Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

In this dissertation, I explore women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan. NGOs in Pakistan offer an opportunity to study activism in action and analyze the various strategies and modes of argumentation used by women's NGOs to advance women's rights in a conservative environment. This study is an attempt to break down some of the dichotomies that often characterize the debate on NGOs---civil society vs. the state, democratic vs. non-democratic, feminist vs. non-feminist---and instead place the activities, visions and agendas of women's NGOs in their historical, political, cultural, and social contexts. Between January and June 2004, I collected data in Pakistan by (1) engaging in participant observation with three NGOs ranging along a continuum of advocacy and feminist agendas, (2) personal interviews with NGO employees all over Pakistan, government officials and some senior officials at international donor agencies, and (3) analyzing published materials produced by NGOs such as mission statements, reports, strategy papers, posters and calendars as well as newspaper articles and reports on NGOs. I address the following questions through my research: What factors influence whether NGOs follow feminist agendas or more conservative ones? What kinds of strategies do they employ to ensure their survival in a conservative environment? Do these strategies involve compromises that undermine a feminist agenda? At the core of this study are some lingering questions about feminism and activism. How do we and should we define feminism? What are the consequences for NGOs, and activism in general, of compromising on feminist ideals? How should we understand these compromises given the "ground realities" of activism in a country like Pakistan? How does the position of NGOs within a larger social, cultural, and political context shape and/or constrain their visions and activities? I argue that the ground realities (which differ from place to place) often dictate to a large extent the scope, nature, and strength of activism and feminism in a given context. This is an important step in furthering the debate and filling some of the theoretical gaps in the scholarship on the role and nature of activism, NGOs, and feminism.

Workplace misbehaviour is seen to be a neglected feature of organizational study (Ackroyd and Thompson; Vardi and Weitz, 2004). Where research has been undertaken into misbehaviour the emphasis tends fall into two broad categories. First of all, organizational behaviour theorists use the term misbehaviour as a means to highlight how the ‘negative’ behaviour of employees gets in the way of formal organizational goals. Secondly, radical sociologists tend to use the term misbehaviour as a means to critique Foucauldian labour process theory. Here an argument is made that suggests the disciplinary affects of new management practices associated with human resource management and total quality management have been overstated. Furthermore, radical sociologists also use the term misbehaviour as means to critique organizational behaviour accounts, which are believed to paint overly optimistic accounts of organizational life. However, on further examination it was discovered that neither a radical sociological approach, nor a traditional organizational behaviour approach, sufficiently addresses the current deficit in our understandings and explanations for workplace misbehaviour. Hence, one of the main themes of this thesis was to design a theoretical and methodological framework to address the deficit in our understandings and explanations. As such, a view was taken of how a radical sociological approach (orthodox labour process analysis) combined with an emerging social psychological perspective (a social identity approach (Haslam, 2001)) could help overcome previous theoretical problems associated with researching misbehaviour. Empirical support for this approach is provided by the detailed examination of the objective and subjective working conditions of four different sets of low status workers. The findings are based on longitudinal covert participant observations, as well as covert interviews and the covert gathering of company documents. The findings depart from previous insights into workplace misbehaviour in stressing the importance of acknowledging and investigating both the organizational and sub-group social identities of low status workers, in relation to such activities. As such, a great deal of the misbehaviour noted in the findings can be attributed to the poor treatment of low status workers by management, yet misbehaviour is equally if not more attributable to the empowering or inhibitive qualities of the many psychological groups that worker can associate with or disassociate themselves from. Recommendations are made about the direction of future research into workplace misbehaviour. There are many suggestions made and include examining misbehaviour in a wider range of settings, sectors and levels of organizations.