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Special Issue: Changing Nature of Work

Call for Papers on the Changing Nature of Work

Academy of Management Discoveries

The Academy of Management Discoveries announces a special issue devoted to publishing empirical research on the changing nature of work. 

No one disputes that many economies have shifted away from ones based primarily on manufacturing to ones increasingly dominated by services and the professions. Others are now shifting from agriculture to manufacturing. As scholars who teach and write about organizations, jobs, and careers, we need to understand the changes that are occurring in the nature of work and how these changes are impacting individuals, organizations, and industries.   We know that the structures of organizations are largely defined by the work they do and not simply by markets and environments. Although there has been a growing interest in new forms of organizing, few studies provide even a brief glimpse of what people who work in those "new" organizations actually do. 

The nature of the employment contract has changed for many people, thereby altering the structure of their lives.  Many people now work in jobs with only temporary contracts. Others are independent contractors or entrepreneurs by necessity.  How do these new types of employment arrangements affect how work gets done, the quality of what is produced, people's attitudes towards their work, and their sense of their identity?    How do firms like oDesk and Elance change the face of work and how people think about it? Are our models of job satisfaction and engagement, for instance, outdated because they are based on research done when workers had more permanent relationships with employers? 

Careers are also changing. The need to switch jobs may mean more career interruptions and more career switching, creating a need to study how people manage career transitions successfully.  Further, we have moved to a 24/7 economy that requires more virtual and intercultural communication between workers.  We need to know more about the 24/7 economy and what it means for people's lives, for their work experience, for work groups, and for organizations.    

New technologies have also spawned a host of new occupations, particularly those that have arisen around computational technologies and the internet.  Yet, such occupations have attracted little attention.  We also know surprisingly little about whether and how technologies have changed "traditional" jobs.  We are aware that many traditional jobs have disappeared, but what do the people who held those jobs do now and what happened to their lives when the jobs left? 

AMD welcomes research using all types of methodologies to this special issue.  We welcome ethnographic and other types of qualitative research; especially studies that can help us conceptualize new occupations that are archetypical for our time.  We also welcome quantitative studies that shed light on patterns of the changing nature of work and employment.  We have no disciplinary preference and welcome papers from management scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, historians, economists, political scientists, and data scientists.

Stephen Barley, Beth Bechky and Frances J. Milliken will serve as the special issue's co-editors.  An editorial board composed of scholars known for their expertise in areas relevant to the changing nature of work, occupations, and organizations will work with the editors.  The board will be able to handle a wide range of methods from the ethnographic, to the historical, to the quantitative.

To learn more about the AMD's special issue on the Changing Nature of Work -- including when and how to submit a paper -- please consult the attached call or view the call here .