Sofia Alexandra Cruz

Service interaction and dignity in cleaning work: how important is the organizational context?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which the nature of a particular work activity – cleaning – changes across organizational contexts, considering specific industry characteristics and working conditions in urban settings in Portugal. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the qualitative analysis of data collected between 2010 and 2013 using open-ended interviews with employees and direct observation in two shopping malls. Findings – The empirical evidence illuminates how the contexts under study shape the behavior of actors and their power relations. By placing the perspective of employees at the core of the analysis, the paper demonstrates that workplaces provide a major site of conflict and negotiation regarding dignity in cleaning work, but this dispute takes on different contours and sources of tension across organizational contexts. Originality/value – The seminal comparative analysis of commercial cleaning and housecleaning undertaken in this paper sheds ligh...

Working at the weekend: supermarket and shopping centre workers in Salford/Manchester (UK) and Porto (Portugal).

This paper firstly discusses the origins and importance of ‘the weekend’ in the ‘industrial’ cities of Manchester (UK) and Porto (Portugal). Drawing on previous work specifically focused on this subject, it examines the spatio-temporal shifts evident during the industrial revolution, which produced a more ‘disciplined’ labour process. Work and leisure were, thereafter, constituted as separate domains, the weekend being a designated leisure time and space. We consider the more recent temporal shift, generated through the processes of flexibilisation, which, we argue, renders ‘the weekend’ as we understand it, under threat. We discuss this through the presentation and analysis of testimony from workers, those working in a supermarket in Salford/Manchester and in shopping centres in Porto. Our conversations, in the form of semi-structured interviews, with workers in these locations led us to questions of ‘social time’ and whether there is any longer, recognition of ‘time for ourselves’.

O que fazem os gestores? A atividade gestionária de centros comerciais

A atividade profissional da gestao tem merecido uma atencao cientifica consideravel. Porem, sabe-se ainda pouco sobre a natureza desta atividade em contextos organizacionais particulares. Este artigo propoe, assim, um exercicio analitico sobre a natureza da atividade gestionaria de centros comerciais. A partir de entrevistas semidiretivas com gestores, argumenta-se que a configuracao da sua atividade de trabalho e processo e produto da interacao com a cultura organizacional do centro comercial. Esta mobiliza-os subjetivamente mediante um espirito de adesao inscrito na acao que, por sua vez, disseminam pelos restantes atores organizacionais, no sentido de cumprir os resultados comerciais e financeiros esperados.

The effects of education on patterns of youth integration into the labour market in Portugal

Throughout the development of capitalist societies, there has been a steady increase in the importance attributed to education/training in the process of employability: it has asserted itself as a key variable in the functioning of the labour markets. In the light of an analysis of the data in the 2007 Personnel Charts, the aim of this article is to understand to what extent educational levels still represent a variable that explains the different types of employment relationships among young people between 15 and 24 years of age. The relevant and innovative aspects of this study are, firstly, a multiple correspondence analysis of the unpublished secondary information and, secondly, the findings that new patterns of integration into the labour market have emerged, with distinctive characteristics, though they do not call into question the positive association between educational certificates and the employment relationship.

Contrato psicológico e estágio profissional em advocacia

O contrato psicologico tornou-se nas ultimas decadas uma problematica amplamente discutida nas ciencias sociais e empresariais. O presente artigo mobiliza o conceito de contrato psicologico para o estudo do estagio em advocacia, uma profissao em que ainda nao havia sido empregue, contribuindo assim para a sua densificacao teorica. A partir de entrevistas semiestruturadas a advogados estagiarios, revela-se a existencia de contratos psicologicos no âmbito da sua relacao profissional com os patronos e discutem-se as formas especificas que os contratos psicologicos transacional e equilibrado assumem no estagio em advocacia.

O trabalho de vigilância nos centros comerciais

This article scrutinizes in sociological terms the professional activity of security guards in trade centres, looking to analyze the kind of professional skills and qualifications demanded, how the hierarchy within their profession is configured and how this connects to the everyday communication between the security guards and, finally, the challenges and dilemmas informing their work. Methodologically the research is based on data from semi-directed interviews with guards and direct observation of their work spaces. The findings show that the activity of security guards in trade centres involves a unique service relationship with clients, determined by the specific nature of the organizational space, the tasks that they perform and the clients that they protect and with whom they interact. The study reveals a power relation derived from the social classification of clients by the guards, in tune with the array of rules developed by the administration of the trade centre, which sees private security as an indispensable means of implementing its commercial logic in concrete terms.