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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to use the case of Hong Kong to assess the equalisation and individualization claim of the risk society approach to studying experience and coping of employment risks.Design/methodology/approachTwo types of survey data are used: quarterly official surveys from the year of 1993 to 2008 and a cross-sectional territory-wide representative telephone survey conducted in 2009.FindingsThe findings show that contrary to the equalisation claim, experiences of employment risks have continued to concentrate on disadvantaged groups: unskilled manual workers and those with education levels below lower secondary school had continuously fared worse than professionals, managers and university degree holders. These disadvantaged groups were also not particularly proactive in adopting either capital-based or work-related coping methods when they encountered unemployment.Research limitations/implicationsThe lack of trend data to examine the use of different coping means is one of the main drawbacks of the current study. The study carries important theoretical implications.Practical implicationsPolicy implications for the government to provide more comprehensive and proactive employment-related support measures and further expansion of university education.Originality/valueThis paper examines the case of Hong Kong so as to extend the empirical assessment of the risk society approach beyond the Anglo-Saxon context to mature Asian economies. The study further shows that we need to go beyond the secular trend globalisation which the risk society theory emphasises. Historical factors and business-government-labour power relations are critical factors that shape the policies and institutions of labour market regulations and welfare provision in the local context

There is an important literature suggesting that the consumer has become a key focus of identity and figure of authority in contemporary society. Within this literature, however, there is little consideration of the role that the identification with the customer could play in management control within production, nor of the ensuing potential contradictions. This paper examines these issues in front line call centre work. Control in this setting is theorised as being informed by dual logics of customer-orientation and bureaucratisation. The paper shows the important use of norms of customer identification in control. It also highlights two levels of contradictions in the use of these norms. First there is the contradiction between continuing bureaucratic control and the attempts to develop normative control. Second, there are contradictions within the development of customer-related normative control. Specifically, the definition of the customer as the focus for normative commitment is a contested terrain, with systematic and significant differences existing here between call centre workers and management.

Through analyzing primary and secondary data, this paper argues that flexible employment practices in Hong Kong are largely employer-driven. This feature is explicable by the low level of government intervention in industrial relations, the development of the labor movement, and the Asian financial crisis that accentuated employers' prerogatives in employment relations.