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Positive accounts of teamwork emphasise its potential not just to improve organisational performance, but to transform employees' experience of work in overwhelmingly positive ways. The key outcome is said to be enhanced employee discretion, which in turn contributes to satisfaction, commitment and positive views of management. Critical accounts of teamwork, which locate the phenomenon in the context of the labour process argue that enhanced organisational performance from teams results from an undermining of employee discretion, which contributes to work intensification and increased stress for employees. Differences between the two accounts have not been resolved, in part because of the fact that neither model has been subjected to rigorous empirical scrutiny using reliable large-scale statistical data which allow generalisations to be made about the impact of team membership on employees. Utilising the data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) it is possible to identify team members and non-members and to compare them in terms of discretion, commitment, satisfaction, relations with management, and stress. The analysis shows no statistically significant association between team membership and any of the outcome variables and on this basis, both positive and critical accounts are called into question.

The aim of this paper is to assess the validity of the `empowerment thesis': the belief that new forms of work organisation are overturning traditional managerial structures and returning control to employees. Specifically, the project seeks to explore the role of `empowering' forms of work organisation (in particular Total Quality Management, team-based work and consultative committees) and of occupational hierarchies, respectively, in influencing levels of employee autonomy. Data from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS95) are used to construct quantitative indicators of `empowering' forms of work organisation, hierarchy and employee autonomy. Associations between the variables are measured. The analysis shows no association between `empowerment' and employee autonomy. There are, however, clear relationships between employees' positions within occupational hierarchies and their levels of control over their work. Therefore, the empowerment thesis is rejected. A provisional explanation for the failure of empowerment to enhance employee autonomy can be found in the fact that organisational power resides primarily in organisational structures. Contrary to claims of the emergence of the `post-bureaucratic organisation', hierarchical structures remain central to the majority of contemporary organisations, and the impact of other changes to work organisation must be understood in this context.

Aims to subject to empirical scrutiny the claim that peripheral
work is characterized by a range of undesirable characteristics. The
analysis of data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations
Survey (AWIRS) clearly shows that there is a link between peripheral
forms of employment and undesirable working conditions in Australian
workplaces. Further, the negative features of peripheral employment
apply regardless of workplace size, sector or industry. In conjunction
with the evidence of the growth of a peripheral workforce and the marked
over‐representation of women in such jobs, supports the argument that
peripheral work contributes to inequality in Australian workplaces.

This paper seeks to apply a critical realist lens to the analysis of discourse. Our central argument is that the most fruitful way to make sense of discourse is to treat it as an empirical object of inquiry alongside extra-discursive phenomena. In making this argument, we consider two recent discourses, the 'knowledge-based economy' (KBE) and 'shareholder value' (SV) and demonstrate that, while the KBE discourse gained much more attention, SV discourse had much more significant material outcomes. We suggest that research on the potential causal powers of discourse should move away from an exclusive focus on the discursive and pay attention to actors and institutions and to extra-discursive conditions and constraints.

This article introduces two papers in a special section of this journal. It explains why realist studies of oppression, emancipation and resistance are needed. We trace the development of studies in this area, noting their Marxist roots, divergence with post-structural theorising and more recent critical realist advancements. We conclude by highlighting the weaknesses in studies of this area and by arguing that progress is important for understanding how emancipation from oppression might be possible.

This article considers the possibility that 'high performance work system' (HPWS) practices generate positive outcomes for employees by meeting their interests (specifically their interest in an orderly and predictable working environment). Utilising survey data on employees working in the Australian aged-care industry, statistical analysis is used to test the mediating effect of order and predictability on associations between HPWS practices and employee experience of work. The results suggest that positive outcomes arise in part because HPWS practices contribute to workplace order and predictability. In explaining this finding, the article highlights the importance of contextual factors, notably industry and employee characteristics, in shaping outcomes. The article concludes that socio-logically oriented analyses which apprehend the importance of employee interests provide a useful supplement to conventional psychologically oriented accounts of HPWS and provide a basis for continued development of labour process theory.

This article critically addresses the claim that there has been a striking growth in 'knowledge work' in advanced economies. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force Survey, we examine occupational change from 1986 to 2000 to evaluate the support for this claim. Researchers have usually relied on aggregate level data to justify the presence of a burgeoning knowledge-based workforce, but we contend that we must 'get below the surface' of the major occupational groups by disaggregating the data. This enables us to demonstrate that a substantial component of the apparent growth in knowledge work is accounted for by an increase in low-level information handling occupations rather than by a growth in knowledge work as it is commonly conceived. The article then develops an interpretive framework that makes sense of the data in a manner that avoids both over-estimating the prevalence of the 'knowledge worker' and underestimating the knowledge-related activities in jobs commonly considered to be low-skilled and bereft of important competencies.

Using data drawn from the authors' own 1996 Australian National Trade Union Survey, this paper examines the size and implications of union bureaucracies in Australia. In particular, we critically evaluate the arguments of Bramble (1995b) that the growth of Australia's 'new generation' of union officials has had the effect of 'deterring democracy'. We find that while the evidence of increasing numbers of union officials is mixed, there are some trends that are contributing to higher union official density rates while other trends are lowering those rates. However, we find no support for Bramble's central claims that union bureaucratisation and managerial-service unionism have led to less democratic practices in Australian unions. Rather than being concerned with the number or class character of officials, we suggest that organisational features such as delegate structures are more relevant to the issue of union democracy.

Gambling has frequently been blamed for contributing to a range of social and economic problems for players and their families. The introduction of gaming machines (more commonly referred to as "poker machines" or "pokies") to clubs and hotels in Queensland in 1992 attracted such criticism. This paper presents data from a survey conducted in Brisbane in May 1994, funded by the Department of Family Services and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, which seeks to assess the characteristics of gaming machine players and to evaluate the extent to which players and their families seem disproportionately likely to experience social and economic difficulties. The survey led to a number of noteworthy findings, many of which challenge conventional stereotypes concerning the characteristics of players and the consequences of their playing. Firstly, men, the young and those in employment are disproportionately likely to be players. Secondly, playing is spread evenly across different occupations and levels of educational achievement. Thirdly, most players appear not to play very often or spend very large amounts of money. Fourthly, while there is evidence that money is being diverted from necessities to machine gaming, there is virtually no evidence of an association between machine playing and economic hardship.

The shift of an industrial relations system from the centralised settlement of pay and work conditions to the encouragement of enterprise-level bargaining presents industrial relations actors with the opportunity to influence the organisation of work in one of two ways. Drawing on a range of theories of work organisation and production we contrast profitability enhancement strategies and productivity enhancement strategies. The recent dramatic shift in the Australian industrial relations system from a highly centralised and regulated regime towards one characterized by an enterprise focus provides an illuminating case study. Utilising data drawn from a survey of Australian workplaces which have recently concluded enterprise-level bargains, we examine the apparent effect of those agreements and assess the emerging trends in terms of the two contrasting strategic orientations. We conclude that while elements of each strategy are present in Australian industry, the dominant tendency is oriented more toward short-term profitability and cost minimization than long term productivity enhancement. Further, we use the findings as a basis for evaluating critically the utility of conceptualising paths of development in terms of two competing strategic orientations.