Writing an Annotated Bibliography | Assignment

RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 1
Burchell, B., Sehnbruch, K., Piasna, A., & Agloni, N. (2014). The quality of employment and
decent work: definitions, methodologies, and ongoing debates. Cambridge journal of economics,
38(2), 459-477.
Summary
The authors in this article have taken an exploratory research model to analyse the development
of thee various concepts related to the “quality of employment.” In the academic field, the study
of the quality of employment had been a debateable and much researched issue since there has
been an increasing amount of policies on the various aspects of employment. Taking the cue
from the basic motivation theories the authors are of the opinion that in present era it is nor=t
enough for an employee who have a decent job but the recruitment process is also an indicator of
the basic standard of living. Exploring the secondary data on employment, the understanding of
the mythological process the authors are of the opinion that the job and employment related
theories and definitions have evolved a more complex theory rather than being just employment
satisfaction. One of the major documents that the article explores is the international labour
organization’s concept of decent war that was launched in 1999. With the aim of analysing the
same in the light of work environment and employment satisfaction, the article takes a
comparative study between the employment measures in the European Union with the
international labour organization’s agenda of “decent work”. In conclusion the authors comes to
the opinion that the European Union is much advanced in terms of decent work agenda because
of their consistent approach for generating internationally comparable data about the labour
markets. This helps the European Union to remain updated as they are able to measure in detail

2ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
the rising trends and can also compare their actions at an international scales. On the other hand,
the authors criticize decent work as being merely, broadly defined concept and something, which
is not measureable.
In analysing the theoretical approaches, the authors could stress on the seven dimensions
that the European Union member considers as the quality of employment. Those are “Safety and
ethics of environment, Income and benefits from employment, working hours and balancing
work and non-working life, security of employment and social protection, social dialogue, skills
development and training and workplace, motivation and retention.” By measuring the actions
against each of the scale, the European Union maintains a balanced approach.
Evaluation
The article published by the Cambridge journal of economics takes an exploratory stance and
address the polarities by not only identifying the literature reviews or definitions but also
bringing in the issue of on-going debate on the two differing methodologies applied in the two
different fields. This comparison has been totally based on the analysis of the past researches and
the close examination of the methodologies. The article starts with the basic theoretical concepts
of quality of working life. This gives a new reader a total overview of the basic concept so that
they also can engage themselves in the identification of the methodology of both the areas. The
author starts by defining the origin of quality of life that was an emerging issue in the late 1960s
and 1970s. In giving, an overview for methodologies for measurement and international
comparisons the authors introduces the methodologies to the readers before analysing the
methods used by ILO and EU. In defining broadly, the two contrasting institutional approaches
and showing their impact on the policy making process the authors have also provided ample
ground of justifying their conclusion.