Jörg Flecker

Organisational restructuring and emerging service value chains: implications for work and employment

This article examines companies’ and public sector organisations’ external restructuring processes, with consideration of emerging or lengthening value chains and network relationships in the service sector. Focusing on two business functions — software development in the IT industry and IT services for public sector organisations — the article describes the types of inter-organisational relations that emerge and analyses the impact of restructuring on employment conditions and work organisation. The business functions clearly differ according to the form that restructuring takes and with regard to the impact of restructuring on work and employment. Common trends include increased insecurity, growing flexibility demands and higher levels of standardisation and formalisation of work.

Capitalising on Subjectivity: The ‘New Model Worker’ and the Importance of Being Useful

The ever-new buzz words for the ideal worker, such as ‘intrapreneur’ or ‘self-manager’, can be seen as management rhetoric and fashions without major consequences for the labour process. But it can also be maintained that these notions and images shed light on the processes of social construction of the ‘model worker’, that is, the historically variable ideal of workers’ subjectivity and behaviour. It is, for example, quite surprising that few demands are evident for the traditional virtues of work, such as reliability, performance of one’s duties or obedience, in current managerial discourses, although these have been the cornerstones of the work ethic in capitalist societies. Instead, ‘responsible decision makers’, ‘intrapreneurs’, ‘self-managers’ and ‘self-developers’ have entered the scene. In contrast to conventional wisdom, such labels are not reserved for managers or workers in financial services and the like. The discourse embraces virtually every industry and occupation, blurring the differences, in socio-psychological terms, between the board of directors and the shop floor.

It Ain't What You do, it's the Way that You do it: Production Organisation and Skill Utilisation in Commercial Vehicles

New paradigms of work organisation espousing a radical break in production systems assert a natural identity between advanced manufacturing and utilisation of skilled labour. Using findings from a comparative project on the commercial vehicle industry in Sweden, Austria and the UK, the paper aims to unpack the theory and practice of new forms of production. It does identify common tendencies within advanced manufacturing, notably a growth in cognitive and extra-functional abilities, normally within a team working context. But this remains distinct from any version of craft or professional labour and there are marked national differences in managerial preferences of the type of labour perceived to be necessary for more flexible work organisation. The emphasis is on varied routes to the creation of skilled labour, with an extended view of skill formation that focuses on what firms do in the labour process as well as what the state does in education and training.

Outsourcing, Spatial Relocation and the Fragmentation of Employment

This paper analyses the impact of external restructuring along value chains (including outsourcing, relocation and spatial concentration of activities) on work and employment. Drawing on findings of a European research project covering manufacturing and service industries, the paper highlights the dynamics of value chain reorganisation. Regarding employment consequences, it is argued that external restructuring leads to a fragmentation of employment and work as labour processes are stretched over organisational boundaries and workforces are divided by different employment contracts and terms and conditions. Generally, employment and working conditions worsen downstream in the value chain. However, because of increasing competition within value chains and networks, externalisation often no longer cushions the workforce of core firms against pressures and risks.

The liberalization of public services : Company reactions and consequences for employment and working conditions

This article analyses how companies that provide public services respond to liberalization, privatization and marketization. The empirical research is based on 23 company case studies from four sectors and six countries. The case studies involved 185 interviews with managers, trade union and works council representatives and workers. Company reactions include mergers and acquisitions, internationalization and the diversification of supply; the diversification of customer relations, including new pricing policies; a reduction of production costs through concentration, outsourcing and the introduction of new technology; and the reduction of employment and the payment of lower wages (through lower wages for new employees, the creation of independent subsidiaries and outsourcing). Overall, the case studies show that the main goal, the reduction of production costs, has been achieved at the cost of workers, many of whom have experienced liberalization and privatization as the deterioration of employment and working conditions. The impact on productivity and quality were mixed.

Divide and Serve: The Labour Process in Service Value Chains and Networks

This article discusses various aspects of labour processes in services characterized by value chains that cross organizational, company, regional or national boundaries. Starting from value chain analysis it first addresses the main conceptual issues in the investigation of service value chains and networks from a labour process perspective. Second, it highlights three particular themes in the analysis of the labour process in services and illustrates these with empirical examples: modularization of services and codification of knowledge, organizational flexibility and flexible employment, and the concurrence of co-operation and competition. In the conclusion, the article sketches significant characteristics of services and service work that need to come into focus in value chain and network analysis from a labour process perspective.

The Sexual Division of Labour in Process Manufacturing: Economic Restructuring, Training and `Women's Work'

It is widely assumed that the development of enhanced skills appropriate to advanced technologies is an important means of increasing the employability of the socially excluded. This article tests this assumption through case studies in the food industry in Austria, Germany and Britain. The findings indicate that organizational restructuring, technological change and redeployment of labour have very different consequences for women and for men. In all three countries the restructuring of work and skills increased the marginalization of women, reinforcing gender cleavage.

Is Institutional Continuity Masking a Creeping Paradigm Shift in the Austrian Social Model

The ‘varieties of capitalism literature focuses on large (Western European and North American) countries’. Depending on the authors, the literature differentiates between two (Albert, 1993; Hall and Soskice, 2001), three (Coates, 2000) and five models (Amable, 2005). Small and economically less powerful countries such as Austria are hardly mentioned in the debate. On the other hand there is a body of literature that discusses the periodically stunning economic and labour market successes of small countries, sometimes presented even as role models for the rest of Europe (Katzenstein, 1985; Auer, 2000). A common weakness of the varieties of capitalism literature is that it does not take into account the interdependence between different models, in particular between large and small countries. The relationship between Austria and its ten times larger northern neighbour Germany is a case in point. Many German companies have subsidiaries in Austria. The relative dependence on German capital has an important impact on the Austrian model and limits the choices of domestic actors (the same is true for the new European member states with even larger proportions of foreign direct investments [FDI]). On the other hand small states tend to adjust faster to new challenges and have opportunities that are blocked for large countries. Wage restraint and export-orientation may work for Austria but not for a reunified Germany in an enlarged Europe (see Chapter 4, this volume). At the same time the example of Austria, which as a result of EU enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has itself become a net capital exporter, also shows the advantages of economic power over other countries.

The Production of ‘Placelessness’: Digital Service Work in Global Value Chains

This chapter explores the spatial dynamics of value chains and networks, the delocalisation and relocation of digital work and the degree of its local embeddedness. The main aim is to argue that ICT-intensive business functions and jobs are not as such highly mobile or independent from place. Rather, such features are usually the result of lengthy restructuring and reorganisation projects or processes in which ‘placelessness’ is being produced. We examine value chain dynamics and the delocalisation and relocation of digital work, drawing on three cases: software development, shared service centres and business process outsourcing, and crowdsourcing via online-platforms.

Globalisierungsprozesse und industrielle Arbeitsbeziehungen

Die okonomische Internationalisierung hat sich in allen ihren Phasen nachhaltig auf die Arbeitsbeziehungen in einzelnen Landern ausgewirkt. Auch in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion hat dieses Thema schon mehrere Konjunkturen hinter sich. Nachdem das Wachstum der multinationalen Konzerne zuletzt in den 70er Jahren Anlas fur eine lebhafte Erorterung des geanderten Machtverhaltnisses zwischen Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmern war, schenkte die Industrial-Relations-Forschung der Internationalisierung spater nur noch wenig Augenmerk. Erst zu Beginn der 90er Jahre wurde das Thema unter den Stichworten „Europaischer Binnenmarkt“ und „Globalisierung“ wieder aktuell. Heute ist es unbestritten, das die internationale Organisation der wirtschaftlichen Aktivitaten eines der zentralen Probleme der industriellen Beziehungen in Europa und in der Welt darstellt (Ferner/Hyman 1992; Jacoby 1995).