The Skills That Matter (Critical Perspectives on Work and Organisations)

"The Skills That Matter" is an edited collection written by leading academics from the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia in the area of skills acquisition, formation and development. It combines academic evidence and policy debates with a critical analysis, making it an asset to students of HRM, industrial relations, sociology of work and business and management at both undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as being a useful resource to researchers and policy makers working in the field of skill formation Cover 1 Contents 6 List of Acronyms 8 Notes on the Contributors 11 1 What’s Happening to ‘Skill’? 18 2 Conceptual Confusions: Emotion Work as Skilled Work 36 3 Skills that Matter and Shortages that Don’t 55 4 The Interdependence of Social and Technical Skills in the Sale of Emergent Technology 72 5 Training Reform in a Weakened State: Australia 1987–2000 89 6 Exploring the Concept of Employer Demand for Skills and Qualifications: Case Studies from the Public Sector 108 7 What is ‘Skill’? Training for Discipline in the Low-Wage Labour Market 126 8 The Institutionalisation of Skill in Britain and Germany: Examples from the Construction Sector 145 9 Job Complexity and Task Discretion: Tracking the Direction of Skills at Work in Britain 165 10 Lifelong Learning and Workplace Relations: Singing from the Same Hymn Sheet, Worshipping Different Gods? 187 11 Skill and the Renewal of Labour: The Classical Wage-Earner Model and Left Productivism in Australia 203 12 The Political Economy of Skill: A Theoretical Approach to Developing a High Skills Strategy in the UK 224 13 ‘Old Nurses with New Qualifications are Best’: Competing Ideas about the Skills that Matter in Nursing in Estonia, France, Germany and the UK 242 14 Skill Trends Under Capitalism and the Socialisation of Production 259 Author Index 278 A 278 B 278 C 278 D 279 E 279 F 279 G 280 H 280 I 280 J 280 K 281 L 281 M 281 N 282 O 282 P 282 R 282 S 282 T 283 U 283 V 283 W 284 Y 284 Z 284 Subject Index 285 A 285 B 285 C 285 D 285 E 286 F 286 G 286 H 286 I 286 J 286 K 287 L 287 M 287 N 287 O 287 P 287 Q 288 R 288 S 288 T 289 U 289 V 289 W 289 This volume is an is an edited collection written by leading academics from the UK, Europe, the US and Australia in the area of skills acquisition, formation and development. It combines academic evidence and policy debates with a critical analysis Aimed at students of organisation studies, human resource management and marketing, this text explores the real nature of customer service from different critical perspectives Customer service is at the centre of many recent changes in work and organisations and is often celebrated as being of benefit to all.