Won’t Get Fooled Again? Theorizing Discursive Constructions of Novelty in the ‘New’ World of Work

Jeremy Aroles, Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, John Hassard, William M Foster and Edward Granter
Additional contact information
Jeremy Aroles: University of York, UK
Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte: Univ. Lille, CNRS, IESEG School of Management, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Économie Management, Lille F-59000, France
John Hassard: University of Manchester, UK
William M Foster: University of Alberta, Canada
Edward Granter: University of Birmingham, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2025, vol. 39, issue 4, 882-903

Abstract: This article outlines how notions of novelty define today’s work practices and debates what the discursive construction of work as ‘new’ means. On the one hand, we highlight a misplaced emphasis on change and novelty that can lead to unnecessary dichotomization in the characterization and discursive construction of work practices and organizational phenomena. On the other, we specify substantive continuities in a range of strategic, organizational and employment arrangements. As such, we contend that a critical evaluation of key characteristics of contemporary work reveals that they are often not unique. Instead, these characteristics reflect the extending, rebranding or reshaping of measures and processes fashioned in earlier forms of value production. Ultimately, we theorize how the promotion of the ‘new’ world of work reflects structures and practices somehow altered in appearance, yet still analogous in substance, to those found in the traditional employment and production fabric of organizations.

Keywords: discourse; epochal; future of work; novelty; work practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170241300948 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:39:y:2025:i:4:p:882-903

DOI: 10.1177/09500170241300948

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().