Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies : Itinerant Experts in a Knowledge Economy / Stephen R. Barley, Gideon Kunda.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2011]Copyright date: ©2004Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (352 p.) : 5 line illus. 7 tablesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691127958
  • 9781400841271
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 331.2
LOC classification:
  • HD8039 .I372 U63 2011
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Chapter 1. Unlikely Rebels -- Part I: Setting the Stage -- Chapter 2. Clients -- Chapter 3. Contractors -- Chapter 4. Agencies -- PART II. LIFE IN THE MARKET -- Chapter 5. The Information Game: Finding Deals -- Chapter 6. Making the Deal -- Part III: Life on the Job -- Chapter 7. Contractors as Commodities -- Chapter 8. Contractors as Experts -- Chapter 9. Navigating between Respect and Resentment -- Part IV: Living the Cycle -- Chapter 10. Temporal Capital -- Chapter 11. Building and Maintaining Human Capital -- Chapter 12. Building and Maintaining Social Capital -- Chapter 13. Itinerant Professionals in a Knowledge Economy -- EPILOGUE -- REFERENCES -- Appendix: Cast of Characters -- Index
Summary: Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence. Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works. Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own "employability." The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, "matrix economy" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400841271

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Chapter 1. Unlikely Rebels -- Part I: Setting the Stage -- Chapter 2. Clients -- Chapter 3. Contractors -- Chapter 4. Agencies -- PART II. LIFE IN THE MARKET -- Chapter 5. The Information Game: Finding Deals -- Chapter 6. Making the Deal -- Part III: Life on the Job -- Chapter 7. Contractors as Commodities -- Chapter 8. Contractors as Experts -- Chapter 9. Navigating between Respect and Resentment -- Part IV: Living the Cycle -- Chapter 10. Temporal Capital -- Chapter 11. Building and Maintaining Human Capital -- Chapter 12. Building and Maintaining Social Capital -- Chapter 13. Itinerant Professionals in a Knowledge Economy -- EPILOGUE -- REFERENCES -- Appendix: Cast of Characters -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence. Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works. Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own "employability." The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, "matrix economy" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)