Client, Employer and Employee: Mapping a Complex Triangulation

Abstract

Many studies in the fields of law, sociology and management point to the transformation of subordination in the employment relationship. This is often explained by the triangulation of the traditionally bilateral employment relation between employer and employees by the involvement of clients or their representatives in the operational and organizational conditions of work. Such studies rarely distinguish between the various types of clients, nor between the reality and rhetoric of their role and influence. Our objective is to propose a classification of the triangular situations between employer, employees and clients based on the concept of power and to analyse the impacts of clients on conditions of work and employment relations.