Contemporary labour immigration into the UK has been underpinned by two structural positions: the uneven development within the capitalist system and an intensification of competition driving towards flexibility and precarity. Immigrant workers are overwhelmingly concentrated in secondary sectors of the labour market with low pay, long working hours and poor health and safety and closely associated with non-standard work and informal economy where unions are often not available. How these immigrant workers in highly exploitative industries respond to work-related exploitations poses a great challenge to traditional trade unionism. While community unionism has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners, an institution-centric approach is dominated in the scholarship which tends to overemphasize the role of institutional entity, such as trade unions and NGOs, in shaping collective agency and consider it as the centrality to immigrant workers activism. In contrast to such union-centred research, this study adopts a social movement perspective to explore whether and how community organizing approach can empower immigrant workers and enhance union organizing when globalization compromises its validity. By conducting the multi-method (interviews, surveys, participant observations and videos) ethnographic studies in an immigrant domestic worker self-help group-Justice for Domestic Workers in London over a year and a post EU-enlargement Polish association and local Polish neighbourhood in South Somerset over five months, the research shows that gendered and cultural space rather than traditional industrial entities could offer a political context in which immigrant workers start recognising structural class exploitations and develop an agency and activism for changes. This suggests that the collective mobilizations of immigrant workers in informal and individualised sectors may require creative leaps of sociological imagination in nurturing such communities of coping, wherever they may be occurring - in social clubs, cafés or churches. Community, however, is not a naturally harmonious and unified group setting. The internal divisions and competitions within immigrant communities pose limits to how far ethnic cohesion can serve as a basis for collective mobilization of immigrant workers. The research points to the potential tensions between immigrant community organizations and trade unions to compete for membership and social influence in the coalition building. There is a risk that the institutional goals of immigrant community organizations, in terms of securing funding and expanding its organizational influence, may take precedence over substantive goals of support provision. The research also suggests that academics and practitioners need to rethink the criteria that define the success of worker organising. To win union recognition and achieve collective bargaining agreements in the workplace is a rare case in community organizing of immigrant workers. A distinction should be made between capacity-building from the perspective of workers and organizations involved in community organizing of immigrant workers. There might be a contradiction between organizational developments and grassroots empowerment. Instead of merely focusing on political outcomes as the existing research indicates, more attention should paid to outcomes in social and cultural arenas and how gains in one arena facilitate or hinder gains in another.

The purpose of this study was to understand the social workers experience of the work situation and how it affects them, in the light of the refugee stream. Eight social workers in the social child protection services participated in the study, which was designed as a qualitative study. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews to understand social workers perception of their working situation and how they were affected by it in the light of the refugee stream. The study revealed that there have been several changes in the work situation due to the refugee stream in 2015, where the changes also are the factors that social workers feel that they were affected by. The results show that social workers' ideal picture of the work situation differs from the work situation they experience right now. The working climate changed for the worse when the errand amount increased, which affected the client work and led to feelings of inadequacy. The social workers used different protection strategies to deal with the deteriorating working situation, but also had the help of various personal factors. The study results also shows that the increased demands led to reduced feelings of control and that the social workers felt supported in varying degrees and forms. Increased overtime, stress and worsening well-being, led to the impact on privacy and increased sick-leaves. The deteriorating working situation led to lower quality of work, more temporary solutions and reduced legal certainty. Lack of time meant that new employees received an inferior introduction, which affected staff turnover.

<p>The purpose of this study was to get a better understanding of how newly graduated social workers within the elderly care and the need assessment sector forms a professional identity through a focus on their experience of the socialization process.</p><p>The main questions concerned how work place culture socialized the newly graduated social worker in respect of her or his professional identity.</p><p>The study’s theoretical underpinning lies in Symbolic Interactionism. We have combined focus group interviews with follow-up personal interviews with the aim of deepening to our understanding of the socialization process of social workers and what it means for their professional identities.</p><p>Three main results were generated. First, that a well planned introduction and the teams’ significance to the formation of professional identity were shown to be important. Second that a needs assessment organization with a controlled and standardized professional role were noted to be too restrictive as they allowed little possibility for the new social worker to shape their own ways of working. This was particularly the case where new social workers were unclear about how to go about their work assignment. These results also showed that relation building and dialogue with clients was underemphasised and taken for granted.</p>

This dissertation is available for free download through the University of Arizona library and the author's web site.Since Argentina's economic collapse of 2001, workers who occupied abandoned and bankrupt businesses and put them back into operation as cooperatives have attracted increasing attention on the part of academic researchers and other disaffected workers. This dissertation reviews the political economic contexts in which these "recovered businesses" were established, reviews the dynamics of social movements involved, and considers the Argentine recovered business phenomenon from three analytical perspectives: 1) Marxist poltical economy; 2) Neo-institutional analysis (drawing on the work of Ostrom); and 3) Sociospatial subjectivity (with particular reference to Butler, Lefebvre, and Bourdieu). The author, through these analyses, proposes a theory of the "industrial commons" and considers the potential for expansion and contraction of recovered business movements as their protagonists struggle to resist reterritorialization by forces associated with the state and the capitalist marketplace. Observations made by the author are supplemented by numerous quotations drawn from interviews conducted with Argentine recovered business workers in 2008.Key conclusions include the recognition that social and spatial changes have accompanied the expropriation of private workplaces and their conversion to cooperatives, that these changes may create contexts for the reproduction of cooperative values, and that the new political economic subjects produced through these processes may help to secure the long term viability and growth of not only recovered businesses, but a newly emerging "self-managed workers" movement, as well.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about how a group of newly graduated social workers reflect on the practical daily work and their positions working with clients who are in need of social and/or economic resources. More precisely the purpose is to find out how these seven newly graduated social workers viewed working with clients during theoretical and practical studies. The aim is to analyze which techniques and methods could be seen in these narratives. Furthermore the aim was to find out if and how these seven social workers reflected on the power relation between social worker and client. The material of this study consists of seven semi-structured interviews. Throughout gathering the data and analyzing it, the qualitative method in form of narrative approach was used. Theoretical tools used in both creating the theoretical perspective and analyzing the data material consisted of social constructionism and main theoretical concepts of Bauman’s stranger, Foucault’s concept of power and discipline and Reamer’s paternalism. Results and analysis of data material showed how methods and techniques in social work are used when working with a client, maintaining an unbalanced power relation between social worker and client, for example in the form of creating alliances of social workers, use of language and categorizing the clients. The power relation was directly considered and reflected on by three of seven interviewed social workers. However, it was apparent that many of those interviewed reflected indirectly on the role of power in social workers’ daily work with clients.

The main objective of this bachelor thesis is to analyse the dynamic and complex decision-making process that households with temporary overseas migrating family members do before migrating. The aim of this thesis is to understand why this phenomenon occurs in less developed areas, though the background of the thesis is trying to address the need of positive relationship between migration and development. Based on the theorectical benchmark of neoclassical microeconomic theory and new economics of labour migration theory certain factors were identified that could influence the decision to migrate. By using a mixed method with qualitative semi-structed face-to-face interviews combined with a survey of nine question relating to specific factors this study was able to create an understanding of the reality of migrant households, though a micro field study was conducted in Kebumen regency in Indonesia. The findings clearly shows that temporary overseas migration from less developed areas is a household decision that is influenced by local gender aspects and addressed by new well-functioning established markets for overseas work. Our findings also suggests that temporary migration is a way for the family to spread their risks, related to income and farming activites, and to achive further development, where other markets and institutions do not meet their needs. Policies regarding these gender aspects and the need of institutions that could improve the situation are recommended though remittances in that case might have a more long-term sustainable impact on the households.

HIV/AIDS mainly is a health problem, which is accompanied by social and economic implications worldwide and is seen as a pandemic that negatively affects South Africa. The agricultural labour force, specifically the farm worker community, is also negatively affected by it. However, few research reports are available pertaining to this problem in this section of the population Based on the above, the researcher investigated the attitudes and level of knowledge of the farm worker community with regard to HIV/AIDS. During the investigation it was established that knowledge was lacking and a misperception regarding the HI virus prevailed in the farm worker community. A needs assessment was executed in order to establish what information the farm workers wish to receive and whether they would be willing to attend group assemblies. Initially, the farm workers were not familiar with the term 'group work', but once it was explained to them it was established that the farm workers did indeed feel a need for a group work programme. A prevention programme was compiled in accordance with the needs of the farm workers, which included giving information on HIV/AIDS as well as teaching them life skills. An attempt was made to compile the programme in a culture sensitive manner so that information could reach the farm workers at their level of functioning. The aim of the investigation was: To establish the attitudes, convictions and level of knowledge of black farm workers with regard to HIV/AIDS by means of a literature study and empirical investigation; and To compile an HIV/AIDS group work prevention programme based on a literature study and empirical research. In conclusion, it can be said that the research has proved that knowledge pertaining to the virus is lacking among the farm worker community and that it is essential to change their attitudes. Group work, as a method of social work, can be utilised with remarkable success to bring about positive changes regarding HIV/AIDS in this sector. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur biståndshandläggare förhåller sig till ansökningar i trygghetsfrämjande syfte för att därigenom öka förståelsen för deras situation i beslutsfattningsprocesssen. Åtta intervjuer med åtta informanter, varav 7 kvinnor och en man, har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats. Resultatet visade att biståndshandläggarens arbetssituation påverkas av olika faktorer som leder till ett ökat eller minskat handlingsutrymme. Faktorer är: organisationens struktur, riktlinjer och handlingsstrategier. Resultatet visade även att begreppet trygghet uppfattas olika mellan biståndshandläggarna på grund av att Sociatjänstlagen är en målinriktad ramlag. Vidare visade resultatet att trygghet är en del i arbetet fast det benämns inte alltid med ordet trygghet. / The aim of this study was researching social workers’ attitudes towards applications having the purpose of safety promotion in order to increase the understanding of their position within the decision making process. Eight interviews with eight informers, whereof seven women and one man, were conducted using a qualitative approach. The result showed that the work situation of the social worker are affected by different aspects which leads to either an increased or a decreased discretion. The following factors are evident: the structure of the organization, guidelines and action strategies. The result also showed that the concept of safety is perceived differently between the social workers because the Social Services Act is a goal-oriented frame law. Furthermore, the result showed that safety is a part of the work even though the word safety is not always used.

Assessing the conditions of productivity of individual workers who process information and use IT has been a concern for many researchers. Prior studies have applied different theoretical foundations to study the relationship between IT use and productivity at individual level in post adoption scenarios and have provided mixed results. In the last decades, the proposition that there is a need for a set of factors to be changed in a synchronized fashion when using an IT system has received particular attention. Very little, however, is known about the configurations of these factors at individual level. To investigate this gap, we have designed a new research model of an information worker’s individual productivity when a more aligned IT system is used in a synchronized manner with both individual and organizational factors. The formulated research model is grounded on the complementarity theory, functioning here as a meta-theory guiding the linking of productivity theory, Kirton’s adaption-innovation theory, and several theoretical bodies on the structure of production processes and human resource management. The formulated model was tested in two empirical studies – a longitudinal quasi-randomized field experiment and an online experiment – conducted to investigate configurations of complementary factors that increase productivity when a new, more aligned IT system is used. Overall, the two studies shed important light on configurations of complementary factors and the improvement of the research design to study their impact on IT-enabled productivity. The obtained results contribute to the research that focuses on individual information worker IT-enabled productivity as well as research that rests on the complementarity theory with new configurations of complementary factors that, when matched correctly, can increase individual productivity of information workers. Eventually, the studies presented here advocate that further research is needed to increase our in-depth understanding of complementary factors and their impact on individual IT-enabled productivity of information workers.

TITLE: The Psychological Aspects of the Life in a Shelter AUTHOR: PhDr. Roman Čepelák DEPARTMENT: Katedra psychologie SUPERVISOR: Doc. PhDr. Miloš Kučera, CSc. ABSTRACT: The master thesis explores, by analytic way, the life of clients in shelter for families with children. The thesis describes the specific shelter home in Prague - Horní Pocernice and observes its specifics in a context of other shelters. It maps the target group of users, who are mostly clients from Roma population. The thesis aims at clients' motives to live in a shelter, their coping with shelter norms and their adjustment of shelter rules to clients' own needs. It notices individual behaviors in a community of clients, describing interactions with social workers and between each other. The specific chapter is devoted to children as the youngest users of a shelter, their coping with the environment and the possibilities shelter home offers to them. The last chapter implies a certain similarity in shelter clients thinking with thinking of people living in an oral culture. The thesis disputes declared purpose of shelter home(s) as training of their own home living, since their repetitive "coming home" returns to shelter(s) witness another motives for shelter life as well. KEYWORDS: Shelter, Roma, social worker