<p>Volunteers for non-governmental organizations can be difficult to recruit and retain for a number of different reasons. It is, therefore, important to maximize their contributions because NGOs rely on volunteers to assist their staff members to perform the vital operations in order to accomplish the mission of the organization. However, NGOs tend to have limited staff to train and monitor volunteers and often compete with business organizations and other NGOs for the same volunteer workforce. Therefore, retaining a strong reliable group of volunteers saves NGOs valuable time, money, and labor resources that can effectively contribute to the future development of nongovernmental organizations. </p><p> This study proposed an NGO leadership model to examine the value of integrity and inclusiveness as NGO leadership characteristics that impact the leader/volunteer relationship in terms of volunteer satisfaction and retention. For two months, the study uncovered the vital elements that provided volunteers with satisfying experiences that promoted the retention of volunteers in NGOs in the Southern California area. One hundred and forty one volunteers responded to a survey that measured perceived leadership integrity, inclusiveness, volunteer satisfaction, and volunteer retention in NGOs. Thirteen structured in-depth interviews were also conducted with current and former volunteers in order to examine their experiences, perceptions, and observations about the leadership characteristics under examination. </p><p> Quantitative and qualitative methods collected data for analysis to address the five research questions and hypotheses in order to determine the relationships between: (1) leadership integrity and volunteer satisfaction, (2) leadership inclusiveness and volunteer satisfaction, (3) volunteer satisfaction and volunteer retention, (4) leadership integrity and volunteer retention, and (5) leadership inclusiveness and volunteer satisfaction. Only three of the hypotheses were supported through correlational analysis, and further supported through qualitative analysis. Two hypotheses were quantitatively unsupported but qualitatively supported. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the NGO leadership Model and revealed that Inclusiveness was a better indicator of volunteer Retention than Integrity and Satisfaction. </p><p> <i>Key words</i>: Leadership integrity, leadership inclusiveness, volunteer satisfaction, volunteer retention. </p>

<p> The success of firm lawyers depends largely upon their ability to develop a clientele. Naturally, access to potential clients and the relationships between lawyers and their clients and potential clients are exceedingly important for client development. Various factors likely play into relationships between lawyers and business leaders, two important factors being homophily and in-group preferences. Both homophily and in-group preferences mechanisms would predict that law firms are more likely to assign clients to associates who bear certain similarities to those clients. Accordingly, associates who are more similar to the business community they serve are more likely to be assigned clients and awarded responsibility. In this way, a lawyers' success depends in part on the composition of the business community in which they operate. In making partnership decisions, law firms value associates' aptitude for client relations, thus incorporating these effects into promotion evaluations. This study asks the question: at the state level, to what extent does the success of female-owned businesses correlate to the success of female lawyers who work at law firms? Using a national survey of lawyers seven years after admission to the bar, logistic regression demonstrates that it is not the percentage of businesses in a state that are female-owned that influences the likelihood of making partner for female associates. Rather, the results show that the percentage of sales generated by female-owned businesses is the influential variable: as women generate a greater percent of a state's economic activity, female lawyers are in turn more likely to achieve the status of partner.</p>

During the grape harvest that lasts for two months between late August to early November, over 3,000 migrant farm workers migrate to the Napa Valley. With less than a 1% vacancy rate in the area, they sleep in fields, cars or on the streets. There is a great need and current consensus to house them. In addition to the farm workers, over 5 million tourists visit the Napa Valley every year. I propose a structure to house 4 farm workers during harvest that is located at the winery at which they work. The other 10 months of the year it is to be used by tourists visiting the wineries.

This study is a snapshot of employee reactions to a pending acquisition at a specific point in the acquisition process---four months after the acquisition announcement and two weeks prior to a final shareholder vote to accept the offer. Two hundred and ninety-three union and non-union employees responded to a questionnaire measuring their reactions of psychological stress, intention to leave, "merger syndrome" (a new measure developed from the literature for this study), and trust in acquirer's management. Respondents also completed measures of organizational identification, threat to continued employment, job involvement, union identification and union support of the pending acquisition (the last two were collected for union employees only). The data were submitted to hierarchical regression analyses, examining the direct effects of the dependent measures (psychological stress, intention to leave, merger syndrome, and trust in acquirer's management) on the independent variables (organizational identification, threat to continued employment, job involvement, and union identification), as well as the interactions with threat and union support. Unexpectedly, psychological stress was not significantly influenced by any of the independent variables. High levels of organizational identification were related to increased merger syndrome levels, as expected, but the increased trust in acquirer's management and reduced intention to leave were in the opposite direction of the prediction. Threat to continued employment only acted as a moderator with job involvement on the merger syndrome, with low job involved employees under threat reporting more merger syndrome. As expected, threat was related to increased intention to leave and lower trust in acquirer's management. High job involvement was associated with lower intention to leave and higher trust in acquirer's management. There were no direct effects of union identification, but it did interact with union support on merger syndrome and trust in acquirer's management. High levels of union identification and high union support for the acquisition unexpectedly lead to higher levels of merger syndrome, while high levels of union identification and high union support lead to higher trust in acquirer's management. The limited findings for organizational identification are discussed in light of social identity theory and effective merger management.

The subject constructed by and for labour law---the "worker"---is bodiless, sexless, genderless, and male. This thesis investigates how and why this construction occurs both through a discussion of general theoretical issues surrounding the way law constructs its subjects, and through a specific case study. The case study considers a set of sexual harassment cases decided in the "mainstream" unfair dismissal jurisdiction. As a site of women's overt presence in the labour market, these cases are disruptive to settled constructions of "the worker", particularly because they connect the sexuality of women (and their gender) to their status as worker. In so doing, they suggest the possibility of a "womanworker"---a woman who is simultaneously woman and worker. The thesis concludes by exploring the consequences of this possibility and asks how the recognition of women's experiences, needs and specificities can allow the subject of labour law to be reconstructed.

No description available.

<p> This study was an action research project using a mixed method approach. The researcher examined the current state of district office culture as well as how five interventions applied in an office setting played a part in improving the workplace climate and enhancing morale, trust, and self-efficacy among district office personnel. The interventions used for this study included changing the appearance of the office, introducing flexible scheduling, implementing training programs for personnel, updating staff at weekly meetings, and holding monthly celebratory gatherings. Methods included pre-and post-surveys, observations, and interviews. The study found that the workplace climate was positive, and that some of the interventions were welcome and perceived favorably while others were not.</p>

<p> Recently, federal agents across the US have uncovered an unprecedented number of forced labor operations, many involving non-citizens who are forced to perform farm work under threat of violence and deportation. Contemporary scholarship explains this phenomenon as the effect of liberalized economic relations, industrialized agriculture, and consumer demand for cheap products. While instructive, such explanations leave open questions of how historical factors sanction the coercive farm labor relations seen today. Using the genealogical method, this paper examines the history of labor practices in Florida, a state in which forced labor not only flourished before the Civil War, but also in which forced labor remains common today. </p><p> After highlighting how Florida's ante-bellum and post-bellum labor practices and discourses imbued employment with normative valuations, this paper argues that such discourses and practices have since been taken up by state and federal institutions, eventually influencing laws and policies concerning labor, prisoners, and immigrants. These historically embedded practices and discourses, moreover, function to discipline the lives and govern the status of non-citizens in and through employment.</p>

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2006. / (UnM)AAI3195850. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-10, Section: A, page: 3790. Supervisor: Jonas Pontusson.