Today it is common to see news headlines decrying the wildfire spread of the 'gig economy'. We ask the exact opposite question: why aren't more jobs now conducted via labour-based digital platforms, ...the primary method used in the gig economy? Surveys in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere indicate that gig work remains a very minor component of the labour market, and certainly isn't overshadowing either regular employment or the contingent workforce (e.g. on-demand, part-time, contract, seasonal). The size of the gig economy is probably exaggerated because it is conflated with casual work per se (which has indeed grown) and non-labour platforms. Our paper argues that a central reason why labour-based digital platforms produce so few jobs is because it is inspired by a purist version of neoliberal capitalism, reductio ad absurdum, including strict market individualism and anti-unionism. This renders the gig economy unsustainable on its own terms, revealing its basic internal limits. The gig economy is a potent and dangerous pro-market fantasy, yet one whose imagined perfection is unsuitable to the realities of work on a large scale, hence why it has not proliferated more widely, thriving on the fringes instead.
The study of work is central to understanding how changes in organizations and their environments impact lives and livelihoods. While industrial sociology and its concern with the organization of ...work are foundational to management and organization studies, scholars have bemoaned the waning interest in work and its evolution within these fields. In this article we seek to re-energize this tradition, arguing that Critical Management Studies (CMS) and Industrial Relations (IR)—two disciplines whose core interests concern work and its changing nature—have much to gain from further cross-fertilization. As Organization becomes a recognized platform for scholarship on the organization of work, we submit that more could be done to bring IR’s intellectual legacy into CMS approaches, and that doing so will yield mutual benefits. We focus here on IR’s core concerns with rules and regulatory frameworks, and collectivities over individualities. Similarly, IR can benefit from integrating and building on insights developed in CMS. We argue that CMS as a whole offers lessons for IR in at least three ways: (i) the emphasis on cultural dominance over workers; (ii) recognition of social and identity-based fault lines that define life and work experiences; and (iii) attention to the social construction of subjectivities. In closing, we suggest four areas that cross-fertilization between IR and CMS is likely to greatly contribute to: resistance in late capitalism, alternative organizations, inclusion, and the “future of work.”
Growing alarm has been expressed about populism in mainstream political parties, yet the vast majority of scholarship investigating populism has documented the role of radical right populist parties ...rather than that of mainstream parties. This article draws on non-essentialist understandings of populism—the idea that populism is a central aspect of democracy and not restricted to the realm of radical political parties and “populist” leaders—to examine how mainstream political leaders discursively articulate the antagonism between “the people” and the institutional order. We also examine how mainstream party leaders, who are likely to be deeply embedded in the institutional order, negotiate tensions between the institutionalized system and populist articulation. We study this in the Australian context, which is appropriate for examining populism in mainstream political parties given that far-right and far-left parties have gained much smaller shares of electoral support in Australia than elsewhere. Our findings indicate that mainstream party leaders discursively construct the idea of “the people” by homogenizing disparate social demands and claiming their right to represent the community as a whole. In doing so, these leaders must negotiate pressures from the institutionalized order in the form of clientelism and accountability. This article contributes insights on the reconciliation of contemporary populism with institutionalized settings and processes.
The skin is the largest organ of the human body and the one mostly exposed to outdoor contaminants. To evaluate the biological mechanisms underlying skin damage caused by fine particulate matter (PM
...2.5
), we analyzed the effects of PM
2.5
on cultured human keratinocytes and the skin of experimental animals. PM
2.5
was applied to human HaCaT keratinocytes at 50 µg/mL for 24 h and to mouse skin at 100 µg/mL for 7 days. The results indicate that PM
2.5
induced oxidative stress by generating reactive oxygen species both in vitro and in vivo, which led to DNA damage, lipid peroxidation, and protein carbonylation. As a result, PM
2.5
induced endoplasmic reticulum stress, mitochondrial swelling, and autophagy, and caused apoptosis in HaCaT cells and mouse skin tissue. The PM
2.5
-induced cell damage was attenuated by antioxidant
N
-acetyl cysteine, confirming that PM
2.5
cellular toxicity was due to oxidative stress. These findings contribute to understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms triggered in the skin by PM
2.5
, among which oxidative stress may play a major role.
Organizational members are likely to harbor different allegiances, values, and identifications that can affect how they respond to their organization’s stigmatization. Drawing on the empirical case ...of a public broadcaster in South Korea initially stigmatized for its association with an authoritarian government, we focus on the responses of different intra-organizational groups to stigma and their interactions with each other and with external audiences. We find that faced with stigma, groups in the organization were divided about how to respond, with those defying the stigma and advocating a close relationship with the government competing with those who shared the values of stigmatizing audiences. Both groups sought control over journalism work, the organizational attribute for which the broadcaster was stigmatized, allying with external audiences that shared their respective visions. The dominance of the group that defied the stigma led to increased stigmatization of the organization by existing audiences and additionally prompted the participation of initially passive audiences in its denigration, eventually leading to organizational decline. We contribute to the literature on stigma by promoting an understanding of heterogeneity among members in stigmatized organizations and its implications for the consequences of stigma. We also contribute to theorizing stigmatization as a relational process by demonstrating how the heterogeneity of organizational members’ experience of stigma interacted with audience heterogeneity and highlighting the relative roles played by active and passive audiences in bringing about the decline of a stigmatized organization.
While political issues related to migration and work have been explored in great detail from the perspective of, inter alia, industrial relations, international business, economics and of course ...migration studies itself, they have been notably absent from any real consideration at all in organization studies. This appears as an almost wilful omission of one of the most pressing political issues facing the post-globalized world, as well as one in which work organizations are centrally implicated. This article, and the Special Issue which it introduces, explores how what it means to be a ‘foreign’ worker is deeply influenced by and connected to sexuality, gender, politics and ethics. We consider individual differences, context-specific experiences and dynamic processes through which the sexed, gendered and classed category of the foreign worker is constructed, enacted and resisted. We find that class, race and gender serve to shape a sense of foreignness that is central to the meaning and experience of work. The machinations of power are never far away, as people’s differences come to be used as an axis of actual and potential oppression, coercion and exploitation.
This article uses the concept of partial organization to examine how organizing principles can facilitate the effective operation of networked forms of corruption. We analyze the case study of a ...corruption network in the South Korean maritime industry in terms of how it operated by selectively appropriating practices normally associated with formal bureaucratic organizations. Our findings show that organizational elements built into the corruption network enabled coordination of corruption activities and served to distort and override practices within member organizations. The network was primarily organized through the hierarchical organization of a bounded and controlled set of members and, to a lesser extent, through processes of monitoring and sanctions. Given its clandestine nature, the network avoided the use of explicit rules to govern behavior, instead relying on habituated routines to ensure consistent and predictable action from members. We find that organizational elements were rescinded when the corruption network was exposed after the sinking of a passenger ferry, the Sewol. By rolling back its hierarchical organization and reverting to core relationships, the corruption network sought to preserve its center. The article illustrates the explanatory value of studying how the activities of corruption networks are enabled and adapt to existential challenges through partial organization.
Within Australia’s reputation as a successful multicultural nation, we explore what it means to be Asian in Australia. We trace how this racialized group has been socially excluded under the White ...Australia Policy that existed for much of the 20th Century, included in the Asian Century adopted as government policy in 2012, re-excluded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and tentatively re-included in its aftermath. We examine the cursory and contingent nature of racial inclusion in Australia in light of the contention that surrounds the concept and practice of multiculturalism as a political program. The racialized experience of Asians in Australia demonstrates the pernicious nature of white supremacy, even while this settler-nation seeks to consolidate a glowing image of diversity to redeem its racist past. We conclude by proposing that Australia go beyond multiculturalism to adopt systemic inclusion as a basis for a more equitable and sustainable future.
Institutionalizing a new organizational template in a pluralistic environment where multiple institutional logics coexist entails unique challenges where actors must negotiate conflict and carry out ...integrative and adaptive work. This paper examines how organizational actors in a large service sector trade union managed to craft integrative processes out of contentious processes in institutionalizing a new organizational template. Recently, renewed attention has focused on politics as a means through which integration is achieved in organizations under multiple institutional pressures. However, we know relatively little about how politics achieves organizational integration in pluralistic contexts. This paper sheds light on how successful institutionalization processes actually unfold in organizations. While extant literature on intra-organizational political processes has depicted politics mainly as a zero-sum game, findings in this study suggest that politics can be a generative process through which organizations adapt to changing conditions.
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