Empty Labor

While most people work ever-longer hours, international statistics suggest that the average time spent on non-work activities per employee is around two hours a day. How is this possible, and what are the reasons behind employees withdrawing from work? In this thought-provoking book, Roland Paulsen examines organizational misbehavior, specifically the phenomenon of 'empty labor', defined as the time during which employees engage in private activities during the working day. This study explores a variety of explanations, from under-employment to workplace resistance. Building on a rich selection of interview material and extensive empirical research, it uses both qualitative and quantitative data to present a concrete analysis of the different ways empty labor unfolds in the modern workplace. This book offers new perspectives on subjectivity, rationality and work simulation and will be of particular interest to academic researchers and graduate students in organizational sociology, organization studies, and human resource management. Advance praise: 'An indispensable analysis of idleness at work.' Corinne Maier, author of Bonjour Paresse Advance praise: 'Empty Labor is the most searching, theoretically informed, and high-spirited interrogation of the meaning of work and the struggle over time in the modern economy I have encountered. No reader will emerge from this grounded, heady, and discerning analysis without a new, more sophisticated appreciation for autonomy, work, and resistance. It is also, against all odds, a pleasure to read.' James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University Advance praise: 'The theme of everyday work has been pushed to the side in recent academic scholarship on the economy, which is more interested in networks, entrepreneurship, markets and the like. But work does not go away; and as Roland Paulsen brilliantly shows, it also mirrors what goes on in the rest of the economy. Empty Labor is highly recommended reading for anyone who is more interested in the economy of everyday life than in the official economy of monthly statistics and ideology.' Richard Swedberg, Cornell University Advance praise: 'This admirably readable book is a wonderful antidote to all those jeremiads about the intensive 'burn-out' nature of the contemporary workplace. The workers in these pages are certainly very busy but for much of the time that busyness takes the form of finding ways to avoid work rather than seeking its embrace. Paulsen is fully and properly alert to the manner in which this 'empty labor' constitutes a powerful critique of the dominant discourse of work as the panacea for all ills.' Laurie Taylor, Presenter of 'Thinking Allowed', BBC Radio Four Advance praise: 'Roland Paulsen reinvigorates and rethinks a long standing but neglected tradition of social science interest in idleness or lack of work whilst at work. Empty Labor connects fascinating data about life at work to contemporary debates about, amongst other things, misbehavior and resistance, public and private boundaries. Moreover, Paulsen does it in an unusually accessible way. This is ground breaking material in so many ways.' Paul Thompson, University of StrathclydeForeword; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Power at work; 3. Subjectivity at work; 4. Mapping out empty labor; 5. How to succeed at work without really trying; 6. The time-appropriating subject; 7. The organization of idleness; 8. Resistance incorporated?; 9. Conclusion; Appendix: methodological notes; Bibliography; Index.