This thesis explores organisational learning, a process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding (Fiol & Lyles, 1985). Organisational learning is essential in an organisation's ability to evolve and grow and respond to environmental changes and is implicated in its survival. While all organisations are said to be learning constantly, the processes involved in this learning are highly contested, multi-layered and intricate. Knowledge, memory and practice have been implicated in the multi-faceted nature of organisational learning. This study examines the role of organisational learning in stability and change patterns and the ways that this learning is manifested in an organisational context. In particular, this study focuses on the routine actions taken by organisational members and their role in reproducing relations of stability and change organisationally. It employs Giddens's Structuration Theory (1984) as a sensitising device to view the relationship between organisational structure and employees as one of mutual constitution where knowledgeable agents both produce their world at the same time as they reproduce it anew through their daily actions. The research takes the form of a single case study comprising interview and documentary data collected over a period of eighteen months with an aerospace manufacturing company. The analysis of the findings indicated that organisations and the individuals who comprise them: are driven by a mutual objective that directs collective action; constantly interpret the information they receive from within and outside the organisation and act upon their interpretations; and accept that such varied interpretations can and do create conflict about organisational priorities. The findings are presented in the context of existing literature on organisational learning, knowing, remembering, practising and routine work; and within the theoretical framework of structure and agency. In doing so this study discusses the transformation of the organisation through practices, thus making stability and change constantly present rather than being viewed as mutually exclusive. This transformation is constant because organisations are comprised of individuals who engage in knowing as an element of living. Individual employees, driven by incomplete and provisional knowledge, engage in learning about their work, their organisation and how to improve by constantly interpreting the knowledge transmitted to them through their socialisation in and through organisational practices. Their knowing and learning is continuous; when practising routine work not only do they reproduce the conditions that make their actions possible, they also produce the organisation anew. Better knowledge has increased the capacities of employees and their contribution to organisational efficiency has improved. In their joint efforts they have thus transformed the organisation which in turn forces change back upon the individuals – a transformed organisation needs to be interpreted and understood once more and the cycle starts again. Organisational learning can be viewed as the transformation of the organisation, not only through major changes that are deliberate and contingent, but also though the subtle alterations that happen continuously in the course of each day as people go about their work.

Though knowledge has become an increasingly important resource for modern businesses, it was not until the mid-1990's that the 'knowledge management' research stream emerged in the business and information systems literature. Initial research on how to manage knowledge came from an objectivist epistemology of knowledge that viewed it as something that was capable of captured, stored and transferred via information to increase organisational efficiency. This study is grounded in a more recent and alternative perspective that takes a practice based epistemology seeing knowledge as embedded in and inseparable from practice. The practices of interest relate to how knowledge work is performed in environments where there is heavy reliance on information systems. Using an interpretive case study this research analyses the practices of a product support centre of a US multinational. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and internal documentation, including access to the firms „knowledge management‟ repository. Two central practices were examined: how product support engineers made sense of problems to develop fix procedures and how these were subsequently documented. Even within a work environment where client fixes were verifiable, suggesting an objectivist epistemology, this research found that the practice based perspective could be used to provide a different perspective and develop alternative and useful insights. The study contributes to the practice based perspective on knowledge management by providing an analysis of context specific knowledge work practices by analysing how even in procedural repetitive work agency can be exhibited as actors enact practices. It also helps develop the application of Structuration Theory by aiding an understanding of how meanings, norms and resources are developed, drawn upon, conflict, and are changed as everyday work is accomplished. The study is of relevance by providing an understanding of informal knowledge work practices rather than their formal description.

The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation. The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). The Practice Report documents the nature and development of the research undertaken during the course of the study. The culmination of the Practice Component takes the form of an exhibition and archiving of video works from June 2003 to the date of submission, January 2005. The Practice Component has been based in the following locations and used resources from Central Queensland University (Bundaberg campus), and The Australian National University, Centre for New Media Arts in Canberra. The practice has examined the topic through the production of the audio-video installation Sugartown and three video works The Hazzards, Nodal Dialectics 1 and boomsplatbangwhack. While these video works exist as discrete media artworks, they also operate as a type of practice process diary for working through the ideas explored in the written dissertation. Even though the video works are not meant to literally 'illustrate' those ideas, they nevertheless explore ways of integrating the theoretical concepts into my own research practice. In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation.

Humor is usually associated with trivial or non-serious banter; it is however a significant factor in the construction of organizational culture. This work provides an experience based organizational account of how organizations are produced and reproduced, as well as how organizational interaction is coupled with structure. This dissertation is based on two ethnographic studies: the first, a year-long study of a hotel kitchen, and the second, a three-year study of a private boarding school. This long term examination of an organization??s interaction is used to illustrate how organizational interaction produces the duality of organizational structuration overtime. An ethnographic communication-focused approach provides methods for recognizing multiple sites and levels of the Structuration process. As a result, this approach provides a major contribution to understanding the process of Structuration through agents?? actions in the context of their organizational culture.

Humor is usually associated with trivial or non-serious banter; it is however a significant factor in the construction of organizational culture. This work provides an experience based organizational account of how organizations are produced and reproduced, as well as how organizational interaction is coupled with structure. This dissertation is based on two ethnographic studies: the first, a year-long study of a hotel kitchen, and the second, a three-year study of a private boarding school. This long term examination of an organization??s interaction is used to illustrate how organizational interaction produces the duality of organizational structuration overtime. An ethnographic communication-focused approach provides methods for recognizing multiple sites and levels of the Structuration process. As a result, this approach provides a major contribution to understanding the process of Structuration through agents?? actions in the context of their organizational culture.

This Report applies the theories of Structuration and reflexivity to the Internet in Amman, Jordan, to argue how the Internet can challenge authority as embedded in kinship social formations. In the first place, the Internet can be an empowering agent by challenging authority; at the same time, kinship’s social and moral codes can structure the reflexivity that users derive from the Internet and guide the Structuration to which the Internet can lead. This Report argues that there is a symbiotic relationship between the Internet and kinship. Situating Internet usage within kinship would challenge the ontological and epistemological centrality of the “the media text” in Media Studies. Furthermore, situating Internet usage within kinship would highlight users’ emerging Structuration, which can lead to counter-hegemonic currents in Amman. Then, the Report explains how and why an anthropological approach to media, including the Internet, would be especially suitable for exploring the Internet’s functions in users’ lives. Finally, the Report uses an interview of an Arab woman student to show how kinship’s social and moral codes structure user’s reflexivity on one hand, and the Internet’s ability to encourage reflexivity-- eroding kinship’s codes-- on the other hand. An anthropological approach would offer the conceptual and methodological tools for understanding how media usage in general is a social process, and that reflexivity and structuration emerge within that process, rather than assuming technological determinism. This is crucial in the context of the “Arab Spring,” where the Internet has challenged authority. Thus, this Report proposes kinship as a form of authority and social structure and the Internet as a conduit of Structuration. / text

In the post-war period, Italy has been plagued by different forms of organised crime (such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the Pugliese Sacra Corona Unita) which have managed in their individual ways to infiltrate both the State (in the form of political parties and local administrations) and society (businesses, cultural and voluntary organisations). In Campania, until 1991, the relationship between the Camorra and the local political elite (based on the exchange of votes for state contracts and protection) was tacitly accepted by the population and could not be studied by political scientists due to the lack of reliable source material. In 1991, a law was introduced which gave generous remission of sentences to criminals who became state-witness. Many members of the Camorra revealed important aspects of criminal, economic and political activities in Campania. This new material permitted a reexamination of the Camorra. This thesis on the Camorra hopes to fill a gap in the study of the relationship between politics and criminal organisations which so far has concentrated on the Sicilian Mafia. Part One is a general introduction and presents the theoretical model and methods adopted. The documentation available allowed us to adopt an agency-structure approach derived from Giddens's structuration theory (1984). This was complemented by Easton's systems analysis (1965) to understand the wider, macro-environment. We elaborated an 'interaction model' to analyse the changing nature of the Camorra's activities: from a simple social-criminal practice in the 1930s to a dynamic and secret cartel enacting a political-criminal practice in the 1980s. To test this model we applied it to case-studies of criminals using original judicial documents. In Part Two we look at the possible motives of people who join the Camorra. We analysed the agent's internal and external structure in both decades and concluded that the macro-environment as an influencing factor had changed more than the individual-agent. Part Three examines the lives of camorristi in the 1950s and 1980s in order to determine how far their criminal practice has been transformed. Part Four investigates the wider picture of system-interaction between the Camorra's social subsystem and the political system. Focussing on the relationship between camorristi and the political elite in the 1950s and 1980s we highlight the radical changes that occurred. This thesis presents a theoretical discussion of how to study organised crime and social behaviour in general and at the same time a detailed empirical study, in particular of the political role of a criminal organisation in a concrete historical situation, that of Naples over the last forty years.

The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation. The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). The Practice Report documents the nature and development of the research undertaken during the course of the study. The culmination of the Practice Component takes the form of an exhibition and archiving of video works from June 2003 to the date of submission, January 2005. The Practice Component has been based in the following locations and used resources from Central Queensland University (Bundaberg campus), and The Australian National University, Centre for New Media Arts in Canberra. The practice has examined the topic through the production of the audio-video installation Sugartown and three video works The Hazzards, Nodal Dialectics 1 and boomsplatbangwhack. While these video works exist as discrete media artworks, they also operate as a type of practice process diary for working through the ideas explored in the written dissertation. Even though the video works are not meant to literally 'illustrate' those ideas, they nevertheless explore ways of integrating the theoretical concepts into my own research practice. In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation.

abstract: Overwork is a long documented social problem in the United States linked to an abundance of negative outcomes. Typically this issue has been addressed organizationally at the individual level or socially as an economic structural problem. While both approaches are valid in their own ways, missing from these angles is an approach to overwork from an individual perspective. This study explores overwork from the perspective of seasonal workers in Glacier National Park who typically work for the National Park Service five months and spend the rest of the year recreating. Using qualitative interviews and observations, this piece investigates a seasonal mentality towards work in terms of agency and trust, conceptions and practices of work and life, and in terms of embodiment and spirituality. Grounded theory methods were used to develop an axiomatic analysis which informs a poetic and narrative expression of findings in concert to the discussion and implications of the study. The findings of this study illustrate how seasonal workers present a fascinating alternative to traditional work arrangements in a capitalist system. They possess a unique approach to work and life that foregrounds life experience, freedom, and process as opposed to material goods or stability. They tend to approach work and life as an integrated and holistic pursuit as opposed to a segregated and problematic enterprise. And they tend to approach their work as an embodied and spiritual craft as opposed to something accomplished quickly and efficiently for the economic benefit of the organization. Implications of this research suggest that agency and trust maintain a deeply interconnected and dialectical relationship which agents navigate as they build towards ontological security; that re-conceptualizing work-life as "life first" has potential for fundamentally reshaping the ways life (and work) get experienced; and that divisions between minds and bodies as they have been typically structured between white and blue collar work might be interrupted via the inclusion of the human spirit at work. These findings interrupt common practices of overwork in different ways but primarily function as a reminder that ways of thinking coincide with ways of living and working. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication Studies 2012

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / This research aims at contributing to the prevailing literature on the causal origins of the 2008 Recession. Organizations within major investment finance very likely converged towards increased speculation as the result of a process called isomorphism. This approach engaged in a multiple-embedded case study of eight banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Case, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York, Mellon Financial, Bank of New York Mellon, PNC Financial (or PNC Bank), and U.S. Bancorp. The work draws from a qualitative content analysis of quantitative accounting data disclosed under annual financial reports between 2003 and 2008. Trend analyses and accounting ratios were utilized to locate points of convergence in the financial data for these organizations. Conclusively, the research found convergence in the valuation of revenues during certain periods, the valuation of net-income during certain periods, the proportion of noninterest income to revenues, the liquidity ratio, the investment of mortgage-backed securities, outstanding total loans, and net cash used in financial activities. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.