Business and Management - All titles

This groundbreaking book investigates and documents corporate influence on social policies at global/regional, national and local levels. It argues that we cannot understand the recent history and present direction of the welfare state unless we focus on the role that business has played in its development. 

Based on field material collected from 2020 to 2022 in Sweden, this book tells a composite story of the everyday work of public sector workers that maintained the welfare infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book analyses poverty in India as being intimately connected with the advent of caste, untouchability, colonialism, indentured servitude and slavery, and their relation to modern practices. It recommends a slew of bold domestic and international policies to eliminate poverty.

Given the destructive consequences of capitalism, it has never been more urgent to reconsider democratic planning. But how can we construct this in realistic terms? This accessible work bridges current movements with academic and public discourse to offer an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to planning in the 21st century.

A new technological revolution is needed, backed by political and cultural change to address Western economic stagnation. This means embracing the major disruption required to our companies and workforce to focus on embryonic technological sectors.

Inviting beginners and more experienced researchers to explore new ways of writing, this book introduces readers to creatively written research in a variety of formats including plays and poems, videos and comics. It not only gives social researchers permission, but also shows them how, to write creatively.

It is impossible to view the news at present without hearing talk of crisis: the economy, the climate, the pandemic. This book asks how these larger societal issues lead to a crisis with work, making it ever more precarious, unequal and intense. Experts diagnose the nature of the problem and offer a programme for transcending above the crises.

A unique collaboration between an academic and a practitioner, this book tells the story of money from ancient Athens to the Bitcoin revolution to explain how crowdfunding is the way for people to reclaim the power of their money in pursuit of a fairer and greener society.

This book conducts an in-depth investigation of one of the largest and longest-established insurance industries in Europe: British life insurance. The author draws on over 40 oral history interviews to trace how the sector is changed since the 1970s, a period characterised by rampant financialisation and neoliberalisation.

An in-depth analysis of the NHS reforms ushered in by UK Coalition Government under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Essential reading for those studying the NHS, those who work in it, and those who seek to gain a better understanding of this key public service.

The ‘smart city’ is often promoted as a technology-driven solution to complex urban issues. Drawing on original research conducted in urban African settings, this book provides a much-needed alternative view, exploring how ‘home-grown’ digital disruption, driven and initiated by local actors, upending the mainstream corporate narrative.

This book shows researchers how ethnography can be carried out within human service settings, providing an invaluable guide on how to apply ethnographic creativeness and offering a more humanistic and context-sensitive approach to generating valid knowledge about today’s service work.