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Despotism on Demand : How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace / Alex J. Wood.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2020]Copyright date: ©2021Description: 1 online resource (192 p.) : 1 chartContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781501748899
  • 9781501748905
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 331.257240941 23
LOC classification:
  • HD5109.2.G7 W64 2021
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Flexible Despotism: An Introduction -- Part 1. POWER AT WORK -- Part 2. THE DESPOTISM OF TIME -- Part 3. THE DYNAMICS OF WORK AND SPACES OF RESISTANCE -- Conclusions: Control in the Twenty-First Century -- Methodological Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Despotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control within the workplace.Wood believes that flexible despotism represents a new domain of inequality, in which the postindustrial working class increasingly suffer a scheduling nightmare. By investigating two of the largest retailers in the world he uncovers how control in the contemporary "flexible firm" is achieved through the insidious combination of "flexible discipline" and "schedule gifts." Flexible discipline provides managers with an arbitrary means by which to punish workers, but flexible scheduling also requires workers to actively win favor with managers in order to receive "schedule gifts": more or better hours. Wood concludes that the centrality of precarious scheduling to control means that for those at the bottom of the postindustrial labor market the future of work will increasingly be one of flexible despotism.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Flexible Despotism: An Introduction -- Part 1. POWER AT WORK -- Part 2. THE DESPOTISM OF TIME -- Part 3. THE DYNAMICS OF WORK AND SPACES OF RESISTANCE -- Conclusions: Control in the Twenty-First Century -- Methodological Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

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Despotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control within the workplace.Wood believes that flexible despotism represents a new domain of inequality, in which the postindustrial working class increasingly suffer a scheduling nightmare. By investigating two of the largest retailers in the world he uncovers how control in the contemporary "flexible firm" is achieved through the insidious combination of "flexible discipline" and "schedule gifts." Flexible discipline provides managers with an arbitrary means by which to punish workers, but flexible scheduling also requires workers to actively win favor with managers in order to receive "schedule gifts": more or better hours. Wood concludes that the centrality of precarious scheduling to control means that for those at the bottom of the postindustrial labor market the future of work will increasingly be one of flexible despotism.

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 01. Dez 2022)