Untitled - socium.ge

192 Chris BennerFlexible labor markets are risky labor markets, and workers face high levels ofuncertainty and volatility over time in their employment opportunities andworking conditions – experiences that cannot be captured in cross-sectionaldata. To fully assess outcomes for workers in these flexible labor markets it isimportant to understand not just patterns of jobs and wages, but patterns ofcareers and earnings profiles over time (Arthur et al., 1989). The term careersin this context applies to all workers, not just those with neatly orderedpatterns with consistent upward mobility. Studying careers requires that weincorporate a time-dimension into our analysis of labor market outcomes,trying to understand how work histories reflect employment stability andinstability, skills and experience gained or made irrelevant, relationshipsnurtured or lost, risks or opportunities encountered. A focus on careersrequires an understanding of relationships, both within and between firms,which cut across work and non-work activities (Arthur and Rouseau, 1996).In developing this understanding of the implications of flexibility and intermediationon long-term labor market outcomes, particular attention needs tobe paid to three key areas. First, it is critical to understand the nature and qualityof people’s skills, information, and knowledge, how they gain these skills,and how these skills evolve over time. Clearly, formal education plays animportant role in shaping labor market outcomes, but differences in formaleducation and experience can only explain roughly one-third of the variety inwage distribution, much less career outcomes (Gottschalk, 1997; Reed, 1999).We need a much better understanding of the factors shaping individuals’access to life-long learning opportunities, their incorporation into and effectiveparticipation in learning communities, and how growing flexibility and intermediationare shaping the evolution of those learning practices over time(Benner, 2003c).Second, we need a better understanding of the ways in which flexibility andintermediation are shaping the nature and quality of people’s social networks.Clearly, there is no shortage of research on social networks, and many studieshave demonstrated that social networks are important not only in findingemployment (Granovetter, 1995; Fernandez and Weinberg, 1997), but also indeveloping skills and learning over time, advancing and improving earningsacross firms, coping with increasing lay-offs and job loss, and effectively dealingwith a range of other issues that shape long-term employment outcomes(Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wial, 1991; Hull, 1997; Herzenberg et al., 1998;Saxenian, 2000). Yet it is important to recognize that social networks, thoughhighly fluid, still shape patterns of exclusion and inclusion (Castells, 1998;Graham and Marvin, 2001). In the context of flexible labor markets, we needa better understanding of the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in cross-firmsocial networks, and, most particularly, the ways in which intermediariesshape both the strength and quality of people’s social connectedness.