Stephen J Frenkel
Biographic Data
| ID | 250900 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen J Frenkel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen J |
| FAMILY NAME | Frenkel |
| SIGNATURE | FRENKEL S J |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4639-7069 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 201 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
New Technology and Work: AI and the Coming Struggle to Democratise Work Organisation
This paper explores AI‐related changes at work and considers the adequacy of our conceptual tools in the light of contemporary advances in AI. These considerations raise the question of whether sociologists of work should engage more in advocating for worker voice in technology decision‐making. Using the concept of work organisation , I draw on case study and survey evidence of recent technology‐related changes across three sectors: manufacturing…
New technology, work organization and workers: A power-centred framework informed by warehouse robotics
Research in political economy and the labour process has highlighted how management uses new technology to shape work and society. Scholarship in these traditions has viewed technology as a tool for increasing profitability. Organization Studies scholars, on the other hand, have largely ignored power, except when examining how new technology disrupts relations between occupational groups. Nevertheless, this tradition has contributed significantly…
Embedded in two worlds: The university academic manager’s work, identity and social relations
The university academic manager (AM) or head of school/department is typically positioned in a hierarchical world: as a middle manager ‘sandwiched’ between senior management and subordinates. I propose a different framing: the AM cohabits two worlds, the worlds of hierarchy and collegiality respectively. Using an ideal type framework and data based mainly on interviews with 20 AMs, I examine AMs’ tasks, identity and social relations, showing that…
After Rana Plaza: Governing Exploitative Workplace Labour Regimes in Bangladeshi Garment Export Factories
In 2013, the Rana Plaza disaster highlighted the highly exploitative conditions of the global garment supply chain centred on Bangladesh. Global lead firms and other stakeholders responded by reforming the labour governance system comprising public and private regulations. How can the effects of this new multi-level governance system on worker outcomes (wages, working conditions and workers’ rights) be conceptualized and explained? Using an inter…
Du Rana Plaza au Covid‐19: Handicaps et atouts pour un nouveau système de gouvernance du travail dans les chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales de l'habillement
En 2013, la tragédie du Rana Plaza mettait en lumière les défaillances de la réglementation du travail dans les chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales de l'habillement. Qu'en est‐il aujourd'hui, à l'ère du COVID‐19? Et les travailleurs, comment s'en sortent‐ils? Pour les auteurs, le système de gouvernance du travail (SGT), concept qu'ils définissent précisément, reste insuffisant, malgré le renforcement des règles de sécurité, et, sous l'angle des…
Explaining supervisor–subordinate guanxi and subordinate performance through a conservation of resources lens
Relationships outside of work impact employee effectiveness at work. But how do we explain this? Our study focuses on the guanxi relationship in China. This is based on close personal ties between supervisors and subordinates initiated outside the workplace. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we develop a model that explains how supervisor–subordinate guanxi constitutes a social resource that spills over into the workplace and impacts s…
Governance of Labor Standards in Australian and German Garment Supply Chains: The Impact of Rana Plaza
This article analyzes the impact of the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse on garment lead firms' labor standards policies in the light of new governance approaches, particularly the pathbreaking Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Based on a sample of 20 Australian and German garment firms, the authors find that firms with low prior baseline standards revised their supply chain and sourcing policies and signed the Accord. Firms with…
Chinese migrants’ work experience and city identification: Challenging the underclass thesis
Are internal migrant workers who have contributed so much to contemporary Chinese economic growth forming a distinct, impoverished underclass (Chan, 2010; Solinger, 2006) or are they slowly merging into the Chinese working class? In this article sociological theory is employed to develop the distinction between underclass and working class, including the conditions and criteria that enable these social categories to be distinguished theoretically…
Explaining task performance and creativity from perceived organizational support theory: Which mechanisms are more important
Perceived organizational support (POS) theory specifies three mechanisms—felt obligation, group identification, and outcome expectancy—to explain the effects of organizational support on employee work outcomes. These mechanisms have usually been examined in isolation so that it is not possible to assess their relative explanatory power. The present study aims to remedy this problem by examining the three mechanisms simultaneously using structural…
Work Design Variation and Outcomes in Call Centers: Strategic Choice and Institutional Explanations
This study examines reasons for variation in work design (defined by job discretion and performance monitoring) and how work design affects organizational outcomes. Drawing on a 2003–2006 survey of 2,359 call centers in 16 countries, the authors test strategic human resource management theory's implication that firms' strategic and operational contexts influence work design variation within countries, and “varieties of capitalism” theory's implic…
Morale and Workplace Performance
This study considers the relationship between morale and workplace productivity in a representative sample of Australian workplaces. It focuses on three questions: the shape of the relationship, whether the effects of morale are contingent on other factors, and the paths by which any effect takes place. The results show that morale influences productivity in an approximately linear fashion. The effect of morale on productivity appears to be large…
Divided Workers: Social relations between contract and regular workers in a Korean auto company
Against the background of a rise in contingent labour and an emphasis by employers on flexibility, this article focuses on the relations between regular production and contract workers in a major Korean auto company. We show how regular workers use discursive and other practices to discriminate against contract workers.The concept of moral exclusion is used to frame these activities and provide meaning to contract workers' experience.The moderate…
The Embedded Character of Workplace Relations
This article describes an embedded framework for analyzing workplace relations. The author argues that the contemporary workplace is embedded to varying degrees in three force-fields: the macro field of globalization and new technology, the meso field of transnational production networks, and the micro field of local political and labor market institutions and organization structure and culture. The article explores the effect of these influences…
Logics of Action, Globalization, and Changing Employment Relations in China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines
The authors develop a logics of action framework to conceptualize the impact of globalization on employment relations (ER) and to predict the trajectory of ER. They argue that the interplay among three different logics of action-the logic of competition, the logic of industrial peace, and the logic of employment-income protection-determines the ER patterns in any given nation. The strengths of the logics themselves are influenced by five often re…
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
Bavarian Leavenworth and the Symbolic Economy of a theme Town
Theme towns are an often‐overlooked but significant form of tourism in rural areas. Many a small town across the United States, faced with a declining resource‐based economy, has turned to "theming" as an economic‐development strategy. In hopes of creating an alluring landscape, the built environment is radically transformed, and a variety of invented traditions are instituted. This article explores one such place‐Leavenworth, Washington‐that "we…
Service Work in Consumer Capitalism: Customers, Control and Contradictions
There is an important literature suggesting that the consumer has become a key focus of identity and figure of authority in contemporary society. Within this literature, however, there is little consideration of the role that the identification with the customer could play in management control within production, nor of the ensuing potential contradictions. This paper examines these issues in front line call centre work. Control in this setting i…
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
The importance of customer service is widely emphasized in business today. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the organization and dynamics of front-line work. The volume is based on a four-year study of over a thousand employees and eight leading companies in the United States, Australia, and Japan. On the Front Line reveals similarities and differences found in work environments—such as variance in authority relations and divi…
Beyond bureaucracy? Work organization in call centres
Call centres are a rapidly growing, IT-based channel for service and sales delivery, particularly in the financial services and telecom industries. Although little research has been undertaken on the human resource aspects of call centres, two contrasting images are emerging. The first emphasizes the bureaucratic, constraining nature of these work settings, while the second image points towards worker empowerment characteristic of knowledge-inten…
Organized Labor in the Asia Pacific Region: A Comparative Study of Trade Unionism in Nine Countries
Industrialization and Labor Relations: Contemporary Research in Seven Countries
Organized Labor in the Asia-Pacific Region
Organized Labor in the Asia-Pacific Region
Status Influences in Third World Labor Markets: Caste, Gender, and Custom
Service Work in Consumer Capitalism: Customers, Control and Contradictions
There is an important literature suggesting that the consumer has become a key focus of identity and figure of authority in contemporary society. Within this literature, however, there is little consideration of the role that the identification with the customer could play in management control within production, nor of the ensuing potential contradictions. This paper examines these issues in front line call centre work. Control in this setting i…
Divided Workers: Social relations between contract and regular workers in a Korean auto company
Against the background of a rise in contingent labour and an emphasis by employers on flexibility, this article focuses on the relations between regular production and contract workers in a major Korean auto company. We show how regular workers use discursive and other practices to discriminate against contract workers.The concept of moral exclusion is used to frame these activities and provide meaning to contract workers' experience.The moderate…
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
The importance of customer service is widely emphasized in business today. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the organization and dynamics of front-line work. The volume is based on a four-year study of over a thousand employees and eight leading companies in the United States, Australia, and Japan. On the Front Line reveals similarities and differences found in work environments—such as variance in authority relations and divi…
Governance of Labor Standards in Australian and German Garment Supply Chains: The Impact of Rana Plaza
This article analyzes the impact of the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse on garment lead firms' labor standards policies in the light of new governance approaches, particularly the pathbreaking Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Based on a sample of 20 Australian and German garment firms, the authors find that firms with low prior baseline standards revised their supply chain and sourcing policies and signed the Accord. Firms with…
The Embedded Character of Workplace Relations
This article describes an embedded framework for analyzing workplace relations. The author argues that the contemporary workplace is embedded to varying degrees in three force-fields: the macro field of globalization and new technology, the meso field of transnational production networks, and the micro field of local political and labor market institutions and organization structure and culture. The article explores the effect of these influences…
Bavarian Leavenworth and the Symbolic Economy of a theme Town
Theme towns are an often‐overlooked but significant form of tourism in rural areas. Many a small town across the United States, faced with a declining resource‐based economy, has turned to "theming" as an economic‐development strategy. In hopes of creating an alluring landscape, the built environment is radically transformed, and a variety of invented traditions are instituted. This article explores one such place‐Leavenworth, Washington‐that "we…
Chinese migrants’ work experience and city identification: Challenging the underclass thesis
Are internal migrant workers who have contributed so much to contemporary Chinese economic growth forming a distinct, impoverished underclass (Chan, 2010; Solinger, 2006) or are they slowly merging into the Chinese working class? In this article sociological theory is employed to develop the distinction between underclass and working class, including the conditions and criteria that enable these social categories to be distinguished theoretically…
Work Design Variation and Outcomes in Call Centers: Strategic Choice and Institutional Explanations
This study examines reasons for variation in work design (defined by job discretion and performance monitoring) and how work design affects organizational outcomes. Drawing on a 2003–2006 survey of 2,359 call centers in 16 countries, the authors test strategic human resource management theory's implication that firms' strategic and operational contexts influence work design variation within countries, and “varieties of capitalism” theory's implic…
Explaining supervisor–subordinate guanxi and subordinate performance through a conservation of resources lens
Relationships outside of work impact employee effectiveness at work. But how do we explain this? Our study focuses on the guanxi relationship in China. This is based on close personal ties between supervisors and subordinates initiated outside the workplace. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we develop a model that explains how supervisor–subordinate guanxi constitutes a social resource that spills over into the workplace and impacts s…
Morale and Workplace Performance
This study considers the relationship between morale and workplace productivity in a representative sample of Australian workplaces. It focuses on three questions: the shape of the relationship, whether the effects of morale are contingent on other factors, and the paths by which any effect takes place. The results show that morale influences productivity in an approximately linear fashion. The effect of morale on productivity appears to be large…
Explaining task performance and creativity from perceived organizational support theory: Which mechanisms are more important
Perceived organizational support (POS) theory specifies three mechanisms—felt obligation, group identification, and outcome expectancy—to explain the effects of organizational support on employee work outcomes. These mechanisms have usually been examined in isolation so that it is not possible to assess their relative explanatory power. The present study aims to remedy this problem by examining the three mechanisms simultaneously using structural…
Logics of Action, Globalization, and Changing Employment Relations in China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines
The authors develop a logics of action framework to conceptualize the impact of globalization on employment relations (ER) and to predict the trajectory of ER. They argue that the interplay among three different logics of action-the logic of competition, the logic of industrial peace, and the logic of employment-income protection-determines the ER patterns in any given nation. The strengths of the logics themselves are influenced by five often re…
Shop Stewards in Action: The Organization of Workplace Conflict and Accommodation
Industrial Sociology and Workplace Relations in Advanced Capitalist Societies
Workplace relations have attracted the attention of sociologists with an interest in class analysis and those concerned specifically with work-related problems. However, in order to comprehend and explain changes at the point of production it is necessary to develop a framework which can accommodate both the similarities and differences in workplace relations in advanced capitalist societies. This article uses three significant comparative studie…
Unions against Capitalism? A Sociological Comparison of the Australian Building and Metals Workers' Unions
Industrial Sociology and Workplace Relations in Advanced Capitalist Societies
Policing Industrial Disputes: 1893 To 1985
Strikes and the Media: Communication and Conflict
Union Strategy and Industrial Change
International Handbook of Participation in Organizations, Vol. 1-Organizational Democracy: Taking Stock
Status Influences in Third World Labor Markets: Caste, Gender, and Custom
Organized Labor in the Asia-Pacific Region
Organized Labor in the Asia-Pacific Region
Organized Labor in the Asia Pacific Region: A Comparative Study of Trade Unionism in Nine Countries
Industrialization and Labor Relations: Contemporary Research in Seven Countries
Beyond bureaucracy? Work organization in call centres
Call centres are a rapidly growing, IT-based channel for service and sales delivery, particularly in the financial services and telecom industries. Although little research has been undertaken on the human resource aspects of call centres, two contrasting images are emerging. The first emphasizes the bureaucratic, constraining nature of these work settings, while the second image points towards worker empowerment characteristic of knowledge-inten…
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
The importance of customer service is widely emphasized in business today. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the organization and dynamics of front-line work. The volume is based on a four-year study of over a thousand employees and eight leading companies in the United States, Australia, and Japan. On the Front Line reveals similarities and differences found in work environments—such as variance in authority relations and divi…
Bavarian Leavenworth and the Symbolic Economy of a theme Town
Theme towns are an often‐overlooked but significant form of tourism in rural areas. Many a small town across the United States, faced with a declining resource‐based economy, has turned to "theming" as an economic‐development strategy. In hopes of creating an alluring landscape, the built environment is radically transformed, and a variety of invented traditions are instituted. This article explores one such place‐Leavenworth, Washington‐that "we…
Service Work in Consumer Capitalism: Customers, Control and Contradictions
There is an important literature suggesting that the consumer has become a key focus of identity and figure of authority in contemporary society. Within this literature, however, there is little consideration of the role that the identification with the customer could play in management control within production, nor of the ensuing potential contradictions. This paper examines these issues in front line call centre work. Control in this setting i…
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy
Logics of Action, Globalization, and Changing Employment Relations in China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines
The authors develop a logics of action framework to conceptualize the impact of globalization on employment relations (ER) and to predict the trajectory of ER. They argue that the interplay among three different logics of action-the logic of competition, the logic of industrial peace, and the logic of employment-income protection-determines the ER patterns in any given nation. The strengths of the logics themselves are influenced by five often re…
The Embedded Character of Workplace Relations
This article describes an embedded framework for analyzing workplace relations. The author argues that the contemporary workplace is embedded to varying degrees in three force-fields: the macro field of globalization and new technology, the meso field of transnational production networks, and the micro field of local political and labor market institutions and organization structure and culture. The article explores the effect of these influences…
Divided Workers: Social relations between contract and regular workers in a Korean auto company
Against the background of a rise in contingent labour and an emphasis by employers on flexibility, this article focuses on the relations between regular production and contract workers in a major Korean auto company. We show how regular workers use discursive and other practices to discriminate against contract workers.The concept of moral exclusion is used to frame these activities and provide meaning to contract workers' experience.The moderate…
Morale and Workplace Performance
This study considers the relationship between morale and workplace productivity in a representative sample of Australian workplaces. It focuses on three questions: the shape of the relationship, whether the effects of morale are contingent on other factors, and the paths by which any effect takes place. The results show that morale influences productivity in an approximately linear fashion. The effect of morale on productivity appears to be large…
Work Design Variation and Outcomes in Call Centers: Strategic Choice and Institutional Explanations
This study examines reasons for variation in work design (defined by job discretion and performance monitoring) and how work design affects organizational outcomes. Drawing on a 2003–2006 survey of 2,359 call centers in 16 countries, the authors test strategic human resource management theory's implication that firms' strategic and operational contexts influence work design variation within countries, and “varieties of capitalism” theory's implic…
Explaining task performance and creativity from perceived organizational support theory: Which mechanisms are more important
Perceived organizational support (POS) theory specifies three mechanisms—felt obligation, group identification, and outcome expectancy—to explain the effects of organizational support on employee work outcomes. These mechanisms have usually been examined in isolation so that it is not possible to assess their relative explanatory power. The present study aims to remedy this problem by examining the three mechanisms simultaneously using structural…
Political science (25 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (20 works) · Economics (18 works) · Business (15 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (11 works) · Management (11 works) · Engineering (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Public relations (8 works)