Call for Papers "Temporary Organization and Workers' Representation"
Special Issue of Industrielle Beziehungen - The German Journal of Industrial Relations
Guest editors: Michael Fichter & Jörg Sydow, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
In today's world, temporary forms of organization are growing in relevance. Increasingly, the creation of
economic value is organized in projects. While the construction industry certainly remains the traditional
point of reference for this development, other economic sectors such as the creative industries have become the new emblem for this form of value creation. Perhaps most interestingly, however, is that even value creation processes in traditional organizations like automobile manufacturers have been diagnosed as being 'projectified'.
Against this background, some already speak of a Project Economy or even Project Society. Project-based work in and across organizations poses new challenges for traditional institutions of workers' representation, for works council as well as for unions. How, for example, can the interests of project workers be collectively represented, given the limited co-presence not only of the work council or union members but of the project workers themselves. Against this backdrop, Industrielle Beziehungen – The German Journal of Industrial Relations wishes to publish a Special Issue (SI) devoted to temporary organization and workers' representation. Papers submitted to the SI may address questions like:
- Which industries or regions are affected most by the spread of project-based work? How do the traditional institutions of participation and codetermination in these industries or regions adapt?
- How do unions, whether on the local, the national, or the global level, which are particularly confronted
with temporary and fluid forms of work, approach effective worker representation under these especially demanding conditions?
- What role do network forms of interest representation have in industries or regions populated by projects? How do works council and union representatives stay in touch with often remote project workers?
- How can the interests of permanent-temporary workers be represented?
- What challenges does the growing popularity of interim or temporary management pose regarding the
interest representation of workers?
- To what extent do workers representatives on a local, national or global regard themselves as projectorganizers?
- How do they organize campaigns or even interest representation as projects?
Manuscripts, written in English or German, introducing new concepts and/or presenting fresh empirical insights on these or related questions are invited for submission to the SI. Deadline for submission is September 30, 2012. All submitted manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind review process. The publication of the SI in planned for summer 2013. For more information please visit www.hampp-verlag.de/hampp_e-journals_IndB.htm or contact
Prof. Dr. Jörg Sydow
Freie Universität Berlin
School of Business & Economics, Dept of Management
Boltzmannstraße 20
D-14195 Berlin, Germany
E-Mail: joerg.sydow@fu-berlin.de
Web: http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/institute/management/sydow/index.html