IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/qrampp/v6y2009i1-2p83-101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coping with control? Retail employee responses to flexibilisation

Author

Listed:
  • Kristin Carls

Abstract

Purpose - This paper deals with flexibilisation of work and employment in large‐scale retailing. Its aim is two‐fold: first, to highlight how an authoritarian workplace regime and normative forms of control interact, in the attempt to achieve workforce alignment to flexibility. Second, to explore how employees make sense of experienced workplace conflicts, and to what extent they are able to develop capacities to act and to influence their working conditions. Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on a qualitative study undertaken in four large‐scale retailing companies in the Italian city of Milan. It is based on 45 semi‐structured, problem‐centred interviews with employees, shop stewards and union officers. Findings - Analysis reveals how control manifests in “forced availability” based on individualised, informal daily flexibilisation, and sustained by resulting precarisation. Employees are active participants, as the functioning of the work organization depends on their capacity to balance in‐built contradictions. Yet, their capacity to act remains limited. They are trapped by individualised concepts of labour relations: a merit‐oriented understanding of work as a “fair exchange” and a personalised perception of social relations and interactions at the work place. Research limitations/implications - The research encountered challenges in accessing temporary employees due to their fear of negative repercussions. This makes the sample slightly biased towards permanent, part time and fulltime, employment. Yet, it is also an opportunity, as it makes it possible to map experiences of precarisation across different employee groups. Originality/value - Using the concepts of “coping practices”, “common sense” and “capacity to act”, the paper proposes to go beyond the dualisms of the resistance‐control debate. It points at the contradictory and interlinked character of employees' coping practices of adaptation, appropriation, conflictive negotiation and resistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristin Carls, 2009. "Coping with control? Retail employee responses to flexibilisation," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(1/2), pages 83-101, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:qrampp:v:6:y:2009:i:1/2:p:83-101
    DOI: 10.1108/11766090910940683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/11766090910940683/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/11766090910940683/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/11766090910940683?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sharon C. Bolton & Carol Boyd, 2003. "Trolley Dolly or Skilled Emotion Manager? Moving on from Hochschild's Managed Heart," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 17(2), pages 289-308, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samantha Plummer, 2018. "Emotion management, institutional change, and the spatial arrangement of care at a psychiatric residential treatment facility," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Baumann, Chris & Timming, Andrew R. & Gollan, Paul J., 2016. "Taboo tattoos? A study of the gendered effects of body art on consumers' attitudes toward visibly tattooed front line staff," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 31-39.
    3. Richard Godfrey & Joanna Brewis, 2018. "‘Nowhere else sells bliss like this’: Exploring the emotional labour of soldiers at war," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(6), pages 653-669, November.
    4. Sharon C. Bolton & Maeve Houlihan, 2009. "Beyond the control‐resistance debate," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(1/2), pages 5-13, March.
    5. Joan Sangster & Julia Smith, 2016. "Beards and Bloomers: Flight Attendants, Grievances and Embodied Labour in the Canadian Airline Industry, 1960s–1980s," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 183-199, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:qrampp:v:6:y:2009:i:1/2:p:83-101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.