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Putting work in its place: The making of ideal workers and social contracts

University of Sydney, Australia, b.ellem{at}econ.usyd.edu.au

Recently, Thomas Kochan suggested that the human resource management profession is facing a crisis, a crisis which might be addressed by research that is sensitive to local settings. This paper examines two of the central issues with which Kochan and other researchers and practitioners in human resource management are concerned: the making of the ‘social contract’ and the ‘ideal worker’. It shows that, in Australia, this process cannot be understood at the organisational scale alone. Rather, it has been shaped by government policies on immigration, economics and family which range beyond but affect employment relations. What happens within any one organisation cannot, then, be isolated from the world around it; what is happening to paid work is inseparable from other kinds of work and from social change. The paper argues that it is essential to draw on insights from historical and geographical research to address arguments about the nature of ideal workers and social contracts today.

Key Words: geography • human resource professionals • ideal workers • social contracts • work and family

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