The UK and USA led the way in the 1970s and 1980s in creating the conditions for a new global financial system, but our understanding of the effects upon the world of work and the shifting relationship between work and finance remains limited. There has been much discussion of the growing complexity and instability of financial models, but very little scrutiny of how the financial world affects the real economy.

How does financialisation impact on the productivity, prospects and well-being of people at work? Hedge funds, private equity firms, and sovereign wealth funds are at the centre of debates on the imposition of the priorities of financial capitalism on established regimes of managerial capitalism, but are these intermediaries innovators or predators in business and people management strategies? Do they diminish the quality of production and service provision and the productivity and well-being of the workforce?

Professor Ian Clark works at the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures where Professor Eileen Appelbaum is a visiting professor.