Globalization and Work

This engaging book offers a lively and rigorous synthesis of the varied interconnections between work and globalization. Drawing on relevant sociological insights, and based on extensive, up-to-date research studies of work and employment, it brings together for the first time in a single volume a range of key topics, including: consumption, work and identity in a globalizing world; work and employment in multinationals; international labour standards; trade unions, labour movements and labour conflict under globalization; gender and inequality; migrant labour; transnational mobility; and the organization of work in global factories.

Globalization and Work challenges conceptions of globalization as a project orchestrated by governments, multinational companies and international agencies. The authors highlight the importance of integrating a grounded, bottom-up perspective which recognizes that globalization is not just something that happens to working people, thereby revealing the fascinating extent to which workers actively engage in producing globalization. Throughout, the book contains a number of features to deepen understanding, including case study boxes of topical examples from across the globe.

Globalization and Work is an essential new book for anyone interested in globalization, the sociology of work and comparative employment relations, especially undergraduate and postgraduate students taking modules on these and related topics.

Steve Williams is Principal Lecturer in Employment Relations at Portsmouth Business School, UK.
Harriet Bradley is Professor of Women’s Employment at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.
Ranji Devadason is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow of Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK.
Mark Erickson is Principal Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Brighton, UK.

List of boxes

List of tables and figures

Preface: About this book        

Chapter 1. Globalization and work: an introduction     

Chapter 2. Consumption, work and identity in a globalizing world  

Chapter 3. Multinationals, work and employment in the global economy  

Chapter 4. Globalization and the regulation of international labour standards 

Chapter 5. Globalization, labour and social movements    

Chapter 6. Work and the management of labour in ‘global factories’ 

Chapter 7. Globalization and migrant labour     

Chapter 8. Globalization and transnational mobility     

Chapter 9. Work, gender and intersectional inequalities  

Chapter 10. Globalization and labour conflict    

Chapter 11. Conclusion      

Bibliography