Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:45:01.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Work and Employment in Fluid Organizational Forms

from Part II - What Has Changed?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2020

Brian J. Hoffman
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Mindy K. Shoss
Affiliation:
University of Central Florida
Lauren A. Wegman
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Get access

Summary

This chapter analyzes how work and employment are shaped within a landscape marked by organizational innovation and, more often than not, even by the fundamental transformation of formal organizations. Even large organizations are increasingly adopting what some have called “post-bureaucratic” forms. The post-bureaucratic organizational landscape is marked by three trends with the aim of achieving even more fluidity in organizations: temporariness, plurality, and partiality. With regard to these three aspects, we argue that work and employment, often intermediated with the help of agencies of all sorts, are increasingly integrated in networked processes of interorganizational value creation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, P. S., & Borys, B. (1996). Two types of bureaucracy: Enabling and coercive. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(1), 6189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahrne, G., & Brunsson, N. (2011). Organization outside organizations: The significance of partial organization. Organization, 18(1), 83104.Google Scholar
Alvesson, M., & Thompson, P. (2005). Post-bureaucracy. In Ackroyd, S., Batt, R., Thompson, P., & Tolbert, P. S. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of work and organization (pp. 485507). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Anner, M., Bair, J., & Blasi, J. (2013). Toward joint liability in global supply chains: Addressing the root causes of labor violations in international subcontracting networks. Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, 35(1), 143.Google Scholar
Arthur, M. B. (1994). The boundaryless career: A new perspective for organizational inquiry. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(4), 295306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arvidsson, N. (2009). Exploring tension in projectified matrix organizations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25(1), 97107.Google Scholar
Ashforth, S. J., George, E., & Blatt, R. (2007). Old assumptions, new work: The opportunities and challenges of research on nonstandard employment. Academy of Management Annals, 1(1), 65117.Google Scholar
Baden-Fuller, C., & Stopford, J. M. (1992) Rejuvenating the mature business: The competitive challenge. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bakker, R., DeFillippi, R. J., Schwab, A., & Sydow, J. (2016). Temporary organizing: Promises, processes, problems. Organization Studies, 37(12), 17031719.Google Scholar
Barrientos, S., Gereffi, G., & Rossi, A. (2011). Economic and social upgrading in global production networks. International Labour Review, 150(3–4), 319340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechky, B. A. (2006). Gaffers, gofers, and grips: Role-based coordination in temporary organizations. Organization Science, 17(1), 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bélanger, J., & Edwards, P. (2013). The nature of front-line service work: Distinctive features and continuity in the employment relationship. Work, Employment & Society, 27(3), 433450.Google Scholar
Beringer, C., Jonas, D., & Gemünden, H. G. (2012). Establishing project portfolio management: An exploratory analysis of the influence of internal stakeholders’ interactions. Project Management Journal, 43(6), 1632.Google Scholar
Bidwell, M., Briscoe, F., & Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2013). The employment relationship and inequality: How and why changes in employment practices are reshaping rewards in organizations. Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 61121.Google Scholar
Blader, S. L., Patil, S., & Packer, D. J. (2017). Organizational identification and workplace behavior: More than meets the eye. Research in Organizational Behavior, 37, 1934.Google Scholar
Bonet, R., Cappelli, P., & Hamori, M. (2013). Labor market intermediaries and the new paradigm for human resources. Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 341392.Google Scholar
Borgatti, S. P., & Halgin, D. S. (2011). On network theory. Organization Science, 22(5), 11681181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braun, T., Ferreira, A., & Sydow, J. (2013). Citizenship behavior and effectiveness in temporary organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 31(6), 862876.Google Scholar
Burawoy, M., & Wright, E. O. (1990). Coercion and consent in contested exchange. Politics & Society, 18(2), 251266.Google Scholar
Burke, C. M., & Morley, M. J. (2016). On temporary organizations: A review, synthesis and research agenda. Human Relations, 69(6), 12351258.Google Scholar
Cappelli, P., & Keller, J. R. (2013). Classifying work in the New Economy. Academy of Management Review, 38(4), 575596.Google Scholar
Child, J. (1984). Organization (2nd ed.). London, UK: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. E. (2016). Jobs as Gordian knots: A new perspective linking individuals, task, organizations and institutions. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 47, 2559.Google Scholar
Conway, E., Fu, N., Monks, K., Alfes, K., & Bailey, C. (2015). Demands or resources? The relationship between HR practices, employee engagement, and emotional exhaustion within a hybrid model of employment relations. Human Resource Management, 55(5), 901917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlander, L., & O’Mahony, S. (2011). Progressing to the center: Coordinating project work. Organization Science, 22(4), 961979.Google Scholar
Davidov, G. (2014). Setting labour law’s coverage: Between universalism and selectivity. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 34(3), 543566.Google Scholar
Davis, G. F. (2016). The vanishing American corporation. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Davis-Blake, A., & Broschak, J. P. (2009). Outsourcing and the changing nature of work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 321340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delbridge, R., & Sallaz, J. J. (2015). Work: Four worlds and ways of seeing. Organizations Studies, 36, 14491462.Google Scholar
Dobusch, L., & Schoeneborn, D. (2015). Fluidity, identity, and organizationality: The communicative constitution of Anonymous. Journal of Management Studies, 52(8), 10051035.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaghey, J., Reinecke, J., Nifourou, C., & Lawson, B. (2014). From employment relations to consumption relations: Balancing labor governance in global supply chains. Human Resource Management, 53(2), 229252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, P. K. (1990). The politics of conflict and consent. How the labor contract really works. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 13, 4161.Google Scholar
Farjoun, M. (2010). Beyond dualism: Stability and change as a duality. Academy of Management Review, 35, 202225.Google Scholar
Ferriani, S., Cattani, G., & Baden-Fuller, C. (2009). The relational antecedents of project-entrepreneurship: Network centrality, team composition and project performance. Research Policy, 38, 15451558.Google Scholar
Flecker, J., & Meil, P. (2010). Organisational restructuring and emerging service value chains: Implications for work and employment. Work, Employment and Society, 24(4), 680698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frenkel, S. (2001). Globalization, athletic footwear commodity chains and employment relations in China. Organization Studies, 22(4), 531562.Google Scholar
Frenkel, S., Rahman, S., & Rahman, M. (2018). After Rana Plaza: Governance, processes and effects in Bangladesh’s garment export factories. Paper presented at the workshop, 5 Years after Rana Plaza: Consequences for Labor Standards Improvements in Garment Supply Chains, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.Google Scholar
Gentry, W. A., Harris, L. S., Baker, B. A., & Brittain Leslie, J. (2008). Managerial skills: What has changed since the late 1980s. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29(2), 167181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J., & Sturgeon, T. (2005). The governance of global value chains. Review of International Political Economy, 12(1), 78104.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Godard, J. (2004). A critical assessment of the high‐performance paradigm. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 42(2), 349378.Google Scholar
Goodman, L. P., & Goodman, R. A. (1972). Theater as a temporary system. California Management Review, 15, 103108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grey, C., & Garsten, C. (2001). Trust, control and post-bureaucracy. Organization Studies, 22(2), 229250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handy, C. (1989). Age of unreason. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Havard, C., Rorive, B., & Sobczak, A. (2009). Client, employer and employee: Mapping a complex triangulation. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 15(3), 257276.Google Scholar
Heckscher, C. (1994). Defining the post-bureaucratic type. In Heckscher, C. & Donnellon, A. (Eds.), The post bureaucratic organization: New perspectives on organizational change (pp. 1462). London, UK: Sage.Google Scholar
Helfen, M., Schüßler, E., & Sydow, J. (2018). How can employment relations in global value networks be managed towards social responsibility? Human Relations, 71(12), 16401665.Google Scholar
Hewison, K. (2016). Precarious work. In Edgel, S., Gottfried, H., & Granter, E. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of the sociology of work and employment (pp. 428443). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Hinds, P., Liu, L., & Lyon, J. (2011). Putting the global in global work: An intercultural lens on the practice of cross-national collaboration. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 135188.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. E. (2004). Project work: The legacy of bureaucratic control in the post-bureaucratic organization. Organization, 11(1), 81100.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. E., and Briand, L. (2013). Controlling the uncontrollable: ‘Agile’ teams and illusions of autonomy in creative work. Work, Employment and Society, 27(2), 308325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Labour Office (2016). Non-standard employment around the world: Understanding challenges, shaping prospects. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Inkson, K., Gunz, H., Ganesh, S., & Roper, J. (2012). Boundaryless careers: Bringing back boundaries. Organization Studies, 33(3), 323340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, J. M., Patel, P. C., & Messersmith, J. G. (2013). High-performance work systems and job control: Consequences for anxiety, role overload, and turnover intensions. Journal of Management, 39(6), 16991724.Google Scholar
Johnson, P., Wood, G., Brewster, C., & Bookes, M. (2009). The rise of post-bureaucracy: Theorists’ fancy or organizational praxis? International Sociology, 24(1), 3761.Google Scholar
Johnston, H., & Land-Kazlaukas, C. (2018). Organizing on-demand: Representation, voice, and collective bargaining in the gig economy (ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Series, No. 94). Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Kabeer, N., & Mahmud, S. (2018). Multi-stakeholder initiatives in Bangladesh in the aftermath of Rana Plaza: Global norms and workers’ perspectives. Paper presented at the workshop, 5 Years after Rana Plaza: Consequences for Labor Standards Improvements in Garment Supply Chains, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L. (2000). Nonstandard employment relations: Part-time, temporary and contract work. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 341365.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L. (2001). Organizing flexibility: The flexible firm in a new century. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39(4), 479504.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: Employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review, 74, 122.Google Scholar
Lakhani, T., Kuruvilla, S., & Avgar, A. (2013). From the firm to the network: Global value chains and employment relations theory. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(3), 440472.Google Scholar
Lane, C., & Probert, J. (2009). National capitalisms, global production networks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lundin, R., Arvidsson, N., Brady, T., Ekstedt, E., Midler, C., & Sydow, J. (2015). Managing and working in project society: Institutional challenges of temporary organizations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mallett, O., & Wapshott, R. (2017). Small business revivalism: Employment relations in small and medium-sized enterprises. Work, Employment and Society, 31(4), 721728.Google Scholar
Manyika, J., Lund, S., Bughin, J., Robinson, K., Mischke, J., & Mahajan, D. (2016). Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy. New York, NY: McKinsey Global Institute.Google Scholar
Marchington, M., Grimshaw, D., Rubery, J., & Willmott, H. (2005). Fragmenting work: Blurring organizational boundaries and disordering hierarchies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marsden, D. (2004). The ‘network economy’ and models of the employment contract. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 42(4), 659684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mironi, M. (2010). Reframing the representation debate: Going beyond unions and non-union options. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 63(3), 367383.Google Scholar
Oberg, A., & Walgenbach, P. (2007). Post-bürokratische Organisation – Utopie und Alltag. Eine Fallstudie zur IT-gestützten Kommunikation. Zeitschrift für Management, 2(2), 168197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peticca-Harris, A., Weststar, J., & McKenna, S. (2015). The perils of project-based work: Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development. Organization, 22(4), 570587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posthuma, R. A., Campion, M. C., Masimova, M., & Campion, M. A. (2013). A high performance work practices taxonomy: Integrating the literature and directing future research. Journal of Management, 39(5), 11841220.Google Scholar
Powell, W. W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 295336.Google Scholar
Prencipe, A., & Tell, F. (2001). Inter-project learning: processes and outcomes of knowledge codification in project-based firms. Research Policy, 30, 13711394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., Hinings, C. R., & Turner, C. (1968). Dimensions of organization structure. Administrative Science Quarterly, 13(1), 65105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinecke, J., & Donaghey, J. (2015). After Rana Plaza: Building coalitional power for labour rights between unions and social movement organisations. Organization, 22(5), 720740.Google Scholar
Rubery, J., Cooke, F. L., Earnshaw, J., & Marchington, M. (2003). Inter-organizational relations and employment in a multi-employer environment. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2), 265289.Google Scholar
Rubery, J., Earnshaw, J., Marchington, M., Cooke, F. L., & Vincent, L. (2002). Changing organizational forms and the employment relationship. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 645672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D., Keizer, A., & Johnson, M. (2018). Challenges and contradictions in the ‘normalising’ of precarious work. Work, Employment and Society, 32(3), 509527.Google Scholar
Schreyögg, G., & Sydow, J. (2010). Organizing for fluidity? On the dilemmas of new organizational forms. Organization Science, 21(6), 12511262.Google Scholar
Sewell, G. (1998). The discipline of teams: The control of team-based industrial work through electronic and peer surveillance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43(2), 397428.Google Scholar
Sondararajan, V., Khan, Z., & Tarba, S. Y. (2018). Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains. Human Relations, 71(4), 481509.Google Scholar
Styhre, A. (2007). The innovative bureaucracy. London, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sydow, J., & Helfen, M. (2017). Production as a service: Plural network organization as a challenge for industrial relations. Berlin, Germany: Friedich-Ebert-Foundation.Google Scholar
Sydow, J., Schüßler, E., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2016). Managing inter-organizational relations. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sydow, J., & Windeler, A. (1998). Organizing and evaluating interfirm networks: A structurationist perspective on network processes and effectiveness. Organization Science, 9(3), 265284.Google Scholar
Tampe, M. (2018). Leveraging the vertical: The contested dynamics of sustainability standards and labour in global production networks. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(1), 4374.Google Scholar
Trist, E. (1981). The evolution of socio-technical systems (Occasional Paper No. 2). Toronto, Canada: Ontario Quality of Working Life Center.Google Scholar
Vandaele, K. (2018). Will trade unions survive in the platform economy? Emerging patterns of platform workers’ collective voice in Europe (Working Paper 2018.5). Brussels, Belgium: ETUI.Google Scholar
Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2008). Service-dominant logic: Continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36(1), 110.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. New York, NY: Bedminster Press.Google Scholar
Wegman, L. A., Hoffman, B. J., Carter, N. T., Twenge, J. M., & Guenole, N. (2018). Placing job characteristics in context: Cross-temporal meta-analysis of changes in job characteristics since 1975. Journal of Management, 44(1), 352386.Google Scholar
Weil, D. (2014). The fissured workplace: Why work became so bad for so many and what can be done to improve it. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Willmott, H. (1993). Strength is ignorance, slavery is freedom: Managing culture in modern organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 30, 515552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, S., Berente, N., Howison, J., & Butler, B. (2014). Beyond the organizational ‘container’: Conceptualizing 21st century sociotechnical work. Information and Organization, 24, 250269.Google Scholar
Xhauflair, V., Huybrechts, B., & Pichault, F. (2018). How can new players establish themselves in highly institutionalized labour markets? A Belgian case study in the area of project-based work. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(2), 370394.Google Scholar
Zhu, Y. Q., Gardner, D. G., & Chen, H. G. (2018). Relationships between work team climate, individual motivation, and creativity. Journal of Management, 44(5), 20942115.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×