SUSCare | The Future of sustainable work: Towards an ‘ethics of care’
The project
Over the past decades, our societies have witnessed many changes in work, among which the rise of New Ways of Working’ (NWW) potentially leading to work intensification, increased control, the individualization of work, the erosion of working communities, the rise of managerialism, the extensification of managerial work or health issues. Another transformation relates to a change in the meaning of work prompting many sociologists of work to ask what is the meaning of work nowadays? What is the value of work today?
Interestingly, both the rise of NWW practices and the change in the meaning of work appears to question the very components of sustainable work defined as the living and working conditions that support people in engaging and remaining in work throughout an extended working life. Sociology of work shows that at stake is the emergence of vulnerabilities which affect people at work (i.e. well-being, working conditions, engagement), and crucially for this research, these could be tackled through forms of care. However, very little research in management studies addresses the concept of care, primarily in relation to managerial activity. At the intersection of – and within each of these – research fields, little has been said about how the ethics of care can be shaped and enacted at a team or an organizational level, and therefore, in what ways can the ethics of care contribute to sustainable work?
Objective
SUSCARE’s overall objective is to conceptualize the ethics of care in organizations and the conditions for its implementation to foster the sustainability of work. This goal can only be achieved through the joint interdisciplinary efforts and will take the form of successive phases involving to:
- conceptualize sustainable work in a changing world of work;
- investigate the sustainability of work in practice;
- study how care is experienced at work;
- study how care is managed at work;
- study the social dynamics of care at work;
- and discuss caring management as a path for sustainable work.
The team
Principal Investigators (PIs)
|
Sociologist |
Management researcher |
Oher members of the team
- two PhD students (one in sociology and one in management),
- a postdoctoral researcher in social sciences.
SUSCare | A Collaborative Research Action Project (ARC) - October 2026 - September 2031
Funded by the Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles (FWB), ARC projects are Concerted Research Action projects that aim at developing university or inter-university centres of excellence in fundamental research axes and, where possible, that carry out basic and applied research in an integrated manner and aim to make economic and social use of research results. They are awarded based on academic excellence of the applicants, the added value of each research group to achieve goals of research project, complementary skills of research teams and the methodology of proposed research program. They typically last for 4 to 5 years. In case of inter-university project, each team is financely supported by its own institution.
