Prelims

Half Title Page

ESSENTIALITY OF WORK

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RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK

Editor-in-Chief: Rick Delbridge

Associate Editors: Markus Helfen, Andreas (Andi) Pekarek, Gretchen Purser

Recent Volumes:

Editorial Advisory Board

• Ifeoma Ajunwa

  Cornell University, USA

• Michel Anteby

  Boston University, USA

• Steve Barley

  Stanford University, USA

• David Courpasson

  Emlyon Business School, France

• Liz Gorman

  University of Virginia, USA

• Bill Harley

  University of Melbourne, Australia

• Josh Healy

• The University of Newcastle, Australia

• Heather Hofmeister

  Goethe University, Germany

• Hajo Holst

  University of Osnabrück, Germany

• Alexandra Kalev

  Tel Aviv University, Israel

• Arne Kalleberg

  University of North Carolina, USA

• Erin Kelly

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

• Kate Kellogg

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

• Julie Kmec

  Washington State University, USA

• Marek Korczynski

  University of Nottingham, UK

• Anne Kovalainen

  University of Turku, Finland

• Robin Leidner

  University of Pennsylvania, USA

• Steve Lopez

  Ohio State University, USA

• Irene Padavic

  Florida State University, USA

• Valeria Pulignano

  Catholic University, Belgium

• Lauren Rivera

  Northwestern University, USA

• Dee Royster

  New York University, USA

• Vinnie Roscigno

  Ohio State University, USA

• Jeff Sallaz

  University of Arizona, USA

• Ofer Sharone

  University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

• Sheryl Skaggs

  University of Texas Dallas, USA

• Don Tomaskovic-Devey

  University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

• Catherine Turco

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

• Steve Vallas

  Northeastern University, USA

• Geert Van Hootegem

  Catholic University, Belgium

• Matt Vidal

  King’s College London, UK

• Chris Warhurst

  University of Warwick, UK

• Christine Williams

  University of Texas Austin, USA

• George Wilson

  University of Miami, USA

• Adia Wingfield

  Washington University St Louis, USA

• Patrizia Zanoni

  Hasselt University, Belgium

Title Page

RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, VOLUME 36

ESSENTIALITY OF WORK

Edited by

MARKUS HELFEN

Hertie School, Germany

RICK DELBRIDGE

Cardiff University, UK

ANDREAS (ANDI) PEKAREK

University of Melbourne, Australia

AND

GRETCHEN PURSER

Syracuse University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Markus Helfen, Rick Delbridge, Andreas (Andi) Pekarek and Gretchen Purser.

Individual chapters © 2024 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright licencing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83608-149-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83608-148-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83608-150-0 (Epub)

ISSN: 0277-2833 (Series)

Contents

About the Editors

Markus Helfen is a Senior Research Fellow in the Hertie School Berlin, Germany as well as a Private Lecturer at Freie Universität, Berlin. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the German Journal of Human Resource Management and the journal Industrielle Beziehungen – The German Journal of Industrial Relations. He has been a regular Co-convenor at the European Group of Organization Studies annual colloquia with the international research group ‘Organization Studies and Industrial Relations’. He publishes in leading management and industrial relations journals like Organization Studies, Human Relations, and the British Journal of Industrial Relations. He does research in the fields of organization theory and employment relations with a focus on collective action, institutional work, and sustainability. Current research topics and projects include the humanization of warehouse work in the digital transformation and global labour standards in supply chains.

Rick Delbridge is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School and Co-convenor of the Centre for Innovation Policy Research, Cardiff University. He has research interests across various aspects of work, management, organization and innovation in both private and public sector organizations and has published widely on these. He also has a long-standing interest in Japanese business and management and is currently undertaking work on traditional Japanese craft firms. He has been awarded best paper prizes by Academy of Management Review and Organization Studies. He has been elected to Fellowships of the Academy of Social Sciences, British Academy of Management, and the Learned Society of Wales.

Andreas (Andi) Pekarek is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is fascinated by how people work, and his research has focussed on how collective action by workers and their allies can steer the world of work in a more sustainable direction, towards fairness and social justice. His recent projects have centred on gig work in the platform economy, unions and industrial relations institutions, the HRM occupation, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of work. He has published in such journals as Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Organization, Human Resource Management Journal, British Journal of Industrial Relations, and New Technology, Work and Employment. In addition to his role as Associate Editor for Research in the Sociology of Work, he serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Industrial Relations (Sage).

Gretchen Purser is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her scholarship focusses broadly on the intersection between precarious work and the low-wage labor market and the reproduction and lived experience of urban poverty in the USA. She uses ethnographic and/or community-based research methods to explore the changing nature of work and workers’ movements as well as the ground-level practices of neoliberal poverty management. Her articles have appeared in leading journal such as Ethnography, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Critical Sociology, Social Service Review, Working USA, and Anthropology of Work Review. She has received a wide variety of publication awards from the American Sociological Association and the Working Class Studies Association and serves as Associate Editor of both Research in the Sociology of Work and Critical Sociology.

About the Contributors

Enobong Hannah Branch is a Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, USA. She specializes in race, gender, and labor inequality. Hanley and she are the co-authors of Work in Black and White: Striving for the American Dream (Russell Sage Foundation, 2022).

Flavia Sofia Ciafre completed her Bachelor of Laws (L.L.B.) from Université de Montréal, Canada in 2022, where her academic interests centred on the sociology of law, administrative law, and health law. As of fall of 2023, she is enrolled as a student at the Quebec Bar, pursuing further education and training to advance her career in the legal field.

Nancy Côté is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Université Laval (Québec, Canada) and a Researcher at the VITAM Research Centre in sustainable health, where she co-leads the research theme Environments: Living Environments and Work Environments. She holds a Canada Research Chair in the sociology of work and healthcare organizations. Her research program is situated at the crossroads of the sociology of work, professions, and organizations. Her works focusses on the transformations of healthcare and social care sectors, with particular interest in their impact on the work of professionals and managers. She is interested in social innovations, leadership, work engagement, new modes of collaboration, and redefinition of professional roles.

Jean-Louis Denis is Professor in Health Policy and Management at the Université de Montréal, Canada, School of Public Health, and Researcher on innovation and health system at the CRCHUM. He holds a Canada Research Chair on design and adaptation of health systems. His research program is located at the intersection of applied health services research, organizational studies, and policy research. His research aims at developing a comparative and transdisciplinary perspective on large-scale health reforms and on transformations and improvement in health systems and organizations. He is an elected Member of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada (2002) and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2009). In 2019, he was elected Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (2019) for his exceptional contribution to the field of health policy and management. He is Co-editor of the Organizational Behaviour in Healthcare series at Palgrave.

Markieta Domecka, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton, and a Research Fellow at the CESO, KU Leuven. Her research interests centre around sociology of work, unpaid labour, inequality and the meaning of work across social classes, genders, ethnicities, industries, and national contexts. Her most recent publications are: ‘Working Hard for the Ones You Love and Care for Under COVID-19 Physical Distancing’, Work, Employment & Society, with Valeria Pulignano and Lander Vermeerbergen, and ‘How State Influence on Project Work Organization Both Drives and Mitigates Gendered Precarity in Cultural and Creative Industries’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, with Valeria Pulignano, Deborah Dean, and L. Vermeerbergen.

Anna Milena Galazka is a Lecturer in Management, Employment, and Organization in the Management, Employment, and Organization section at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests include the transformative power of positive relationships, reflexivity, social innovation, emancipation, stigma, and dirty work. Much of her research has been conducted in the context of wound care provision. Her interdisciplinary work has appeared in Work, Employment and Society, Sociology of Health & Illness, Journal of Critical Realism, International Journal of Management Reviews, and International Wound Journal. Her current research interests include responsible social innovation in community care. She is member of the CARE Research Centre at Cardiff University.

Caroline Hanley is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William & Mary, USA. She specializes in earnings inequality, employment relations, and work.

Sarah Jenkins is a Professor in the Sociology of Work and Organization in the Management, Employment, and Organization section at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests examine contemporary working realities related to skills and emotions at work as well as the varied experiences of work linked to detailed case studies of work organizations. She has also studied lies and deception in organizations and has published in Organization Studies, Organization Theory, Work, Employment and Society and Gender, Work and Organizations. Her current research examines the nature of work in adult social care linked to cooperative organizational forms. She is a member of the CARE Research Centre at Cardiff University.

Annie J. Murphy is a Doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focusses on the reproduction of class inequality within and through organizations.

Valeria Pulignano is Francqui Research Professor and Professor of Sociology of Work and Industrial Relations at CESO – KU Leuven, Belgium. She is Research Coordinator of RN17 Work, Employment and Industrial Relations at the European Sociological Association. She received PI ERC Advanced Grant ResPecTMe. Her research interests are comparative industrial (employment) relations, precarious work, inequality, job quality, working conditions, and collective voice at work. Her recent books: Reconstructing Solidarity, (with) van Hoyweghen and Meyers, Palgrave; Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe, (with) Doellgast and Lillie, OUP.

Mê-Linh Riemann is a Postdoctoral Researcher at CESO, KU Leuven, Belgium/Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany. Her research interests include sociology of work, biographical methods, precarity, and migration. Her most recent book is: Leaving Spain: A Biographical Study of an Economic Crisis and New Beginnings, Leuven University Press.

Carol Stephenson is Director of Education and Associate Professor in the Sociology of Work at Northumbria University. Her research approach shaped by interests in biographies of work and activism, with a focus on trade union and community resistance and gender and class inequalities in postindustrial contexts: see Brock A., Stephens-Griffin N., Stephenson C., and Wyatt T. (2022), Sociological Research Online.

Steven Therrien is a Master’s student in Sociology at Université Laval, Québec, Canada. During his studies, he has developed a particular interest in the sociology of work and the professions, as well as in economic sociology, which are brought together in his recent work. As part of his thesis, he is attempting to define the contours of a new ethos prescribed in the training of stock market traders. In doing so, his current research, driven by a critical perspective, focusses on the new forms of self-employment that are developing in an increasingly democratized financial world.

Isabelle Zinn is a Tenure Track Professor at Bern University of Applied Sciences – Business School. Her research interests include qualitative methods, in particular ethnography, the transformation of work, and gender inequalities. She holds a joint PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Lausanne and EHESS, Paris and is currently Co-chair of the Swiss Sociological Association’s Gender Studies Committee. She recently co-authored an article entitled ‘Persistent Pandemic: The Unequal Impact of Covid Labor on Early Career Academics’ with Edmée Ballif, published in the journal Gender, Work & Organization, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13092.