Lifestyles as Social Contracts between Workers and Organizations

A more individualized world of work reduces neither the relevance of social institutions for social actors nor minimizes the role of social structure in studies on work, employment, and organization. I seek to broaden the current individualistic concepts of employment contracts by stressing the relevance of milieu and lifestyle studies for understanding the relationship between workers and organizations. Examples from the “creative industries” are used to illustrate the role of lifestyle for the constitution of workers’ and organizations’ expectations for work arrangements and the use of labor. In conclusion, I conceptualize co-evolving patterns of workers’ preferences and organizations’ (human resource) management practices as social contracts between workers and organizations.