First published in 1985, this book examines the major components of working time from an international perspective, considering the individual aspects of working time, with particular emphasis on the argument that work should be shared to alleviate unemployment and the case for further increasing the flexibility and choice in working arrangements. Paul Blyton reviews working time since the Industrial Revolution, when a strict time-frame was first imposed on workers, and the growth in work-sharing, flexitime, part-time working and changes to the retirement age.

First published in 1987, this Routledge Revival reissues the first systematic and integrated analysis of working time and employment, reaching to the core elements of a vital area of labour economics. It offers both a comprehensive analysis of the impact of workweek reductions on employment and hours as well as a thorough coverage of part-time employment, temporary lay-offs, short-time working, labour subsidies, social security funding, mandatory and early retirement and collective bargaining. This book provides the first comprehensive attempt to examine carefully the key economic issues involved in the general policy debate on working time and employment. This reissue will be of serious interest to advanced undergraduates, post-graduates and researchers in labour economics, and will also be relevant to those interested in labour microeconomics, macroeconomics, business economics and management studies.

International comparison of trends and prospects in arrangement of working time - traces historical development in hours of work incl. The working day and week and work sharing; discusses overtime, shift work, paid leave, short time working, part time employment, Job Sharing, flexible hours of work, compressed working week, staggered hours of work and retirement patterns; links the future of working time to employment creation and to the quality of working life. Bibliography, graph, statistical tables.

Anthony Smith's important work on the concept of social change, first published in 1973, puts forward the paradigm of historical change as an alternative to the functionalist theory of evolutionary change. He shows that, in attempting to provide a theory of social change, functionalism reveals itself as a species of 'frozen' evolutionism. Functionalism, he argues, is unable to cope with the mechanisms of historical transitions or account for novelty and emergence; it confuses classification of variations with explanation of processes; and its endogenous view of change prevents it from coming to grips with the real events and transformations of the historical record. In his assessment of functionalism, Dr Smith traces its explanatory failures in its accounts of the developments of civilisation, modernisation and revolution. He concludes that the study of 'evolution' is largely irrelevant to the investigation of social change. He proposes instead an exogenous paradigm of social change, which places the study of contingent historical events at its centre.

First published in 1988, this book analyses the changes that took place in the economic organisation of the British construction industry throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, in particular considering its social and economic structure and examining the causes of its poor industrial record. Michael Ball describes how the major firms survived the economic slump between 1973 and 1982 - when construction workloads collapsed - by substantially restructuring their operations, relationships with clients, workforces and subcontractors. Detailed attention is paid to construction firms, the workers they employ, the influence of trade unionism and the role of other agencies in the building process. Reissued at a particularly challenging time for the British construction industry, this relevant and practical title will be of value to students and academics of economics and social change, as well as those on courses for construction professionals.

First published in 1992, this Routledge Revival sees the reissue of a truly original exploration of the nature of urbanization and capitalism. Linda Clarke’s vital work argues that: Urbanization is a product of the social human labour engaged in building as well as a concentration of the labour force. The quality of the labour process determines the development of production. Changes to the built environment reflect changes in the production process and, in particular, the development of wage labour. To support these arguments, the author identifies a qualitatively new historical stage of capitalist building production involving a significant expansion of wage labour, and hence capital, and the transition from artisan to industrial production. Linda Clarke draws from a wide range of original material relating to the development of London from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century to provide a complete description of the development process: materials extraction, roadbuilding, housebuilding, paving, cleansing, etc; profiles of builders and contractors involved, and a picture of the new working class communities, as in Somers Town – their living conditions, population, working environment, and politics.

Job loss is one of the most important issues in the capitalist world today: endless reports document the increasing scale of unemployment. This title, first published in 1982, adopted a new approach to the geography of job loss, to assess why redundancy happens and where. Massey and Meegan argue that an increase in dismissal does not necessarily mean that an industry is in decline; rather, it can be the result of a variety of issues, including production for profit and the relationship between industry and location. Throughout the book, discussions about theory and methodology are complemented by industry-based case studies. This title addresses issues of particular relevance to today’s economic climate, and will be particularly valuable to students with an interest in employment and job loss, and industrial labour and profitability.

First published in 1987 this book considers the practical implications of increasing public access to official information in Britain, both from the perspective of increasing Freedom of Information and reforming Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act. It draws attention to the practical problems such changes would pose for both politicians and civil servants working in an adversarial system of government. It examines the effects of proposed changes on the conventions which are a fundamental feature of the British constitution. It also considers the political significance of reforms, both to demands for increased public participation in policy-making and to actual policies. Local and international perspectives on open government are included in order to provide an informed insight into an important issue of contemporary concern.

First published in 1998, readers of this volume will get a good overview of research into managerial work. They will learn about: what the researchers have studied; what methods have been used and the criticisms of the limitations of individual methods; the different concepts that have been developed; what has been learnt about managerial work and behaviour from these studies over the years; how this field of study has developed; the main criticisms made of the research; suggestions for future research and future developments. Studies of managerial work have a long history: the first major work was by Sune Carlson in Sweden in 1951 and studies have continued to the present day, mainly in the USA and the UK. The early studies sought to find out what managers actually did, as distinct from the generalized theories of the nature of managerial work. They were part of the new interest of social scientists in finding out what actually happened in organizations in opposition to the general theories that prevailed then. Articles cannot give a complete picture of the field studies that have been such a notable feature of this branch of research, because Carlson’s study, like many of the later ones, was published only as a book. However, they provide all the information that students and researchers need to understand the aim, methods and approaches used by researchers so far and a good guide to the varied possibilities for developing this area of study.

The nature of the workplace and the workforce has changed rapidly in post-industrial society. Most workers are now facing the need for high levels of preparatory education, retraining for new jobs and the ability to continue learning at work in order to keep up with new developments. The book, first published in 1987, argues that training in the workplace often fails because it is based on conditions that no longer prevail in modern organisations. The mechanistic approach of the behaviourist paradigm, it is argued, views the organisation as a machine and training as the preparation of workers for machine-like work according to their levels in the hierarchy, much as on an assembly line. The humanists’ advocation of collaborative learning has changed but not fundamentally altered this conception. This book will be of interest to students of education and business management.