ABSTRACT
Sociology emerged and developed as a way of coming to terms with fundamental changes associated with industrialisation and the rise of capitalism, as we saw in Chapter 1. Since then, the study of work has always played a central part in sociology. Changes in the way work is organised and experienced have been at the heart of the social and historical shifts with which sociology has always engaged. The most significant historical shift identified by sociologists was the rise of industrial capitalist societies. Sociologists and other social commentators have identified a variety of subsequent shifts in how the working aspects of societies are organised, using terminology like post-industrialism, post-Fordism, postmodernism and so on. These will be considered as the present chapter develops and an attempt will be made, at the end of the chapter, to get a relatively balanced view of what many take to be the most important current ‘big change’ process: that of globalisation.
