M.Com. (Industrial Relations) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how disabilities in adolescence are associated with employment outcomes in young adulthood. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I analyze the implications of four disability types (physical, learning, intellectual, and multiple disabilities) on three employment outcomes (earnings, employer-provided benefits, and occupational status). Analyses based on ordinary logistic regression and Poisson regression show that learning disability is associated with lower earnings, fewer employer-provided benefits, and lower occupational status. Education and occupational status partially mediate the relationship between learning disability and earnings and fully mediate the relationship between learning disability and employer-provided benefits. The relationship between learning disability and occupational status is partially mediated by education and discrimination. Intellectual disability is associated with fewer employer-provided benefits. Multiple disabilities are associated with lower earnings and fewer employer-provided benefits. Educational and occupational status partially mediate these relationships. Physical disability does not have an effect on employment outcomes. Thus, the association between disability and employment depends on the combination of disability types and employment outcomes. Learning and multiple disabilities are associated with particularly worse outcomes. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2018. / November 16, 2018. / Benefits, Disability, Earnings, Employment, Occupational Status, Young adulthood / Includes bibliographical references. / Koji Ueno, Professor Directing Dissertation; Chris Schatschneider, University Representative; Kathryn Tillman, Committee Member; John Reynolds, Committee Member.

This research investigated the need and requirements for the development of a suitable labour relations policy and also investigates the importance of training managers in the skills necessary for achieving harmonious employment relations.The research considered the complexity of the subject through the evaluation of theoretical frameworks, and expert opinion in the form of a literature review.

This is an exploratory study designed to examine the contracting process with respect to specific variables thought to be related to contract negotiation. Research questions pertaining to contract negotiation include a focus on those issues which are vulnerable to disagreement between paired caseworkers and clients. The study is deigned to find associations between the following variables and high and low contract status between actual casework-client pairs: (1) Client Perception of the Relationship; (2) Verbal Participation in the Contracting Process; (3) Relationship Communication and (4) Background Characteristics of Workers and Clients. The study sample is comprised of fifteen client-worker pairs drawn from a Veterans Administration outpatient medical and psychiatric clinic. Two main sources of data are used: (1) Worker and Client Questionnaires distributed to clients and workers after the first three casework interviews and (2) Audiotape recordings of the first three interviews which were subject to content and process analysis of communication. Findings concerning contract status show a statistically significant correlation between agreement on worker role and other dimensions of the contract (client needs and tasks), suggesting that an understanding of the worker's tasks are pivotal to successful contract negotiation. However, the client's needs and tasks are underdeveloped aspects of contract negotiations and do not develop in relation to one another. Though in this study worker and client consensus on expectations of each other was fairly high, disagreement, when it occurred, was generally in the direction of clients wanting to lean more on the workers for concrete help and workers wanting clients to take more initiative and be more introspective. At the same time, the preferred role positions of the majority of clients (10 out of 15) was for equal status with their workers, and an overwhelming majority of workers (14 out of 15) favored hierarchical position of authority. These findings suggest an inherent contradiction between consciously held expectations and unarticulated role positions, which do not reconcile each other and thus prevent workers and clients from working collaboratively. Findings on Client Perception of the Relationship were not significant, suggesting that whether the client perceives the worker as caring, genuine and/or empathic is independent of contract status. Findings on Verbal Participation indicate that workers carry major responsibility for contracting, that clients follow workers in the rhythm and pacing of contracting and that most contracting activity occurs in the first interview. Findings on the Relationship Communication Variable showed a statistically significant association between successful contract negotiation, and role negotiation, with reciprocity of role position achieved in high contract pairs. Moreover, workers tend to prefer relationship positions indicating a hierarchical position of authority; worker-client pairs who achieved role reciprocity were characterized by worker-up client-down role complementarity. Findings on Background Characteristics were found to be independent of contract status.

This study explored trust in the professional relationship from the perspective of social workers employed in a large voluntary mental health agency. Its purpose was to provide a systematic understanding of social workers' judgments of the function of trust in the professional helping process. Barber's (1983) theoretical formulations provided the framework within which this study examined social workers' understanding of the significance of trust in the professional relationship and the relative importance of professional competence and commitment to serving clients' best interests in the development of trust. The study's questionnaire was completed by 118 social workers in 18 community-based programs, with supplemental information gathered by interviews with 25 social workers in these and other settings. Variables of interest included demographic and agency practice data as well as social workers' judgments about various components of trust as measured by a series of Likert scale response items. Findings indicated that social workers judged professional commitment to serving clients' best interests to be significantly more important than competence in three aspects of the helping process: development of client trust, client cooperation with workers' suggestions or recommendations, and client decisions regarding transfers to other professionals. A factor analysis of data resulted in the identification of four trust-related factors: match, or fit, between client and worker; clients' emotional/attitudinal system; case status; and, political/economic conditions. A one-way analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in social workers' judgments of the importance of competence and commitment in relation to workers' agency practices. Correlational analysis of data also indicated weak relationships among variables. Findings suggest that social workers perceive trust development as related to the interplay among client, worker, agency, and public policy variables. Although workers may see themselves, to some extent, as active agents in the generation of trust, they emphasize the importance of client-centered factors, such as, clinical diagnosis, in the development of trust in the professional relationship. Further research is needed to compare respondents' judgments about the development of trust with perceptions held by clients, social workers in other fields of practice, and/or professionals in other disciplines.

Recent debates in comparative industrial relations scholarship have raised significant questions about the impact of changes in the international economy on national patterns of industrial relations. Globalisation, it has been argued, creates pressures for convergence that will increasingly undermine national diversity in industrial relations institutions and outcomes. At its most extreme, the globalisation thesis predicts �a universal race to the bottom� of labour standards. This globalisation thesis has been broadly criticised in the comparative industrial relations literature. Rather, a growing body of comparative industrial relations literature has pointed to evidence of continued diversity, despite the common pressures associated with changes in the international economy. This literature has focussed on the importance national level institutional variables play in explaining diversity and suggested that differences in national level institutional variables are likely to produce cross-national divergence rather than convergence. While the institutionalist approach represents an important corrective to the globalisation thesis, it has difficulty explaining similarities in patterns of industrial relations changes, despite institutional differences across countries, and is largely unable to explain changes in the institutions themselves. This thesis argues that these limitations of the institutionalist approach reflect its intellectual origins in comparative politics. The major contribution of this thesis is the development of an interaction approach the relationship between international economic change and the domestic institutions of industrial relations. This alternative theoretical approach, which is drawn from concepts in the political economy tradition in industrial relations and the international political economy literature, identifies four key variables the shape the relationship between international economic change and the domestic institutions of industrial relations: namely, the international economic regime; the national production profile; the accumulation strategy of the state; and the role of institutional effects. The thesis tests the explanatory power of the interaction approach by focussing on the comparison between two closely matched countries- Australia and New Zealand- during three periods of significant economic change in the international economy: the end of the nineteenth century; the immediate post world war two period; and, in the late 1960s. It shows that each of these periods a focus on changes in the international economy and how they impact the interests of employers, workers and the state helps explain both similarities and differences in industrial relations developments in the two countries. In doing so it demonstrates the importance of what appear to be small differences between the cases. The ability of the interaction approach to account for similarities and differences across three time periods in two most similar countries suggests that it may have broader application in cross-national comparison and that may provide the basis for a more general reassessment of the relationship between the contemporary wave of globalisation and industrial relations institutions and outcomes.

Thesis (M.Admin.(Public Administration))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Portland, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 23, 2008).

Thesis (Ph. D.) in History--University of Maine, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-264).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.