Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Skill deficiencies in organisations affect performance, productivity, economic growth and development. Despite quantitative studies and current policy discussions, which acknowledge that skill deficiencies have negative impacts on both employers and employees in developed countries, these studies placed little or no emphasis on the potential impact of skill shortages in developing economies. On the other hand, descriptive studies on skill shortages in Nigeria gave accounts of possible effects on economic growth, however, relatively little is known about the incidence of skill deficiencies experienced by organisations and their impacts on business and employee performance, growth and development. This mixed methods study explored the impact of skill deficiencies on organisations' performance, economic growth and infrastructure delivery, effects on employees, how these effects are managed and possible ways of sustaining skills. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was used to explore both employers' and employees' experiences of skill deficiencies and possible management measures. This method facilitated the exploration of both convergent and divergent views between employers and employees, assisted in avoiding the subjectivity of using only employers' accounts and provided avenues for capturing salient features of why skill deficiencies occur. Both employers and employees participated in the survey (n=263) and interviews (n= 45). The results suggest that although oil and gas organisations experienced significant skill deficiencies on both business and employee performance and infrastructure delivery; higher impacts were felt in upstream organisations. The economic consequences of skill shortages on individuals, firms and aggregate economy extends to job satisfaction, hiring costs, adoption of new technologies and new work processes, workload, turnover and commitment. Both employers and employees identified that current skill deficiencies affect their performance, potentials for growth and provision of services to clients, adding that the many consequences necessitated the use of various skill and workforce development strategies in managing these effects. Even with the recognition that incidence of skill shortages require supply side response, while skill gaps needs training; the results nonetheless showed that training was used for both skill shortages and skills gaps alongside other workforce development. The findings clarified the causes and extent of skill deficiencies on organisations and proposes changes for remediation of these deficiencies. One of the changes required relates to the need for collaboration and partnership of the social partners of skills, and building links between the world of learning and the world of work. Overall, the structural factors highlight the need for reforming and rejuvenating the education system and investing in skills.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in History." Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-245).

Twenty factors identified through a factor analysis of a 102-item biographical inventory were used as predictors in a multiple regression equation to predict on-the-job performance (supervisory ratings) of oil field employees. This yielded a multiple R of .41. A total of 295 subjects participated in the study. Cross-validation yielded a correlation coefficient of .06. The t-test analyses of the factor means of equipment operators and field mechanics proved that two factors could discriminate between the groups, Mechanical Experience (p<.01) and Social Orientation (p<.05). The results of this study indicate that conducting a factor analysis of unvalidated biographical items and attempting to predict performance would be less appropriate than factor analyzing predictive items to gain an understanding of their underlying dimensions.

Orientador: Ricardo Antunes / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T19:34:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Romao_FredericoLisboa_D.pdf: 3550867 bytes, checksum: 77b6030d602f42eef4dbd1df4cc74bb5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar a greve dos petroleiros ocorrida em maio/junho de 1995, destacando sua relação na reafirmação das formas relacionais excludentes do Estado com as classes trabalhadoras no Brasil. A pesquisa levantou dados nacionalmente dentro de critérios qualitativos. A exposição está dividida em quatro capítulos. No primeiro, buscamos elementos da inter-relação entre reestruturação produtiva, do esvaziamento do Estado de bem-estar e do advento do neoliberalismo com os trabalhadores e suas organizações. No segundo, esboçamos o quadro político-econômico e social sob o qual a greve dos petroleiros de 1995 se desenrolou. No terceiro, caracterizamos técnica e socialmente a Petrobrás, os petroleiros e suas organizações. No último, apresentamos a greve nos seus elementos conceituais e sua objetivação na Inglaterra e no Brasil. Os dados demonstraram o imbricamento dessa greve com as mudanças que campeavam pelo mundo a partir da globalização neoliberal. Deixaram explicitados que o tratamento dado à mesma por FHC e pelas instituições do Estado brasileiro expressaram a crise do capital em um país periférico, demonstrando inequivocamente que no novo arranjo societal não caberia a fala dos que não têm parte; não caberia o dissenso. As mudanças operadas via reestruturação produtiva do capital, fizeram retroceder o processo de organização e conquistas iniciado com as lutas operárias nos fins dos anos 70, concorrendo para a precarização das condições e relações de trabalho dos petroleiros, especialmente após a greve de 1995 / Abstract: The objective of the present study is to analyze the petroleum workers¿ strike of May/June, 1995, highlighting its relationship to reaffirm the exclusion forms of the working classes in Brazil by State. The research examines evidence on a national basis using a qualitative approach, and is divided into four chapters. In the first we seek to identify elements of the interrelationships between the re-structuring of production, the decline of the Welfare State and the advent of neo-liberalism, with the workers and their organizations. In the second we sketch the politico-economic and social conditions under which the 1995 petroleum workers¿ strike developed. In the third we characterize, in technical and social terms, Petrobras, the petroleum workers, and their trade unions. In the final chapter we present the concept of the strike and its material manifestations in England and Brazil. The data demonstrate the relationship between the petroleum workers¿ strike and the changes that have been championed throughout the world following neo-liberal globalization. They make explicit that the responses of FHC and of the various institutions of the Brazilian State were an expression of the crisis of capital in a peripheral country, and demonstrate unequivocally the lack of a voice of those existing outside of the new societal structure; dissent could not fit within it. The changes orchestrated via the productive restructuring of capital caused a reversal of the process of worker organization and of the achievements which had begun with the labour conflicts at the end of the 1970s, for the petroleum workers contributing to more precarious working conditions, with weakening of rights and poorer industrial relations, especially following the 1995 strike / Doutorado / Doutor em Ciências Sociais

The focus of this thesis is on labour-management relations in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria. The study explores current managerial practices in the corporation and their effects on the intensification of work, and how the management sought to control workers and the labour process. The study explores the experiences of workers and their perception of managerial practices. Evidence suggests that managerial practices and their impacts on workplace relations in NNPC have become more subtle, with wider implications for workers’ experience and the labour process. Using primary data obtained through interviews, participant observation, and documentary sources, the thesis assesses how managerial practices are varieties of controls of labour in which workers’ consent is also embedded. This embeddedness of the labour process generates new types of worker subjectivity and identity, with significant implications for labour relations. The study suggests that multiple dimensions of workers’ sense-making reflect the structural and subjective dimensions of the labour process. In NNPC, the consequence of managerial practices has been an emergence of a new type of subjectivity; one that has closely identified with the corporate values and is not overtly disposed towards resistance or dissent. While workers consent at NNPC continues to be an outcome of managerial practices, the thesis examined its implications. The thesis seeks to explain the effects of managerial control mechanisms in shaping workers’ experience and identity. However, the thesis shows that while workers remain susceptible to these forms of managerial influence, an erasure or closure of oppositions or recalcitrance will not adequately account for workers’ identity-formation. The thesis shows that while managerial control remains significant, workers inhabit domains that are ‘unmanaged’ and ‘unmanageable’ where ‘resistance’ and ‘misbehaviour’ reside. Without a conceptual and empirical interrogation, evidence of normative and mutual benefits of managerial practices or a submissive image of workers will produce images of workers that obscure their covert opposition and resistance. Workers ‘collude’ with the ‘hubris’ of management in order to invert and subvert managerial practices and intentions. Through theoretical reconceptualization, the thesis demonstrates the specific dimensions of these inversions and subversions. The thesis therefore seeks to re-insert “worker-agency” back into the analysis of power-relations in the workplace; agency that is not overtly under the absolute grip of managerial control, but with a multiplicity of identities and multilevel manifestations.