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1 – 10 of over 18000
Article
Publication date: 2 July 2020

Nick Pendergrast

This article explores the different ways in which the vegan turn within the animal advocacy movement in Australia has played out for two organisations, Animal Liberation Victoria…

1206

Abstract

Purpose

This article explores the different ways in which the vegan turn within the animal advocacy movement in Australia has played out for two organisations, Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV) and Animals Australia. Previous research has found that this promotion of veganism has occurred to varying degrees for different organisations and this article will analyse some of these variations in greater depth, drawing on the sociological theory of resource mobilisation.

Design/methodology/approach

This article provides a case study on the campaigning of ALV and Animals Australia on the issue of the dairy industry, as well as an overview of their histories, with a focus on the changing level of vegan campaigning over time. In order to explore this issue, this article will draw on the campaigning materials of the organisations studied, a wide range of academic literature and interviews with key figures from both of these organisations.

Findings

Larger organisations have a limited ability to regularly promote a vegan message due to their need to bring in a large amount of resources to sustain costs such as their office costs and paid staff. It is more grassroots organisations that have far greater scope to consistently and strongly promote a vegan message, although they reach fewer people.

Social implications

The increasing uptake of veganism will have important implications for animals as well as for human health and the environment. The environmental benefits of veganism become even more significant in light of the urgent need to tackle the substantial threat of climate change.

Originality/value

This article is a contribution to the expanding field of critical animal studies as well as to the literature on sociology and animals. It builds on the limited amount of existing sociological literature on vegan activism and contributes an analysis in Australian context.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 April 2012

Lindsay Hamilton and Nik Taylor

Traditionally, ethnography has been well placed to take account of the messy and complex processes that produce workplace cultures. Likewise, it has always taken interest in the…

1899

Abstract

Purpose

Traditionally, ethnography has been well placed to take account of the messy and complex processes that produce workplace cultures. Likewise, it has always taken interest in the objects, materials and symbolic artifacts that help furnish those organizational cultures. Yet researchers face a particular challenge when the organization in question includes animals. The purpose of this paper is to ask: How do we take account of such others? Are they objects, things, agents or should they be considered to be workers?

Design/methodology/approach

The authors consider several examples of animal‐human workplaces, including abattoirs, laboratories and farms, to argue that ethnography can, and should, take account of animals in creative new ways. First‐hand experience of such settings is drawn upon to argue that contemporary post‐human scholarship and the creative arts offer the potential for more subtle research methods.

Findings

The authors’ fieldwork shows that it is not always a straightforward desire to care for other species that motivates people to work with animals. Instead, a range of unexpected meanings can be drawn from the interaction with animals. It is also unsatisfactory to claim that those working with animals are always motivated by the promise of paid employment. In many cases, notably the rescue shelter, work is often done on a voluntary basis. So the rewards are not always financial but reach into more symbolic and ethical domains of value creation. Conversely, in slaughterhouses, the mechanization of the shopfloor makes it difficult for workers to relate to the “products” as animals at all. The repetitive nature of this work disconnects those on the production line from the idea that they are dealing with bodies. The complexity of these human‐animal relationships means that field methods for studying them must be adapted and evolved.

Originality/value

This paper provokes some new questions about human‐animal meaning making for organizational ethnographers. It does so to generate creative new ideas about field methods and the nature of the “others” that researchers participate with to observe.

Article
Publication date: 18 September 2017

Matias Laine and Eija Vinnari

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics and transformative potential associated with counter accounts. It explores how counter-accountants’ attempts to rearticulate…

2878

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics and transformative potential associated with counter accounts. It explores how counter-accountants’ attempts to rearticulate animal production result in their own identity becoming constructed during the conflict setting and how this identity subsequently relates to the transformative potential of the counter accounts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper investigates counter accounts released during an animal rights activists’ campaign against industrial meat and dairy production in Finland. The counter accounts, consisting of secretly filmed videos from pig farms, contrasted the official depiction of animal farming and received wide publicity over several years. The main empirical data set consists of 21 interviews with a variety of parties that have a stake in the conflict. This data set is supplemented with a broad set of published documentary material.

Findings

The authors find that the counter accounts managed, to some extent, to rearticulate the meaning of animal production, potentially resulting in the emergence of small-scale societal effects. When trying to undermine the counter-accountants’ radical political demand, the dominant social groups not only dismissed the counter accounts but also attempted to constitute the counter-accountants’ identity as irresponsible, militant and negligent, drawing a firm political boundary between “them” and “us.” Likewise, the counter-accountants seemed reluctant to communicate with representatives of the dominant regime, resulting in an antagonistic as opposed to an agonistic relationship between the two political groups. The paper also discusses ethical questions concerning the production of counter accounts, the importance of having a clearly articulated political vision, and the challenges related to evaluating whether the counter accounts have been successful.

Originality/value

The paper provides insights into the design, use and reception of counter accounts in a real-life social setting, thus providing a direct response to a recent call by Thomson et al. (2015). The paper illustrates the usefulness of the conceptual dynamic conflict arena framework presented by Thomson et al. (2015), and makes use of discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 2005, 2001, 1996) to highlight how in exploring the transformative potential of counter accounts it is necessary to also consider how the identity of the counter-accountants becomes constructed and understood. Furthermore, the paper also seeks to advance the connections between accounting research and significant global problems by investigating an ethically and environmentally disputed industry, and by engaging with the interrelationships between accounts and accountability in the context of socio-ecological change.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 30 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 April 2014

Linda C. Tallberg, Peter J. Jordan and Maree Boyle

The purpose of this paper is to discuss emotions within a highly emotive organizational setting through the use of crystallization. The authors contend that the expression of a…

Abstract

Purpose –

The purpose of this paper is to discuss emotions within a highly emotive organizational setting through the use of crystallization. The authors contend that the expression of a researcher's positionality as a presence within their research is crucial in contexts where conventional research approaches are unable to capture the depth of the phenomenon under study. The paper argues that the presentation of research findings from highly emotional organizational context will benefit from a challenge to traditional ways of representing and communicating the researcher's experience. As an example of this, in this paper the authors examine the emotions involved in experiencing animal euthanasia in a work context.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws ethnographic methods of fieldwork in an Australian animal shelter. The paper uses autoethnography and interview data.

Findings

Euthanasia is one of the most tolling experiences for animal shelter workers. This paper reveals that through a creative representation this experience may come induce understanding of the emotive context. Furthermore, the employees adapt one or more story-lines to deal with the conflict of euthanasia.

Originality/value

The strength of this paper is that it uses a novel approach to present findings in the form of crystallization. It also furthers insight on how organizational members explain their involvement in emotive work-tasks.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 October 2015

Harry Wels

Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction…

Abstract

Purpose

Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction completely, the purpose of this paper is to argue that organizational ethnography should start to explore in more detail what this means for organizational ethnographic research, theory and analysis to include non-human animals in it.

Design/methodology/approach

Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in Zimbabwe on a private wildlife conservancy, an organization that was specifically set up for and around wildlife. At the same time these non-human animals were not taken into account methodologically nor featured at all in the empirical material or in the analysis. What could it mean for the analysis and conclusions if non-human animals would have been part of the equation?

Findings

Since we live in a world shared between human and non-human animals, this also is true for the organizational lives. As scientific research increasingly shows that the distinction between human and non-human animals is more in degree than in kind it is interesting to note that nevertheless non-human animals usually produce deafening “silences” in organizational ethnographic work. Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in this context the author shows how taking non-human animals on board of the analysis radically alters the outcomes of the research.

Research limitations/implications

This paper reports on revisiting the author’s earlier ethnographic research, without actually doing the research itself again. In that sense it is a hypothetical study.

Practical implications

Organizational ethnography might have to rethink what it would mean in terms of fieldwork methodologies if it would allow non-human animals as actual agentic stakeholders in the research and analysis. It would at least need to also think in terms of “research methodologies without words” as non-human animals cannot be interviewed.

Social implications

The paper is based on a social justice perspective on human-animal relations. It tries to contribute to an intellectual argument to take non-human animals more seriously as “co-citizens” in the (organizational) life world. This may have wide ranging implications for the life styles, ranging from the types of food we eat, to liquids we drink, to the ways we think about the human superiority in this world.

Originality/value

A highly self-reflexive account of the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work, showing what it means theoretically if we take non-human animals seriously in organizational ethnographic research and analysis. At the same time it shows quite painfully organizational ethnography’s speciecist approach to research methodologies and processes of organizing.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 4 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1989

Donald J. Davidoff

Animal rights is a growing social justice movement opposed to all forms of animal exploitation and abuse. Animal rights is not animal welfare. It is not pet therapy, wildlife…

Abstract

Animal rights is a growing social justice movement opposed to all forms of animal exploitation and abuse. Animal rights is not animal welfare. It is not pet therapy, wildlife conservation, or the services of the local humane society. Although it shares concerns with other organizations interested in the welfare of animals, the animal rights movement is activist and progressive, rejecting the view that animals are resources to be used for human purposes.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 30 October 2007

Karl Bruckmeier and Madeleine Prutzer

The purpose of this paper is to identify the views of Swedish pig producers concerning animal welfare, the schemes practised for animal welfare in Sweden, and the ramifications of…

758

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the views of Swedish pig producers concerning animal welfare, the schemes practised for animal welfare in Sweden, and the ramifications of animal welfare for Swedish retailers and consumers.

Design/methodology/approach

The Swedish study for animal welfare covers a pig‐production sector of 2,794 producers (2005). The pig production study was one of three such studies conducted as part of the EU's Welfare Quality project with semi‐structured interviews (the other two studies were on cattle and poultry production). The stratified sample included 60 pig producers, both conventional and organic, selected from all areas of Sweden.

Findings

The main results show a high level of animal care exercised in the Swedish pig production sector. Although there are no specific animal welfare schemes implemented, there is a high level of animal care provided by farmer participation in quality assurance schemes that include animal welfare stipulations, among other criteria.

Practical implications

The results from this pig production study will serve as input for a subsequent study of the on‐farm practice of animal welfare for the Welfare Quality project and as information material for policy to argue for more compatible criteria of welfare schemes at national level as well as for more homogeneous practice and standards of animal welfare within the EU.

Originality/value

This is the first in‐depth study on animal welfare in Swedish agriculture that takes into account a wide array of views and experiences of both conventional and organic producers. Prior to this animal welfare study only studies with a narrow focus on animal welfare, for example about organic production, and the State Audit Institution's report, which focuses on the effectiveness in animal welfare monitoring, have been produced.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 109 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 June 2021

Christopher Wilson and Devin Knighton

This study aims to examine the effect of publics' legitimacy evaluations on Arthur W. Page's conceptualization of “reasonable freedom of action” by breaking it into two parts: (1…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the effect of publics' legitimacy evaluations on Arthur W. Page's conceptualization of “reasonable freedom of action” by breaking it into two parts: (1) perceived organizational autonomy and (2) trust in the organization.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducted an online experiment using a 2 (legitimacy: low, high) × 2 (legitimacy type: institutional, actional) between-subjects design. Measured variables included perceived organizational autonomy and trust.

Findings

Organizations acting in their own self-interest while ignoring community norms and expectations were perceived to be exercising higher levels of organizational autonomy and have lower levels of trust. The interaction between legitimacy type and level had an effect on perceived organizational autonomy and trust.

Research limitations/implications

Public's view their relationships with organizations from a perspective that prioritizes responsibility and conformity to community norms and expectations. Also, organizations have more to lose by acting in their own self-interest to resolve institutional legitimacy concerns and more to gain by handling them in a way that includes the public interest than when they are managing an actional legitimacy situation.

Practical implications

Societal norms, values and beliefs, which may have accommodated, or even supported, an organization's approach to doing business in the past, can change over time, calling into question an organization's legitimacy and its ability to operate in the public interest. As a result, organizational leaders need the Chief Communication Officer to help them understand current societal norms, values and beliefs.

Originality/value

This study addresses a core assumption of the organization–public relationship paradigm that has not yet been studied empirically. It also expands the understanding of organizational autonomy from a public perspective and examines the effect of legitimacy on organizational autonomy and trust.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 September 2020

Harry Wels

To further develop research methodologies for multi-species ethnographic fieldwork, based on researcher's experiences with multi-species fieldwork in private wildlife…

3903

Abstract

Purpose

To further develop research methodologies for multi-species ethnographic fieldwork, based on researcher's experiences with multi-species fieldwork in private wildlife conservancies in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.

Design/methodology/approach

Reflections on methodological lessons learnt during multi-species ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa. The approach is rather “Maanenesque” in telling various types of tales of the field. These tales also implicitly show how all-encompassing ethnographic fieldwork and its accompanying reflexivity are; there is never time for leisure in ethnographic fieldwork.

Findings

That developing fieldwork methodologies in multi-species ethnographic research confronts researchers with the explicit need for and training in multi-sensory methods and interpretations, inspired by “the art of tracking” of the San.

Originality/value

Comes up with a concrete suggestion for a sequence of research methods for multi-species ethnography based on the trials and tribulations of a multi-species ethnographer's experiences in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 9 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 October 2017

Martin Powell and Michele Castelli

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore hybrid organisations in health care. It examines the broad literature on hybrids focusing on issues of perspective, definition…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore hybrid organisations in health care. It examines the broad literature on hybrids focusing on issues of perspective, definition, sub-type and level. It then presents the results of the literature review of hybrid health care organisations, exploring which organisations have been viewed as hybrids, and then examining studies in more detail with respect to the research questions.

Design/methodology/approach

It critically explores the literature on hybrid organisations in health care through a structured search.

Findings

It is found that a wide variety of hybrid forms exist, but not clear what they combine or how they combine it. However, the level of depth from some of these studies is rather limited, with little consensus on definition, and relatively few drawing on any explicit conceptual perspective. It seems that the wider hybridity literatures have limited influence of studies of hybrid health care organisations.

Originality/value

As far as the authors are aware, this paper is the first attempt to critically review the literature on hybrid organisations in health care. It is concluded that it is difficult to define and explain hybrid health care organisations. Health care hybrids appear to be chameleons as they appear to be able to change their form to different observers.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 31 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

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