How can new players establish themselves in highly institutionalized labour markets? A Belgian case study in the area of project-based work
Xhauflair, Virginie ; Huybrechts, Benjamin ; Pichault, François
British Journal of Industrial Relations
2018
56
2
370-394
labour market ; social partners ; trade union role ; case study
Labour market
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12281
English
Bibliogr.
"How can new players seeking to serve nonstandard worker categories (such as project-based workers) establish themselves into labour markets that are highly institutionalized? This paper explores the case of SMart, a Belgian community-based labour market intermediary that successfully developed solutions to better represent the interests of project-based workers and secure their discontinuous careers. Using an organizational legitimacy approach, we find that labour market entry and growth involve different types of boundary-crossing when addressing the needs of workers that do not fit into established categories. However, to justify boundary-crossing, the new player must complement its pragmatic work on delivering new services and tools with conceptual (cognitive) and structural (moral) legitimation work."
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