Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

L'objectif principal de cette thèse est d'abord de documenter la teneur des discours de chacune des catégories d'acteurs impliquées dans le processus d'élaboration de la Loi québécoise en équité salariale (LES). En second lieu, la thèse vise à éclaircir dans quelle mesure la LES peut être décrite comme le reflet des discours portés par les différents acteurs présents aux audiences publiques d'août 1996 tenues par la Commission des affaires sociales. La méthodologie choisie pour ce faire combine une analyse de contenu et une analyse des arguments présentés par les acteurs présents lors des audiences publiques d'août 1996. Les résultats de l'analyse de contenu permettent de cerner les positions des groupes d'acteurs pour et contre la LES. L'analyse de discours, quant à elle, permet d'explorer certaines propriétés discursives des discours des acteurs et, de ce fait, contribue à étoffer l'analyse de contenu en ouvrant une fenêtre sur les rapports de pouvoir qui se sont institués entre ces derniers. En conclusion, la thèse soutient que la LES doit être comprise comme le fruit d'un assemblage de compromis réalisé par le législateur québécois.

This dissertation advances the claim that recent lack of progress in organization theory development has been due less to conceptual inadequacy or lack of rigor, than to unexamined assumptions and 'common sense' about what constitutes 'good' theory. Emerging work experience cannot be represented in theory because current theory itself reflects the values and problems of a specific (industrial) era. Using a form of poststructuralist textual analysis, Foucaultian genealogy, this dissertation establishes the need for understanding theory development as a form of representation, produced and sustained through socially constituted relationships which are undergoing transformational change. It is argued that, through these changes, organizational science itself could become a passing chapter in the history of work. To illustrate this claim, the study examines representations of "knowledge work," a term whose emergence appears to indicate attempts to speak of new work relationships. The main object of analysis in this study is structured observation of the work of an atypical, but apropos, group of knowledge workers--staff nurses in a university teaching hospital. Using genealogical methods, this structured observation is studied as a text created within the discourse of organization studies. One analysis of this text is a "history of the present," which follows the emergence and present operation of the disciplinary practices of the discourse of the employee. Another analysis studies contrasting representations of nursing work in the dominant discourse of science and the marginalized discursive voices of "caring/connecting." The claim advanced from these analyses is that the failure of the management disciplines to develop a self-reflexive dialogue about the active role of representation in theory development limits what can be said about knowledge work to what has already been said about the industrial employee. As one example of poststructuralist textual research, genealogy is presented as a means for bringing this problem into theory development.

One hundred and forty-six women, most of them young immigrants, died in the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City's Lower East Side on March 25, 1911. One of the worst industrial disasters in the history of the United States, it confirmed the belief of progressives that unregulated industrialism had gone awry. This tragedy, however, have rise to a campaign for protective labor legislation in the Empire State and provided historians with an example of the reform impulse in the years prior to World War I. This dissertation makes the case, both implicitly and explicitly, that this disaster, if examined in both a social and a political context, can be used to increase our understanding of three broad aspects of the history and historiography of the progressive era. First, it can help us to evaluate the debate among historians over the true extent and effectiveness of the reform movement. Secondly, it will help us examine how coalitions of diverse and incompatible groups temporarily united to demand reform legislation, and finally it can allow us to interweave many histories of the era--the immigrant experience, American radicalism, trade unionism, the suffrage movement, and progressive reform--that formerly have been analyzed as separate stories. The idea of limitations is emphasized in each of the dissertation's predominate themes. The reform initiative, in terms of both its liberalism and the effectiveness of the legislation it produced were limited. Furthermore, the degree of cooperation generated by the reform coalition that responded to the Triangle Fire was temporary and produced few enduring associations. The ongoing historical debate regarding the meaning and the results of progressivism has produced extensive but incoherent opinions which call for further scholarly clarification. This dissertation not only provides a framework for further analyzing the events surrounding the Triangle Fire, it also produces additional information about progressivism--its membership, its goals, its achievements, and the political and social environment which produced the movement.

This dissertation addresses the lack of attention to work in organization studies (Barley, 1996), and to change processes as they unfold from the perspectives of those attempting to incorporate changes into their own work. Research was conducted "from the inside" (Evered & Louis, 1981). Two periods of fieldwork during the years 1992-1997 provided qualitative data. Q-methodology was incorporated, allowing analysis to flow back and forth between qualitative and quantitative data. This dissertation is based on an empirical examination of how people made sense of attempts at changing their working practices in a company facing pressure from customers to perfect quality, increase speed, and lower costs. Men and women working in this mature, mid-sized manufacturing firm needed to continue to make product--fluid handling components supplied to several industries--while changes were going on around them. Following a major restructuring in the late 1980s, the organization acquired a reputation for forward-thinking management practices. A planned change initiative focusing on teamwork and on introducing kaizen techniques was begun early in 1997. The dissertation experiments with different ways of representing experiences of working and changing (and not changing) in a manufacturing organization. It presents the following stories: a chronological description of changes in ownership, structure, and management practices; reflections on changes in worklife as told by three employees; an account of a kaizen event; cynical and hopeful ways of talking about the teamwork initiative; and expressions of perspectives on changing. Interpretation considers people's responses to the constant flip-flop of demands, changes in structure and technology, and sense-making on a daily basis and in reference to publicity surrounding the previous restructuring. Although based in a single manufacturing organization, results suggest implications. For organizational behavior researchers, practices of shamming and taking shortcuts deserve research attention. Change practitioners may want to consider sense-making processes in order to highlight what they want people to notice and focus on. This was an ordinary organization, experiencing some success despite ever increasing pressures from outside. Men and women working there continued to do their work, making just enough sense to get through the workday.

The broad area of interest for this study is the nature of justice in organizational life. More specifically, it focuses on human resource managers and the ways in which their everyday activities create and sustain fair organization for themselves and for others. The linking of justice with human resource management is manifest in an extensive body of theory and research. In general, inquiry concerns the perceptions of employees about the fairness of organizational policies and procedures. My study diverges from this approach in both its theoretical position and its research focus. As a researcher, I maintain a different philosophical position regarding the nature of reality, knowledge, and human nature. In so doing, I offer different conceptualizations of human resource management and justice that shifts attention to each as socially constructed by organizational actors. My project is grounded in a micro-sociological orientation and draws upon two theoretical traditions, ethnomethodology and symbolic interaction. Within this framework or intersubjective approach, I use observations and interviews to describe human resource management as being defined by and through interactivity. In addition, I suggest that certain types of interactions ("justice occasions"), involving the making or applying of organizational policy or procedure, are of particular interest as local interactive sites of doing justice. The specific research question addressed in this study was: What are the verbal practices of human resource managers that serve to create and sustain fair organization as a shared definition of reality? I draw upon observations and interviews to develop the HR managers' understanding of justice as consistency. Then, using audiotaped conversations between HR managers and other organizational members during justice occasions, I document three interactional methods employed by these professionals to establish consistency as a quality of organizational life: (1) Projecting the Future, (2) Recalling the Past, and (3) Defining the Situation. I suggest that these interactional practices are not only how human resource managers do fairness, but that they are defining elements of human resource managing. This research contributes to justice and HRM scholarship by attending to the activities of human resource managers. It extends our knowledge about human resource management by explicating the ways in which HRM is defined and sustained by those who practice it. Further, it demonstrates that fairness, as a quality of organizational experience, is constructed in the everyday activities of organizational life.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the contribution of five factors as predictors of academic department secretaries' role conflict, role ambiguity, and propensity to leave. The five predictor variables were: (1) secretaries' decision participation level, (2) department chairpersons' communication openness, (3) department chairpersons' role conflict, (4) department chairpersons' role ambiguity, and (5) secretaries' length of service. In addition, the relationship between secretaries' report of decision participation level and preferred decision participation level as well as the relationship between secretaries' and department chairpersons' communication openness were examined.;Using the Academic Department Secretary Questionnaire, an instrument developed by the author, data was collected from 121 secretaries at five four-year public institutions in Virginia. The three research questions were analyzed using the stepwise procedure of multiple regression analysis. The two subsidiary questions were analyzed using a t-test.;Each of the five predictor variables investigated was found to be statistically significant in at least one of the multiple regression equations. Department chairpersons' communication openness was a significant factor in all three equations.;The two significant predictors of secretaries' role conflict were chairpersons' role conflict (r =.53) and chairpersons' lack of communication openness (r =.37). The three significant predictors of secretaries' role ambiguity were chairpersons' lack of communication openness (r =.52), chairpersons' role ambiguity (r =.48), and secretaries' decision participation level (r =.43). The two significant predictors of secretaries' propensity to leave were chairpersons' lack of communication openness (r =.31) and secretaries' length of service (r = {dollar}-{dollar}.25).;This study found a significant difference between secretaries' decision participation level and preferred decision level (t = {dollar}-{dollar}6.17). It did not find a significant difference between secretaries' and chairpersons' communication openness.;After presenting its findings, this study offers suggestions and strategies for reducing the negative impact of these factors.

This multi-method study examines the challenges and strategies of family day care providers, the least studied and most commonly employed child care workers. I also examine workers within the context of two alternative efforts to raise the compensation and status of family day care work---professionalization and unionization. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with staff and key members of a professionalization group and a union serving providers in Illinois. Quantitative and qualitative data from home day care providers come from a mail survey sent to a random sample of 1,300 licensed providers in Illinois, resulting in 553 valid responses. Using data from the provider survey, I find that providers orient themselves to their work in a variety of ways, some primarily out of a devotion to home and family, and others as a career or as service to kith, kin and community. Race is a central factor shaping provider motivations and expectations about their work. While work conditions and remuneration are troubling for all workers, race shapes perceptions of these problems. White providers are more likely to be dissatisfied with their hours and schedule, while black providers are more likely to be dissatisfied with remuneration. In analyses of the two organizations working to improve conditions for workers, I delineate the different goals, strategies and methods of each organization. While the training and credentialing efforts associated with professionalization are ideally associated with greater autonomy and status for the workers, the service orientation of this organization fails to empower workers or incorporate worker demands into their political action. The union, while more democratic in theory and practice, suffers from a narrow focus and a limited ability to marshal resources and public support. Differences in goals and methods do coincide with different opinions and participation among providers, especially by race. Black providers are more likely to invest time and money in credentials, but they are less likely than white providers to join associations for family day care workers. In contrast, black providers are far more likely than white providers to endorse and participate in the union.