitalism in theory and in the world’s major industrial economies leads Leo McCann to challenge the conventional wisdom on globalization. Historical analysis of the evolution of business systems and detailed examination of present practice demonstrate persuasively that, despite facing common challenges, distinctive national differences remain salient. A must read for anyone who needs to understand how business systems operate in an increasingly interdependent world economy.′ - Dr Eileen Appelbaum, Senior Economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC, USA Globalization has profound effects on national economies even as distinct national ‘models’ of capitalism remain. International and Comparative Business accessibly tracks the historical and socio-political contexts of the world’s major countries on a chapter-by-chapter basis to the present day. The book provides a comprehensive, critical, yet concise introduction to each of the economies’ key features, including macro overviews as well as organizational and workplace-level analysis. Each chapter features learning objectives, in-depth interpretation and critique of key literature, and annotated further reading to allow readers to rigorously navigate their way through the wealth of material available for each country. This text is essential reading for students and researchers in the areas of international business and cross-cultural management, comparative political economy, and history. Leo McCann is Senior Lecturer in International and Comparative Management at Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK

The simple act of going to work every day is an integral part of all societies across the globe. It is an ingrained social contract: we all work to survive. But it goes beyond physical survival. Psychologists have equated losing a job with the trauma of divorce or a family death, and enormous issues arise, from financial panic to sinking self-esteem. Through work, we build our self-identity, our lifestyle, and our aspirations. How did it come about that work dominates so many parts of our lives and our psyche? This multi-disciplinary encyclopedia covers curricular subjects that seek to address that question, ranging from business and management to anthropology, sociology, social history, psychology, politics, economics, and health. Features & Benefits: International and comparative coverage. 335 signed entries, A-to-Z, fill 2 volumes in print and electronic formats. Cross-References and Suggestions for Further Readings guide readers to additional resources. A Chronology provides students with historical perspective of the sociology of work. In the electronic version, the comprehensive Index combines with the Cross-References and thematic Reader's Guide themes to provide robust search-and-browse capabilities.