The future of work is a key contemporary area of debate both in business and management research, but also in wider social, political and economic discourse. Global issues including the ageing workforce, gig economy, workplace automation and changing forms of business ownership are all regularly the subject of debate in both academic research and the mainstream media, with wider professional and public policy implications.

The Future of Work is a series of accessible short form books (20 – 50,000 words), with each examining a key issue or challenge in the modern workplace and synthesising prior developments in critical thinking and current practical challenges in order to interrogate possible future developments in the world of work.

Titles will offer future research agendas and suggest practical outcomes for todays and tomorrows businesses and workforce, and the books will allow experts to present powerful, challenging and polemical analysis of their subject’s potential to address future challenges and possible new trajectories. Books in the series will also highlight what changes still need to be made to core areas of business practice and theory in order for them to be forward facing, more representative, and able to fulfil the industrial challenges of the future.

Potential key issues for the series to explore:

• Automation, robotics and AI
• Gig economy, pay and working contracts
• The changing workspace (offices, remote working and third ways)
• Working hours
• Cooperatives and new forms of business ownership
• Collectivisation and the future of trade unions
• The sourcing and use of data in business
• Equality and diversity in the workplace
• Ageing workforce
• Crowdsourcing of talent in recruitment
• Cryptocurrency
• Blockchain technology
• Changes to career attitudes
• Sustainability in future business practices
• Internships
• Brand regulation of big tech firms
• The use of tech in retail and the future of shops
• Workplace collaboration

The series will also explore the future of key aspects of current business practice to offer ideas of how these could or should alter to address future challenges. Potential areas here include:

• Supply Chain Management
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Human Resource Management
• Talent Management
• Learning and Development
• Business Ethics
• Marketing
• Sales
• Strategy
• Innovation
• Recruitment
• Branding
• Manufacturing Technology and Management