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This article explores differentiation in the responses of precarious workers to the instability and uncertainty imposed on their work by employing organizations. Our focus is on the ways in which different workers respond to precarious working conditions, with a particular interest on marginalised groups who have been especially overlooked by studies of workforce precarity.

Employs an approach akin to grounded theory in an exploratory research design and utilizes in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 56 precarious workers.

Finds that different precarious workers, with divergent characteristics and resources, facing differing working conditions, and diverse structural constraints vary in the ways in which their strategies of surviving precarious work are manifested. Uncovers three differing forms of precarious workers who each employ a different range of tactics and strategies in work.

Generates insights into differentiation of precarious workers in their responses to the ambiguous, challenging and, in many ways, subjugating conditions of their working conditions.

Our core aim was to explore the perceptions of precarious workers on the ways in which the pandemic impacted their relationships with their employing organizations and to explore the ways in which they viewed the pandemic as (re)shaping the dynamics of precarious work and the extent to which they saw the pandemic as contributing to substantive improvement in their working lives or whether the pandemic is exacerbating their marginalisation.

We adopted an approach akin to grounded theory in an exploratory research design and utilized in-depth, semi-structured interviews as the most apposite method of data collection. Our research design centred on a two-phase data collection approach, which were intended to gather data at two points. First, during the most difficult part of the pandemic, which we describe as the “Lockdown phase” and second, during the period wherein the pandemic rules were eased but elements of the risks remained; the “New Normal phase”.

This article reports the findings of a longitudinal study of the reflections and interpretations of precarious workers on the impacts of the pandemic on their relationships with their employing organizations. We supply findings across three periods – pre-the COVID-19 pandemic, during the pandemic lockdown phase and post-lockdowns in the “new normal phase”.

The first contribution of the study is the importance of “voice” and giving voice to workers in nontraditional, fragmented and marginalised employment. Our study builds on these contributions by exploring the journeys of precarious workers and is particularly valuable in that we explore the perceptions of these workers across the societal, organizational and employment/working turbulence of the pandemic. The second contribution arises from the insights developed through studying the working lives and experiences of precarious workers longitudinally rather than in a single, snapshot fashion. A third contribution centres on how precarious workers felt they were treated by others during both the two phases of the study. The insights here are complex and, in parts, contradictory – reflecting the interpretations and conflicted opinions/deeds of those connected with precarious workers.

It is particularly important for scholars to understand the ways in which the pandemic shaped (or reshaped) the dynamics of precarious work and to understand whether the evolving conceptions of the centrality of such workers as “essential” during the pandemic (Crane and Matten, 2021) contributed to substantive or merely illusory, improvements in their working lives. Thus, we analyse the reflections of precarious workers on changes to their working lives that are linked to the pandemic.

Organizational scholars studying compensation often place an emphasis on certain employee groups (e.g., executives). Missing from this discussion is research on the compensation systems for low-wage jobs. In this review, the authors argue that workers in low-wage jobs represent a unique employment group in their understanding of rent allocation in organizations. The authors address the design of compensation strategies in organizations that lead to different outcomes for workers in low-wage jobs versus other workers. Drawing on and integrating human resource management (HRM), inequality, and worker literatures with compensation literature, the authors describe and explain compensation systems for low-wage work. The authors start by examining workers in low-wage work to identify aspects of these workers’ jobs and lives that can influence their health, performance, and other organizationally relevant outcomes. Next, the authors explore the compensation systems common for this type of work, building on the compensation literature, by identifying the low-wage work compensation designs, proposing the likely explanations for why organizations craft these designs, and describing the worker and organizational outcomes of these designs. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research in this growing field and explore how organizations may benefit by rethinking their approach to compensation for low-wage work. In sum, the authors hope that this review will be a foundational work for those interested in investigating organizational compensation issues at the intersection of inequality and worker and organizational outcomes.

This paper aims to explore the issue of product counterfeiting in Türkiye and assess Türkiye’s role in the global supply chain of counterfeit goods. It sheds light on the supply-side dynamics of counterfeiting in the Turkish context.

Interviews were conducted with 46 key experts, including police officers, customs officers and trademark attorneys. The study also incorporated data from a documentary analysis of counterfeit products seized by the Bulgarian Customs.

The findings of this study highlight the significant role of Türkiye in international supply chains, serving as both a manufacturing hub for a wide array of counterfeit products and a crucial transit point for goods bound for European markets. This study suggests that counterfeiting serves as a source of livelihood for many individuals in Türkiye, with counterfeiters often justifying their activities by claiming they contribute to the country’s economy through job creation and the influx of foreign currency.

While qualitative research is essential for exploring nuanced aspects and gaining in-depth insights, it may not provide the statistical robustness and generalizability associated with larger quantitative studies.

This paper is an original contribution to the understanding of product counterfeiting in Türkiye, a major counterfeit-producing country, with potential implications for the future of consumer protection and market integrity.

This chapter revisits, reinforces, and extends our view of the underpinning principles and practices of school leadership in Aotearoa New Zealand. It presents extracts from case studies of schools that illustrate the crucial role of the principal in ensuring ongoing improvement and innovation while working in increasingly complex and uncertain environments. The chapter discusses the need to understand the importance of relationships between individuals and groups, actions, contexts, environments, and cultures where processes of interaction shape principals' practices. Features of complexity thinking are used as a lens through which to understand schools as complex adaptive systems and illustrate the importance of the dynamics of the interactions among the agents and elements within the New Zealand educational system. The chapter concludes by drawing together the implications for leadership that emerge across this chapter.

This paper examines the state’s accountability to its citizens, in particular the First Peoples of settler colonial nations such as Australia, and how these responsibilities may be enacted via a process of compensatory justice in Native Title claims. We focus on the landmark Timber Creek ruling and the impacts of racialized preconceptions on the accountability outcomes of the case.

This study draws on critical race theory to reveal embedded racialised perspectives that perpetuate exclusion and discriminatory outcomes. Court documents including hearing transcripts, case judgements, witness statements, appellant and respondent submissions, expert reports and responses from First Nations leaders, form the basis of our analysis.

The case highlights how the compensation awarded to Native Title holders was based on racialised assumptions that prioritised neoliberal values, commercial activities and reaching a “socially acceptable” judgement over valuing Aboriginal uses of land. A critical analysis of court documents reveals the pervasiveness of presumed “objectivity” in the use of accounting tools to calculate economic value and the accountability implications of a process based on litigation, not negotiation. These findings reveal the hiding places offered by calculative practices that equate neoliberal priorities with accountability and reaffirm the importance of alternative accountings to resist inequitable distributive outcomes.

Novel insights, drawing on First Nations peoples’ connections to land and their perspectives on accountability and justice, are offered in this study. Our analysis of Native Title holders’ submissions to the courts alongside historical and anthropological sources leads to the conclusion that compensation decisions regarding Native Title land must be approached from the perspective of Aboriginal landowners if accountable outcomes are to be achieved.