ABSTRACT
PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew in a Scandinavian carrier in three eras, drawing on theories of gender and emotional labour.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on ethnographic data from fieldwork, interviews and documents.FindingsFrom being a feminized and temporary occupation for young, upper- and middle-class women in the 1970s, the occupation became a full-time job and with greater diversity of cabin crew. Today there are signs of the job becoming a precarious and temporary one of demanding and devalorized work in a polarized and class-divided labour market. Changing circumstances impact on the emotional labour requirement and terms and conditions at work.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation is that the research design was not initially longitudinal in the sense that the author does not have exactly the same kind of data from each era. The author has, however, been involved in this field for two decades, used multiple methods and interacted with different stakeholders and drew on a unique data material.Practical implicationsThe development in aviation is contributing to new discriminatory practices, driving employee conditions downwards and changing the job demands. This development will have practical consequences for the lives and families of cabin crew.Social implicationsThe analysis illustrates how work ‘constructs' workers and contributes in creating jobs that are not sustainable for the employees. Intensification of work, insecurity and tougher working conditions also challenge key features in the Nordic model such as proper pay, decent work and a life-long employment. Much indicates that the profession is again becoming a temporary one of demanding work with poor working conditions in a polarized and class-divided labour market.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the literature on emotional labour, gender and the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew. The unique data material, the longitudinal aspect of the research and the focus on a single network carrier are good in charting changes over time.
ABSTRACT
Over the past 150 years, finance has evolved into one of the world's most globalized, digitized, and regulated industries. Digitalization has transformed finance, but also enabled new entrants over the past decade in the form of technology companies, especially FinTechs and BigTechs. As a highly digitalized industry, incumbents and new entrants alike are increasingly pursuing similar approaches and models, focusing on the economies of scope and scale typical of finance and the network effects typical of data. Predictably, this has resulted in the emergence of large digital finance platforms. We argue that the combination of digitalization, new entrants (especially BigTechs), and the evolution of dominant digital finance platforms-which we describe as FinTech 4.0 and mark as beginning in 2019-2020-brings both massive benefits and an increasing range of risks to growth and broader sustainable development. The emergence of concentration and dominance in digital finance poses challenges for societies and regulators around the world that, thus far, are most clearly evident in the United States and China. Existing regulatory frameworks for finance, competition, data, and technology are not designed to comprehensively address the challenges these trends pose. Instead, we need to build new approaches, domestically and internationally, to maximize the benefits of network effects and economies of scope and scale in digital finance. At the same time, we need to monitor and control the attendant risks of concentration and dominance in digital finance across existing regulatory silos. We argue for a principles-based approach that brings together regulators responsible for different sectors and functions, both overseeing on a functional activitiesbased approach but also - as scale and interconnectedness increase - addressing specific entities as they emerge. This graduated proportional hybrid approach is appropriate both domestically in the United States, China, and elsewhere, as well as for cross-border groups, building on the experiences of supervisory colleges and supervision developed for Globally Systemically Important Financial Institutions (G-SIFIs) and Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs). This will need to be combined with an appropriate strategic approach to data in finance, to enable the maximization of the benefits of data aggregation while constraining related risks of concentration and dominance.