This study explores how organisational newcomers use metaphorical concepts to understand themselves and their organisation. Particular attention is devoted to local and situated use of these concepts. The study also monitors changes in newcomers' understanding over time and the impact organisational socialisation practices have on newcomers. A comparative, interview-based, longitudinal study, narrative interviews took place over a one-year period with newcomers in different trainee programmes in three sub-units of a company. Additional data was collected on field trips and in participant observations. I employed a thematic analysis to examine the data for all three groups; a systematic metaphor analysis (Schmitt, 2005) to compare and contrast the experiences of newcomers in the Operations and Investment Banking units; and social representations theory (Jovchelovitch, 2007) to frame and interpret the findings. Findings: A) Newcomer experience is similar across all three groups in two respects: Firstly, most newcomers experience local organisational discontinuities; secondly, the organisation itself, although an important reference unit in many quantitative studies of newcomer socialisation and studies of organisational metaphors, is of little relevance to newcomers. The local group or the industry are more important. The organisation only becomes visible through its socialisation practices and meaning-making activities. B) The experience of being new develops significantly differently across organisational sub-units. Thematically, this generates different notions of control and different future hopes. Metaphorically, Operations and Investment Banking newcomers also make contrasting use of identical metaphorical concepts. For example, with 'collaboration' Operations newcomers use network images, emphasizing cooperation and connection; Investment Banking newcomers use fighting images, suggesting confrontation and threat. C) The Investment Banking newcomers' experience stands out as an all-encompassing experience, profoundly separating them from other areas of life and closely linking them to team practices and the industry.

The importance of trust as a basic variable in interpersonal and group behaviour has been the subject of much thought and research. It seems apparent from the many references to trust in the organizational behaviour literature that trust acts as a fundamental building block upon which basic human interaction is based. Despite all these references, however, there has been relatively little research into what is meant by trust as an organizational variable and more importantly, perhaps, how it is developed. This thesis is a theoretical and empirical exploration of the nature of trust at work, and in particular, presents an investigation of the characteristics of trust in the context of worker-manager relationships at UK coal mines. There is a great deal of conceptual diversity concerning the nature and meaning of trust and in order to conduct useful research, it was deemed necessary to firstly unravel some of the confusion surrounding interpersonal trust by examining it as a concept rather than investigating its links to other variables. A definitional framework for the construct of trust was, therefore, developed: a framework that permitted the formulation of an operational definition of trust at work, one that could then be related to empirical observation. The 'formulation of the framework was facilitated by the use of the research methodology termed "Facet Theory" which is based upon the theory of facets developed principally by Louis Guttman. The facet approach may be seen as providing an approach to defining behavioural constructs and to testing hypotheses concerning the correspondence between behavioural definitions and empirical observations on variables that are representative of the construct. The facet approach encouraged clearer thinking in the construction of a pertinent definitional framework and enabled significant characteristics and possible sources of trust to be identified. Five distinct components with respect to an individual's attitude to trust significant others in the work environment were identified. These related to workmen's and manager's perception of the other's competence, integrity, fairness of behaviour, loyalty and openness. Instruments to measure aspects of these trust components were developed and were shown as having good reliability and validity with respect to theoretically and conceptually related measures. It was then shown that these could be used to identify differences between trust profiles of individuals and groups, and provided useful insights into what influences the development of trust. The contribution of this thesis to the study of trust is argued as resting principally on the development of a strong definitional framework from which to conduct further meaningful research.

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This thesis reports an ethnographic study of the social meanings underlying code and style choice in the situated discourse of two business organisations in Malaysia. It explains choice in these contexts against the broader contextual backdrop of English as the traditional normative code of Malaysian business, and Malay as the national language and linqua franca. The language of seminar presentations and training sessions, selected as a type of formal speech event in such contexts, was analysed to determine if the norms governing English are in place and how they are interpreted in these contexts. An integrated theoretical framework, comprising an ethnography of communication with elements drawn from Accommodation Theory and the Markedness Model of code-switching, was employed to explain institutional and individual choices. In explaining choice, the study provides a contextualised model of the varietal range and stylistic continuum of Malaysian English (ME) based on the ethnographic evidence. It reveals that ME is the unmarked choice in Malaysian business, rather than approximations to exonormative models, such as Standard British or General American English. These varieties of standard English were, in fact, marked choices, although the formality of the workplace settings might have predicted otherwise. Neither was there consistent adherence to standard English usage, despite the use of register, nor clearly defined functional norms of spoken English. Instead, variability in speech forms was clearly demonstrated and three types or variants of ME were evident. A subvariety which was identified as Educated Malaysian English (EME) was oriented to as the educated speech norm. But far more evident was a norm of communicativeness' which was alluded to as a point of reference, by informants in the interview data. Another subvariety, identified as Colloquial Malaysian English (CME), was the familiar and solidarity code while the last subvariety identified was a pidgin or broken' English. ME was spoken in ethnically distinct ways, mainly in the prosody of the native languages of the speakers, as ethnolects. Malay, was a marked code and the marked choice despite being the national language and linqua franca. However, Malay was marked only in relation to tacit organisational policy and its use was not proscribed. But its use was not encouraged either. The study demonstrated that style shifting along the full varietal range of ME, the use of a seamless mixed code and code-switching into Malay, were more common ways of speaking in these settings than the use of normatively prescribed patterns. This challenges generally held notions and expectations regarding the use of English in Malaysian business settings. Such choices are explained as locally motivated pragmatic selections within the specific contexts of the workplace settings and in relation to the larger context of the Malaysian sociolinguistic situation.