Roskilde University Living with precarious work The case of graduates in Denmark Warring, Niels Publication date: 2018 Citation for published version (APA): Warring, N. (2018). Living with precarious work: The case of graduates in Denmark. 74-74. Paper presented at Work employment and society conference 2018, Belfast, United Kingdom. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain. • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 Putting Sociology to Work: Interdisciplinarity, intersectionality and imagination A Work, Employment and Society Conference 2018 Wednesday 12 - Friday 14 September 2018 Abstract Book 1 BSA Work, Employment and Society Conference 2018 Europa Hotel, Belfast Wednesday 12 September 2018, 11:00 - 12:30 PAPER SESSION 1 Making Sense of Careers COPENHAGEN 1 'Boundarylessness' of Global Careers: A Realist Social Theory Perspective Kozhevnikov, Andrew, Tracy Scurry; Steve Vincent (Coventry University) Over the past two decades, an array of 'new career' concepts (e.g. boundaryless, protean and kaleidoscope careers) have been introduced to grasp the changes purportedly happening in the modern world. Although their lexicons are somewhat different, all these concepts argue that people have become more active and independent (of their organisations) in managing their careers. The boundaryless careers concept (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) has emerged as the most influential among them (Baruch et al., 2015). It suggests that, unlike 'traditional' or 'organisational' careers, modern careers are not bounded to a particular employer, location or profession, and career agents are free to navigate their interests. The existent scholarship tends to portray boundaryless careers as ubiquitous (Inkson et al., 2012), although these claims lack theoretical and empirical grounding. An increasing number of scholars suggest that, despite the merit of the concept, its inevitability is exaggerated and the boundaryless career represents only one of many career forms. Inkson et al. (2012, p.330. italics in origin) accentuate that boundaryless careers 'present a novel ideal type and an appropriate model for some individuals, some organizations and some industries'. With an explicit reference to internationally mobile individuals, Baruch and Reis (2015) argue that even global careers are not necessarily boundaryless. In this article we seek to advance these debates further by explaining why migrants' careers may or may not be boundaryless. Studies undertaking such endeavours typically focus upon individual characteristics as predictors of the 'boundarylessness'. Yet, the choice of predictors rarely has a robust theoretical foundation. Furthermore, the context and its role are frequently disregarded. As argued by Mayrhofer et al. (2007), these flaws draw attention to the absence of a strong social theory in career studies. We apply Margaret Archer's realist social theory and, specifically, its notion of reflexivity to demonstrate the importance of both individual proclivities and contextual circumstances for understanding of why 'boundarylessness' occurs for some global careers and not for others. This study draws upon 52 interviews with skilled migrants in the UK, as well as a review of secondary sources of contextual conditions in the regions where the respondents were cultivating their careers. We examine how differently, based upon how different modes of reflexivity dominate their internal conversations, migrants engage in deliberations of their concerns and contextual conditions and develop various career projects. Preliminary findings show that, in simple terms, boundaryless careers are neither attractive nor available to all migrants. We find that migrants who fit into Archers classification of autonomous reflexives, were more inclined towards career projects matching the boundaryless career. However, individuals who conformed to Archer's other reflexivity types, meta- and communicative reflexives, were less inclined towards boundaryless careers. Contextual factors (e.g. migration regulation, cultural prejudices, labour market structure) and their various combinations, also facilitate and obstruct realisation of boundaryless career projects, making the boundaryless career more or less possible even when desired by individuals. We argue that these insights offer a significant advantage on our understanding of careers as a social phenomenon rooted in both structure and agency. The Case of Probation Guillaume, Cecile, Gill Kirton (University of Roehampton) Government restructuring, privatization and outsourcing programmes spanning a period of more than two decades have transformed workplaces and work in public services in the UK and many other countries creating new organizational forms and introducing the 'logic of the market' to professional work often with deleterious consequences for professionals. At the same time over a period of at least 30 years, public services in many countries have seen increasing managerialism in the form of New Public Management (NPM) eroding professional control over service delivery and generating de-professionalizing tendencies. Despite a relatively large literature looking at the latter issues theoretically or providing overviews of developments, there are few studies providing in-depth analysis of professionals' experiences of partnership forms of privatization in specific organizational settings. This paper discusses findings from a qualitative case study of the 2014 restructuring/outsourcing programme of the probation service of England and Wales – Transforming Rehabilitation (TR). The research question it addresses is how from professionals' perspective did the new structural arrangements for delivering probation services impact on work and professionalism? This question allows us to assess whether probation professionals were able to reconcile their 2 BSA Work, Employment and Society Conference 2018 Europa Hotel, Belfast Wednesday 12 September 2018, 11:00 - 12:30 PAPER SESSION 1 newly restructured environment with their widely shared professional ethos comprising client-orientation, collegiality, autonomy, as well as maintaining a high level of commitment to their work. This research utilizes a multi-method case study of the probation service to explore practitioner perspectives on how restructuring/outsourcing reconfigured professionalism. We discuss findings in relation to practitioner perspectives on four specific dimensions of professionalism: (i) a profession split; (ii) professional role boundaries; (iii) professional autonomy; (iv) professional orientation. These dimensions allow us to consider in conclusion the extent to which restructuring/outsourcing reconfigured probation professionalism. Firstly, our case study of probation practitioner perspectives identifies three interconnected outcomes that flow from the four dimensions of professionalism we considered above, and that contributed to the reconfiguration of professionalism in ways that invoke Evetts's (2009) argument that professionals have witnessed shifts from occupational towards organizational professionalism. Contrary to other more optimistic studies on organizational change and the emergence of hybrid professionalism (Noordegraaf 2007; Turner et al 2016), our study of this less powerful professional group highlights the difficulties professionals can encounter in maintaining the dynamics of their community, at the micro-level of practices and identity building compared with more powerful professionals. Secondly, the study highlights the limitations of agency in the shaping of professionals' responses to restructuring and draws on different structural variables to explain these difficulties. Overall, the findings show that restructuring/outsourcing heralded trenchant change in the relationship between probation professionals and organizational management threatening impoverishment of an occupation that took pride in the resilience of its ethos in the face of earlier reforms. The findings highlight the unique aspects of the specific service domain, but have resonance for other public service professional occupations facing the actuality or prospect of restructuring/privatization. An Exploration of Late Career Academics Sensemaking Processes Kelly, Grainne, Kristel Miller, Allen Alexander (Queen’s University) Universities are increasingly under pressure to take a more prominent role in the economic development of societies. Previously, policy efforts have concentrated on the development of spinouts and the commercialisation of scientific knowledge from universities. However, a new entrepreneurial paradigm for universities has emerged which involves a much greater focus on value creation and impactful research through a wide spectrum of knowledge transfer and industry engagement activities (Fuller