The Working Life

by Ciulla, Joanne B.

• ISBN13: 9780609807378
• ISBN10: 0609807374
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2001-03-20
• Publisher: Crown Business

Summary

EXPLORING AND EXPLODING OUR NOTIONS OF WORK Joanne B. Ciulla, a noted scholar in Leadership and Ethics, examines why so many people today have let their jobs take over their lives. Technology was supposed to free us from work, but instead we work longer hours-often tethered to the office at home by cell phones and e-mail. People still look to work for self-fulfillment, community, and identity, but these things may be increasingly difficult to find in today's workplace. Gone is the social contract where employees and employers shared a sense of mutual loyalty, yet many of us still sacrifice personal time for jobs that we could lose at the drop of a stock price. Tracing the evolution of the meaning of work from Aesop to Dilbert, and critically examining the past 100 years of management practices, Ciulla asks questions that we often willfully ignore at our own peril. *When you are on your deathbed, will you wish you had spent more time at the office? *Why do we define ourselves by our jobs rather than by other activities we do outside of work? *What can employers and employees promise each other in today's business environment? Provocative and entertaining,The Working Lifechallenges us to think about the meaning of work and its impact on our lives.

Author Biography

JOANNE B. CIULLA holds the Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. A former visiting scholar at Oxford and fellow at Harvard and the Wharton School, she has degrees from Temple University and the universities of Delaware and Maryland, and she has taught at Boston University and La Salle. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	xi
Part I The Meanings of Work
Why Work?	3	(19)
What Is Work?	22	(13)
From Curse to Calling	35	(19)
Romantic Visions	54	(19)
Part II Working for Others
Work and Freedom	73	(17)
Taming the Worker	90	(16)
How Did Work Get So Confusing?	106	(21)
The Promising Workplace	127	(24)
Betrayal	151	(20)
Part III Work and Life
Time	171	(21)
Leisure and Consumption	192	(15)
The Search for Something More	207	(21)
Epilogue: Honest Work	228	(9)
Notes	237	(14)
Index	251