Praxis: Blurring Boundaries and Disordering Hierarchies: Challenges for employment and skills in networked organisations
An increasing number of individuals work in ‘networked’ organisations’ where the boundaries between, and hierarchies within, organisations are challenged as a result of outsourcing, subcontracting and collaborative working. As a result the nature of the employer/employee relationship is increasingly ‘complex and ambiguous’, with implications for people’s experiences of employment, skills, training and careers.
Praxis: Blurring Boundaries and Disordering Hierarchies: Challenges for employment and skills in networked organisations (PDF, 201 Kb)
Published June 2010
Whilst there is a growing recognition of the way in which business and enterprise is connected at a global level relatively little attention has been paid to growing connectivity amongst organisations within the UK and what this means for employees and their experience of work.
Many individuals work in ‘networked’ organisations’ where the boundaries between, and hierarchies within, organisations are challenged as a result of outsourcing, subcontracting and collaborative working. As a result the nature of the employer/employee relationship is increasingly ‘complex and ambiguous’, with implications for people’s experiences of employment, skills, training and careers.
In this edition of Praxis Jill Rubery, Damian Grimshaw and Mick Marchington explore some of the implications of this trend for employee’s experience of and relationship to work. Organisations can chose to work through networks in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons – from strategic motivations around core competencies and specialisation, to financial pressures around reducing costs and creating economies of scale.
Accordingly the impacts of these ways of working are diverse also and present a number of challenges in terms of the individual employee’s experience of work: their terms and conditions compared to those with whom they work; opportunities open to them in terms of training and development, career progression and employee voice; and discontinuity in terms of messages and expectations.
