This article argues that our understanding of absence and absenteeism, deriving from seminal studies in the sociology of work and employment, has been overtaken by hugely significant developments in political economy, regulation and employment relations. A new research agenda that addresses the changed organisational politics of absence management and the consequences for employees is urgently required.

This article explores the relationship between supply chain pressures in parcel delivery and how the , including the costs of failed delivery, underpins contractual differentiation. It focuses on owner-drivers and home couriers paid by delivery exploring precarity through the lens of the labour process, while locating it within the supply chain, political ine it (Behring and Harvey, 2015). Focus on the labour process shows how self-employment is used to remove so-time from U " (2006) concept of double indeterminacy the article captures the dynamic relationship between those on standard and non-standard contracts and interdependency of effort power and mobility power. It exposes the apparent mobility and autonomy of dependent self-employed drivers while suggesting that their presence, alongside the increased use of technology, reconfigures the work-effort bargain across contractual status.

Despite the increased attention paid to the role and effects of migrant labour in the contemporary economy, there has been insufficient attention to the role of employers and the employment relationship. Recent studies have highlighted distinctive labour power characteristics of new labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe that make them ‘good workers’ in the eyes of employers. Drawing on multiple case studies across the supermarket supply chain, this article explores what kind of human resource migrant labour is perceived to be, particularly by employers, and what happens in practice as the dynamic tensions of the employment relationship unfolds in particular sector contexts. It argues that utilisation is conditioned more by the requirements of temporal flexibility – framed by the dynamics of employment within the supply chain – than any essential features of migrant labour power.

With reference to the performance management research agenda, this article focuses on the politics of production in food manufacturing and distribution companies in the supermarket supply chain. Burawoy's concept of 'factory regimes' is utilised to explore the broader context of labour process change in interlinked organisations in the retail supply chain. The article examines the extent to which new despotic or coercive regime characteristics are emerging that weakens the power of both suppliers and labour. In revealing changes in the nature and dynamics of performance regimes within these organisations, the article exposes the connections and linkages between workplaces as distinct moments in the integrated circuit of capital.Labour and performance management in the supermarket supply chain 1 circuit of capital. The overall concern is thus to contribute to growing debates exploring the changing nature of workplace performance regimes. Organised in four main parts, the article first explores performance management and production politics, focusing specifically on routine work and retail supply chains. It then describes the research method and data sources. The third part presents the substantive findings on the relationship between supplier organisations and their retail customers. How do these complex and changing exchange relations condition what Burawoy (1985) termed 'factory regimes' and patterns of conflict, cooperation and consent in the labour process? The fourth part provides an analysis of these findings and develops the wider implications for understanding the complex and changing structure of exchange and production relations.

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