Modernising Work in Public Services: Redefining Roles and Relationships in Britain's Changing Workplace - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1403998590 ISBN 13: 9781403998590

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Synopsis

This volume analyses the 'modernisation' of work and employment in British public services, against the background of neo-liberal reforms that have redefined what is meant by the 'public sector'. In doing so, it critically engages with debates around the ideological, regulatory, economic and social drivers of change, and analyses their impact on the public service ethos, equality, payment systems and employment security. Since public services are increasingly offered by private operators, the volume also examines the changing roles and relationships that increasingly operate within fluid organisational boundaries, tackling the collective and organizational dynamics of recent changes, with particular attention being paid to the role of trade unions and partnership working at both the workforce and inter-organisational levels.

About this title

Review:

'...Dibben et al are to be congratulated on making a useful contribution to the debate.  The book succeeds in its stated aim of providing a comprehensive analysis of public-sector 'modernization' effects on the workforce.  Although it is comprehensive, it does not lack depth and the chapters are clear and generally well written throughout.' Philip Morgan, British Journal of Industrial Relations 46:1 March 08

About the Author:

PAULINE DIBBEN is Lecturer in Human Resource Management/ Organisational Behaviour at the Management School, University of Sheffield, UK. She has published many articles in the areas of Public Sector Management and Employment Relations, and was co-editor of Contesting Public Sector Reforms (Palgrave, 2004)

GEOFFREY WOOD'S current research interests centre on the systematic testing and development of contemporary institutional theory in the light of large-scale survey evidence. This has encompassed assessments of variations in industrial and different institutional settings, the relative fortunes of organised labour in emerging markets, and developments and extensions of regulationist theories

IAN ROPER is Principal Lecturer in HRM at Middlesex University Business School, UK. He teaches and researches in the area of employment relations. He has a particular interest in the employment relations implications of reforming public services. He is the author of a range of journal articles on the subject and was joint editor of previous Palgrave publication Contesting Public sector Reforms in 2004

PHILIP JAMES is Professor of Employment Relations at Oxford Brookes, UK, and a Visiting Professor at Middlesex University Business School. He has researched and published widely in the fields of both employment relations and occupational health and safety and recently co-authored, with David Walters, Regulating Health and Safety: An Agenda for Change (Institute of Employment Rights, 2005) and co-edited Institutions, Production and Working Lives (Oxford University Press, 2006)

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1403998590
• ISBN 13: 9781403998590
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 228
• Editor: Wood Geoffrey E., James P., Roper I., Dibben Pauline