This chapter analyzes how work and employment are shaped within a landscape marked by organizational innovation and, more often than not, even by the fundamental transformation of formal organizations. Even large organizations are increasingly adopting what some have called “post-bureaucratic” forms. The post-bureaucratic organizational landscape is marked by three trends with the aim of achieving even more fluidity in organizations: temporariness, plurality, and partiality. With regard to these three aspects, we argue that work and employment, often intermediated with the help of agencies of all sorts, are increasingly integrated in networked processes of interorganizational value creation.

Many writings on the changing nature of work portray the employee–organization relationship as a casualty of the modern workplace. This chapter reviews social exchange models of the employee–organization relationship as captured in organizational support and psychological contract theories. We explore the evidence of the extent to which the employee–organization relationship has changed as a result of changes in employment practices over the past several decades. Our analysis considers both overall trends in the employee–organization relationship as well as specific issues tied to temporary and part-time work, independent contractors, tripartite employment relationships, job insecurity, job hopping, and income inequality. The evidence suggests that while certain employment practices threaten the quality of the employee–organization relationship, social exchange models provide useful and relevant frameworks through which to understand the nature of these changes and employees’ reactions to them.

The SPS and TBT Agreements set obligations to rationalise the development of behind-the-border measures in WTO Members. Because of the myriad of domestic measures that may fall under these disciplines, a detailed understanding of domestic measures and their rationale is essential to ensure effective implementation of the two Agreements. The SPS and TBT transparency frameworks allow all WTO Members to gain the necessary information and reach such an understanding. This chapter makes an in-depth presentation of the transparency requirements of the SPS and TBT Agreements and the potential role they may play in both informing Members and allowing them to exchange on their policies at an early level of the regulatory process. It defines the purpose, scope of application and typology of transparency mechanisms that exist under the frameworks of the two Agreements.

Discussions of the changing nature of work would be incomplete without a consideration of the changing role of the private sector in sustainable development, which affects what companies are working toward and how they are accomplishing their aims. This chapter considers and illustrates how the private sector can contribute to the accomplishment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Opportunities for impact extend beyond traditional forms of Corporate Social Responsibility. Enabling companies to embed people-friendly, planet-sensitive policies and practices in ways that are good for business can propel the positive transformation needed to achieve the SDGs. This leads to questions of how to create such enabling environments. Answers require a keen understanding not only of businesses, but of the people who lead, comprise, and support them. As such, the behavioral and organizational sciences are key to facilitating the kinds of private sector contributions necessary to accomplish the SDGs.

Part III shows that even for trade conflicts that do not get solved in bilateral or multilateral dialogue, transparency is still an essential ‘complement’ to dispute settlement: transparency is often used in addition to formal dispute settlement procedures, either before, in parallel or after the proceedings have finished. Indeed, the SPS and TBT transparency mechanisms facilitate access to information and foster dialogue for all Members alike, thus providing equal access to understanding about domestic factual and legislative contexts behind trade frictions. If tensions persist, transparency can support Members in having the necessary information to raise and defend disputes. In parallel, discussions in STCs at the margins of formal dispute settlement can continue to serve as a basis for Members to work towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Jagdish Bhagwati refers to transparency as the ‘Dracula effect’, saying that ‘exposing evil to sunlight helps to destroy it’. Does transparency under the WTO Agreements on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement, or SPS) and on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement, or TBT) ensure a ‘Dracula effect’, helping to prevent and address WTO-inconsistent practices? Or does it fuel more disputes? In other words, does transparency act as a substitute for or a complement to dispute settlement – or both?

This chapter gives an overview of the disciplines regarding international regulatory co-operation that exist in the SPS and TBT Agreements. It argues that to complement the transparency obligations of the two Agreements, a number of provisions encourage WTO Members to engage in regulatory co-operation, that can take place either bilaterally or multilaterally in the context of the WTO. This regulatory co-operation that is both encouraged by the SPS and TBT Agreements and enabled by the Committee meetings takes place at the early stages of the domestic regulatory process regarding trade-related measures, and is an essential complement to both the substantive obligations presented in Chapter 1 and the transparency obligations presented in Chapter 2. Indeed, together, these different legal disciplines of the SPS and TBT Agreements allow Members to understand better each others’ regulations and participate directly in each others’ regulatory processes, thus ultimately preventing disputes from rising.

This chapter provides some perspectives on decision-making and the role that it should play in your life to be most useful. Specific topics concern the misnomer of “objective decision-making, ” the inappropriateness of trying to optimize your decisions, the appropriate amount of time you should spend making decisions and how that time should be allocated, the importance of avoiding poor life-limiting decisions, the implications of your decisions on an untimely death, and how being spontaneous and enjoying your life fits in with your decision-making. There is also a summary of the types of personal nudges that you can create and use to guide you to make better decisions.

The changing nature of work is both a local and global phenomenon. Globalization has enabled individuals with skills and talents to work in knowledge-intensive cities where they can interact with one another. The competencies rewarded by global organizations require global acumen, multicultural fluency, technological literacy, entrepreneurial skills, and the ability to manage in increasingly far-flung, de-layered, disaggregated organizations. A different sort of social structure is needed to support this type of worker. There is a shortage of such individuals in specific sectors and a global effort to find, develop, and retain talented workers who can move organizations forward. This chapter will look at recent research on the globalized workforce with an effort to understand the development, recruitment, and training of talent to implement strategic or technological innovation. We will look at current research on global talent management, HR management and organizational behavior as it relates to global work, and growing restrictions on the free flow of global work. Will we continue to see further extension of the globalized workforce, or enter a new era of privileged access to markets based less on workplace talent than on citizenship, ethnicity, religion, and other factors?

The dispute settlement system is a costly and burdensome process that may be worth turning to only in cases of high trade losses. It is arguably in any country’s interest to avoid disputes. Building on the premise that disputes intervene only as a last resort, Chapter 7 explores the reasons that explain the difficulty to ‘climb’ the disputing pyramid. Based on pre-existing literature, it identified three general factors to explain WTO Members’ access to WTO adjudication: Members are likely to bring disputes as long as they have information, resources, and they lack alternative fora to solve the conflict. This serves as a basis for arguments in the subsequent chapter about the possible roles for transparency in accessing formal dispute settlement.