Os processos de flexibilidade produtiva com transformações tecnológicas e organizacionais nas empresas, que ocorrem no Brasil sob a égide da reestruturação produtiva capitalista desde 1980 e com maior ênfase em 1990, são observados neste estudo à luz da problemática da divisão sexual do trabalho, tomando como campo de análise o segmento de eletroeletrônicos, o qual possui a mais elevada proporção de mulheres da indústria metalúrgica. A pesquisa parte da problemática da visibilização de trabalhadoras como objeto de conhecimento nas análises sobre a classe trabalhadora, procurando oferecer contribuição à sociologia do trabalho a partir de reflexão empírica-teórica gendrada sobre o trabalho, sustentando assim a necessidade do reconhecimento da composição sexuada da classe e reivindicando a indissociabilidade das dimensões classe e gênero. Com base em estudo setorial focado em duas indústrias eletroeletrônicas transnacionais no ramo de telecomunicações e informática, cujas plantas analisadas localizam-se em municípios do interior de São Paulo, foram identificadas e analisadas características do processo de trabalho em diversos setores produtivos das empresas. Essas empresas fabricam no Brasil - uma desde a década de 1990 e outra desde 2000 - telefones celulares, tablets, monitores, notebooks, entre outros equipamentos, e empregam majoritariamente mulheres. A partir do enfoque sobre o processo de trabalho, a pesquisa procurou investigar formas contemporâneas de organização do trabalho (flexíveis ou rígidas) na indústria eletroeletrônica e as condições de trabalho que delas resultam, especialmente para as operárias. Estas condições se produzem em ambiente com flexibilidade interna e externa do processo produtivo que, contudo, manteriam mecanismos rígidos de gestão, como trabalho prescrito, controle sobre o tempo, pausas e cadência e pressão por metas, métodos que predominam nas funções taylorizadas e que costumam, também, ser funções femininas. Assim, foram analisados os critérios e as formas apresentados para a divisão sexual no interior do processo de trabalho em diversos setores das duas fábricas, abordando permanências históricas e mudanças nessa divisão, assim como especificidades sobre o controle e a qualificação do trabalho feminino. Foram investigados, também, elementos da subjetividade e significado social do trabalho para as operárias, bem como práticas sociais que derivam de sua condição de sujeitos sexuados, forjadas em relações sociais de sexo/gênero e classe, nos espaços interno e externo à fábrica. Por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com trabalhadoras/es e dirigentes sindicais representantes das/os trabalhadoras/es das duas empresas, o estudo procurou compreender em que medida as formas de organização produtiva e de divisão sexual do trabalho identificadas na indústria eletroeletrônica influenciam na reprodução das relações sociais de classe e de gênero e/ou nas possibilidades de sua transformação. / The manufacturing flexibility processes together with technological and organizational changes in companies, which have occurred in Brazil under the aegis of the capitalist productive restructuring since 1980 and with special emphasis in 1990, are observed in this study in light of the sexual division of labour issues, taking the electrical & electronic field to be analysed, which has the highest proportion of women in the metallurgical industry. The research is built on the gender-awareness issues as knowledge object in the analysis of the working class, seeking to contribute to the sociology of work with a gendered empirical and theoretical reflection on work, thus justifying the need to recognize the gendered composition of the working class and claiming the inseparability of gender and class dimensions. Based on the sectorial study focused on two transnational electrical & electronic industries of the telecommunication and computer field, whose plots analysed are located in cities in the countryside of São Paulo State, characteristics of labour process were identified and analysed in various productive sectors of the companies. These companies have manufactured in Brazil - one since the 90s and the other since 2000 telephones, cellphones, tablets, monitors, laptops, among other pieces of equipment, and employed mostly women. Focused on the labour process, the research sought to investigate contemporary forms of work organization (flexible or rigid) in the electrical & electronic industry and their resultant working conditions, especially towards the female workers. Such conditions exist in an environment with internal and external flexibility of the productive process. However, these conditions would maintain strict management mechanisms such as predetermined tasks, strict time management, breaks and cadence and pressure to reach targets, methods which prevail in the Taylorized occupations which are often female occupations as well. Thus, the criteria and the forms presented to the sexual division within the labor process were analysed in various sectors of both factories, covering historical continuities and changes in this division, as well as specificities over the control and the qualification of female labour. Elements of subjectivity and the social significance of labour for the female workers were investigated, as well as the social practises that derive from their condition of gendered subjects, generated in social relations of sex/gender and class, in and out of the factory. Through semi-structured interviews with both female and male workers and trade union leaders, representatives of the workers from both companies, the study sought to understand to which extent the forms of productive organization and the sexual division of labour identified in the electrical & electronic industry influence on the reproduction of the social relations of class and gender and / or on the possibility of their transformation.

The broad objective of this thesis is to develop an understanding of factors affecting outsourcing in the hotel industry and also the role played by management accounting in hotel outsourcing. The thesis draws on transaction cost economics (TCE), agency, contingency, and labour process theories in the context of appraising factors motivating outsourcing. Two empirical phases have been undertaken in the study. The first phase involved a series of interviews with general managers and financial controllers in large South East Queensland hotels. The second phase involved two distinct questionnaire surveys of large Australian hotels. The first was administered to hotel general managers, and the second was administered to hotel financial controllers. Significant findings arising from the study include: 1. In light of the substantial international literature describing hotel outsourcing, it appears that outsourcing in Australian hotels is relatively limited. This appears to be particularly the case with respect to food and beverage related activities. 2. Mixed support is offered for the TCE model. Both the survey and interview data provide some support for TCE's prescription that frequently conducted activities will not tend to be outsourced. Two specific extensions are offered to this aspect of the model, however. Firstly, where activities are conducted to a minimal extent, it can be uneconomic to outsource. Secondly, where large activities are undertaken by a group of organisations, their enhanced purchasing power can result in inexpensive outsourcing arrangements. With respect to TCE's uncertainty proposition, support is offered for the view that the propensity to outsource will be greater where behavioural uncertainty is lower. No support has been offered with respect to environmental uncertainty. The interview data provides some support for TCE's asset specificity proposition, however, minimal support was found in the survey phase. Despite this, the many dimensions of asset specificity (eg. site specificity, human asset specificity, etc) provided a useful checklist of issues to be considered in relation to the outsourcing decision. 3. Negligible support was found for labour process theory (LPT) in the interview phase of the study. In light of this, and the need to narrow the study’s focus in the survey phase, LPT was not pursued further. LPT is a difficult construct to operationalise, given the social desirability error that may result. This may partially account for the absence of significant LPT findings in the interview phase. 4. The survey data provides some support for the agency theory view that risky activities will tend to be outsourced. 5. Considerable cross-hotel variation exists in management of, and accounting's involvement in, outsourcing decision making and control systems. Accounting appraisal of outsourcing proposals rarely includes long term oriented, sophisticated techniques such as "net present value". It appears this may be because outsourcing decisions are not conducted in the context of the formal capital budgeting process. 6. High performing hotels and hotels that conduct their outsourcing decisions in the context of a long term outsourcing strategic agenda have more sophisticated outsourcing management systems.

I denna studie utforskas relationen mellan lönearbete och ojämlikhet inom servicearbete ur ett feministiskt perspektiv. Teoretiskt förenar avhandlingen ett arbetsprocess- och ett intersektionellt perspektiv med syfte att fånga variationen och mångfalden i de maktrelationer som formar servicearbete. Studien baseras på en kvalitativ ansats och bygger på 24 djupintervjuer med hotell- och restauranganställda verksamma i en svensk storstad. Avhandlingen visar hur arbetsprocessen är grundläggande för skapandet och återskapandet av ojämlikheter, och att arbetsprocessen formas av arbetsgivares, kunders och anställdas föreställningar, fantasier och maktrelationer. Avhandling visar också hur ojämlika sociala relationer av klass, kön, sexualitet och ”ras”/etnicitet görs i själva arbetsprocessen samt hur fundamentalt lönearbete är för skapande av gemenskap, motstånd och identiteter. / This study explores the relationship between paid work and the reproduction of (gendered) inequalities, with special focus on the hotel and restaurant branch. Theoretically the study takes it points of departure in a feminist re-appraisal of a labour process perspective and in a feminist intersectional understanding of gender relations. Methodologically the research is based on a qualitative study that consists of 24 in-depth interviews with employed in the hotel and restaurant branch located within a large city in Sweden. The study shows how different forms of inequality are shaped within and through the labour process, a labour process that is also shaped by employers, customers, and employees ideas and fantasies and the power relations between them. The study also shows how fundamental the labour process is in the doing of (unequal) social relations of gender, sexuality, class and “race”/ethnicity and how central paid work is in the construction of identities, forms of resistance and belonging.

Abstract The main research aim was to examine work and quality in a medium-sized construction company. My ambition was to find out how the top brass, middle managers and workers consider quality within construction. In this study I search for answers to questions as why these groups treat quality as they do and why they act in the labour process as they act. The study is qualitative with strong connections to ontological and epistemological commitments of critical management studies. In the theoretical part of the study I examine quality management, work, the history and significance of work to the individual and the change of work from the juxtaposition of the modern times to the flexible temporary work of postmodernity. I examine the effects of the changes in working life on the subjectivity of the individuals now when identities are changing constantly and autonomy as a value has replaced solidarity. I examine the product quality originating from the labour process as a manifestation of individuals’ conception of reality and structural changes in the society. I have carried out the empirical part as a single case study. The most significant data consists of the interviews of the top brass, middle management and workers. The study proves that every group in the examined organization creates its own discourse regarding the work in the labour process and the resulting quality. The top brass appreciates quality as operational quality – in other words as an undisturbed and economical progression of the labour process. The discourse of the top brass underlines substantial economical result achieved with technocratic and, above all, normative control. The top brass tries to make its view hegemonic and its patriarchal view motivates the other groups to generate their own discourses. The subjectivity of the middle management is based on an entrepreneurial attitude with a concern to product’s suitability to the customer. Its discourse shows an effort to create freedom for its own quality perception. The workers experience that the work has changed into routine assembling without respect to professional skills. They feel insecure about the future of the employment and they constantly have to consider their usefulness. The study proves also that management cannot be commanding from the top, but craftsmanship and occupational ethics have to be set as the starting point of management. Work should not be considered a negative, juxtapositive and restraining process but such a part of life where one can fulfil oneself in many ways. An individual has to get a possibility to enhance and develop his/her knowledge and competence. He/She also has to get a possibility to belong to a stable institution which provides life with stability and perspective. / Tiivistelmä Tässä tutkimuksessa analysoin erään keskisuuren rakennusyrityksen toimintaa. Tavoitteenani on selvittää, miten kohdeorganisaation ylin johto, keskijohto ja työntekijät suhtautuvat rakentamisen laatuun. Tutkimuksellani etsin vastausta siihen, miksi nämä henkilöstöryhmät suhtautuvat laatuun niin kuin suhtautuvat ja miksi he toimivat yrityksensä rakennustoiminnan työprosessissa niin kuin toimivat. Tutkimus on laadullinen ja kytkeytyy vahvasti kriittisen organisaatiotutkimuksen ontologisiin ja epistemologisiin sitoumuksiin. Tutkimuksen teoreettisessa osuudessa tarkastelen laadun johtamista, työtä ja työn historiaa sekä sen merkitystä yksilölle. Perehdytän lukijan myös työn muuttumiseen modernin aikakauden vastakkainasettelusta postmodernin ajan joustavaksi pätkätyöksi. Tuon näkyviin työelämän muutosten vaikutuksia tekijöiden subjektiviteettiin, nyt kun identiteetit ovat jatkuvassa muutoksessa ja autonomia arvona on korvannut yhteisöllisyyden. Tarkastelen työprosessin tuloksena syntyvää tuotteen laatua yksilöiden todellisuuskäsityksen ja yhteiskunnan rakennemuutosten ilmentymänä. Olen toteuttanut empiirisen osan yhden tapauksen tapaustutkimuksena. Merkittävin aineisto koostuu kohdeorganisaation ylimmän johdon, keskijohdon ja suorittavan tason työntekijöiden haastatteluista. Tutkimus osoittaa, että jokainen yllä mainittu tutkittavan organisaation henkilöstöryhmä muodostaa oman diskurssinsa työprosessissa tehtävän työn ja tuloksena syntyvän laadun suhteen. Ylin johto kokee laadun toiminnan laatuna – siis työprosessin häiriöttömänä ja taloudellisena etenemisenä. Ylimmän johdon diskurssi korostaa hyvää taloudellista tulosta, joka saavutetaan työprosessin teknokraattisella ja ennen kaikkea normatiivisella kontrollilla. Ylin johto pyrkii saamaan oman näkemyksensä hegemoniseksi, ja sen patriarkaalinen näkemys saa muut henkilöstöryhmät kehittämään omat diskurssinsa. Keskijohdon subjektiviteetti lähtee yrittäjämäisestä asenteesta, jossa kannetaan huolta tuotteen kelpaamisesta asiakkaalle. Sen diskurssissa näkyy pyrkimys kehittää toimintavapautta omalle laatunäkemykselleen. Suorittava taso kokee työnteon muuttuneen mekaaniseksi kokoonpanoksi, jossa sen ammattitaitoa ei arvosteta. Se kokee epävarmuutta työsuhteensa jatkuvuudesta ja joutuu jatkuvasti punnitsemaan hyödyllisyyttään. Tutkimus osoittaa myös, että johtaminen ei voi olla ylhäältä alaspäin tapahtuvaa käskyttämistä, vaan ammattiosaaminen ja ammattietiikka on asetettava organisaation johtamisen lähtökohdaksi. Työtä ei tule nähdä negatiivisena, vastakkainasettelun ja tukahduttamisen prosessina vaan sellaisena osana elämää, jossa yksilö voi toteuttaa itseään monella tavalla. Hänelle on annettava mahdollisuus kerryttää ja kehittää tietoaan sekä osaamistaan. Hänelle on myös annettava mahdollisuus kuulua pysyvyyttä edustavaan instituutioon, joka antaa hänen elämälleen vakautta ja näköalaa.

The present study examines federal government programs to admit women to Canada as foreign domestic workers, their exclusion from labour standards legislation, the conditions of work and wage-rates which result from this exclusion, and attempts to organize foreign domestic workers. (The thesis maintains that foreign domestic workers represent a modern form of unfree wage labour since they are required to remain in domestic work as a condition of entry to Canada. In this sense, foreign domestic labour is unfree because of the legal restrictions on the right of workers to change employer, occupation and/or industry. The study also examines the intersection of gender, class and ethnicity in the foreign domestic labour process. The need for domestic workers is increasingly being met by women from the less economically developed areas of the world and the recruitment of these women on temporary employment visas places much of the burden of day care and domestic labour in Canada on disadvantaged women and nations. It is argued that the employment of foreign domestic workers in the homes of privileged families gives rise to differential experiences of oppression by women of different classes and ethnic origins. Data for the study are taken from the following sources: employment records to admit foreign domestic workers between January, 1980 and December 31, 1987 supplied by the Research Division of Planning and Research Directorate of the Employment and Immigration Commission, interviews with foreign domestic workers, labour lawyers, community activists, employment agencies, immigration officials and previous studies of foreign domestic workers in Canada and in other advanced industrial nations. / Graduate

No description available.

[pt] Em um contexto de profundas transformações nas relações de trabalho causadas pela tecnologia, milhares de entregadores se movimentam pelas ruas brasileiras entregando comida e outros itens sob o comando de plataformas digitais. Essa modalidade de trabalho, em ascensão nos últimos anos, tem sido alvo do interesse de pesquisadores em função das peculiaridades que a caracterizam. Um aspecto relevante a ser estudado diz respeito ao controle sobre esse tipo de trabalho. Nesta direção, a presente dissertação buscou entender de que forma o controle exercido pelos aplicativos é percebido pelos trabalhadores de entrega por aplicativos em suas relações de trabalho e quais as suas formas de resistência. Para isso foi feita uma netnografia em redes sociais que analisou 21 grupos no Facebook com 136 postagens de entregadores, e foi criado um grupo, Conversas sobre o trabalho por aplicativos, para complementar a coleta de dados. Todo o material coletado foi analisado com base em análise temática. A teoria do processo de trabalho de Harry Braverman foi utilizada para entender como o controle se manifesta nessas relações trabalho, desde o controle técnico e burocrático até o controle normativo e neo-normativo, bem como nas transformações que a tecnologia tem criado nas relações de trabalho e no controle algorítmico sobre os trabalhadores, exercido pelas plataformas digitais de entrega de comida, operando no Brasil. Os principais achados da pesquisa indicam que, embora o trabalho de entregador tenha características claras de precarização e intensificação do trabalho, sua inserção no contexto brasileiro, marcado por desemprego sistêmico e estrutural, faz com que essa atividade seja considerada como uma opção melhor do que o trabalho formal, sendo considerada mais garantida e, até mesmo, pertencente a uma elite entre os precarizados. Além disso, a construção identitária dos entregadores, marcada por discursos de reforço de estereótipos de masculinidade, como o do homem provedor e pai de família, bem como discursos de empreendedorismo, de liberdade ressignificada, ao depender somente do esforço pessoal do indivíduo, mascaram os aspectos deletérios desse tipo de trabalho. Argumenta-se que esses fatores contribuem para a produção do consentimento e enfraquecimento das possibilidades de resistência, da representação sindical e da transformação da realidade dos entregadores frente aos aplicativos. / [en] In a context of deep changes in labor relations caused by technology, thousands of food-delivery worker move through Brazilian streets delivering food and other stuffs by digital platforms. This kinda of work, which has been increase in recent years, has been the target of interest by researchers due to the peculiarities that characterize it. A relevant aspect to be studied concerns the control over this type of work. In this direction, the present dissertation get to understand how the control by applications is perceive by food-delivery worker through applications in their work relationships and what are their forms of resistance. For this, a netnography was carried out on social networks that had analyzed 21 groups on Facebook with 136 posts from food-delivery worker, and a group was created, conversations about work through applications. All material collected was analyzed based on thematic analysis. Harry Braverman s labor process theory was used to understand how control manifests itself in these labor relationships, from technical and bureaucratic control to normative and neonormative control, as well as the transformations that technology has created in labor relationships. and in the algorithmic control over workers, exercised by digital food delivery platforms, operating in Brazil. The main findings of the research indicate that, although the delivery job has clear characteristics of precariousness and work intensification, its insertion in the Brazilian context, marked by systemic and structural unemployment, makes this activity to be considered a better option than the formal work, being considered more guaranteed and even belonging to an elite in the middle of the precariat. In addition, the identity construction of the food-delivery worker, marked by discourses that reinforce masculinity stereotypes, such as the provider and family man, as well as discourses of entrepreneurship, of resignified and guaranteed freedom, depending only on the individual s personal effort, mask the deleterious aspects of this type of work. It is argued that these factors contribute to the production of consent and weakening of the possibilities of resistance, union representation and the transformation of the delivery people s reality in front of the applications.

Despite their continuing importance to the UK economy and their employment of significant numbers of workers from a range of professions, the utilities have received scant attention from critical scholars of work. This neglect represents a missed opportunity to examine the impact of nearly twenty years of privatisation and marketisation on workers, their jobs and their unions. This thesis aims to make a contribution to knowledge here by investigating, contextualising and explaining changes in the labour processes of a privatised utility in the United Kingdom. The research is informed by oral history methods and techniques, rarely adopted in industrial sociology, and here used alongside labour process theory to reconstruct past experiences of work. Drawing on qualitative data sets, from in-depth interviews with a cohort of employees who worked continuously over three decades at the research site, British Gas’s Granton House, and on extensive company and trade union documentary evidence the research demonstrates how British Gas responded to restrictive regulation and the need to deliver shareholder value by transforming pre-existing forms of work organisation through introducing call centres. The call centre provided the opportunity for management to regain control over the labour process, intensify work and reduce costs. In doing so, the study identifies the principal drivers of organisational change, documents the process of change evaluates the impact on workers’ experience. Thus, as a corrective to much recent labour process theory the research offers both an ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ account of change over an extended time. The contrast between workers’ experience of working in the clerical departments and in the call centre could not be starker. Almost every element of work from which workers derived satisfaction and purpose was abruptly dismantled. In their place workers had to endure the restrictive and controlling nature of call centre work. The relative absence of resistance to such a transformation is shown to be a consequence of failures in collective organisation, rather than the totalisation of managerial control, as the postmodernists and Foucauldians would have it.

Drawing upon case studies of three organisations operating six call centres in Australia, this thesis explores the manifestations and interplay of employee resistance and accommodation in response to five facets of employer control: electronic monitoring; repetitious work; emotional control; the built environment; and workplace flexibility. Accommodation refers to the ways workers protect themselves from and adapt to the pressures that make up their day-to-day experiences of work. Accommodation, unlike resistance, which implies opposition to control, may superficially resemble consent to control. I argue that resistance and accommodation are not polar opposites; rather they are both reflections of the conflict and tensions that lie at the heart of the employment relationship. At the study sites, employees utilised resistance and accommodation both separately and concurrently. An explanation of these seemingly contradictory responses and of the links among accommodation individual resistance and collective resistance lies in the concept of ???self???. In this thesis, ???self??? refers to workers??? perceptions of fairness, dignity and autonomy. I examine how these notions frame worker discontent and promote employee solidarity. ???Everyday resistance???, a concept first developed by Scott (1985) in relation to peasant struggles, is employed to highlight the existence of subterranean struggles in workplaces that otherwise appear to be harmonious. At the study sites, everyday resistance was a multi-faceted, widely employed strategy whose strength lay primarily in its immediate impact. There was, however, no necessary sequential development from accommodation, through everyday resistance to overt, formal forms of conflict. What was evident was that multiple responses to employer control could co-exist and inhibit or promote one another. But it was through organised collective resistance that more formalised gains were made and widely held grievances addressed. I suggest that, although everyday resistance may lay the groundwork for more formal struggles, one should not conclude that traditional collective resistance is ???genuine??? resistance and everyday resistance is simply a second-best prelude to it. Although conflict is always present, its intensity differs. If we are to understand the complexity of worker responses to managerial control, we need to expand the theoretical frameworks within which we analyse and interpret conflict.

From the begiining of the 20th century producer co-operative bacon factories were established in the south of Sweden. In his thesis Lars Hansson studies how class relations were shaped and transformed within this rural industry. The producer co-operative slaughter associations consisted of a large number of members from smallholders to large scale agrarian producers. The power of the associations was concentrated in the hands of the big producers, but the manangers also had a considerable power, due to their expert knowledge of the buisness and the bacon markets in U.K. The workers of the producer co-operative slaughter houses were mostly unskilled workers, with little or no knowledge of butchering. From the 1910’s the workers unionized but their organisation was not accepted by the employers and harsh labour disputes took place during the 1920’s. From the 1930’s the farmers producer co-operative movement grew all over Sweden and they formed a political alliance with the Social democratic Party. The Swedish labour market became more peaceful as the employers and the unions began to co-operate to a greater extent. The Food Workers Union was more and more integrated in the Swedish society and thereby lost its earlier antisystemic character and were more and more transformed into a systemic movement. The slaughter house workers union had a distinct patriarchal characters from its start and its attitude towards women workers was ambivalent. During WWII, however, the attitude changed and more women were active in class practice in order to improve their situation.