This thesis is a labour history of Trinidad and Tobago, concentrating on the period from 1937 to 1990. The study attempts to show that there is not a unified or homogenous working class, and for this reason both traditional Marxist and industrial relations theories are rejected. Instead, the history of labour focuses on how the working classes have been divided by factors such as race, gender, class structure and politics. These divisions are used as an explanation for the absence of a popular socialist party in the country. It concludes that the economic recession of the 1980s has led to the worst crisis in the history of the labour movement, but at the same time, this has laid the framework for a new strategy of social movement unionism, which attempts to constructively engage with, rather than ignore, divisions within the working classes. The main sources of data were documentary and archival material, and in particular, reports made by the British TUC and Colonial Office, industrial relations legislation, and trade union and political party documents and manifestoes. For the contemporary period, these sources of data were supplemented by fifteen interviews with leading figures in trade union and labour politics. The work is based on a macro approach to the study of labour, and as such constitutes a new and original approach to the study of labour in Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, more contemporary trade union documents and interviews provided the researcher with new and original material.

This study explores the rise of marginal workers in Britain and Hong Kong after the Second World War and argues that marginal workers are not minor, unimportant, powerless and transient elements of capitalist development. Marginal workers, however, are important and indispensable to the development of capitalism in both regions. The work and life histories of marginal workers in Britain and Hong Kong show that gender and ethnic inequalities are articulated through and intensified by class inequality. The overlapping of these inequalities creates different subgroups of marginal workers. The marginalisation of labour is the process of the identification and separation of marginal groups from mainstream society. With assistance from the state, capital has been able to increase its exploitation of and control over labour through intensified gender, ethnic, occupational and international divisions of labour. This thesis argues that marginal is critical. A marginal class location induces a marginal class consciousness, which is a counter, non-conforming and cynical attitude towards oppression and exploitation. Nonetheless, while the consciousness of British marginal workers is more aggressive, radical and well shaped, that of marginal workers in Hong Kong is more self-defensive, conservative and amorphous. This thesis suggests that these different patterns of marginal consciousness are a product of their distinctive class formation process: marginal workers in Britain have undergone a 'sedimentary' class formation, their counterparts in Hong Kong have undergone a 'disrupted' class formation. The 'sedimentary class formation' of marginal workers in Britain is structured by its marginal trap of downward mobility and low geographical mobility at the macro level, alongside active shop-floor struggle and strong trade unionism at the macro level. The 'disrupted class formation' of marginal workers in Hong Kong is caused by its permeable class structure and covert class struggle, alongside the lack of shop-floor trade union organisers and experience of struggle.

The purpose of the research was to discover if the dismantling of apartheid had ameliorated the poor pay and conditions of domestic servants in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. I situated these workers in the wider societal context in order to examine their 'quality of life' in addition to their 'quality of work'. Universal features of domestic service have been the depersonalising of the worker and the denial of their adulthood to that of a child. Enriching the data with consideration of some of the life details of the domestic servants interviewed challenges these lingering social practices. I favoured an interpretive methodology in order to give my interviewees the opportunity to 'speak for themselves' and facilitate the exploration of the hidden meanings within the domestic service relationship. Having argued through the thesis that domestic servants are often social constructed, caricatured and 'trapped' into being the 'other', their words are a reaffirmation of their adult status. Hegel's Lordship/bondage paradigm was the starting point of the theoretical analysis, from which I developed my own 'chains of otherness' conception. I sacrificed representativeness in my sample in order to focus on contextualising my theoretical arguments in nine diverse case studies. The outcome was that my research question narrowed to considering improvements in the lives of my nine domestic workers interviewed. However, I have also incorporated quantitative data within the thesis to add depth to my investigation. Grahamstown was the deliberate choice for the research site, as this was also the site of Cock's (1989/79) much-cited Maids and Madams. To return to an original area of investigation was imperative, as within the remit of the research question being asked was a comparison of domestic service during and after apartheid. The distortions of regionalism were minimalised and validated my use of Cock's results as a starting point for my own findings. Mandela's book title Long Walk to Freedom is an apt description of what I discovered. Improvements are beginning to be made but there is still much more to be achieved. Domestic service's inclusion in the ambit of labour legislation and improved conditions of work are positive shifts, but wages are still extremely low and social practices still have racial orientations. In addition to the application of my theoretical arguments, I moved beyond answering the original research question to consider the effects of poverty in the lives of domestic workers and formulated strategies of empowerment. As the thesis has favoured a qualitative approach I not only considered the material factors that are necessary to empower, but also the interrelations between one another that can recognise and promote human dignity.

Performing has been a formally unsegregated occupation for almost 350 years and the achievement of status by its women workers is accepted and expected. However, existing quantitative data indicate that systemic gendered disparities exist in relation to access to work, pay and career longevity. As this is an under-researched occupation the aims of the thesis are first, to map central aspects of the working realities of women performers working in subsidised theatre and terrestrial television in the UK and second, to explore perceptions of women performers’ gendered disadvantage in relation to these aspects. These aims are pursued principally through analysis of semi-structured interview data. As part of the primary aims, the purchase of strategies of legal, social and individual regulation is examined in relation to gendered disadvantage. Consideration of data is structured by work on ideas of gender and the labour process; this work is itself addressed through examination of the woman performer’s working experiences and the ways in which these are perceived by the main participants in these experiences. The study finds effective gender segregation, even more finely segregated by overt classifications of age, appearance, race/ethnicity and status. These classifications, allocated by individual perception, are found to frame the working realities of women performers and result in both systemic advantage and, more commonly, disadvantage. The effects of these perceptions are enhanced by the distinctive characteristics of this occupational sector, its labour markets and labour processes. Analysis of these issues leads to discussion of two key suppositions: that women performers inevitably collude in the perpetuation of their own constraints and that the central work experiences of women performers are manifestations of their position as formal and informal proxies for women’s experiences in wider society.

This project opens up insights into the social processes colouring labour relations in developing microstates. It purports to explore how worker behaviour in very small, often island, developing countries unfolds in circumstances prone also to influences resulting from the condition of smallness. The thesis' main intended contribution is therefore an alertness to the plausibility and heuristic usefulness of a smallness perspective towards a better understanding of microstate labour dynamics in particular. The research design adopted is reflexively critical. It confronts the theories and epithets surrounding the developing microstate, constructing a home grown, conceptual framework and methodological regime. This sensitises research to the often unacknowledged, behavioural dynamics which 'infect' labour formation and labour-management relations in these territories. The method of investigation comprises a resort to multiple data sourcing. A literature audit is complemented by 4 case studies. These involve: Transnationally comparable employment and labour relations settings emergent from semi-structured interview scripts; encounters with fellow microstate academics; and an autobiographical ethnography. The material is organised a follows: The research question is first set up and the applied methodology problematised (Chapter 1) . Next is a review of development theory, with the proposal of an alternative explanation of microstate 'development' strategies, subsequently applied to the experiences of Malta (my country) and Barbados (Chapter 2). The construction of a microstate labour syndrome follows, with the explanatory and organising potential of a typology revolving around the conditions of intimacy, totality and monopoly (Chapter 3). These leitmotifs are then tested out: First, in the context of labour relations in two microstate hotels (Chapter 4); secondly, with respect to the behaviour and perceptions of microstate campus academic staff; lastly, in relation to the self as microstate academic (Chapter 5). The conclusion serves as a synthesis as well as an opportunity to appraise the implications of the results (Chapter 6).

This thesis analyses the role of commitment in bargaining. Chapter 1 looks at how players could use finite length commitment to affect the bargaining model in a multiperiod model. The idea of this is to complement the existing literature on infinite length commitment. In line with the infinite commitment literature, a rational player can mimic a commitment type to gain a considerable advantage, although, as will be seen, there are key differences. Chapter 2 analyses whether one should take the opportunity to commit oneself when the opponent does not perfectly observe the decision taken. Logically, if one’s opponent sees no difference between a bluff and actual commitment then one may as well bluff, since the opponent acts the same and committing is a needless sacrifice of freedom. When the opponent may discover a bluff as such, the situation is far less clear and this Chapter analyses when a commitment outcome is likely to prevail. Chapter 3 takes a rather different approach and analyses how hard one should negotiate when there are other parties who may enter the deal. The general finding is that one should follow the crowd and act the same way as everyone else. All three chapters heavily use the mathematical tool of game theory. However, while Chapter 1 uses non-cooperative game theory, the analysis of Chapters 2 and 3 primarily use evolutionary game theory.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the complex relationship between reward systems and organisation culture. Concepts and theory from organisational culture literature as well as an initial grounded theory exercise were used to develop the theoretical framework that underpins this study. To avoid potential bias towards a managerial-only agenda and to deepen the cultural analysis, Martin’s (2002) three perspectives of culture were used together with methodological principles drawn from Gregory (1983), Eisenhardt (1989) and the various cultural studies of Ogbonna (Ogbonna and Harris, 2002a, Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 2003). The research design is interpretivist and inductive and, as such, is different in approach from many reward studies, which are primarily positivist. The aim was to collect in-depth rich data. They are derived from 4 UK case study organisations, with data collected from both employees at all levels and managers. The data are analysed manually using principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) to draw out categories and to aid theory development. Deploying broadly cultural and sociological concepts and forms of analysis to study reward systems in the four organisations, the study reveals more nuanced interpretations in comparison with reward research purely from the employer or managerial viewpoints. Analysing sub-cultural and fragmentary cultural attributes it offers a contextualised picture of the connections between concepts that are usually thought of as distinctly different– internal and external equity, fairness, transparency, procedural and distributive justice. The results of the study indicate that the relationship between reward and culture is subtle, intricate and overlapping. They suggest reward and culture are not separate variables whose association can be measured. Rather cultural values both fine tune (drawing on Swidler, 1986) employee reactions to reward practices and the experience of reward practices also reciprocally influences and reinforces cultural values - but only to a certain extent. The nature of the service or product of the organisation feeds into the shaping of values in relation to reward, but feeder or occupational cultures are more important than either the product/service or the reward system. This thesis contributes to the reward and culture literature by applying social science cultural concepts to the analysis of reward. It also develops a fine tuning model of culture and reward. It thereby extends the sociological and cultural strand of reward research that has been underdeveloped in recent decades.

The purpose of this research is to contribute to the understanding of product development processes within dispersed business-to-business networks that involve business actors in China. This research investigates how these processes initiate and evolve in a dynamic environment. More specifically, it examines the impact of culture in terms of interpersonal interactive relationships on the formation and development of product development processes. It investigates what is in the shadow of direct resource interface development and explains that an analysis of relationship processes in China can be inspirational for theoretical developments. The Actors-Resources-Activities (ARA) model of interaction (Hakansson & Snehota 1995) of the business network paradigm is employed to analyse relationship patterns in low, medium and high-tech product development networks, in terms of actor bonds, resource ties and activity links. Although analyses of the case studies show that there seem to be difficulties for the ARA model to capture and interpret what is in the ‘shadow’ of direct business interaction processes in China, the main solution is drawn from acknowledging the significance of both the business network and the guanxi network approaches as parallel mechanisms or cross-cutting patterns of explaining evolution of business relationships. This research highlights how an Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) approach can be useful to interpret interaction processes in China and argues that the business network approach and IMP thinking, in general, can be enriched by accounting for the empirical phenomenon of guanxi, which manifests in both business and non-business interactive processes. Guanxi networks take on a new perspective as they are viewed and analysed from a dynamic lens under product development contexts. In particular, the emergence and refinement of the concept of guanxi as ‘process of interaction’ or ‘process of organization’ has been a crucial element in the development of IMP thinking. Managerial lessons are drawn by analysing how actors’ interactions influence product and technology co-creation, and how business actors nurture, develop and maintain relationships in China. Findings show that non-business interactive processes at the interpersonal network level influence significantly the formation of activity links, resource interfaces and actor bonds at the inter-organisational level. Hence, accounting for non-business interaction and the socio-cultural features in nurturing, developing and maintaining relationships offers a complimentary approach to contemporary business network research practice.

The social housing sector contains the largest number of professionally managed properties and as such has a significant role to play in improving the UK’s economic, environmental and social sustainability. This thesis explores the viability of integrating the sustainability agenda with social housing maintenance decision making in order that the sustainability of existing social housing stock can be improved through planned maintenance (and refurbishment). The thesis presents the argument that the current single criterion, conditioned based approach to maintenance planning does not support the continuous improvement in sustainability of social housing. Furthermore it argues that a new, multi-criteria approach to maintenance planning is needed based upon the performance of a home in-use rather than its condition. The performance based sustainable social housing maintenance model was presented and its application explored with Octavia Housing. Two aspects were further explored, firstly what criteria did landlords need to assess to ensure sustainability was systematically integrated into maintenance planning, and secondly, how could this multi-criteria be assimilated in order to prioritise maintenance actions to improve the sustainability rating of housing going forward. The questionnaire determined that traditional social housing maintenance was still the norm and whilst the sustainability agenda was considered important, it wasn’t integrated within housing management planning. The interviews determined the criteria landlords wished to use to assess the sustainability of their housing stock and prioritise maintenance need, exceeded that expressed in the Decent Homes Standard but, more importantly the specific criteria was unique to individual landlords and no definitive list of criteria required. The case study demonstrated that the proposed maintenance model could be implemented and presented a methodology by which it could be populated. An important aspect of the new maintenance model was the development of the Analytical Hierarchy Process modelling toolkit to measure the sustainability of the existing stock and prioritise maintenance work to improve this measure over time through planned maintenance. Whilst the model was based on data collected in the field, the worked example was theoretical and provides an opportunity for further work with Octavia Housing.

This thesis investigates the causes of the growth of contingent work and its implications for labour. It focuses on German core manufacturing sectors, where contingent work recently increased to a great extent and the metal union started organising agency workers and bargaining on their behalf. In contrast, existing literature expects the German core manufacturing to rely on a stable specific-skilled workforce and on labour management coalitions while contingent work affects the service periphery. The thesis contends that the literature has overestimated employers’ interests in retaining their skilled workforce as well as the stability of cross-class coalitions, which are supposed to support the equilibrium between core and peripheral labour market segments. The main argument is that labour will include contingent workers in its representation domain when employers’ segmentation strategies start developing competition between contingent and permanent workers and threatening the existence of the core workforce. Institutional change undermining labour cohesiveness and increasing employer discretion is found to trigger this process. The first paper examines how weakening negotiated and legal employment protections have affected the association between specific skills and stable employment. It finds that the whole manufacturing workforce –including specific-skilled workers- have become more likely to be on a temporary contract since the eighties, also thanks to the routine nature of work. The second paper examines how labour influenced the workplace arrangements for agency workers in four automotive plants. It finds that inclusive arrangements are the outcome of the combination of labour power –rooted in workplace industrial relations and conditions external to the plant - and labour commitment to a homogeneous workforce. The third paper explains the union campaign for agency workers started in 2007. By analysing the union’s strategies towards agency workers from the seventies until 2012, it shows that the union adopted an inclusive strategy because growing agency work threatened the collectively agreed standards for core workers.