Good Temp

Vicki Smith is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Crossing the Great Divide, also from Cornell, and Managing in the Corporate Interest. Esther B. Neuwirth is an applied researcher at the Care Management Institute, Kaiser Permanente, in Oakland, California.

• 1. The Temporary Advantage: Introduction2. The Social Construction of New Markets and Products3. "We're Not Body Pushers": Constructing a Pool of Good Temps4. Softening “Rough and Tough Managers”: Creating “Good Enough” Jobs for Temps5. Shaping and Stabilizing the Personnel Policy Environment6. Do Good Enough Temporary Jobs Make Good Enough Temporary Employment? The Case for Transitional MobilityAppendix I: Analyzing the Management MediaAppendix II: Frequently Asked Questions about the Economic and Legal Dimensions of Temporary EmploymentNotesReferencesIndex

In The Good Temp, Vicki Smith and Esther Neuwirth examine the process of market-making in the segment of the temporary help industry in which agencies place workers with relatively limited skills into temporary, entry-level clerical, administrative, and light manufacturing positions. The strength of this book is that it does not conclude with the content analysis, as a typical journal might. Rather, it uses data from participant observation to show how temporary help agencies attempt to make the promise of 'the good temp' a reality. The book argues that the temporary help industry did not simply argue that it was possible for firms to employ good temps; rather, they implemented operating practices that created 'good temps.'.(Administrative Science Quarterly) The argument made throughout the book is that the increased use of temporary employment over time was not simply a result of an increase in demand for that kind of work, but rather was the result of the wide-spread adoption of attitudes and beliefs within the corporate world regarding the supposed benefits of temporary labor; attitudes and beliefs which had been carefully constructed by the THS industry itself.... Smith and Neuwirth's book is an extremely balanced account of temp agencies and temporary employment.... It will make compelling reading for anyone interested in this particular subject matter, and it provides is a fascinating window into the world of temporary employment and the THS industry.- James Skinner (Qualitative Sociology Review) This clearly argued, readable, and perceptive book is laudable for its refusal to accept the functionalist logic that temporary work and workers arise unproblematically out of market 'necessity,' and for its corresponding analysis of how particular employment relations are culturally legitimated and organizationally embedded. I especially appreciate the innovative use of ethnography to study practices and connections among individual and institutional actors in a labor market, rather than the internal workings of a single organization.(American Journal of Sociology)