The book looks at workers in three stages of their careers early career, midcareer, and retirement, sheds light on generational differences in the workplace, and addresses issues such as job training and work moving overseas. Long-time employees reminisce fondly about the family and engineering culture of Heritage Boeing and many are sad and angry about the new, financially driven ethos brought in by the McDonnell Douglas executives after the merger. Newer, younger employees, with no direct memory of Heritage Boeing and more individualistic attitudes, accommodate themselves more easily to the new Boeing. Employees past and present talk about the exciting challenges of launching new, breakthrough airplanes such as the 777, the thrill they feel when the airplanes they produced take to the skies, and the wrong-headed decisions that plagued the disastrous early development of the 787. The narratives also reveal how workers balance work and home life, navigate changing gender relations, and strive to find meaning in this transformed workplace culture. Emerging from Turbulence takes readers inside these profound workplace changes and shows both the personal and the national impact of today’s realities.

"Grunberg and Moore—professors of comparative sociology and psychology, respectively—[present an] . . . insightful . . . book based on their two decades of research into Boeing's corporate culture. They emphasize changes that have occurred since 1997, when Boeing merged with another aerospace giant, McDonnell Douglas, and shifted from focusing on being a 'great engineering firm' to minimizing risk, pleasing shareholders, and achieving profits. The 'Boeing family' was no more; employees were told by the new president to 'quit behaving like a family and become more like a team. If you don't perform, you don't stay on the team.' The authors set out to chronicle this sweeping shift in one company's social contract using personal narratives from past and current employees, categorizing them by the timing and duration of their employ. Sub-categories include 'No Longer Family,' 'I Work to Live,' and 'Not What I Expected.' The workers'-eye-view is valuable." - Publishers Weekly

"Boeing executives eager to inspire an engaged workforce might want to set aside their management books to study closely this account of what their employees think and feel." - The Seattle Times

"Boeing's changes, sparked by a merger with rival McDonnell Douglas, included the relocation of work to cheaper places, the outsourcing of key components and aggressive cost cuts. These details, and conclusions drawn from them, form the basis of Emerging from Turbulence. . . .[Grunberg's] study . . . goes far beyond Boeing. It provides a view over two decades of the unwinding of the postwar social contract – where workers felt they could rely on decent pay and benefits in exchange for hard work." - Financial Times