Chapter 1 introduces the key ideas, themes and perspectives underpinning the book. Important concepts and frameworks of power associated with changes in work and employment are introduced; and the ‘work and employment studies’ approach adopted in the book is explained. The core content of the book is also outlined and mapped against six shifting dimensions shaping labour agency in the workplace.

Chapter 3 unpicks the regulatory context of worker voice and influence. It analyses how the general nature and role of the state has changed and continues to evolve; the influence of policy positions and legal intervention on employment relations; and institutional responses to gender inequality and labour migration. It contends that the world of work and employment has been decollectivised by bogus self-employment and individualised employment rights.

The chapter reviews shifts to global capitalism, the rise of non-standard employment relationships and the prevalence of work precarity for many people, including flexibility, work in the gig economy and the rise of new technologies shaping the future of work

Chapter 4 debates the decline in worker voice. It reviews different forms of voice: ‘institutional’ (e.g. works councils); ‘union participation’; ‘collective bargaining’; ‘non-union voice’; and ‘external actors’ (e.g. civil society groups and associations). It argues that while employee voices are increasingly fragmented and fractured, there are shades of light and hope in terms of new forms of creative labour mobilising and social engagement.

This chapter analyzes the dynamics of political bargaining among a firm’s internal stakeholders and the role of the virtues in addressing structural injustices that inhibit human flourishing, particularly among low-skilled employees subject to exploitative wages and discretionary managerial control. In such environments, workers may cultivate “virtues of resistance” that support practices of mutual aid, adaptive work strategies, and value articulation. These mechanisms partially mitigate the harms of organizational injustice and enhance political agency. Because these virtues are frequently “burdened,” insofar as their development and expression occur under conditions that compromise their connection to human flourishing, there is an obligation for managers to mitigate these injustices, a problem that has been largely overlooked within market ethics. Accordingly, the chapter – and the book – concludes by examining how the virtues of justice, respect, courage, and practical wisdom can inform managerial action aimed at redressing workplace injustice and promoting modes of organizational life that foster moral development or Bildung.

In this chapter, we argue that human flourishing and the virtues are constitutive norms of human agency, thereby grounding virtue ethics in action theory. Building on Chapter 1’s critique of the Market Failure Approach, we argue that human action cannot be understood solely through instrumental rationality, as Humeans maintain. Instead, we contend that human flourishing – the harmonious pursuit of intrinsically valuable goods – is the constitutive aim of agency. Since the cardinal virtues of temperance, courage, justice, and practical wisdom are essential to achieving flourishing, they function as constitutive standards of action. We show how practical wisdom enables agents to apply virtue concepts in concrete situations, unifying the demands of diverse virtues and resolving conflicts between incommensurable goods. Responding to critics of virtue ethics, including Kantians and situationists, we defend a substantive conception of practical reason that is sensitive to context. This chapter lays the foundation for the market virtues framework developed in Chapter 3 and throughout the book by articulating how agents flourish in market contexts – through virtuous, mutually beneficial exchange.

This chapter introduces and explains the concept of market virtues – role-differentiated traits that enable agents to act well in market contexts – by building on the neo-Aristotelian framework introduced in Chapter 2. In response to the practical limitations of the Market Failure Approach (MFA), we elaborate the ideal of eudaimonic efficiency, which defines good transactions as those that enhance human flourishing without unjustly harming others. While cardinal virtues like justice and practical wisdom remain essential, they must be adapted to the unique norms of market institutions. We argue that market virtues such as honesty, trustworthiness, respect, and competitiveness not only mitigate market failures but also facilitate mutual benefit in ways that go beyond the MFA’s imperatives. Drawing on the work of Bruni and Sugden (2008; 2013), we defend markets as sites of moral formation, countering critics who view them as corrosive to virtue. We also address concerns about instrumentalism and the adversarial nature of markets. Ultimately, we argue that market virtues are both necessary for sustaining eudaimonic efficiency and constitutive of human flourishing within a market society, enabling individuals to constitute themselves as agents through virtuous participation in economic life.