Despotism on Demand : : How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace / / Alex J. Wood.
Despotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control with...
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Superior document: | Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2020 |
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Place / Publishing House: | Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2020] ©2021 |
Year of Publication: | 2020 |
Language: | English |
Online Access: | |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (192 p.) :; 1 chart |
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Other title: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Flexible Despotism: An Introduction -- Part 1. POWER AT WORK -- Part 2. THE DESPOTISM OF TIME -- Part 3. THE DYNAMICS OF WORK AND SPACES OF RESISTANCE -- Conclusions: Control in the Twenty-First Century -- Methodological Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
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Summary: | Despotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control within the workplace.Wood believes that flexible despotism represents a new domain of inequality, in which the postindustrial working class increasingly suffer a scheduling nightmare. By investigating two of the largest retailers in the world he uncovers how control in the contemporary "flexible firm" is achieved through the insidious combination of "flexible discipline" and "schedule gifts." Flexible discipline provides managers with an arbitrary means by which to punish workers, but flexible scheduling also requires workers to actively win favor with managers in order to receive "schedule gifts": more or better hours. Wood concludes that the centrality of precarious scheduling to control means that for those at the bottom of the postindustrial labor market the future of work will increasingly be one of flexible despotism. |
Format: | Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9781501748905 9783110690460 9783110704716 9783110704518 9783110704594 9783110704723 |
DOI: | 10.1515/9781501748905?locatt=mode:legacy |
Access: | restricted access |
Hierarchical level: | Monograph |
Statement of Responsibility: | Alex J. Wood. |