Welfare states are developing forms of payment for care such that the boundary between ‘work’ and ‘care’ is breaking down. Various types of payment are being introduced, but one of the most interesting is the widespread development of direct payment schemes whereby disabled people are given cash instead of services, and expected to use these monies to purchase directly the services of personal assistants. This paper uses the evidence of a small qualitative study of personal assistants to investigate the question of control and power within the care relationship, and the issue of boundary setting between employer and employee. The paper also considers how far this new type of paid care work is different from other forms of paid care which impinge upon the body.

This article examines non-financial employment motivation and mental well-being among people in different labour market situations, such as unemployment, stimulating employment or instrumental employment, and controls for the possibility that variations in motivation and well-being are either caused by present labour market status or are the result of a selection process. The article is based on a panel study of 1,782 Swedes who were interviewed at the beginning of 1996, when all were unemployed, and then again at the end of 1997, when the labour market situation had changed for some of them. The results show that, in 1997, the unemployed had the same level of employment commitment as individuals with instrumental jobs, but as compared to people with stimulating jobs, their non-financial employment motivation was weaker. In general, the unemployed report poorer mental well-being than the employed. Results support the hypothesis that the substantial changes in employment commitment and mental health observed between 1996 and 1997 are primarily due to the labour market situation in 1997. The results refute the notion that the level of employment motivation is a major determinant of the likelihood of getting a paid job.

This paper compares the level of organisational commitment in three former state socialist societies (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) with that in a market-based society (Britain). Among the former state socialist societies, Bulgaria represents the country that had remained closest to the patterns of work organisation that prevailed before 1989, whereas the Czech Republic and Slovakia had moved further towards marketisation. The analysis draws on data from nationally representative surveys of the workforce in the four countries. The results show that organisational commitment was lower in all of the former state socialist societies than in Britain, but that it was lowest of all in the societies that were more fully engaged in the transition to a market economy. There is evidence that the patterns of work organisation typical of state socialism did have the effect of lowering commitment, most importantly because of the way they restricted initiative and self-determination in work. However, it seems likely that this was exacerbated in the case of the transitional societies by sharper aspirations for work enrichment and by the greater unpredictability of organisational developments in a rapidly changing environment.

This article reports on a study of shopfloor ‘coping’ behaviour in an engineering company which had launched a major ‘World Class Manufacturing’ (WCM) initiative. The article unpacks the meaning of WCM and shows how its impact varied markedly between different manufacturing cells. More centrally, it reveals a significant gap between managerial understanding and attitudes to the new manufacturing and the response found among a significant proportion of employees. In particular, through a close analysis of employee accounts and concerns, it is shown that shopfloor employees, far from viewing initiatives such as WCM as panaceas, regard them as disruptions to routines which have somehow to be accommodated. Moreover, the analysis reveals how employee coping behaviour simultaneously allows them to achieve that accommodation and enables the shortcomings in the planned initiatives to be at least partly rectified. Coping behaviour therefore both subverts the WCM programme and allows it to function.

This article examines a co-operative union-management approach towards Total Quality Management (TQM) by recourse to a case study from the auto components manufacturing sector. Its purpose is twofold; first, it suggests that in contrast to much critical thinking, under certain conditions TQM need not undermine trade unions. Indeed, it is argued that a more moderate trade union stance towards TQM, in some circumstances, may prove to be a more effective form of resistance than a militant one. Second, the article provides insights into the ways in which TQM reinforces existing power relations, hierarchical structures, organisational bureaucracy and inequality, rather than transforming them as TQM pundits contend. The argument, however, is not that TQM simply enhances management control in a unilinear fashion. This is because it not only poses dangers for trade unions, but also presents management with dilemmas and contradictions. TQM is understood, therefore, to be part of the continuing and complex effort by management to balance control and consent within employment, the dynamics, and outcomes of which, are uncertain and need to be empirically examined.

We have recently seen the rapid dissemination of new management techniques such as TQM to the developing world, mainly through joint ventures. This paper hopes to throw some light on the impact of TQM on the organisation of work and industrial relations in a leading company in Turkey, and how it is experienced by employees. The case study illustrates that the extension of modern management techniques to developing countries can benefit labour. It also suggests that workers and unions face new challenges for which they may not be well prepared.

Few studies have directly compared men's and women's perceptions of paid employment; in the past, the sociology of paid work concentrated on men (Phelan et al. 1993). More recently, studies have included female as well as male employees but are often flawed by implicit assumptions about the importance of different social ‘roles’ for men and women. While paid work is seen as central to men's attitudes and behaviour both in and out of the workplace, for women personal characteristics and family circumstances are often deemed to be more important, with paid work conceptualised as an ‘additional’ role rather than an indicator of status, income and class position (Arber 1991; Feldberg and Glenn 1979). Sophisticated attempts to compare attitudes of men and women to paid work have been hindered by the gendered structure of the labour market. Statements about gender differences in general population samples are problematic because women and men occupy different jobs with varying conditions, rewards and demands. Thus, it is difficult to tell whether any observed ‘gender’ differences in perceptions of paid work are really ‘job’ differences (Lefkowitz 1994).

Jim Davis, Thomas Hirschl and Michael Stack (eds.), Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution, London: Verso, 1997, paper £15.00, vii+304 pp.

Giovanni Dosi, David J. Teece and Josef Chytry (eds.), Technology, Organization and Competitiveness: Perspectives on Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, £45.00, ix+345 pp.

Michael Dunkerley, The Jobless Economy? Computer Technology in the World of Work, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996, paper £11.95, viii+168 pp.

M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams and Michele S. Schauf (eds.), Computers, Ethics and Society (2nd Edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, paper £15.99, viii+340 pp.

Robin Mansell and Roger Silverstone (eds.), Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, paper £14.99, xiv+278 pp.

The significance of technology shows no signs of giving up its claim to pre-eminence amongst recent book titles and this selection covers a wide variety of approaches from the ‘popular’ (Dunkerley) to the ‘radical’ (Davis et al.) to the ‘learned academic’ (Mansell and Silverstone, and Dosi et al.) to the textbook (Ermann et al.). The markets for these books are quite different but they all have something of value to say to the interested reader.

Alison Adam, Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine, London: Routledge, 1998, £45.00, paper £13.99, 216 pp.

Jennifer Terry and Melodie Calvert (eds), Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in Everyday Life, London: Routledge, 1997, £45.00, paper £14.99, 264 pp.

Feminist research can be characterised by the key question which its practitioners habitually ask: ‘Who is doing what to whom here?’ By asking this provocative question, and by thinking through the answers, feminist researchers have been able to make the tacit, often taken-for-granted structuring work done through gender into a visible phenomenon open to discussion. In this way, feminist thinking has been able to make strategic and principled interventions in a number of apparently gender-neutral fields, doing much to expose exclusionary and inequable practices both historically and in the present.

Moira Gatens and Alison Mackinnon (eds), Gender and Institutions: welfare, work and citizenship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, £45.00, paper £15.95, xx+214 pp. Virgínia Ferreira, Teresa Tavares and Sílvia Portugal (eds), Shifting Bonds, Shifting Bounds: women, mobility and citizenship in Europe, Oeiras: Celta Editora, 1998, 3390 Portuguese Escudos, xvi+363 pp.

In a number of ways, these two volumes have common features: they are edited compilations that encompass a geographical focus in each case, Australia and Europe. They contain the overlapping themes of gender and citizenship in which the contributors explore divisions of labour and the contribution of equal opportunities/ affirmative action.