Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

What Is The 'Economic Value' Of Learning English In Spain?, Molly M. Robbins

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper uses historical and economic references to evaluate the economic value of learning English in Spain. Seeing that English is the lingua franca in politics, business, and technology, it is a necessary skill for Spanish citizens to possess in order to efficiently interact in foreign relations of all kinds. Due to Franco’s harsh language policies, and Spain’s ineffective education system, Spain has lacked the same linguistic exposure to foreign languages—especially English—than the rest of Europe. By referencing the previous literature written about the relationship between language and earnings, this paper seeks to find the economic incentive for Spaniards to …

The Raise Health Initiative For Workers, Companies, And Communities, The Evidence Project

Reproductive Health

RAISE Health is an initiative to improve the health of factory and farm workers (women and men) in developing countries through changes in global and corporate policies and workplace practices. Effective management of workplace health is good for companies and workers alike, resulting in better health and morale, better labor-management relations, empowerment of women, and better use of company health investments. Worker health is typically one of the most neglected areas in business operations. As this activity brief notes, RAISE Health is a major activity of the USAID-funded Evidence Project. The goal of the initiative is to utilize the existing …

Economic Self-Help Group Programs For Improving Women’S Empowerment: A Systematic Review, Carinne M. Brody, Thomas De Hoop, Martina Vojtkova, Ruby Warnock, Megan Dunbar, Padmini Murthy, Shari Dworkin

Motivation: Self-help groups (SHGs) are implemented around the world to empower women, supported by many developing country governments and agencies. A relatively large number of studies purport to demonstrate the effectiveness of SHGs. This is the first systematic review of that evidence.

Approach: We conducted a systematic review of the effectiveness of women’s economic SHG programs, incorporating evidence from quantitative and qualitative studies. We systematically searched for published and unpublished literature, and applied inclusion criteria based on the study protocol. We critically appraised all included studies and used a combination of statistical meta-analysis and meta-ethnography to synthesize the …

Effects Of A Workplace Intervention Targeting Psychosocial Risk Factors On Safety And Health Outcomes, Leslie B. Hammer, Donald M. Truxillo, Todd Bodner, Jennifer Rae Rineer, Amy C. Pytlovany, Amy Richman

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of a workplace intervention targeting work-life stress and safety-related psychosocial risk factors on health and safety outcomes. Data were collected over time using a randomized control trial design with 264 construction workers employed in an urban municipal department. The intervention involved family- and safety-supportive supervisor behavior training (computer-based), followed by two weeks of behavior tracking and a four-hour, facilitated team effectiveness session including supervisors and employees. A significant positive intervention effect was found for an objective measure of blood pressure at the 12-month follow-up. However, no significant intervention results were …

Role Tension In The Academy: A Philosophical Inquiry Into Faculty Teaching And Research, Nicolas Michaud

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the conjunction of faculty roles as teachers and as researchers. This understanding is pursued through philosophical analysis. Discourse ethics, in particular, is used as a framework by which to best understand the roles played by faculty and if the roles of teacher and researcher are, in fact, commensurable. The purpose of the work is two-fold: 1) to develop a construct that may be used by future researchers to better understand the roles played by faculty, and 2) to suggest a best-construct that enables future researchers to propose how actual lived roles should be instantiated in …

The Structuration Of Chinese Migrant Workers: Institutional Transitions, Life Experiences And Subjective Experiences, Fayin Xu

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Chinese migrant workers are workers who (1) migrate from the countryside, where they have the rights to contract farm land, work in agricultural production, and build houses on allotted residential site, and (2) work in non-agricultural sectors of cities and towns, where they don’t receive the same urban welfare benefits as local urban residents. Chinese migrant workers are characterized by their dagong lifestyle, which means “leaving their home in rural villages, going into cities, and working for others, in order to make money.” Though this group of people emerges in the rural-urban migration process associated with the rapid industrialization and …

Hunting For 'Paper Gangsters': An Institutional Analysis Of Intelligence-Led Policing In A Canadian Context, Crystal Weston

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Contemporary police departments are facing immense pressure to preserve public safety while also remaining fiscally accountable. As a response to economic pressures, police services are turning to intelligence led policing (ILP). ILP promises ‘smarter’ and more efficient policing with the use of advanced technologies and data analysis for decision-making. The present study examines ILP implementation in one urban Canadian police department. Through in-depth interviews with fifteen patrol and middle-management members, fifty-five hours of observation, and an analysis of organizational documents, I examine how ILP reform has been understood and enacted by patrol officers on the ground. From this analysis, I …

Feminist Identities: Career Choices And Experiences Of College-Educated Women, Kerry Diekmann

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explored how feminism as a social identity impacts how women interpret their career and life experiences. The overarching research question that guided the study was: How do feminist-identified women make sense of their feminist identity, life experiences, and career path? The theoretical framework that provided the lens for the study included feminist, multicultural, intersectionality, and career development theories. Two distinct bodies of literature were reviewed to provide a foundation for the study: (a) women's career development, in particular, the supports and barriers experienced, and (b) feminist identity, including influences to adopting the feminist label and factors associated …

Toward Transforming Health Systems: A Practice Study Of Organizing And Practical Inquiry In Academic Medicine, Thomas A. Ellison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Transformation of health care systems will be grounded in new professional relations and collective, cross-disciplinary actions to impact care delivery. Organizing such relations and actions involves practical inquiry rather than applying professional knowledge. This dissertation presents an exploratory, performative study of the initial organizing of the Health Systems Innovation and Research (HSIR) Program in Health Sciences at the University of Utah. The HSIR program was conceived principally to catalyze cross-disciplinary innovation and health services research and enhance care delivery changes by documenting care improvements and publishing research. This study includes a composite narrative of the organizing and practical inquiry work …

An Exploration Of Employment Services For Survivors Of Domestic Violence In The Region Of Waterloo, Alishau Diebold Mrs.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The ability of survivors of domestic violence to secure employment once they leave their vulnerable situations has been identified in the existing knowledge base as a significant issue, and one that urgently needed to be addressed. This qualitative applied social policy research study was undertaken to derive recommendations that could improve the current state of employment services available to women who had survived domestic violence residing in the Region of Waterloo. This was accomplished by determining which employment services align with the needs of a survivor as they began to seek employment. In-depth interviews were conducted to collect information from …

Powerlessness Within A Budget-Driven Paradigm: A Grounded Theory Leadership Study From The Perspective Of Michigan Corrections Officers, Timothy Michael Eklin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the lived-experiences of 15 correctional officers and 5 sergeants working in adult state-operated prison facilities in Michigan. In particular, this qualitative grounded theory study revealed the impact that budget driven decision-making had on the lives of correctional officers: its effect on institutional custody, security, and safety. The study finds that many recent policy changes resulted in a sense of powerlessness expressed by the participants of the study. Participants found themselves in a precarious position, situated in between the prison population and the administration. Having an understanding of how correctional officers make meaning of their work in relation …

The Recruitment Paradox: Network Recruitment, Structural Position, And East German Market Transition, Richard A. Benton, Steve Mcdonald, Anna Manzoni, David F. Warner

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Economic institutions structure links between labor-market informality and social stratification. The present study explores how periods of institutional change and post-socialist market transition alter network-based job finding, in particular informal recruitment. We highlight how market transitions affect both the prevalence and distribution of network-based recruitment channels: open-market environments reduce informal recruitment’s prevalence but increase its association with high wages. We test these propositions using the case of the former East Germany’s market transition and a comparison with West Germany’s more stable institutional environment. Following transition, workers in lower tiers increasingly turned toward formal intermediaries, active employee search, and socially “disembedded” …

Chaos, Reports, And Quests: Narrative Agency And Co-Workers In Stories Of Workplace Bullying, Stacy Tye-Williams, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined narratives that targets of workplace bullying told about their difficult work experiences along with how co-workers were framed in these narratives. Three different narrative types emerged from their accounts: chaos, report, and quest narratives. Co-worker responses of support or lack thereof were related to the construction of various narrative forms and the level of narrative agency evident in target accounts. The study has important implications for the difference co-workers can make in a target’s ability to withstand bullying and narrate his or her experience.

Cross Cultural Analysis For Training And Facilitating Latin-American Audiences, Jose P. Alcazar

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The purpose of this project is to help Creative Problem Solving (CPS) trainers and facilitators to improve the efficacy when working with Hispanic groups and individuals, either in a personal or in organizational environments. This project will guide the facilitators to use a more appropriate tools that will allow the resource group to feel more comfortable during the idea generation, creating an environment more according to the believes and behavioral habits; and the client to feel more confident to converge and make decisions accordingly to the initial goals. When training people in CPS, the project will align the methodology and …

Promoción De La Salud En La Ciudad De Buenos Aires: Un Estudio Sobre El Trabajo De Los Promotores De Salud Y Las Percepciones De Su Rol En La Comunidad. / Health Promotion In The City Of Buenos Aires: A Study Of The Work Of Community Health Workers And Perceptions Of Their Role In The Community, Elizabeth Sherwin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Contextual information: At the global level, inequities exist with respect to access and quality of healthcare. Primary Health Care is a strategy to respond to these inequities. It adopts an integral concept of health that includes no only illness but also the wellbeing of a person affected by many environmental factors. It is a strategy that aims to improve access to medical care and health information through health promotion and has the goal of giving the population more control over their health. Community health workers, people from the same neighborhood in which they work promoting health, are recognized on the …

Mountain Monitor - 3rd Quarter 2014, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

As a group, the 10 major metro areas of the Mountain West outperformed the national economy during the third quarter of 2014 on all four indicators of economic vitality measured by the Mountain Monitor: employment growth, output growth, unemployment, and house prices. In the three months ending in September, the country’s large metropolitan areas were anticipating the rapid uptick in national economic growth that took hold at the end of 2014. Mountain region metro areas led the way.

All but two major metro areas in the region added jobs, and six did so at a faster rate than the …

From Teachers' Control Of Curricula To Curricula's Control Of Teachers: An Analysis Of Loss Of Autonomy In The Lnstructional Labor Process, Joseph Daniel Abbott Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how the labor process of public school teaching, a white-collar profession, is deskilled. In a content analysis of English/language arts teacher’s manuals and teacher’s editions of student textbooks, I examine public school teachers’ degree of autonomy from an objective, macro-analytical perspective. Applying Harry Braverman’s (1974) theory of the degradation of the modern worker under monopoly capitalism, I explain how teacher deskilling reflects structural factors in the work context that prevent teachers from accessing their professional and personal skill sets via the separation of conception and execution in the instructional labor process.

The formal curricula drive the teaching …

El Crecimiento De Narcotráfico En Rosario: Violencia Disciplinada Y La Resistencia Social Frente A Este Sistema / The Growth Of Narcotrafficking In Rosario: Disciplined Violence And The Social Resistance To Resist This System, Caitlyn Yates

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The theoretical framework behind drug trafficking has thus far failed to mention the relationship between the growth of narcotics trafficking and structural violence. Using Farmer’s structural violence and the Foucauldian concept of biopolitcs, this paper explains the recent growth of narcotics trafficking in Rosario, Argentina. A more holistic approach to the complexity of the drug trafficking phenomenon arises by analyzing the effects of governmental corruption, relaxed politics, the criminalization of the poor, and the recent economic boom. Though this phenomenon is rather recent, the governmental and civilian resistance has none the less mobilized. Taking the theories of Farmer and Galtung …

Police Crime Arrests In The United States, 2011, Philip M. Stinson, Evin J. Carmack, Jacob M. Frankhouser, Mallorie A. Wilson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide empirical data on cases of police crime arrests during the year 2011. The study identifies and describes incidents in which nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers were arrested for one or more criminal offenses. Research Design & Method – The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. The unit of analysis in this study is criminal arrest case (not individual arrested officer). Intercoder Reliability – The Krippendorf’s alpha coefficient is strong (Krippendorf’s α = .9153) across …

‘I Just Want A Job’: The Untold Stories Of Entrepreneurship, Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo, Lucia Sell-Trujillo, Paul Donnelly

Books/Book Chapters

In this chapter, we explore the untold stories of Spanish and Irish necessity entrepreneurs to better understand the process of becoming an entrepreneur. Working with narratives, media articles, and policy documents, we illustrate how necessity entrepreneurs do not recognize themselves in the institutionalized entrepreneur narrative as empowered, creative and independent individuals. It is necessity, not opportunity that is pushing, not pulling, them to become entrepreneurial. The process is experienced as more fragmented than official narratives outline. In exposing these untold stories, the chapter expands our understanding of entrepreneurship, presenting a more nuanced view of both entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial process.