Globalization and Work

This engaging book offers a lively and rigorous synthesis of the varied interconnections between work and globalization. Drawing on relevant sociological insights, and based on extensive, up-to-date research studies of work and employment, it brings together for the first time in a single volume a range of key topics, including: consumption, work and identity in a globalizing world; work and employment in multinationals; international labour standards; trade unions, labour movements and labour conflict under globalization; gender and inequality; migrant labour; transnational mobility; and the organization of work in global factories.

Globalization and Work challenges conceptions of globalization as a project orchestrated by governments, multinational companies and international agencies. The authors highlight the importance of integrating a grounded, bottom-up perspective which recognizes that globalization is not just something that happens to working people, thereby revealing the fascinating extent to which workers actively engage in producing globalization. Throughout, the book contains a number of features to deepen understanding, including case study boxes of topical examples from across the globe.

Globalization and Work is an essential new book for anyone interested in globalization, the sociology of work and comparative employment relations, especially undergraduate and postgraduate students taking modules on these and related topics.

Steve Williams is principal lecturer in employment relations at Portsmouth Business School.
Harriet Bradley is professor of women’s employment at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
Ranji Devadason is senior lecturer in social science at the School of Society, Enterprise and Environment, Bath Spa University.
Mark Erickson is principal lecturer in sociology at the University of Brighton.