This dissertation is a multi-method, institutional theoretic study that sought to understand how organizational communication in the United States petroleum industry functioned as a device for corporate legitimation over the years 1975-1990. The study investigated the symbolic dimension of organizational communication taking place via the medium of oil industry Annual Reports. The study addressed two major research questions: (i) What was the nature of corporate legitimation in the U.S. petroleum industry during the years 1975-1990? and (ii) What was the structure of corporate legitimation in the industry over these years? The context for these questions was provided by important industry-level actions such as business-government relations, diversification, OPEC relations, corporate restructuring, etc. To understand the nature of corporate legitimation, the study employed methods of grounded theory analysis. In addition to investigating the ideological characteristics of oil industry Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs') Letters to Shareholders, this analysis also focussed upon the linguistic devices of persuasion (e.g., myths, metaphors, etc.) and the processes of discursive closure employed in these letters. On the other hand, quantitative techniques of content analysis, including multivariate research methods such as factor analysis, discriminant analysis and MANOVAs, were employed for analyzing the structure of corporate legitimation. These analyses were designed to investigate the interrelationship of the various concepts by which oil industry CEOs expressed themselves in their Annual Reports. This study show that the U.S. oil industry employed eight inter-connected ideologies in the process of legitimating salient industry-level actions of these years. In part, the persuasive power of these ideologies derived from their ability to evoke certain mythic and taken-for-granted elements of the cultural 'common sense.' As regards the structure of corporate legitimation, an important finding of the study is that the industry's Annual Reports assumed four personae in the process of articulating their ideological messages. The study advances the thesis that corporate legitimation in an industry such as petroleum implies the legitimation of a given 'way of life,' and involves both expressing and constituting the subjectivities upon which this way of life depends. Finally, the study draws some implications for management research and practice.

<p> This contextual essay provides a full description of The Smokey Generation, an applied thesis project designed around creating an interactive website that collects and presents oral histories and digital stories of current and past wildland firefighters, with an initial focus on hotshots (i.e., specific teams of wildland firefighters notable for their high level of training and experience). The framework of the website is intentionally designed to influence the public perception of wildland fire to better support and align with its necessary ecological role. For this project, I analyzed stories collected during 36 interviews of current and past hotshots, using literary analysis techniques to determine the following: What tropes and schemes do hotshots most commonly use when describing fire in the environment and what meanings and values are revealed through those figures of speech? In addition to identifying tropes and schemes used in the collected stories, I compared the meanings and values put forward by those figures of speech with how the firefighters view the role of fire in the environment. My analysis revealed a disconnect, showing casual use of antagonistic figures of speech to describe wildland fires and firefighting actions; this, despite the interviewees&rsquo; actual beliefs about the role of fire in the environment, which indicate an understanding and appreciation of wildland fire, particularly the importance of using fire to restore healthy ecosystems, and a desire to be able to better use fire as a land management tool. To conclude, I discuss how I approached framing and presenting those findings on the website in order to develop a richer, more meaningful conversation around wildland fire through the use of digital storytelling and oral history. The project website can be found at: http://thesmokeygeneration.com. </p>

This thesis takes the Australian Railways Union as a focus for an examination of the Victorian Railways between the two World Wars. The development of the union is traced through the optimistic expectations of the early 1920s, the disillusionment which followed the union’s affiliation with the ALP and registration under the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, to the increasing polarisation of the union on political lines as the 1930s progressed. At the same time the union’s relations with, railway management are explored. / The innovative management style of Harold Winthrop Clapp, whose term as Chief Railways Commissioner covered the two decades under discussion in this thesis, is examined and set in the context of developments elsewhere in Australia and overseas. The repercussions of Clapp’s administrative and technological changes in railway work are discussed throughout the thesis, and particular attention is paid to the relationship between such changes and job loss. The problems arising from lack of clarity over control of the Railways Department, which are also examined in a separate chapter, were common to other statutory authorities as well. The financial situation of the railways is discussed in relation to that of other Australian railways. The problem of transport regulation to prevent uneconomic competition between motor transport and railways, which received growing recognition during the period of this thesis, also receives special attention. / During the Great Depression, the Victorian Railways Department and the ARU played a central role in the national arena. The railway basic wage case of 1930, which resulted in a ten per cent cut in wages, set a precedent for all major industries. The analysis of transcripts of this lengthy case has produced much which is of general significance for economic and labour history. / In the final chapters of the thesis, the ARU is shown approaching the radicalism of the 1940s, when large scale industrial action was carried out under Communist leadership. The union in 1939, following two decades of activity as part of a federal railways union, and experience of arbitration and affiliation to the ALP, was very different from the union which had existed up until 1920 in Victoria, with its narrow sphere of activity bounded by ‘the railway fence’, and this thesis explores that transition.

No description available.

This thesis surveys the efforts made by Canadian and American records administrators, both records managers and archivists, to ensure that records are created, received, stored, used, preserved, and disposed of in a manner which is both efficient and effective. Beginning with the French Revolution and continuing to modern times, it investigates how approaches in North American archival thinking, government records programs, and applicable records legislation were often flawed because of fundamental misconceptions of the nature of the records themselves. The thesis traces how the most widely accepted approach for administering records, which called for the division of responsibilities amongst records professionals according to the records' "life status" — active, semi-active, or inactive — was incorrect because it was not compatible with the reality that records exist as a conceptual whole and are best administered in a manner which reflects this realization. The records, which should have been managed as a coherent and complete fonds of an institution, suffered from these divisions which had eventually led to the evolution of separate records occupations: those who looked after active records, called records managers, and those who handled inactive ones, labelled archivists. What was required was an "integrated" or "unified" approach such as that articulated by the Canadian archivist Jay Atherton. Like others, he called for the management of records in a manner which reflected the singular nature of the records, an approach which did not make arbitrary divisions where none existed, but instead viewed records from a wider and more complete perspective. Support for this approach amongst some records administrators was precipitated by a number of factors, not the least of which were the demands of handling information in modern society. The thesis concludes by examining what is required for the integrated ideas to be implemented as part of a practical model in today's institutions. It suggests that for the best results to be achieved, records administrators will have to learn to work with others in related information professions, or risk losing the ability to make valid contributions in the modern information age.

This thesis surveys the efforts made by Canadian and American records administrators, both records managers and archivists, to ensure that records are created, received, stored, used, preserved, and disposed of in a manner which is both efficient and effective. Beginning with the French Revolution and continuing to modern times, it investigates how approaches in North American archival thinking, government records programs, and applicable records legislation were often flawed because of fundamental misconceptions of the nature of the records themselves. The thesis traces how the most widely accepted approach for administering records, which called for the division of responsibilities amongst records professionals according to the records' "life status" — active, semi-active, or inactive — was incorrect because it was not compatible with the reality that records exist as a conceptual whole and are best administered in a manner which reflects this realization. The records, which should have been managed as a coherent and complete fonds of an institution, suffered from these divisions which had eventually led to the evolution of separate records occupations: those who looked after active records, called records managers, and those who handled inactive ones, labelled archivists. What was required was an "integrated" or "unified" approach such as that articulated by the Canadian archivist Jay Atherton. Like others, he called for the management of records in a manner which reflected the singular nature of the records, an approach which did not make arbitrary divisions where none existed, but instead viewed records from a wider and more complete perspective. Support for this approach amongst some records administrators was precipitated by a number of factors, not the least of which were the demands of handling information in modern society. The thesis concludes by examining what is required for the integrated ideas to be implemented as part of a practical model in today's institutions. It suggests that for the best results to be achieved, records administrators will have to learn to work with others in related information professions, or risk losing the ability to make valid contributions in the modern information age. / Arts, Faculty of / Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS), School of / Graduate

Abstract not available

The thesis examines the reactions of policy-making managements of large industrial firms to the challenges to their power and authority accompanying the organization of relatively strong unions in the later 1930s and 1940s. It describes and explains the transformation in its approach to labour relations forced upon, American management during this period, setting this against a background account of the indus- trial relations strategies large firms followed in the pre-union era. It relates in detail the problems of labour relations American business encountered in the war period and immediately after, and examines the ideology and world-view of management as revealed in its perceptions of its problems. The second half of the thesis describes a successful 'recovery of the initiative' in industrial relations policy and practice by American management. It examines the contributions of large corporations and their pressure-groups to the reorientation of public policy towards organized labour which culminated in the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act. It goes on to discuss the collective bargaining strategies of large manufacturers (particularly in the automotive industry) in the late 1940s, arguing that they acted with realism and conscious purpose to stabilize in-plant labour relations on terms acceptable to themselves. Management accepted unions - but acted to restrict their power, and compelled them to behave 'responsibly'. The final chapters examine other means by which management aimed to outflank and undermine unions, and to restore its own power and prestige - methods which .have usually been neglected by business and labour historians alike. The objectives and rationales of personnel administration, 'welfare capitalism' , in-plant propaganda, and public relations are analysed. Throughout, the emphasis is on managerial motivation, and on the ideological bases of business policy, as much as on actual practice. This is partly because the sources of the study include the rhetoric of the business community as well as the records of its behaviour. The work is, however, more than a partial intellectual history of American business: it concent- rates on practical men's perceptions and analyses of problems which confronted them, and on the rationales they produced for the actions they took.

Στην παρούσα εργασία μελετώνται οι θεωρίες της διοίκησης και πως αυτές επιδρούν στην οικονομική ανάπτυξη ή την ανάσχεση των κρίσεων. Παρουσιάζονται αναλυτικά κάποιες σημαντικές θεωρίες της ιστορίας της διοίκησης καθώς επίσης παρουσιάζονται κατηγοριοποιήσεις των θεωριών αυτών. Παράλληλα μελετάται η οικονομική ανάπτυξη και η οικονομική κρίση υπό τη θεωρία του μειωμένου ποσοστού κέρδους (Μαρξιστική θεωρία) εξετάζοντας δύο πολύ σημαντικές κρίσεις, αυτή του 1929 και αυτή του 1973. Τέλος, παρουσιάζεται η κατηγοριοποίηση του συγγραφέα με βάση την προηγηθείσα μελέτη. / In present thesis are examining important theories of management and in which way they affect economic development or restrain economic crisis. They are presented analytically, some important theories of management history, some classifications of these theories are presented also. Additionally, is studied economic development and economic crisis under the perspective of Marxist theory, the theory of decreased rate of profit, by examining two of the most important crisis, the crisis of 1929 and the crisis of 1973. Finally, is presented the writer's classification according to the preceding study.

Using recently declassified material, this thesis traces the Commandant Thomas Holcomb' s role in the development of the Marine Corps Defense Battalion. It thus combines biographical and institutional history. Holcomb was an excellent strategist, manager, and publicist. The defense battalion provides a case study for examining Holcomb's leadership as well as the larger historical context. On a tactical level, planners designed these units to defend island outposts against air, sea, and amphibious assaults. In holding island bases in the western Pacific, defense battalions fit into the grand strategy of the United States Navy. The units comprised one half of the Corps's dual mission: amphibious assault and base defense. Defense battalions also served an equally pivotal public relations function as Holcomb struggled -albeit with little success -- to secure scarce resources for the Corps. Understanding Holcomb's actions and the defense battalion's development illuminates the mentality of America's military and government before World War II. / Department of History