Freelancing Expertise: Contract Professionals in the New Economy by Debra Osnowi

Description: Freelancing Expertise by Debra Osnowitz Contract work is more important than ever-for better or for worse, depending on ones perspective. The security once implied by a full-time job with a stable employer is becoming rarer, thereby erasing one of the major distinctions between "freelance... FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Contract work is more important than ever-for better or for worse, depending on ones perspective. The security once implied by a full-time job with a stable employer is becoming rarer, thereby erasing one of the major distinctions between "freelance work" and a "steady gig." Why hang on to a regular job for the sake of security if security can no longer be assumed? Instead, contractors, hired temporarily for specific knowledge and skills, market their expertise as they move from project to project. Even though their employment is precarious, a great many consider freelancing preferable to holding a "regular" job: the control they feel over their time and careers is well worth the risks that come with relatively uncertain cash flow. Freelancing Expertise is a qualitative study of decision making, work practices, and occupational processes among writers and editors who work in print and Web communications and programmers and engineers who work in software and systems development.Debra Osnowitz conducted sixty-eight extended interviews with representatives of both groups and twelve interviews with managers and recruiters, observed four different work settings in which contractors work alongside employees, and monitored blogs and online discussions among contractors. As a result, she provides a unique and sensitive assessment of a cultural shift in occupations and organizations. Osnowitz calls for a reconfiguration of the employer/employee relationship that accepts more variation and flexibility: just as "freelancing" has, over time, taken on many traits considered characteristic of traditional career paths, so might regular jobs make themselves more appealing to todays workforce by mimicking some of the positive aspects of transactions between clients and contract workers. Author Biography Debra Osnowitz is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clark University. Table of Contents Introduction 1. Two Occupations with Divided Labor Markets 2. Assessing Options, Making Choices 3. Performing Expertise 4. Managing Marginality 5. Collegial Networking, Occupational Control 6. Extra-Organizational Careers 7. Work Relations Reconsidered Conclusion Appendix: Contractors Interviewed Notes References Index Review "Osnowitz provides a thorough analysis of high-skilled contracting arrangements with a focus on how contractors experience their working lives... The strength of this book lies in the authors rich descriptions of contractors experiences ... paying particular attention to the way that expertise defines the lives of her informants... She also offers a rich depiction of the ambiguities in the contractors roles ... present [in organizations] as commercial suppliers rather than as members."-Matthew Bidwell, ILR Review (January 2012) "The book examines the nature of freelance work from a number of angles: the relative advantages and disadvantages and the calculus made by the freelancers; the way in which they have to display their expertise (the performance); their experience of marginalization when working for and on the premises of employing organizations; their utilization of networks and the way they manage their (non-organizational) careers. The book widens its lens with a reconsideration of the implications of contracting for the nature of work relations... The books undoubted strengths are to be found in the imaginative, open-minded and thorough-going nature of the assessments made ... [and its] underlying values-driven commitment to fairness and equity in the landscape of diverse forms of work."-John Storey, British Journal of Industrial Relations (September 2012) "Freelancing Expertise is a detailed and nuanced description of important dimensions of contracting work today. Debra Osnowitz asks how contractors manage the risks that are entailed when they lack a steady employment contract. While analyzing the experiences of professional contractors in the fields of high technology and publishing, Osnowitz provides comparisons to people in similar occupations who are regular employees and people in similar temporary employment relations but in different occupations. Osnowitzs understanding of how an external labor market works is very original and cutting edge."-Vicki Smith, University of California, Davis, coauthor of The Good Temp "Debra Osnowitzs compelling analysis identifies the strategies contract workers use to chart careers, the rewards unique to contract work, and the substantial personal risks involved. By contextualizing contract work in a historical perspective and through analysis of in-depth interviews, Freelancing Expertise reveals contract work to be an alternate to, and consequence of, the limited rewards obtained in traditional career jobs. This is a remarkable contribution to understandings of the new economy."-Stephen Sweet, Ithaca College, author of Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy "Freelancing Expertise is an innovative, accessible, and insightful sociological analysis of the dilemmas contract professionals face and address as they navigate risk and seize opportunities in the open labor market of the new economy. Based on her in-depth interviews and close observation of freelance writers, editors, programmers, engineers, Debra Osnowitz reveals the dilemmas that arise for these contract professionals whose external occupational careers intersect productively but tenuously with the internal operations of their organizational clients. Contract professionals continuously reconcile flexibility and economic security, employment and employability, accountability and marginality in their clients workplaces, and individual and collective action. Osnowitz empirically unpacks the multifaceted processes of social networking and occupational community-building contract professionals deploy to address dilemmas, minimize risk, and maximize opportunity. Documenting thoroughly the limitations of individual action, market mediation through staffing agencies, and collective occupational advocacy, and noting the organizational rather than freelance focus of labor and employment law, Osnowitz concludes with a compelling call for legal reforms that minimize employment risks and strengthen the safety net and social protections for freelance contract professionals of the new economy. Freelancing Expertise is of interest to scholars of work, employment, and labor, college and graduate students in the social sciences, and practitioners and policymakers who are transforming freelance labor markets and employment relations in the new economy."-Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University, Editor of Work and Occupations Long Description Contract work is more important than ever--for better or for worse, depending on ones perspective. The security once implied by a full-time job with a stable employer is becoming rarer, thereby erasing one of the major distinctions between "freelance work" and a "steady gig." Why hang on to a regular job for the sake of security if security can no longer be assumed? Instead, contractors, hired temporarily for specific knowledge and skills, market their expertise as they move from project to project. Even though their employment is precarious, a great many consider freelancing preferable to holding a "regular" job: the control they feel over their time and careers is well worth the risks that come with relatively uncertain cash flow. Freelancing Expertise is a qualitative study of decision making, work practices, and occupational processes among writers and editors who work in print and Web communications and programmers and engineers who work in software and systems development. Debra Osnowitz conducted sixty-eight extended interviews with representatives of both groups and twelve interviews with managers and recruiters, observed four different work settings in which contractors work alongside employees, and monitored blogs and online discussions among contractors. As a result, she provides a unique and sensitive assessment of a cultural shift in occupations and organizations. Osnowitz calls for a reconfiguration of the employer/employee relationship that accepts more variation and flexibility: just as "freelancing" has, over time, taken on many traits considered characteristic of traditional career paths, so might regular jobs make themselves more appealing to todays workforce by mimicking some of the positive aspects of transactions between clients and contract workers. Review Quote "The book examines the nature of freelance work from a number of angles: the relative advantages and disadvantages and the calculus made by the freelancers; the way in which they have to display their expertise (the performance); their experience of marginalization when working for and on the premises of employing organizations; their utilization of networks and the way they manage their (non-organizational) careers. The book widens its lens with a reconsideration of the implications of contracting for the nature of work relations. . . . The books undoubted strengths are to be found in the imaginative, open-minded and thorough-going nature of the assessments made . . . [and its] underlying values-driven commitment to fairness and equity in the landscape of diverse forms of work."-John Storey, British Journal of Industrial Relations (September 2012) Details ISBN0801449367 Author Debra Osnowitz Short Title FREELANCING EXPERTISE Series Collection on Technology and Work Language English ISBN-10 0801449367 ISBN-13 9780801449369 Media Book Format Hardcover DEWEY 658.041 Imprint ILR Press Subtitle Contract Professionals in the New Economy Country of Publication United States Place of Publication New York Year 2010 Publication Date 2010-09-17 Illustrations black & white illustrations UK Release Date 2010-09-17 AU Release Date 2010-09-17 NZ Release Date 2010-09-17 US Release Date 2010-09-17 Pages 272 Publisher Cornell University Press Alternative 9780801460388 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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