This thesis aims to analyse organizational change, focusing on the meanings attributed by participants in planned and unplanned processes of organizational change, in a large, UK hospitality company. Framed within the narrative meta-paradigm, this research employs a qualitative, interpretive, social-constructionist perspective, and considers change in organizations as constituted by alterations in people’s understandings, encoded in narratives, and shared in conversations. The thesis draws on prior publications in the fields of narrative and organizational change, including the sensemaking, power and identity literatures. Data was co-created through sixty-six semi-structured interviews in a single, multi-site case study, augmented by informal observations and assessment of written materials. The research account tells the stories of: organizational change; the responses from members to change; and the shifts in power, control and autonomy. These narratives of change were prepared through an interpretive analysis of the interview transcripts, and the study provides a reflexive commentary on the research, through vignettes of the researcher’s experience. In the discussion, three readings interpret the case study from a narrative, an organizational change and an autoethnographic perspective. The primary contribution of the thesis is empirical, providing an in-depth case study that describes a complex organizational landscape, at two luxury hotels, into which a managerial initiative, Shine, was launched, and addresses the limited presence of narrative case studies on change. Through the application of existing theory to this empirical resource, the thesis contributes to understandings of sensemaking, power and identity during continuous change. The study argues for the significance of reflexivity in storytelling research, and the need for practitioners to embrace the socially constructed nature of ‘realities’ in working with organizational change. More generally, the thesis has demonstrated the value of a storytelling approach to understanding the complexities of organizational change, while identifying limitations to plurivocal storytelling as a research method.

This project aimed to explore the educational experiences of ‘looked after children’ in one local authority in England. Young people, in the care of the state, have consistently lower educational achievements than their peers who live with their birth families. This situation is not unique to the UK context; it is replicated across Europe and North America. Aiming for an ethnographic study, the project generated much needed qualitative data in order to consider the educational experiences of children in care in Devon. To date much research in this area has focussed on statistical analysis of measured outcomes, and contributory factors which show a bleak picture of underachievement and poor adult outcomes. The design allowed for a more rounded picture of the full educational experience, not just in terms of achievement, but a view of wider educational experiences, giving an in-depth insight into the value that a looked after child places on ‘education’ in its widest sense. The results of this study add to the small body of research in this area which takes a more sociological view. The researcher worked with young people and older alumni of care, with participants’ ages ranging across five decades: 11 to 59, allowing an element of temporality to be considered in a relatively short term project. Experiences were gathered by means of qualitative interviews, focussed on the present with the young people, and using a life history lens when working with adults. The findings were analysed in such a way as to identify educational themes across generations, for those young people who are in the care of the local authority. The study found that for young people in local authority care education is perceived as occurring across their life experiences, a much wider definition than that which happens within formal ‘school’ environments. This broader view of education encompassed life skills, social skills, sporting skills and digital skills. Participants storied themselves as achievers within this wider view of education. The study showed that young people in care could be reflexive in their learning, they storied themselves as agentic, and exhibited a habitus which helped them to learn who they were, and to recognise their achievements. The study adds to current understanding about the way children in care learn. A visual model of ‘Conditions for Learning’ has been developed, based around the three theoretical constructs: reflexivity, agency, and habitus. This model has the potential to be applied to larger groups and other young people, to explore the conditions which support their learning. These findings provide important insights which could inform decision-making within both the care and education professions.

L’intertextualité devrait permettre d’appréhender l’œuvre sarrautienne dans ses contradictions structurelles, réflexivement représentées, dans son évolution problématique, dans sa spécificité littéraire. Une première partie, analytique, met en évidence le régime moderne de l’emprunt, à travers l’étude de deux Nouveaux Romans emblématiques (Portrait d’un inconnu, Le planétarium), tandis que s’amorcent, avec « disent les imbéciles » et Ich sterbe, un tournant autobiographique et une restauration de la directivité auctoriale, caractéristiques des derniers opus. Une seconde partie, synthétique, retrace le contexte culturel de l’emploi figuré du mot tropismes ; s’efforce de répondre à l’objection qui oppose la composition d’Enfance à la discontinuité fragmentaire des autres livres ; propose d’identifier, dans la « sous-conversation », la réécriture d’une forme de dialogue commenté que Proust, héritier de Balzac, a perfectionnée, mais qui devient, chez Sarraute, le lieu d’une déconstruction littéraire du soupçon moderne, où son œuvre peut trouver sa cohérence thématique et stylistique comme sa pertinence historique en se mesurant à un paradigme majeur du XXème siècle. Enfin, un Répertoire des allusions est joint en Appendice pour illustrer la densité de l’intertexte sarrautien, de Tropismes à Ouvrez. – Manifestant la radicalité d’une recherche expérimentale, d’un « tâtonnement aveugle dans le langage », l’intertextualité offre un point de vue critique sur l’œuvre sarrautienne, permettant de saisir comment le projet littéraire, à la fois psychologique et poétique, d’un auteur se réfléchit et s’épuise dans les tensions souvent extrêmes de ses textes indécidables, à l’inapparente opacité, attendant de l’avenir d’imprévisibles métamorphoses. / Is Intertextuality a permanent (even a structural) component of the Nathalie Sarraute’s writing? To maintain this critical position, we should first scrutinize how the intertextuality system, especially in Portrait of a Man Unknown and in The planetarium, is strongly perturbing the narrative conventions and promoting a reflexive approach of the text; while Fools say and Ich sterbe show an autobiographical evolution and a restoration of the author’s directivity; then some examples from a missing Index of References based upon the whole of the Sarrautean oeuvre should confirm the extent of intertextuality; in a second section, we should relativize the originality of the sarrautean tropisms by studying how the traditional forms of dialog or fragment are renewed by such a rhetorical “estrangement”. So, with the question of intertextuality, we could realize how a literary project become distorted by the practice of writing, since the Sarraute’s post-romantic conceptions heavily contrast with the modernist features of her works, which is a deciding factor of their aporetic ambiguity.

Modernism is characterized by alienation from one's self and the processes by which one's self gets constructed. Organizational development (OD) is an activity that attempts to address the experience of work and to transform the historical alienation. OD practitioners are often optimistic that this transformation is possible and even is happening in the day-to-day work of OD. A group of critics, mostly academics, are skeptical about whether any real transformation is possible, arguing that OD practices are misguided extensions of modernism. In one thread of the OD literature, authors build an argument for the centrality of issues of identity in achieving this transformation. Proponents of this perspective argue that dialogic processes of reflection and co-construction are vital to participating in the production of one's self. In this study, I used participant-observation and interview approaches to investigate the ways OD consultants make sense of their work. These approaches are managed through a perspective I call "first person," which aligns them with the dialogic principles of immediacy of presence; emergent, unanticipated consequences; collaborative orientation; vulnerability; and genuineness and authenticity. I found among the OD consultants a shared value for dialogue, an appreciation for people who are engaged, a preoccupation with identity boundaries, a commitment to the greater good, an understanding of the personal benefits they receive from their work, and a concern for fear among their clients and in themselves. Many OD consultants have chosen their roles as independent or internal consultants to escape from modern constructions of identity prevalent in organizations. OD consulting is a practice situated among multiple interests, creating complex tensions of identity and action for OD consultants. OD work itself requires consultants to be reflexive about their own and others' processes of identity construction. OD consultants, when contrasted to critics of OD, show a tendency toward what Mikhail Bakhtin calls dialogue rather than dialectic. A dialogic orientation allows the OD consultants to work more productively on shaping the transition to postmodern consciousness. Reflexivity and self-participation are central to the success of an OD consultant. Education and professional groups should support greater understanding, inquiry, and practice of reflexivity and self-participation.

This thesis contributes to discussion surrounding the importance of reflexivity in social theory and sociology by illustrating some of the paradoxes involved in the development of a reflexive social science. It does this by focusing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, arguably the main advocate of relexive sociology. It is argued that Bourdieu's emphasis on a 'science of practices' limits his ability to be completely relexive because it excludes moral reflexivity. This is ironic, given that Bourdieu believes that reflexivity increases scientificity. The thesis argues that Max Weber's work on religious rationalisation offers an insightful understanding of these paradoxes. His work reveals how and why Modernity witnessed a separation and tension between moral reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity. It also reveals, despite Weber's best efforts to do so, that such a paradoxical tension cannot be overcome. The thesis uses these insights to show the dilemmas and tensions facing any relexive sociology / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis is a study of Italian women’s sensual embodiment in leisure and tourism experiences (involving beautifying in the city and tanning at the beach) in, and around, the city of Rome. The central link in this thesis connects the field of tourism studies with social cultural theories of the ‘body’, placing this research within the most recent theoretical debates on the body. It is argued that in everyday life people take their bodies for granted, yet the body is absolutely crucial to the way we engage with the world and the people around us. Through analysing Italian women’s embodiment, this thesis seeks to gain in-depth understanding of Italian society and more particularly women’s position in society, thereby positioning the field of tourism studies as a means for analysing people’s quotidian cultural habits. Embracing the critical paradigm, this thesis takes a reflexive and embodied approach to research, challenging the all-pervasive hegemonic dominance of positivist, masculinist Western academic approaches. Through post feminist lenses, auto ethnography, in-depth interviewing and document analysis were used to carry out the field work, with the central aim of capturing and contextualising Italian women’s voices and embodiment. This research shows Italian society to be strongly patriarchal, reflecting gender inequity and inequality. Women are dominated in discourse (politics, senior management and television shows being predominantly male), pressured into family roles, and objectified in society through the media and the male gaze. Paradoxically, women are empowered through choosing to reproduce patriarchal values of beauty and objectification (the power of the agency), and to embody these in a sensual and sensuous way, thereby reversing power relations in their favour. Aiming to understand Italian society through exploring women’s sensual embodiment, this thesis contributes to a broader understanding of the gendered construction of social identity, and of patriarchy and power relations, from a woman’s perspective. It contributes to gender and body studies in the tourism field through bringing these separate fields together, through exploring the power of agency in embodiment, and through the critical research approach to the body.

This thesis is about climate change attitudes in Alberta, Canada. It applies a bivariate logistic analysis to the data gathered from a random stratified sampling survey held in Alberta in 2008. It finds that belief in the anthropogenic climate change and Conservative political ideology factors have a high predictive probability on an individuals willingness to pay a tax that addresses the negative effects of climate change. The subjects of individual capacity and reflexivity are examined in the light of these results and suggestions for future researchers are made. It thus offers insights on how to find human potentials within society that can help to cope with the idea of climate change. / Rural Sociology

In this dissertation, I explicate how scholars implicate themselves in the subfield of organizational communication studies by engaging in antinomic language-games which make the conduct of research (and textwork in particular) possible. My analysis suggests that the studied scholars enact these games to understand a more or less common object of knowledge, but also to constitute a more or less identifiable position in this given social space. Reflection on the ontological complicity between these position and subfield occurs uncommonly, however. I illustrate, in turn, that this lack of reflexivity hinders discussion about the way academic research practices induce breaks with the social realities which these scholars are trying to understand. In light of this argument, and based predominantly on a translation and extension of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas, this dissertation thus illustrates how the language-games of scholars in organizational communication studies sustain a limited practice of reflexivity and considers its effects on their production of knowledge.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer an exposition of Anthony Giddens¡¦ thoughts on modernity. The terms ¡¥modern¡¦ and ¡¥modernity¡¦ are probably among the most frequently used yet rarely discussed with regards to meaning and connotation. In contemporary social theories, the term modernity is frequently taken as either obsolete or true by definition. In this thesis, I try to interpret Giddens¡¦ ideas on modernity to offer a better purchase on current ideas within the field. In the first chapter, I explain why I think the research on modernity is critical to contemporary social science. Moreover, to explicate Giddens¡¦ thinking, I also discuss Giddens¡¦ academic life and the contemporary academic study in Taiwan of Giddens¡¦ writings. In the second chapter, I briefly describe Giddens¡¦ most widely discussed theory, the Structuration theory, for I think it is the theoretical basis of the thoughts on modernity. I also refer to two important contemporary thinkers¡¦ to trace Giddens¡¦ theoretical background, namely Roy Bhaskar and Jürgen Habermas. In following two chapters, I detail Giddens¡¦ theory of modernity, focusing on its fundamental characteristics, consequences and implications for the study of an increasingly globalized world. In the fifth chapter, I review the criticisms on Giddens¡¦ theory of modernity and try to defend some of those criticisms. In the conclusion chapter, I briefly go through the major points of this thesis and assess Giddens¡¦ insights to the study of modernity.

In this dissertation, I explicate how scholars implicate themselves in the subfield of organizational communication studies by engaging in antinomic language-games which make the conduct of research (and textwork in particular) possible. My analysis suggests that the studied scholars enact these games to understand a more or less common object of knowledge, but also to constitute a more or less identifiable position in this given social space. Reflection on the ontological complicity between these position and subfield occurs uncommonly, however. I illustrate, in turn, that this lack of reflexivity hinders discussion about the way academic research practices induce breaks with the social realities which these scholars are trying to understand. In light of this argument, and based predominantly on a translation and extension of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas, this dissertation thus illustrates how the language-games of scholars in organizational communication studies sustain a limited practice of reflexivity and considers its effects on their production of knowledge.