No description available.

Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1997

Thesis (MBus)--University of South Australia, 1994

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis is about the role that shop floor workers play in organisational change. In particular, it investigates the manner in which a distinct group of worker-level leaders and change agents affected the generation and implementation of change and helped to shape the change process in an organisation undergoing planned change. The data for the thesis were obtained from a three-year, longitudinal case-study of organisational change in a medium-sized automotive components manufacturer, Moving Metals Limited (MML). Data were collected at MML during a move from traditional mass production to lean production and the research was conducted using processual action research, while the researcher adopted the dual roles of researcher and consultant to the company. The research identified a distinct group of workers, with no supervisory capacity, who were able to shape the change process in the organisation. These workers are referred to as workers of influence. This group of workers emerged as central characters in the process of organisational change and as leaders and change agents in the organisation. Drawn from the empirical data, criteria for identifying workers of influence are developed in this thesis, based on the authority vested in them by the workforce and their access to management decision-making. A taxonomy of workers of influence is developed in this thesis using these criteria, as well as the duration of tenure of influence. In much of the literature, shop floor workers are portrayed as either passive participants in, or active resistors of organisational change. This research provides evidence of some workers acting as leaders and change agents in an active and influential manner. The research examines issues of power, influence, autonomy and control and their impact on workers' capacity to participate in change. In so doing, this research identifies and opens up an important area of study with implications for organisational theory, literature and the implementation of planned interventions in organisations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Social Inquiry, 2000.

This thesis examines the formation, development, role and behaviour of the Singapore National Employers' Federation (SNEF). Its focus is primarily the field of labour management. It addresses key issues in the role of the SNEF from its formation in 1980 to 2004, in the institutional context of Singapore's politics, economic development and industrial relations. This longitudinal study makes a substantial original contribution to understanding Singapore's leading national employers' association, and is a pioneering study of a national employers' association in East Asia. The thesis is a qualitative case-study, using fieldwork interviews, primary documents and the secondary literature as data sources. Through the critical event method, the work focuses analysis on key junctures for the SNEF's development and change during the period examined. In addition, the author employs the Sheldon and Thornthwaite (1999) model of employers' association strategy in framing the analysis of the thesis' central questions, and in examining SNEF's strategic decisions in response to changes in its external environment. By analysing how the SNEF's external roles and internal relations changed during each period, the research draws attention to the dynamic nature of this employers' association in the rapidly changing conditions marking Singapore's development. Given the central role of the People's Action Party (PAP) in Singaporean society, a central theme of this thesis is how the SNEF balances political pressures from Singapore's government-dominated corporatist system, with the needs of its diversified membership. The narrative core of the thesis identifies five distinct periods of Singaporean industrial relations - through the lens of the SNEF - reflecting larger economic developments through which the government guided the economy and society. The thesis finds that, while the SNEF is an independent and apolitical organisation, it is nevertheless deeply embedded in the Singaporean variant of corporatism. Accordingly, the SNEF's role and behaviour are inherently guided by the PAP's ideology of pragmatism and, in Singapore, sectoral interests deferred to and institutionally served national interests.

China, in her rapid industrialization over the last two decades, has successfully grown out of its traditional village image and into a modernized society. This dissertation aims to study the job stress of workers through the application of Karaseks (1979) job demand - job control model, in the collectivistic culture of China. Karaseks results indicated that workers in general perceived their jobs as more demanding and themselves as less in control. Moreover, high anxiety and depressive symptoms were related to their stressful working environment and demanding jobs. / PhD Doctorate

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-127). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Denise Reaume.