This paper examines the mutual expectations of employment agencies, the temporary workers who are placed by them and the client or host companies with whom they are placed. It considers the ambiguities and complexities inherent in the psychological contracts of agency temps, pointing to positive dimensions of the agency relationship with temps coupled with a tough transactional regime. In periods of uncertainty agency temping provided individuals with an illusion of freedom and control.

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This article provides a critical analysis of the information age literature, explores its attractions for management and assesses evidence of the impact of the information age on the UK. It finds that material changes to work organisations and employment relationships frequently contrast with the optimistic predictions contained in much of the writing.The 'digital age'[1], the 'information society'[2], and the 'information age' are all popular titles used to describe developments in society which are linked to the coming together of information and communication technologies(ICTs) to produce what may be a new 'heartland technology' [3], whose diffusion may indicate the beginning of a fifth Kondriateff wave of economic development [4]. The concept of the information age also has its roots in the post-industrial writings of Bell[5] and shares with post-Fordist flexible specialisation an emphasis upon unilinearity of outcomes [6]. It is predominantly a paradigm of the services sector, whereas writings such as those of Piore and Sabel focused on the manufacturing sector. Most of the writings, as with flexible specialisation, foresee an optimistic future where technologically-based revitalised economies operate with reskilled collaborative workers [7]. Much of the popular output is post-modernist in its use of the 'global threat' and the idea of empowered and discerning customers con-Ì Celia Stanworth is Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the University of Greenwich Business School, London.Telework and the information age 51 stantly demanding new goods and services [8]. It also tends to be technologically deterministic, with the assumption that technology is an irresistible driver for progressive change. Economic deterioration, higher unemployment and industrial strife are predicted if there is no change or a slow take-up of the technology.The predicted effects of the information age are much wider than the adoption of the technology itself, with consequences for the entire economic system, for nation-states, work organisations and labour markets. ICTs hold out the promise of facilitating an era of rapid innovation with the development of new products and services and sustainable economic growth producing new industries and jobs. The diffusion of this new paradigm is only possible if the supporting infrastructure is in place, and this centres around the creation of the 'information superhighway' consisting of a network of optical fibre cables which links up homes and businesses facilitating an almost infinite number of interactive communications. Governments and political parties of both left and right in the US and the UK are united in their enthusiasm for the development of this infrastructure. Newt

Widespread social transformation and new class structures are predicted with the coming of the 'information age', but there is disagreement about the likely outcomes for work and employment patterns. Mainstream writing on the information age, both from the functionalist and Marxist traditions, tends not to consider likely consequences for women, but recent feminist research on gender and technology, treating technology as masculine culture, offers a useful framework for further research. This article argues that the information age may lead to some areas of convergence between the sexes in their experience of future work, but men may continue to defend areas of competence and to dominate the high status and powerful occupational positions of the future.

PROFESSOR JOHN STANWORTH, Stephanie Blyth, Bill Granger, and Celia Standworth are all members of the Future of Work Research Group at the London Management Centre, Polytechnic of Central London, England. At the current time, they are involved in several research projects, one of them being the study of rates of intergenerational inheritance of enterprise culture-a principal theme of this paper. The authors examine evidence from several countries in an attempt to predict the incidence of enterpreneurship and conclude that sociological determinants offer the best indication as to precisely who, among the many who express an interest, is most likely actually to make the transition to self-employment. In addition to examining the contributions of others in this field, the paper presents data recently collected by the authors themselves.