Suchergebnisse

This article explores union responses to subcontracting in the context of the Irish telecommunications sector. Through a longitudinal case study the development of strategy is traced over a number of years as the union moved away from a policy of exclusion towards one of engagement. As the findings show, a three-tiered approach brought successes in terms of the retention and recruitment of workers on non-standard contracts. Yet this brought tensions over the role of the union in the regulation of the subcontracting process.

The perceived displacement of bureaucracy by external market relationships through the use of subcontracting has brought about an increase in interest in inter-organizational relations. The development of such relationships can be a protracted process, characterized by tensions and contradictions. The article traces the development of subcontracting within Eircom, the Irish telecommunications provider, from its relatively ad hoc origins in the mid-1990s to the development of a far more sophisticated contracting regime by 2003. The article explores the relationship between internal and external organizational changes associated with the construction of the subcontracting regime and the development of inter-organizational relationships. The subcontracting regime was transformed from a reliance on a series of decentralized local networks of suppliers to a highly centralized arrangement that bore increasing semblance to a unitary hierarchy. The transactions costs implications of such developments are considered throughout. The dynamics of change in this case reflect an incremental learning process as the organization adapted to changes in its environment and the emergent limitations of existing practices. Trust played an important role in the mediation of the subcontract relationships; however, the development of trust-based relationships was not a linear process.

This is a study of the reconfiguration of bureaucracy, based on a case study of subcontracting within BT plc, the UK's largest telecommunications firm. The 1990s witnessed significant quantitative and qualitative changes in the utilization and management of subcontracting. The expansion in the use of subcontractors in this period was paralleled by reforms to the processes of negotiating, administrating and monitoring contracts. This article traces these developments and analyses their implications. The continuing process of reform saw a significant redrawing of the boundaries of responsibility between the patron firm and its supplier, as discrete elements of the production process were transferred to the remit of subcontractors. This migration of responsibility was, however, predicated upon the exportation of bureaucracy, from the patron to the supplier; the relocation of the bureaucratic mechanisms appropriate to the management of the widening range of tasks. The movement towards an increased reliance on external sources of labour could ostensibly bring greater exposure to market imperatives, but it is argued that, contrary to the theme of dismantling hierarchical employment structures, these reforms represented the reconfiguration of the bureaucratic organization of production.

This is a case study of the use of subcontracting within BT plc the UK's largest telecommunications firm. The 1990s have witnessed significant quantitative and qualitative changes in the utilisation and management of subcontracting within BT. The deregulation, or rather the shift in regulation, of the employment relationship represented by movement from bureaucratic hierarchical forms of organisation to subcontracting introduces several sources of uncertainty into the process of ensuring an adequate supply of labour and inducing the desired contribution within production. This study examines whether the regulation of labour in terms of supply and performance can be reconciled through subcontracting mechanisms. In this case the experience of deregulation of the capital-labour relationship threw up unforeseen outcomes. The problems that arose from the reliance upon a labour source that was ostensibly beyond the control of the firm inspired initiatives that essentially represented the partial reregulation of the capital-labour relationship.

The article examines the relationship between restructuring and work-based identity among older workers, exploring occupational identity, occupational community and their roles in navigating transitions in the life course. Based on working-life biographical interviews with late career and retired telecoms engineers, the article explores the role of occupational identity in dealing with change prior to and following the end of careers at BT, the UK's national telecommunications provider. Restructuring and perpetual organizational change undermined key aspects of the engineering occupational identity, inspiring many to seek alternative employment outside BT. For older workers, some seeking bridge employment in the transition to retirement, the occupational community not only served as a mechanism for finding work but also provided a sustained collective identity resource. Distinctively, the research points to a dialectical relationship between occupational identity and the navigation of change as opposed to the former simply facilitating the latter.