This book provides a qualitative account of working conditions within the contemporary service economy. As the largest employer in the modern labour market, investigating its realities demonstrates a number of problematic issues. The quest for profitability, efficiency and customer satisfaction drive a number of practices that can be interpreted from a social harm perspective. The use of zero-hours contracts, temporary work agencies, just-in-time management, lean working, and emotional labour, underpinned by targets and performance management reflect the imperatives of capital and the requirem ... More

This book provides a qualitative account of working conditions within the contemporary service economy. As the largest employer in the modern labour market, investigating its realities demonstrates a number of problematic issues. The quest for profitability, efficiency and customer satisfaction drive a number of practices that can be interpreted from a social harm perspective. The use of zero-hours contracts, temporary work agencies, just-in-time management, lean working, and emotional labour, underpinned by targets and performance management reflect the imperatives of capital and the requirement for profitability. In relation to the employees who work in such precarious forms of employment, a number of harms appear. The ‘Victorian’ working conditions noted at individual operators such as Sports Direct are not anomalies but instead represent the normal functioning of the sector. In considering work from a social harm perspective, the book offers a unique contribution to the sociology of work and criminological or social harm studies. The social harm consideration of systemic violence is extended by an ultra-realist perspective that accounts for the symbolic violence of ideology and the problematic subjectivities willing to inflict harm on others. In its conclusions, the book asks for a consideration of the role of ideology and political economy in debates which seek to fix the harms of work.