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21 – 30 of 31
Article
Publication date: 29 July 2014

Adam Dennett, Derek Cameron, Colin Bamford and Andrew Jenkins

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, through metaphor analysis, the complex nature of the work undertaken by waiters and pursers on-board cruise ships. This is an…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, through metaphor analysis, the complex nature of the work undertaken by waiters and pursers on-board cruise ships. This is an under-researched field and empirical research has produced some interesting perceptions that these groups of workers have of themselves, of others, and of the world in which they work and live.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted over the telephone from a sample of international participants. The data were analysed using a metaphor analysis.

Findings

There were three clusters of metaphorical illustration found: metaphors of the ship, metaphors of the environment, and metaphors of their occupation. The metaphors of the environment were split into two sub-clusters. One explored how participants understood the ship's space or work setting, and the second identified the strategies used as participants negotiated their way through their working and social lives. The stories collected from the workers have produced a very different but realistic perspective of the working lives of waiters and pursers.

Research limitations/implications

Metaphors can only offer a partial view of a social phenomenon, rather than an all-encompassing view, which are furthermore specific to the research setting. Notably, for half of all participants English was not their first language, and consequently this may have had an impact upon their use of metaphors.

Practical implications

This research highlights the socio-employment relationship and complexities of working on cruise ships. In particular, it recognises behavioural learning practices and organisational bureaucratic utilities, which the industry relies upon for managing employees.

Originality/value

This study contributes new knowledge in an under-researched context exploring the sociological lives of hospitality cruise ship workers. The use of metaphor analysis has provided an interesting and useful route to extend understanding of cruise ship work.

Details

Employee Relations, vol. 36 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines chronic illness, disability and social inequality within an exposure-vulnerabilities theoretical framework.

Methodology/Approach

Using the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a preeminent source of national behavioral health estimates of chronic medical illness, stress and disability, for selected sample years 2005–2014, we construct and analyze two foundational hypotheses underlying the exposure-vulnerabilities model: (1) greater exposure to stressors (i.e., chronic medical illness) among racial/ethnic minority populations yields higher levels of serious psychological distress, which in turn increases the likelihood of medical disability; (2) greater vulnerability among minority populations to stressors such as chronic medical illness exacerbates the impact of these conditions on mental health as well as the impact of mental health on medical disability.

Findings

Results of our analyses provided mixed support for the vulnerability (moderator) hypothesis, but not for the exposure (mediation) hypothesis. In the exposure models, while Blacks were more likely than Whites to have a long-term disability, the pathway to disability through chronic illness and serious psychological distress did not emerge. Rather, Whites were more likely than Blacks and Latinx to have a chronic illness and to have experienced severe psychological distress (both of which themselves were related to disability). In the vulnerability models, both Blacks and Latinx with chronic medical illness were more likely than Whites to experience serious psychological distress, although Whites with serious psychological distress were more likely than these groups to have a long-term disability.

Research Limitations

Several possibilities for understanding the failure to uncover an exposure dynamic in the model turn on the potential intersectional effects of age and gender, as well as several other covariates that seem to confound the linkages in the model (e.g., issues of stigma, social support, education).

Originality/Value

This study (1) extends the racial/ethnic disparities in exposure-vulnerability framework by including factors measuring chronic medical illness and disability which: (2) explicitly test exposure and vulnerability hypotheses in minority populations; (3) develop and test the causal linkages in the hypothesized processes, based on innovations in general structural equation models, and lastly; (4) use national population estimates of these conditions which are rarely, if ever, investigated in this kind of causal framework.

Details

Social Factors, Health Care Inequities and Vaccination
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-795-2

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 19 December 2017

Karin Klenke

Abstract

Details

Women in Leadership 2nd Edition
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-064-8

Article
Publication date: 24 February 2012

Pernilla Gluch and Christine Räisänen

Using an activity theory lens, this paper aims to examine the interrelationships between project practice and environmental management. It also aims to focus on tensions that…

1305

Abstract

Purpose

Using an activity theory lens, this paper aims to examine the interrelationships between project practice and environmental management. It also aims to focus on tensions that occur between human agents and material objects within a motive‐directed, historically‐situated activity system, namely that of managing environmental issues in projects.

Design/methodology/approach

Case studies of two large infrastructure projects were conducted 2003‐2004 and 2008. The studies comprised on‐site observations, text analyses, 20 semi‐structured interviews and one group interview. Time was spent on the construction site to become familiarized with the context and the practices of the project community. A total of 15 weekly environmental site inspections were monitored and photo‐documented.

Findings

The findings show how new and emergent environmental management practices and routines were inherently contradictory to the situated and established culture within the projects. In fact project practices seemed to amplify the contradictions between environmental management and project management rather than mitigating them. As a result project members and organization members strove toward different goals and foci. It is argued that management needs to create arenas where members from the two units can align practices and merge routines.

Practical implications

Aligning the permanent structures of the organization with the temporary organizing of practices and operational activities in projects is a challenge for the construction industry. A prevalent lack of fit between the organization and its projects causes contradictions which negatively affect the way in which long‐term environmental strategies and goals are understood and implemented in the project settings.

Originality/value

The system theoretical lens adopted in this study enables a holistic interpretation of complex and dynamic activities and the linking of the micro, the individual, to the macro, the organizational structure. By indicating some inherent and emergent contradictions between project practice and corporate environmental management, this paper contributes to an emergent field of research that focuses on social practice in construction.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2007

Robert McClure and Christine Murphy

The main intension of this paper is to challenge the dominance of emotional labour in professional nursing.

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Abstract

Purpose

The main intension of this paper is to challenge the dominance of emotional labour in professional nursing.

Design/methodology/approach

The article begins by evaluating the central conceptual and definitional aspects of emotional labour, emotion work and emotional work. The purpose of this discussion is to argue against the false public and private dichotomy that has plagued emotional labour and emotion work. Second, it is proposed that the central and helpful defining aspects of emotional labour and emotion work are Marx's concepts of exchange‐value and use‐value. These defining attributes are used in conjunction with other re‐conceptualisations, which unite these terms in order to create more encompassing constructs that are useful for focusing on the waged and unwaged aspects of professional nurses' emotional work response behaviours. Finally, the use of emotional labour in professional nursing is contested on the grounds that the construct has limited theoretical and empirical utility for researching the complex nature of professional nurses' emotional work response behaviours.

Findings

It is recommended that a more robust encompassing concept needs to be developed, which accurately reflects the nature and complexity of professional nurses' waged and unwaged emotional work response behaviours, as they are important overlooked facets of behaviour that can be theoretically related to professional nurses' contextual performance.

Originality/value

The paper provides a better understanding of professional nurses' emotional work response behaviours, which benefit nursing research and practice by drawing on other areas of theory and research.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 March 2010

Joanne Martin

Cultural portraits usually begin with a description of the context, but as this material is covered elsewhere in this volume, this introduction will be mercifully brief. At any…

Abstract

Cultural portraits usually begin with a description of the context, but as this material is covered elsewhere in this volume, this introduction will be mercifully brief. At any time during the last four decades, there have been dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of Stanford University faculty and doctoral students interested in studying organizations. They have been scattered across the campus, often in small groups within larger schools and departments. They have been based in the Sociology Department and the Organizational Behavior and Strategy areas at the Graduate School of Business. There were always a handful at the Education and Engineering schools, as well as a scattering of individuals doing related work in Psychology, Political Science, and Anthropology. In spite of their numbers, before the Stanford Center for Organizational Research (SCOR) was founded in 1972, many of these faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students felt rather isolated. They had little contact with colleagues across campus who shared their interest in organizations and little collective clout when resources were being distributed.

Details

Stanford's Organization Theory Renaissance, 1970–2000
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-930-5

Book part
Publication date: 29 April 2013

Leif Dahlberg

The essay studies the introduction and use of audio-visual media in contemporary Swedish courtroom praxis and how this affects social interaction and the constitution of judicial…

Abstract

The essay studies the introduction and use of audio-visual media in contemporary Swedish courtroom praxis and how this affects social interaction and the constitution of judicial space. The background to the study is the increasing use of video technology in law courts during the last decennium, and in particular the reformed trial code regulating court proceedings introduced in Sweden in 2008. The reform is called A Modern Trial (En modernare rättegång, Proposition 2004/05:131). An important innovation is that testimonies in lower level court proceedings now are video recorded and, in case of an appeal trial, then are screened in the appellate court. The study of social interaction and the constitution of judicial space in the essay is based in part on an ethnographic study of the Stockholm appellate court (Svea hovrätt) conducted in the fall 2010; in part on a study of the preparatory works to the legal reform; and in part on research on how media technology affects social interaction and the constitution of space and place.

Details

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-620-0

Case study
Publication date: 1 May 2008

Herbert Sherman and Daniel James Rowley

Derived from field and telephone interviews, e-mail communications, and secondary sources, this two part case describes how Gerald Mahoney, a shoes salesman in a Foley's…

Abstract

Derived from field and telephone interviews, e-mail communications, and secondary sources, this two part case describes how Gerald Mahoney, a shoes salesman in a Foley's Department store, is faced with a problem - Macy's has bought out the Foley's chain and, in doing so, has upscale the product line of shoes and altered his commission-based compensation system. These changes have resulted in less sales for Mr. Mahoney and therein lower commission - a difficult situation since he, his wife, and his daughter were barely getting by on his currently salary. Part A of the case describes an opportunity that presents itself to Mr. Mahoney; to leave his current job with a guaranteed low salary with possible additional income from commissions for a job selling residential homes which becomes purely commission-based to start with after three months of a salary plus commission pay that includes job training. In Part B Mr. Mahoney has decided to take the sales job with ABC Home Builders and receives his assignment. He finds that the working conditions of the sales office are not conducive to selling. His office is located in the rear of a trailer that is extremely run down and is paired with a competitive, noncommunicative saleswoman. The case ends with Mr. Mahoney feeling hopeless and alienated.

This two part case has been written primarily for an undergraduate junior level course in career planning or sales management and deals with the issues of recruitment, placement, training, and compensation. The case may also be employed in a course dealing with human resource management (from an individual's perspective), salesmanship, and organizational behavior.

Details

The CASE Journal, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Case Study
ISSN: 1544-9106

Book part
Publication date: 31 July 2009

Franz Wohlgezogen and Paul Hirsch

When we try to explain the dynamic relationship between actors and their environment, “unidirectional” paradigms clustered at either end of an agency–determinism continuum…

Abstract

When we try to explain the dynamic relationship between actors and their environment, “unidirectional” paradigms clustered at either end of an agency–determinism continuum, theoretical absolutes, and a focus on final outcomes are of limited value. Comparative research is uniquely positioned to move beyond such limitations and toward accounts of organizing that incorporate variation, interests, and interaction. To guide comparative research toward this more relational approach, we (1) highlight a move toward the middle ground of the agency–determinism continuum, that is, varieties of interaction and mutual influence between actors and their environments across levels of analysis; and (2) propose to conceptualize actor–environment relations as a “negotiation.” We use this metaphorical lens to stimulate a focus on the variety of different “negotiation spaces” and “negotiation moves,” which actors may utilize in an organizational field to affect stability or change. We provide an exemplary application of the framework and conclude with some observation on the implications for future research.

Details

Studying Differences between Organizations: Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-647-8

Article
Publication date: 11 January 2016

Anna Hampson Lundh and Mats Dolatkhah

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as information behaviour or information practices within Library and Information Science (LIS).

Design/methodology/approach

An empirical example – a lesson on how to read railway timetables – is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour.

Findings

It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices.

Research limitations/implications

The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS.

Social implications

The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work.

Originality/value

The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people’s behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 72 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

21 – 30 of 31