Service Work

Service work is the future and the future is here. Our concepts for understanding work, however, are still deeply tied to the industrial workplace. Service Work moves us decisively toward our future by its keen development of such concepts as authenticity, emotion work, constructed realities (think "Disney Princesses"), the service triangle and the control and exploitation of consumers. These are the concepts of the future for the study of work. – Randy Hodson, Editor, American Sociological Review

This collection sparkles with insight and dispute - exactly what a critical text should do. Top-flight authors bring fresh light to the now all-pervasive, grassroots, service economy. It is where frontliners are employed to 'serve' with a literal or virtual smile; to be concerned or caring; to simultaneously please both employer and customer. With different tools, the contributors dig beneath the surface of this world to reveal its assumptions, tensions, contradictions and possibilities. This is a key book, not just for critical organizational theorists, but for any student who feels curious or uneasy about the seemingly unstoppable growth of service work.— Stephen Fineman, School of Management, University of Bath