- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Crown Business (Mar 20 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0609807374
- ISBN-13: 978-0609807378
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.4 x 20.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 290 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #482,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Work, for most of us, is something we do, not something we think about. We may wonder whether our work is sufficiently stimulating, whether it brings in enough money, or whether it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, but we don't often question what, in fact, work really is, and why we work in the first place. In The Working Life, Joanne Ciulla asks these critical questions and others, taking a philosophical, sociological, and practical look at the nature of work and its role in our lives today.
As Ciulla points out, we live in a work-oriented society where, even though we have more freedom and flexibility than ever and more tools to increase convenience and efficiency, our work determines our lives. We have "gone beyond the work ethic," she states, to a point where our jobs have become our primary source of identity. To understand this, Ciulla looks at the values we reflect in our choice of jobs and professions, the attitudes we express in our language for work, and the sociohistorical journey that work has taken from cursed necessity to calling. She follows the path of work in our recent past, from unregulated labor and slavery, through unionism, to the rise of the all-encompassing corporation and today's blurred lines between private and public lives. In the final section, Ciulla investigates the role that work plays in our understanding and use of time and our search for meaning.
Now teaching courses on ethics, leadership, and critical thinking at Virginia's University of Richmond, Ciulla has examined and experienced the nature of work from both sides of the managerial divide. After supporting herself through the first nine years of an academic career with bar and restaurant work, she went on to study and teach business ethics at Harvard and Wharton. These varied experiences give the book a balanced and sensitive tone, adding credibility to her insights. She supports and refines her ideas about work with the comments of philosophers, writers, sociologists, economists, management theorists, and even the narratives of popular television shows. Her sources range from Aristotle and the ancient storyteller Aesop to the early-20th-century time-study engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, the comic strip "Dilbert," and modern-day business gurus. The diversity of perspectives is inspiring and helps--together with Ciulla's own interpretations and clear, precise prose--create a thought-provoking and stimulating look at the nature of work. --S. Ketchum --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Ciulla (Univ. of Richmond) has written a stimulating and thought-provoking book that traces the philosophical and cultural conceptions of work and workers over the years while providing a critical survey of management theories and practices. She explores relationships among various kinds of work, the roles of consumption and leisure, and beliefs about what constitutes meaningful work, a meaningful life, and happiness. She points to Scott Adams's Dilbert cartoons as " probably the best and most accurate critique of what many today think about work" and to labor unions as "the most important innovation in the relationship between employer and employee...because they address the imbalance of power between the two parties." Today, the pressures of our consumption-driven, global economy frequently lead to the compromise of individuals' "higher" values when making decisions affecting the overall quality of their lives. This well-written examination of the meanings of work and life challenges that compromise. Highly recommended for academics and the general public.ASuzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology at Alfred
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
What's so good about work? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
What's so good about work? Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A more optimistic 'Nickel and Dimed",
By
This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Paperback)
Sciulla's book avoids policy conclusions, and other theoretical certainties as other books like Fogels' 4th Awakening. She notes the interesting point that "Today, clock time measures events" in the past events measured time. For example, in Magadascar a half hour was measured by the time it took to cook rice. She became interested in the nature of work when she subsidised one job teaching philosophy with another as a waitress in a restaurant. Ms. Ciulla is particularly struck by the fact thatt wealth has not brought happiness. People continue to want to earn a living. Even when people have enough to live on, many of them continue to want to work, remaining perplexed at the fact that while life is supposed to be easier, many continue to seek meaning through employment. However, she notes, employment provides a schedule and a rythm for daily life and serves as an outlet ofr greater forms of community participation.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative Overview of What We Often Take for Granted,
This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Hardcover)
Joanne Ciulla presents a very well organized, philosophically grounded overview of work -- its varying meanings, its historical evolution, and its paradoxes as found in modern institutions. She is very up front with the reader in her introduction, admitting that this book is not a scientific investigation, but rather a broad interpretation of the meaning of work and how it has come to both bless and curse us in present times. Accordingly, there are succint summaries of some of the major interpretations of work -- from the early Greek philosophers to contemporary management schools.But this is more than just an overview, too. Ciulla has a way of getting her readers to look at work with unexpected insights every step of the way. She peels away the common sense and taken-for-granted interpretations of work (which are often based on promising the worker some sort of fulfillment, but at the price of surrenduring autonomy). She does a nice job of deflating recent management theories that tout "new" approaches (management theory is woefully a-historical, she asserts, and is always looking at recycled approaches as though they are breakthroughs). There is a tone of leariness here, rooted in a skepticism over those who apply new management theories in order to exert greater control over individuals, and encourage them to shift their focus more and more away from families, community, and individually expressed forms of self-worth. Overall, if you're skeptical of the latest management promises of creating "fulfilling work" (or if you really think the "Dilbert" cartoon series is right on the mark), you'll like this book. If you are looking for something that offers a new twist to management technique, you will likely find this book impractical and overly alarmist.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Culture of Autonomy,
By Tom Gray (Fort-Coulonge, Quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Hardcover)
Ciulla places great importance on personal autonomy. She is suspicious of any connection outside of thepersonal that infringrs on that autonomy. She finds difficulty in the fact that people draw at least some of their identity from the world around them and in particular for this book from their occupation or job. Ciulla constantly stresses the implicit danger of betrayal and exploitation in this trust in others for life meaning. She repeatedly draws comparison between this fidning of identity in one's job with that of slavery in which the slaves identity is submerged to the personal interests of teh master.Ciulla's book is a strong advocacy of her point of view written with an evident extensive background in the subject. It is well worth reading but one must keep in mind that this book is a brief to support one point of view. As a side note. Ciulla deplores the needs of some people to find their identity in their relationships with others. She calls these people 'other-directed.' This is just the standard extroversion that is highly prized in current culture. It is nice to read a book in which introversion is praised as an ideal rather than being regarded as an ailment to be treated.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
