Outsourcing

Bowman, Andrew S.; Ertürk, İsmail; Folkman, Peter; Froud, Julie; Haslam, Colin; Johal, Sukhdev; Leaver, Adam; Moran, Michael; Tsitsianis, Nick; Williams, Karel

doi:10.7228/manchester/9780719099526.003.0001

Cited by 8 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This illustrates that collective action on clients can secure some gains but these are unlikely to be generalized as a norm. Collective action thus now needs to focus on a better overall employment deal from the powerful large subcontracting services companies (Bowman et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Market Exposure and the Labour Process: The Contradictory Dynamics in Managing Subcontracted Services Work

Grimshaw

Cartwright

Keizer

et al. 2018

Work, Employment and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Marketization of the employment relationship is a key causal factor explaining the adverse impact of subcontracting low-wage services on employment conditions. This article extends existing sociological theory by analysing the market-making and rule-breaking roles of client and subcontractor firms through qualitative data. It finds that client organisations construct different types and temporalities of marketised cost pressures, that clients and subcontractors exploit their power advantage over labour to evade institutional rules, and that labour process and reputational concerns impose a degree of moderation towards socially desirable outcomes. The theoretical framework 'unpacks' marketization by distinguishing the interplay between contracts, regulation and labour process requirements as shaped by clients and subcontractors. In the UK cleaning sector, the potentially positive effects of client and subcontractor actions on employment conditions are marginal, focused on non-pay aspects and introduced primarily for reputational reasons. The evidence indicates the limits of voluntary action and the need for regulation.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Market Exposure and the Labour Process: The Contradictory Dynamics in Managing Subcontracted Services Work

Grimshaw

Cartwright

Keizer

et al. 2018

Work, Employment and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This involvee ‘embrained’ (Jessop, 2010: 339) the discourse of cost saving as an inevitable consequence of efficiency rather than as the primary rationale (‘that isn’t the prerequisite’). The emphasis on US ‘policy imports’ (Malone, 1999), financial savings and reduction in acute hospital services are embedded within the Five Year Forward View , but contracts and outsourcing (Bowman et al, 2015) were largely kept off the Group’s agenda.…”

Section: Methodology: Cultural Political Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The emphasis on US 'policy imports' (Malone, 1999), financial savings and reduction in acute hospital services are embedded within the Five Year Forward View, but contracts and outsourcing (Bowman et al, 2015) were largely kept off the Group's agenda.…”

Section: I Was Part Of the Planning Of This … It Has Got A Seven-ymentioning

confidence: 99%

Engagement of patients and the public in NHS sustainability and transformation: An ethnographic study

Carter

Martin

2017

Critical Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Internationally, debates are taking place about sustainable healthcare. In England, guidance on patient and public involvement (PPI) advocates' engagement' and references Arnstein's ladder of participation, but recent proposals provoked controversy around service closures and the perceived exclusion of patients and the public. This article reports an ethnography of engagement, prior to formal public consultation on plans for major service change. Our analysis uses Cultural Political Economy, linking micro interactions between staff and 'involvees' to processes of political economy. We found that co-optation and contestation both occurred. Involvees queried whether the forthcoming consultation was genuine or whether decisions had already been made but the issue of whether NHS services should be delivered by public or private bodies was kept off the agenda. We conclude that engagement in system transformation programmes implicates PPI in a neoliberal agenda that rations state support for healthcare and introduces service models from the US and elsewhere.

show abstract

“…Many of these perverse effects are enforced by oligopolistic competition around shared business models as in banking or supermarkets (Bowman et al., 2014). Similar effects arise through competitive bidding in activities like prison services or care when they are outsourced to financialised providers (Bowman et al., 2015). Whether through business model or bidding for contracts, taking labour time and cost out can become an end in itself, regardless of consequences for workforce or citizen service users.…”

Section: The (Ir)relevance Of Higher Productivity In Foundational Actmentioning

confidence: 99%

(How) does productivity matter in the foundational economy?

Froud

Haslam²,

Johal

et al. 2020

Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Academics and policy makers have increasingly recognised the importance of mundane economic activities – variously termed foundational or everyday. The foundational or everyday economy is now featuring in local industrial strategy and economic action plans, because the desirable high-tech sectors on the ‘frontier’ cannot diffuse prosperity within and between regions. This article aims to distinguish between several different approaches to the foundational or everyday economy and argues that a constructive approach needs to break with the preoccupation about improving productivity. This argument is developed in three stages. First, we distinguish between a social approach and a more technical economic approach to delimiting this other mundane economy; the defining feature of the foundational in the social approach is contribution to wellbeing and in the technical economic approach it is low productivity. The second section presents and explores productivity evidence on output per worker hour across a range of foundational activities and by region. Drawing out the implications of observed diversity and heterogeneity, the third section develops an argument about how productivity has limited relevance as measure and target in foundational activities.

show abstract

Outsourcing

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Market Exposure and the Labour Process: The Contradictory Dynamics in Managing Subcontracted Services Work

Market Exposure and the Labour Process: The Contradictory Dynamics in Managing Subcontracted Services Work

Engagement of patients and the public in NHS sustainability and transformation: An ethnographic study

(How) does productivity matter in the foundational economy?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About