<p> Social scientists and food studies scholars have shown an enduring interest in how food is produced in our largely industrialized food system. However, there has been little research about the organization of labor on industrialized farms. These sites of production are mostly privately owned and hidden away from researchers and journalists, who are often perceived as critics or activists by farmers and other agriculturalists. My dissertation fills this gap by focusing exclusively on industrialized contract broiler farms. Contract broiler farming is a model where farmers agree to raise chickens for meat for a set amount of time, at a rate of pay based on the ratio of feed to chicken weight at slaughter. Farmers invest in the built infrastructure to execute this process, but the company they contract for is mostly in control of the upstream and downstream supply and processing chains that depend on the production of the broiler chicken for their continued functioning. </p><p> I use archival, interview, and ethnographic data to detail the history of broiler farming, the emergence of contracting, and what the experience of it is like today. The most significant and novel part of this project is my ethnographic data collected over six months spent working on two broiler farms contracted with one of the largest firms in the US. To date, no other researchers have been able to gain this level of access. </p><p> In this dissertation, I begin by exploring the role of management, detailing how the structure of the farming contract and ambiguous supervisory oversight facilitates farmer&rsquo;s compliance with company demands. Then, utilizing agricultural and labor scholarship on deskilling in the labor process, I explore how poultry farming has become deskilled, robbing farmers of autonomy, the opportunity to agitate for better labor conditions, and ultimately eroding the intimate knowledge necessary to execute successful animal husbandry. Finally, I explore the games farmers play at work. While these games obscure how surplus value is appropriated from the farmer by the contracting firm, they also demonstrate farmer&rsquo;s resistance and acquiescence to their deskilling and loss of autonomy.</p><p>

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

No description available.

Some historians have depicted industrial welfare as of small significance in the development of British industrial relations. This thesis contains case-studies of many firms and industries which illustrate the prevalence of company welfare provision between 1846-1939 and its usefulness to employers as a labour strategy. While there have been works on specific welfare schemes, this is a monographic study of industrial welfare enabling comparisons to be made between very different industries. The thesis also identifies the formative influences upon the organisation of company provision over a broad time span. Highly capitalised industries needed to invest more in the stability and reliability of their workforces than other trades. Moreover, market control enabled companies to exercise a greater degree of forward planning in the management of production, capital and men. As natural monopolies and the first large-scale enterprises, railways were innovators in industrial management and in the provision of industrial welfare. In more competitive trades, the passing of small firm and ex gratia paternalism and its replacement by more systematic welfare schemes usually followed the formation of large, corporate firms from the 1890s onwards. Changes in the organisation of industrial welfare tended to follow the establishment of the managerial bureaucracies and structures suited to the large company. The thesis argues that profit sharing can only be understood as an element of industrial welfare provision. It shows that, rather than welfare being mainly concerned with factory conditions, employers were more interested in the questions of income maintenance, sick pay and old age pensions. Consequently, employers lobbied Parliament to prevent their industrial welfare schemes from being made redundant by social legislation. By influencing the final form of government proposals, they ensured until the Second World War that company provision was able to continue as part of state welfare schemes.

South Africa has in the recent past seen employees embarking in strike action, even in sectors designated as essential services. The impact adversely affected inter alia economic growth, investor confidence, international credit ratings and the high rate of unemployment. The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 from its inception on 11 November 1996, and as amended, in 2002 and in 2015, has brought about some minor changes to the model aimed at regulating essential services, maintenance services and minimum services agreements. This research is aimed at investigating; whether essential services, maintenance services and minimum services agreements are designed to unjustifiably limit the right to strike or not. The Constitution1 and the Labour Relations Act, 19952 encourages parties in employment relationship to engage in collective bargaining. Mechanisms such as a no duty to bargain envisaged within the current LRA regulatory framework, appears to be undermining the significance of ensuring that parties engaged within services designated as essential and maintenance services exercise their fundamental right to strike and to bargain collectively. The Essential Services Committee when dispensing with its statutory functions may be unjustifiably limiting the right to strike for employees engaged in essential and maintenance services. Some employers may be to some degree reluctant to trigger maintenance services provisions as the LRA appears to be adopting a voluntarism principle when regulating collective bargaining, as the Act is encouraging employers to deal with the provision of maintenance services within collective agreements. An introduction of a judiciable enforceable duty to bargain collectively in services designated as essential and maintenance services may compel employers to conclude minimum services agreements. The extremely low number of services designated as maintenance services is a worrying reality and the solution is urgently required.

本研究以吉林省四平市三个民营企业共计249份配对样本为基础，以组织承诺理论、自我决定理论以及动机理论为基础，从内在动机角度，对员工感知的高承诺工作实践影响员工离职倾向的内在机理及其情境因素进行了研究。结果发现，员工感知的高承诺工作实践对离职倾向的影响是通过内在动机实现的。内在动机在员工感知的高承诺工作实践与离职倾向的关系构建中起到间接效应。研究表明，员工感知的高承诺工作实践与内在动机之间存在显著正向关系，内在动机与离职倾向之间存在显著负向关系。即员工感知的高承诺工作实践通过影响员工的内在动机，进而影响员工的离职倾向。同时，本研究也发现员工的个体特征，如情绪智力与竞争人格具有调节效应。即在高情绪智力与高竞争人格情境下，员工感知的高承诺工作实践与内在动机的正向关系得到加强，从而提高员工保留，减少员工离职倾向。This study focuses on the internal mechanism and situational factors that Employee Perceived High Commitment Work Practices influence Employee Turnover Intention from the perspective of Intrinsic Motivation based on a total of 249 paired samples from three private enterprises in Siping City of Jilin Province. This research is based on theories including organizational commitment theory，self-determination theory and motivation theory. It was found that the influence of Employee Perceived High Commitment Work Practices implemented on Turnover Intention was realized through Intrinsic Motivation. Intrinsic Motivation plays an indirect effect in the relationship building between Employee Perceived High Commitment Work Practices and Turnover Intention. The study shows that there is a significant positive correlation between Employee Perceived High Commitment Work Practices and Intrinsic Motivation, and, by contrast, there is a significant negative correlation between Intrinsic Motivation and Turnover Intention. That is, Employee Perceived High Commitment Work Practices influence Turnover Intention by influencing Intrinsic Motivation. Meanwhile, this study also found that the individual characteristics of employees, such as Emotional Intelligence and Trait Competitiveness, have the moderating effect. That is, in the context of High Emotional Intelligence and High Trait Competitiveness, the positive correlation between High Commitment Work Practices and Intrinsic Motivation is strengthened，and thereby reduce turnover intention so as to promote employee retention.

<p> There have been widespread reports of an impending teacher shortage crisis in the U.S. for more than 30 years. In the U.S., there are claims of a widespread national shortage while research indicates teacher shortages are specific to certain subjects and schools. Part of the reason for the conflicting accounts is how shortage is identified and what information is used to assess it. In this study, I test whether a uniform teacher shortage exists across the state of Arkansas. I hypothesize that, rather than a universal shortage, teacher shortages are more likely to occur in certain regions and subjects. I examine the characteristics of districts with the most favorable teaching supply and those with the greatest teaching need using descriptive and multivariate analysis of data collected from district surveys along with administrative data. In this study, &ldquo;supply&rdquo; is defined as the ratio of applications to vacancies and &ldquo;need&rdquo; is defined as the ratio of vacancies to full-time equivalent (FTE) certified classroom teachers. This is the third study to use applicants to identify teacher supply, and the first to assess teacher need or shortages in this way. Results indicate teacher supply and need are unequally distributed across the state; there is no uniform teacher shortage statewide. Regarding teacher supply, I find district size, region, and urbanicity appear to drive supply. Teacher supply is most favorable for large districts with student enrollments greater than 3,500, districts in the Northwest, and suburban and city districts. Regarding teacher need, I find urbanicity and region contribute most to need and the need appears greatest for districts in cities, and districts in the Central and Southeast regions. Teacher need does not appear to be significantly influenced by district educational success, teacher salary, or district growth. Looking at the relationship between teacher supply and need, I find three clear relationships. In the Central and Southeast regions, there is lower teacher supply and greater teacher need. In urban districts, there is both greater teacher supply and need. In higher poverty districts, there is significantly less teacher supply and more teacher need.</p><p>

M.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract