Sally Walters

Managerial Control of Employees Working at Home

Places of work constitute processes of management by facilitating ‘visibility’ (the possibility for supervisors and others to observe workers) and ‘presence’ (the ability for workers to participate in relations with co-workers and others). Working at home creates problems for both these aspects of managerial control. We suggest that managers seek to compensate for the relative lack of visibility and presence of home-located workers by generating a range of devices and social disciplines that together comprise loose networks of control. However, these responses are only partially successful since they are founded on contradictory assumptions and practices.

The Option to Work at Home: Another Privilege for the Favoured Few?

This paper compares and contrasts the demographic and employment characteristics of those who have the option to work at home with those who actually carry out paid work where they live. The results suggest that having the opportunity to choose where to work represents another perk for those already occupying an advantaged position in the labour market. However, some of the most disadvantaged in society are found among those who actually do most of their work at home.

Working at Home: Statistical Evidence for Seven Key Hypotheses

It is frequently suggested that working at home will be the future of work for many people in the UK and that trends in this direction are already well underway. This paper examines these claims by analysing data from the Labour Force Survey which has, at various times, asked questions about the location of work. Seven key hypotheses are identified, including issues surrounding the extent and growth of working at home, reliance on information and communication technology, prevalence of low pay, average pay rates, gender issues, ethnic minority participation and household composition. The results paint a variegated and complex picture which suggests that those who work at home do not comprise a homogeneous group. The paper in particular highlights differences between non-manual and manual workers, and those who work mainly, partially and sometimes at home.

The shifting locations of work: new statistical evidence on the spaces and places of employment

Purpose - Examines the places where people work in the UK, pointing out that new technologies, such as mobile phones and laptop computers have made it possible to work in far more places than before. Design/methodology/approach - Uses official statistics, such as the Labour Force Survey, the Change in Employer Practices Survey and the Location of Work Survey to analyse where people work and how this is changing. Findings - Concludes that the location of work is changing in the UK, although the number of people working in non-traditional work locations is still small and a large proportion of the people who use their home as a workplace are working in the types of jobs that have always tended to be carried out at home. Reports that the nature of office space is changing with fewer people having an allocated workspace or desk. Notes that there was little evidence available that could show if people were working in locations other than an office/factory or their homes. Research limitations/implications - Indicates areas of research that would give a fuller picture of where work is carried out. Originality/value - Draws together data sources to analyse the extent to which people are working in non-traditional locations.

Images, interviews and interpretations: making connections in visual research

Barthes (1977) famously argued that the meaning of an image does not become apparent until it is accompanied and explicated by text. Pictures are ambiguous, he suggests, and their interpretation is dependent on words to specify and focus their multiple and uncertain meanings. However, it is also apparent that relationships between texts and images may take many different forms (Becker, 1981; Berger, 1972; Chaplin, 1994; Pink, 2001). Furthermore, for the social scientist, the texts that mediate the meanings of pictures come in two different forms and contexts. There are the words of respondents – captured by interviews, questionnaires and other research devices – and those of social science theory and analysis. Similarly, images may be generated by respondents, by researchers or derived from secondary sources by respondents or researchers. Thus, an examination of the methodological foundations of visual research in social science must address the varied and dynamic interrelationships between pictorial images, interview transcripts and theoretical interpretations, through which meaning is constructed rather than simply found. As Chaplin comments, sociologists make rather than take photographs (1994).