Keith Randle

Managerialism and Professionalism in the 'Cinderella Service'

Abstract As a result of the process of incorporation following the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992, Cityshire College, a large further education college left the jurisdiction of the local authority and gained greater responsibility for managing its own affairs. Arising from a case study based on interviews and questionnaires the paper considers the impact of changes within the College which took place between 1991 and 1994. Of particular interest is the development of a “new managerialism”, a management style which spread throughout public sector organizations during the 1980s. The evidence from the lecturer questionnaire suggests that staff reject the values represented by this development and are opposed to the threat they perceive to the professional culture of further education. In considering new modes of learning, notions of quality in education and the intrusion of the market into the college, the deprofessionalisation and, indeed, “proletarianisation” of the FE lecturer is suggested as a ...

Further Education and the New Managerialism

Abstract As a result of the process of incorporation following the Further and Higher Education Act (1992), Cityshire College, a large further education (FE) college, left the jurisdiction of the local authority and gained greater responsibility for managing its own affairs. Arising from a case study based on interviews and questionnaires this paper considers the impact of changes within the College which took place between 1991 and 1994. Of particular interest is the development of a ‘new managerialism’, a management style which the paper identifies as having spread throughout public sector organizations during the 1980s. This paper goes on to consider the way in which quality procedures, the introduction of a technology associated with flexible learning and the introduction of market‐related mechanisms have had an impact on professional control. The evidence from a lecturer questionnaire circulated at Cityshire suggests that staff reject the values represented by these developments and are opposed to th...

Working in film – Employment in a project based industry

Currently the “creative industries”, especially the British film industry, are receiving much popular attention. The aim of this paper is to present a description and evaluation of employment in the film industry, and through doing so to challenge dominant populist and academic analyses of employment in this sector, as exemplified by the Labour government and a number of British and American academic commentators. These analyses are both premised on the apparent occurrence of an epoch breaking change in society, the balance of economic activity in society and the organisation of work. However, trends in employment practice over recent years, it would appear from the survey evidence and from other sources presented here, have not improved in the manner they could be expected to if such fundamental epochal change had occurred. Rather the data presented here point to much continuity in the employment relationship between capital and labour.

From London to Los Angeles: a comparison of local labour market processes in the US and UK film industries

Addressing the issue of the embeddedness of labour markets, this paper compares the processes of finding employment in the film industry within two local labour markets. Drawing on studies of freelance film crews in London (UK) and Los Angeles (US), the paper concludes that the importance of social networks in job mobility in both contexts is a consequence of common production structures. However, common labour market practice varies in each geographical space as industry processes and structures are mediated by local institutional contexts.

Finance, policy and industrial dynamics : The rise of co-productions in the film industry

This paper explores the growing phenomenon of international co‐productions in the film industry. We argue that the rise of co‐productions is part of a wider narrative of financial and institutional innovation shaping industrial organization in the film industry. This narrative centres on film finance as a central risk distribution mechanism, and discusses how changes in film support policy, increased tax competition, the search for finance and an abundance of inflowing capital are increasingly driving industrial dynamics in the film industry.

Rewarding Failure: operating a performance-related pay system in pharmaceutical research

Suggests that heightening competition within the pharmaceutical sector means that improving performance in R&D is increasingly important. One approach to achieving this is to consider the introduction of financial incentives within reward systems. Considers the evidence for the success of performance‐related pay (PRP) systems arising from the relatively few empirical accounts available. Concludes that there is little concrete evidence that PRP improves the performance of either individuals or organizations. Concedes that where it can be demonstrated that employees are satisfied with a PRP system we might expect them to be motivated and this should have positive results on performance. Considers the operation of the PRP system within the research division of a major UK‐based multinational pharmaceutical company. Looks in detail at management operation of, and employee responses to, the system. Concludes that not only is it unpopular but it may have potentially serious dysfunctional side‐effects in an R&D environment.

Towards a Bourdieusian analysis of the social composition of the UK film and television workforce

The social composition of the workforce of the UK film and television industries does not reflect the diversity of the population and the industries have been described as white, male and middle class. While the lack of specific demographic representation in employment (for example gender or ethnicity) has been highlighted by both industry and academic commentators, its broader social composition has rarely been addressed by research. This article draws on the work of Bourdieu, particularly the concepts of field, habitus and capitals, to explore perceptions of the barriers to entry into these industries and the way in which individuals negotiate these by drawing on the various capitals to which they have access.

Digital Cinema Opportunities and Challanges

While the process of distributing and exhibiting a film has changed little over the past century, Digital Cinema, the process of using digitally stored data instead of strips of acetate, has arrived. With technology continuing to develop it is expected that d-cinema will overtake the quality of conventional cinema has within the next two years. This paper considers how the film industry might effect the transition from film to digital product.

Macho, mobile and resilient? How workers with impairments are doubly disabled in project-based film and television work

Inequalities in the creative industries are known to be persistent and systemic. The model of production in UK film and television (UKF&TV) is argued to exclude on the basis of gender, race and class. This article considers a social category that has been overlooked in these debates: disability. It argues that workers with impairments are ‘doubly disabled’ – in both the labour markets and labour processes of UKF&TV. It concludes that disability cannot simply be incorporated in an additive way in order to understand the exclusion of these workers, but that they face qualitatively different sources of disadvantage compared with other minorities in UKF&TV workplaces. This has negative implications for workers with impairments in other labour markets, as project and network-based freelance work, a contributor to disadvantage, is seen as both increasingly normative and paradigmatic.

Positioning Virtual Workers Within Space, Time, and Social Dynamics

Virtual workers need careful definition in order to distinguish them from other types of ubiquitous digital labour. Drawing on a growing literature in this field, this introductory chapter suggests that virtual workers have three distinguishing features: they are spatially dispersed, they are precarious, and the boundaries in their lives—as well as our analytical boundaries—are being progressively dismantled. The chapter considers the class, gender, and race dynamics of virtual work, arguing that virtual workers are not classless, nor are they a new class. Their diversity makes them difficult to place and their likely class identity complex, but continuities with earlier forms of work are clearly apparent in virtual work.