Apologies for any cross-posting.
As we enter the 70th year of Human Relations, change is afoot! First, we welcome our new Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Nick Turner (Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada), following the completion of Prof. Paul Edwards' term. Nick's introductory editorial is attached.
Second, to mark the launch of its new platform, our publisher SAGE is offering complimentary access to over 1,000 journals and 1.8M articles until the end of January, 2017. This includes access to all Human Relations content dating back to 1947 and OnlineFirst preview articles. The new platform aims to provide a responsive site design, new features including Altmetrics and ORCID and streamlined email alerts that are easier for users to manage.
The Human Relations site can be found here: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/hum.
Meanwhile, please find details of recent Human Relations issues and Online First articles below − we hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JANUARY ISSUE ARTICLES
Volume 70, Issue 1, January 2017
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FREE ACCESS: Social relations in and around work
Nick Turner
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 3‒6
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716678367
Professor Nick Turner (University of Calgary, Canada) considers the past, present and future of 'social relations in and around work' at Human Relations as he prepares to begin his term as Editor-in-Chief.
Human Relations Paper of the Year 2016 Award
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 7
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0018726716676431
The Human Relations Paper of the Year Award is given to the article that the Editorial Team considers best encapsulates broad readership appeal, sound methods, and whose theory advances our understanding of human relations at work.
The editors looked at all the articles published in the 69th volume before arriving at a shortlist of nine nominated articles for consideration for the 2016 Paper of the Year Award. These shortlisted articles covered a very wide variety of topics and methods, and the editors read all nine articles carefully before scoring each. Total scores for each nomination revealed a clear winner... [read more]
Enjoy FREE ACCESS to the winning paper:
Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin's legacy for change management
Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman and Kenneth G Brown
Human Relations, January 2016, 69: 33–60
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715577707
Themed content: A realist critique of meta-analysis in Organization and Management Studies:
A realist alternative to meta-analysis: Two papers
Paul K Edwards
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 8‒10
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716673442
Abstract
Meta-analysis (the statistical combination of a set of studies in a given area, with the aim of establishing an overall or average effect of something) is increasingly common in work and organization studies. Critiques of meta-analysis are now common. There is also a well-known alternative based in realism. The purpose in bringing together the two papers by Nielsen and Miraglia and by Vincent and colleagues is not to rehearse the critiques or simply explain realism or realist evaluation. The two papers certainly perform these functions in setting out problems with meta-analysis and also identifying when and to what extent it remains valid. The goal, however, is to move forward by showing what a realist synthesis would look like and illustrating how it works. Vincent and colleagues lay out the principles, while Nielsen and Miraglia take the case of intervention studies to show how realist evaluation works.
Critical Essay: Meta-analysis: A critical realist critique and alternative
Matthew J Brannan, Steve Fleetwood, Joe O'Mahoney, and Steve Vincent
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 11‒39
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716674063
Abstract
Meta-analysis has proved increasingly popular in management and organization studies as a way of combining existing empirical quantitative research to generate a statistical estimate of how strongly variables are associated. Whilst a number of studies identify technical, procedural and practical limitations of meta-analyses, none have yet tackled the meta-theoretical flaws in this approach. We deploy critical realist meta-theory to argue that the individual quantitative studies, upon which meta-analysis relies, lack explanatory power because they are rooted in quasi-empiricist meta-theory. This problem, we argue, is carried over in meta-analyses. We then propose a 'critical realist synthesis' as a potential alternative to the use of meta-analysis in organization studies and social science more widely.
What works for whom in which circumstances? On the need to move beyond the 'what works?' question in organizational intervention research
Karina Nielsen and Mariella Miraglia
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 40‒62
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716670226
Abstract
A debate has arisen out of the need to understand true intervention outcomes in the social sciences. Traditionally, the randomized, controlled trial that answers the question of 'what works' has been considered the gold standard. Although randomized, controlled trials have been favoured in organizational intervention research, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the influence of context and intervention processes on the outcomes of such interventions. In the present critical essay, we question the suitability of trials and meta-analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of organizational interventions and we suggest that realist evaluation that seeks to answer the questions of what works for whom in which circumstances may present a more suitable framework. We argue that examining the content and process mechanisms through which organizational interventions are effective, and the conditions under which these are triggered, will enable us to better understand how interventions achieve the desired outcomes of improved employee health and well-being. We suggest that organizational intervention content and process mechanisms may help bring about the desired outcomes of improved employee health and well-being and that contextual factors determine whether these mechanisms are triggered.
Non-themed content:
Microfinance and the business of poverty reduction: Critical perspectives from rural Bangladesh
Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee and Laurel Jackson
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 63‒91
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716640865
Abstract
In this article we provide a critical analysis of the role of market-based approaches to poverty reduction in developing countries. In particular, we analyse the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation by conducting an ethnographic study of three villages in Bangladesh. Microfinance has become an increasingly popular approach that aims to alleviate poverty by providing the poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote empowerment (especially among women) while enhancing social capital in poor communities. Our findings, however, reflect a different picture. We found microfinance led to increasing levels of indebtedness among already impoverished communities and exacerbated economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on the role of social capital in developing entrepreneurial capabilities in poor communities by highlighting processes whereby social capital can be undermined by market-based measures like microfinance.
Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting
William S Harvey, Timothy Morris, and Milena Müller Santos
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 92‒118
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716641747
Abstract
Based on a case study of a large consulting firm, this article makes two contributions to the literature on reputation and identity by examining how an organization responds when its identity is substantially misaligned with the experience and perceptions of external stakeholders that form the basis of reputational judgments. First, rather than triggering some form of identity adaptation, it outlines how other forms of identity can come into play to remediate this gap, buffering the organization's identity from change. This shift to other individual identities is facilitated by a low organizational identity context even when the identity of the firm is coherent and strong. The second contribution concerns the conceptualization of consulting and other professional service firms. We explain how reputation and identity interact in the context of the distinctive organizational features of these firms. Notably, their loosely coupled structure and the central importance of expert knowledge claims enable individual consultants both to reinforce and supplement corporate reputation via individual identity work.
The impact of stereotypes and supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict on job performance ratings
Andrew Li, Jessica Bagger, and Russell Cropanzano
Human Relations, January 2017, 70(1): 119‒145
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716645660
Abstract
We draw on gender role theory to examine the relationships among employee-rated work–family conflict, supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict, employee gender and supervisor-rated job performance. We found that the relationship between employee-rated work–family conflict and supervisor perceptions of employee conflict varied based on both employee gender and the direction of conflict under consideration. Specifically, the relationship between the two rating sources (employee and supervisor) was stronger for male employees when conflict was considered. However, the relationship between the two rating sources was stronger for female employees when family-to-work conflict was considered. Supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict were negatively related to employee job performance ratings. More generally, we found support for a moderated mediation model such that the relationship between employee-rated work–family conflict and job performance was mediated by supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict, and the effect was moderated by employee gender. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
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FEBRUARY ISSUE ARTICLES
Volume 70, Issue 2, February 2017
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The case for reinvigorating quality of working life research
Gudela Grote, David Guest
Human Relations 70(2): 149‒167; first published date: June-21-2016 10.1177/0018726716654746
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716654746
Abstract
The quality of working life became an important topic in the 1960s and 1970s, helping to stimulate an early approach to evidence-based policy advocacy drawing on interdisciplinary research by social scientists. Over the years it fell out of the limelight but much relevant, albeit fragmented, research has continued. We present a case for rekindling an integrated and normative approach to quality of working life research as one means of promoting workers' well-being and emancipation. We outline an updated classification of the characteristics of quality of working life and a related analytic framework. We illustrate how research and practice will benefit from following this renewed quality of working life framework, using work design as an example. Concluding, we aim to stimulate debate on the necessity and benefits of rebuilding a quality of working life agenda for marrying academic rigour and practical relevance in order to support interventions aimed at fostering worker emancipation and well-being.
Keywords: emancipation, employee well-being, policy impact, quality of working life, QWL, rigour-relevance gap, work design
Digging deeper towards capricious management: 'Personal traits become part of the means of production'
Gerard Hanlon
Human Relations 70(2): 168‒184; first published date: May-20-2016 10.1177/0018726716644661
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716644661
Abstract
What follows examines the shifting nature of work to argue that we need to look beyond the employment relationship and the work organization to understand labour. It suggests one tendency in capitalism is to generate 'all labour as productive of value' (Harvie, 2005: 161), so that we subsume life to work. The article also suggests that, rather than being new, this development is an intensification of the past. Indeed, by returning to early management writers, it asserts that we can see the scale of management's political ambition to subsume life to work. As such, to understand labour we need to comprehend the broader issue of capitalism's social reproduction and the manner in which it recalibrates the subject as a 'subject of value'.
Keywords: co-creation of value, free gifts of sociality, immaterial labour, personality market, social reproduction, subsumption
Slipping into functional stupidity: The bifocality of organizational compliance
Roland Paulsen
Human Relations 70(2): 185‒210; first published date: June-07-2016 10.1177/0018726716649246
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716649246
Abstract
Drawing on ethnographical work at the Swedish Public Employment Service, this article contextualizes functional stupidity in relation to other types of organizational compliance. Rather than seeing stupidity as a personality trait, I argue that it should be regarded as a transient unreflective mode of compliance one may yield to for a number of reasons but also reflect on in hindsight. Based on the empirical material, I distinguish 10 'stupidity rationales' emanating from reflective types of compliance with which employees can motivate the practice of functional stupidity. Functional stupidity can be seen as the modus operandi of ego-dystonic compliance we enter in order to endure long hours of imposed work assignments we would rather not perform.
Keywords: conflict, motivation, organizational theory, psychology, stress
Taste matters: Cultural capital and elites in proximate Strategic Action Fields
Crawford Spence, Chris Carter, Javier Husillos, Pablo Archel
Human Relations 70(2): 211‒236; first published date: June-28-2016 10.1177/0018726716649247
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716649247
Abstract
Recent literature suggests that elites are increasingly fragmented and divided. Yet there is very little empirical research that maps the distinctions between different elite groups. This article explores the cultural divisions that pertain to elite factions in two distinct but proximate Strategic Action Fields. A key insight from the article is that the public sector faction studied exhibits a much broader, more aesthetic set of cultural dispositions than their private sector counterparts. This permits a number of inter-related contributions to be made to literature on both elites and field theory. First, the findings suggest that cultural capital acts as a salient source of distinction between elite factions in different Strategic Action Fields. Second, it is demonstrated how cultural capital is socially functional as certain cultural dispositions are strongly homologous with specific professional roles. Third, the article demonstrates the implications for the structure of the State when two culturally distinct elites are brought together in a new Strategic Action Field.
Keywords: auditors, austerity, cultural capital, elites, new public audit, public service, Strategic Action Fields, taste
Politics of place: The meaningfulness of resisting places
David Courpasson, Françoise Dany, Rick Delbridge
Human Relations 70(2): 237‒259; first published date: May-20-2016 10.1177/0018726716641748
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716641748
Abstract
The meaningfulness of the physical place within which resistance is nurtured and enacted has not been carefully considered in research on space and organizations. In this article, we offer two stories of middle managers developing resistance to managerial policies and decisions. We show that the appropriation and reconstruction of specific places by middle managers helps them to build autonomous resisting work thanks to the meanings that resisters attribute to the place in which they undertake resistance. We contribute to the literature on space and organizations by showing that resistance is a social experience through which individuals shape physical places and exploit the geographical blurring of organizations to develop political efforts that can be consequential. We also suggest the central role played by middle managers in the subversion of these meaningful places of resistance.
Keywords: meaningfulness, middle managers, place, resistance, space
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JANUARY FEATURED FREE ACCESS ARTICLE
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Free to access until 31 January 2017:
Who am I? Mothers' shifting identities, loss and sensemaking after workplace exit
Shireen Kanji and Emma Cahusac
Human Relations 2015 68(9): 1415–1436. First published March 16, 2015 10.1177/0018726714557336
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0018726714557336
Abstract
We analyse mothers' retrospective accounts of their transition from professional worker to stay-at-home mother using a framework that integrates sensemaking and border theory. The data come from in-depth interviews with former professional and managerial women in London. Continuing struggles to reconcile professional and maternal identities before and after workplace exit illustrate how identity change is integral to workplace exit. The concept of 'choice', which takes place at one point in time, obfuscates this drawn-out process. Mothers pay a high cost in lost professional
identities, especially in the initial stages after workplace exit. They cope with this loss and the disjuncture of leaving employment by moving back and forth across the border between home and work – a classic action of sensemaking. Subsequent communal sensemaking and community action bolster mothers' fragile status at home, eventually leading to reconciliation of their loss and finally enabling them to view their exit 'choice' as right.
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains
Vivek Soundararajan, Zaheer Khan, Shlomo Yedidia Tarba
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716684200 | First Published January 17, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716684200
Abstract
The role that sourcing agents, autonomous peripheral actors located in developing economies, play in the governance of working conditions in global supply chains has been greatly underexplored in the literature. The present article reports on an in-depth qualitative study of garment supply chains that examined the boundary work of Indian sourcing agents aimed at dismantling or bridging the boundaries that affect the interaction between western buyers and local suppliers, in order to facilitate development and implementation of meaningful working conditions or social relations at work. We identify four types of boundary work that sourcing agents used to manage combinations of accommodative and non-accommodative buyers and suppliers in order to work through boundaries created by buyers' liability of foreignness: reinforcing, flexing (type 1 and 2) and restoring. We also found four essential conditions for a sourcing agent to become an effective boundary spanner in practice: acquiring knowledge about the relevant fields and actors, gaining legitimacy in the relevant fields and in the opinion of the parties involved, effectively translating the expectations of each party to the other, and benefiting from satisfying incentives. We contribute to the literature on governance for working conditions in global supply chains, boundary theory and liability of foreignness.
Keywords: boundary spanners, garment industry, India, liability of foreignness, social relations
The body, identity and gender in managerial athleticism
Janet Johansson, Janne Tienari, Anu Valtonen
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716685161 | First Published January 17, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716685161
Abstract
We argue that the healthy, fit and athletic body plays an essential role in the way contemporary managerial identities are construed. Drawing on insights from Judith Butler, we study these bodily identities as a form of regulation in organizations. We identify the cultural basis of regulation, show how it operates through specific norms, and detail how it implies gender. Based on an empirical study of men and women in management who are passionate about their healthy and fit bodies and athletic lifestyles, we demonstrate how norms set by managerial athleticism – understood as a particular regulative regime – operate through three discursive practices: perfecting the body, advocating against non-fit bodies, and becoming a role model. We show how the norms operate in both explicit and abject fashion and how they are implied in masculine language and materialized in physical (athletic) bodies. We offer new insights on how bodily identity regulation occurs and elucidate the gendered complexity and contradictions inscribed in managerial athleticism.
Keywords: body, fitness, gender, health, identity, management, managerial athleticism, regulation, sports
Identity regulation, identity work and phronesis
Thibaut Bardon, Andrew D Brown, Stéphan Pezé
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716680724 | First Published January 6, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716680724
Abstract
How do corporations attempt to regulate the ways middle managers draw on discourses centred on 'effectiveness' and 'ethics' in their identity work, and how do these individuals respond? We analyse the discursive struggle over what it meant to be a competent manager at Disneyland, where middle managers were encouraged to construe their selves in ways that emphasized 'being effective' over 'being ethical', and managers responded with identity work that positioned them as searching for the practical wisdom (phronesis) to make decisions that were both effective and moral. The theoretical contribution we make is twofold. First, we analyse processes of identity regulation and identity work at Disneyland, highlighting divergences between corporate injunctions and middle managers' appropriations of them, regarding what it meant to be a practically wise manager. Second, we discuss a phronetic identity narrative template, contestable both by organizations and managers, in which people are positioned as questing for the practical wisdom to make decisions that are both moral and effective, and phronesis as an image by which scholars may analyse identities and identity work. This leads us to a more nuanced understanding of middle manager identities and the scope they have to constitute their selves as moral agents.
Keywords: Disneyland, effectiveness, ethics, middle managers, phronesis
Body art as branded labour: At the intersection of employee selection and relationship marketing
Andrew R Timming
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716681654 | First Published January 6, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716681654
Abstract
Using mixed methods, this article examines the role of body art as a form of branded labour in customer-facing jobs. It brings together employee selection and relationship marketing into one framework, and uniquely conceptualizes body art as an asset in the labour market, rather than the traditional liability. In Study 1, 192 respondents with management experience participated in an online laboratory experiment in which they were asked to rate photographs of tattooed and non-tattooed job applicants in two hypothetical organizations: a fine dining restaurant and a popular nightclub. In Study 2, 20 in-depth, qualitative interviews were carried out with managers, tattooed front-line employees and potential consumers in two real-world service sector firms. The results show how body art can be strategically used to positively convey the brand of organizations, primarily those targeting a younger, 'edgier' demographic of customer.
Keywords: aesthetic labour, body art, branded labour, recruitment and selection, relationship marketing
Motivation and identity: A psychoanalytic perspective on the turn to identity in motivation research
Michaela Driver
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716669577 | First Published January 2, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716669577
Abstract
Taking the recent turn to identity in motivation research as its starting point, the study attempts to move the field further beyond instrumentalizing and fractionalizing conceptions in which motivation is simply a question of pulling the right levers. Drawing on a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective and an analysis of 51 narratives shared by employees from a number of occupations, it develops a more fine-grained and complex understanding of how motivation functions in the context of identity work. Specifically, the study explores how motivation is invariably mapped onto internal struggles with unconscious subjectivity and desire. These may align individuals more with organizational ideals of the properly motivated employee, but also create an empowering space in which employees can work through work-related fantasies and find enjoyment on their own terms. The implications of this perspective are discussed.
Keywords: discourse, identity, Lacan, motivation, psychoanalysis
A metatheoretical framework of diversity in teams
Margarita Mayo, Maria Kakarika, Charalampos Mainemelis, Nicolas Till Deuschel
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716679246 | First Published December 21, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716679246
Abstract
In the last 22 years, research on diversity in teams has been propelled by information processing and social categorization theories, and more recently, by theories of disparity/(in)justice and access to external networks. These theories stress different diversity processes, treating team diversity respectively as variety of information, as separation, as disparity, and as variety of access. We appraise this literature by identifying major problems in the way these four foundational theories are used either alone or in combination, arguing that the related theoretical models are inherently incomplete and static. In an attempt to resolve these problems, we introduce a metatheoretical framework that relates these four foundational theories according to the metadimensions of group boundary and diversity mindset. We also propose a metatheoretical model that identifies interactions among the four diversity processes and specifies diversity response patterns to team success or failure over time. Our metatheoretical approach resolves significant omissions in the literature and penetrates into the dynamic nature of team diversity in more complex, temporally sensitive and synthetic ways.
Keywords: diversity, external networks teams, information processing, justice, social categorization
Using kaizen to improve employee well-being: Results from two organizational intervention studies
Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, Karina M Nielsen, Terese Stenfors-Hayes, Henna Hasson
Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726716677071 | First Published December 16, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716677071
Abstract
Participatory intervention approaches that are embedded in existing organizational structures may improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational interventions, but concrete tools are lacking. In the present article, we use a realist evaluation approach to explore the role of kaizen, a lean tool for participatory continuous improvement, in improving employee well-being in two cluster-randomized, controlled participatory intervention studies. Case 1 is from the Danish Postal Service, where kaizen boards were used to implement action plans. The results of multi-group structural equation modeling showed that kaizen served as a mechanism that increased the level of awareness of and capacity to manage psychosocial issues, which, in turn, predicted increased job satisfaction and mental health. Case 2 is from a regional hospital in Sweden that integrated occupational health processes with a pre-existing kaizen system. Multi-group structural equation modeling revealed that, in the intervention group, kaizen work predicted better integration of organizational and employee objectives after 12 months, which, in turn, predicted increased job satisfaction and decreased discomfort at 24 months. The findings suggest that participatory and structured problem-solving approaches that are familiar and visual to employees can facilitate organizational interventions.
Keywords: distributed cognitions, lean, mental health, participatory interventions, psychosocial risk management, work environment
FREE ACCESS for a limited period in association with the press release below:
Work–life management in legal prostitution: Stigma and lockdown in Nevada's brothels
Sarah Jane Blithe and Anna Wiederhold Wolfe
Human Relations 0018726716674262, published online before print December 6, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716674262
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/11/16/0018726716674262?papetoc
Abstract
Across occupations, people contend with the difficult task of managing time between their work and other aspects of life. Previous research on stigmatized industries has suggested that so-called 'dirty workers' experience extreme identity segmentation between these two realms because they tend to cope with their occupational stigma by placing distance between their work and personal lives. Through a qualitative study of Nevada's legal brothel industry, this article focuses on the prevalence of boundary segmentation as a dominant work–life management practice for dirty workers. Our analysis suggests that work–life boundaries are disciplined by legal mythologies and ambiguities surrounding worker restrictions, occupational ideologies of 'work now, life later,' and perceived and experienced effects of community-based stigma. These legal, occupational and community constructs ultimately privilege organizations' and external communities' interests, while individual dirty workers carry the weight of stigma.
brothels
Press release:
Work‒life laws and policies are put in place primarily to protect workers. However, for legal prostitutes working in Nevada's brothels these law and policies are instead geared towards brothel and community interests, finds a new study published in the journal Human Relations.
Generally speaking, work‒life laws and policies do not apply uniformly across occupations, leaving some legal workers without access to a wide range of strategies for managing boundaries between work and nonwork time. The researchers explain how, "most work‒life laws exist primarily for two reasons: (1) to protect and benefit workers or (2) to protect communities. Work‒life laws for legal prostitutes largely emerged from this later tradition."
One of the main work policies that the researchers explored was the lockdown which prevents prostitutes from leaving brothels after 5pm, unless they are on their day off, which they generally have to take out of town. The researchers discovered that lockdown helps brothels to stay "below the sagebrush", i.e. keep prostitutes hidden.
"Unlike most work‒life regulations, which protect workers from exploitation and the community from accidents related to overwork, lockdown regulations primarily benefit the brothels [...] Brothels also benefit from keeping prostitutes out of the limelight because they are able to continue their business without visibly going against the moral expectations of the surrounding communities."
As so call 'dirty workers' Nevada's legal prostitutes also carry the weight of the stigma associated with their positions, which negatively affects them in the community. A key example of this was given by one of the prostitutes interviewed who explained her own experience of trying to secure a car loan:
"I tried to lease a super basic Audi . . . And they were like, 'We can't give it to you.' And I was like, 'I make 20 grand plus a month and you're telling me you can't give me a loan? A 20 grand loan . . . They want your proof of income. And it comes from here . . . And I was automatically denied.'"
These prostitutes, through the process of coping with both occupation-based stigma and work‒life laws and regulations, have to deal with a complicated work‒life arrangement, as the researchers concluded: "Individual prostitutes take on the occupational stigma and unfair work‒life laws and regulations while brothel and community interests are privileged."
Whistle-blowing and the politics of truth: Mobilizing 'truth games' in the WikiLeaks case
Iain Munro
Human Relations 0018726716672721, first published on December 1, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716672721
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/11/22/0018726716672721?papetoc
Abstract
This article investigates the role of 'truth' as an object of contention within organizations, with specific reference to the 'politics of truth' in the WikiLeaks case. For an empirical illustration of a 'truth game', this article draws on varied accounts of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website. The article shows how different 'truth games' are mobilized by different organizational actors engaged in a politics of truth. The article demonstrates the existence of different truth games at work in the WikiLeaks case. It shows WikiLeaks' profound challenge to hegemonic games of truth in terms of a 'networked parhessia', which entails a radical transformation of the process of truth-telling in support of whistle-blowers and in pursuit of an explicitly emancipatory, anarchist political agenda. Networked parhessia provides a new infrastructure to enable a 'parhessia of the governed'. This article demonstrates how WikiLeaks is of singular importance as a case study of organizational resistance in the way it moves beyond micropolitical acts of resistance, such as whistle-blowing, towards an engagement with wider political struggles.
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: The changing nature of managerial work – submit by 31 January 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Managerial%20work.html
Special issue: Inserting professionals and professional organizations in studies of wrongdoing: The nature, antecedents, and consequences of professional misconduct – submit by 30 April 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Professional%20misconduct.html
Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015 and included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2015 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2016):
2-year impact factor: 2.619 Ranked: 4/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 37/192 in Management
5-year impact factor: 3.544 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 40/192 in Management
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Twitter: @HR_TIHR
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org