W.L. Balk (University of Albany, USA)
E-Mail address: wabalk@aol.com
Some Effects of the Erosion of Bureaucracy upon Public Agency Professionals
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The first part of this paper explains why common bureaucratic values and methods appear to be of
decreasing utility to government professionals in the United States. This lack of fit is becoming
increasingly evident as ambiguous events drive political action. For example many of today's needs for
change stem from implacable realities such as limits to the earth's resources and the unequal effects of
economic globalisation in allocating work and wages. The most salient paradox centers upon the growing
availability of destructive technologies to relentlessly motivated sociopathic groups. Arguably the
emergence of such predicaments is shaking the orderly foundations of government bureaucratic beliefs and
practices.
While the term "bureaucracy" has been replaced over time by "administrative science", its core ideals and
assumptions have not changed. The main purpose is to reduce operational ambiguity through innovations in
equipment, production systems and employee motivation. These means are facilitated by changes to
hierarchically defined roles. Improvements in bureaucratic effectiveness have been largely driven by
business needs to capture markets through constant improvements in quality and costs of operations. While
government professionals have successfully adapted in the past, the market premises that have energized
organizational research and applications are decreasingly in line with today's political realities.
The following questions will be addressed: (1) Why have business ideals of bureaucratic design and control
persisted in U.S. government agencies? (2) What social, technological and resource challenges are
undermining the utility to government of administrative science orthodoxy? (3) What formative responses
have been and are being taken to cope with such realities? (4) How will these emerging innovations affect
government administrators, legislators and judiciaries along with other stakeholders in processes of
change? (5) Why will the necessary transitions be painful and disruptive to most participants including
professionals? (6) Where should government agency professional educational and research efforts be
directed in order to address today's challenges?
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Louise Briand/Guy Bellemare/Anne-Renée Gravel (Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada)
E-Mail address: louise.briand@uqo.ca
Les relations de contrôle et de surveillance entre l'État et les groupes communautaires. Le cas du
ministère de la Famille et de l'enfance (MFE) et des centres de la petite enfance (CPE)
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Des changements majeurs sont survenus dans les services de garde : une politique des services de garde à la
petite enfance en 1997 et un accord au sujet des conditions de travail des employés des services de garde en
1999. Ces changements sont porteurs d'opportunités pour les CPE, mais ils suscitent des inquiétudes en
raison du pouvoir de surveillance/normalisation qu'ils confèrent à l'État. La question des relations entre
l'État et les entreprises d'économie sociale est donc au cœur des discussions; plus particulièrement,
l'autonomie de gestion et l'innovation sociale dans ce secteur seraient en péril. Les auteurs soutiennent pour
leur part qu'il n'y a pas de déterminisme total, même s'il s'agit de relations de contrôle et de surveillance
(financement, reddition des comptes, normalisation, modes de négociation et d'application de conventions
collectives, etc.). En situant les relations dans une perspective dualiste (Giddens, 1987), ils montrent qu'il y
a co-construction de pratiques, dans un rapport de force asymétrique, et que ces pratiques permettent aux
acteurs de se ménager des zones d'autonomie à même les règles existantes.
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Donald Calista (Marist College, USA)
E-Mail address: jzam@maristb.marist.edu
Redundancy Revisited in the Homeland Security Agency: Terror Changed the Rules
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Everyone knows—rather fears—that public security will be compromised because redundancy will overrun
the new Homeland Security Agency (HSA).
All of its twenty-two sub-agencies, for example, incorporate criminal and civil investigation functions.
Does this situation signify that overlap and duplication will overwhelm its nearly 170,000 civilian and
military personnel? This paper proposes that the response to terror has transformed conventional views of
redundancy (Bozeman, 2000). While the agency needs to deal with certain pitfalls of redundancy, its
positive features need to be countenanced as well. Faced with such problems as evaluating the need for
multiple investigation subunits, the agency might find it easier detecting what appears as too much
redundancy than discovering what constitutes too little of it. Application of agency theory will be useful in
making those determinations (Stinchcombe, 1990). Its central elements of "moral hazard" and "adverse
impact" suggest that HSA will obviously face organization-induced errors in its patterns of information
seeking and sharing. These errors will, in turn, contribute to the agency making significant miscalculations
in its decisions. Put differently, the more HSA relies on typical anti-redundancy devices, such as, using
multiple reviews, sign-offs, committees, and audits, it will invite the very guileful behaviors predicted by
agency theory. Instead, the way for HSA to eliminate unnecessary redundancy is to deliberately adopt those
forms of it that can support its purposes. The objective of the paper is to employ agency theory to discover
what kinds of redundancy will make HSA more effective. It presents a typology that distinguishes among
various forms of redundancy. The value of the proposed typology is to define acceptable types and levels of
redundancy that can lead to reducing informational asymmetries in the newly formed agency.
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Donado (Federal University of S'Bo Carlos, Brazil)
E-Mail address: donado@power.ufscar.br
Organizational dynamics, diffusion of management concepts and consulting firms atuation
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When visualizing the world organizational in the last two decades. The consulting firms appear in
prominence position. Like this being, the present study intends to contribute with the understanding of the
process of growth of the consulting market, your forms of performance and the relationship with the other
organizations, starting from three point of reference. In a first moment, focusing the market of international
consulting, trying to identify your characteristics, main changes in the last decades. In the second, I focus
the changes in the managerial space in the period. The group has the function of being a form of visualizing
the performance of the pictures managerial front to the new configurations, formed starting from the
eighties, and a counterpoint to the ideas originating from of the consulting firms. As other component
element of the construction of this research, is looked for to discuss the forms and the mechanisms of
diffusion of ideas managements and the several sections involved in the process, focalizing the
performance of the consulting firms and your connection with other sections of the field of sale of
organizational innovations, especially the business press and business schools.
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Mark Edwards/Lorelle Beth Jab (Oregon State University/Seattle Pacific University, USA)
E-Mail address: medwards@orst.edu
Safety, Symbol, Myth and Shame in a High Tech Workplace
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This paper identifies four unintended outcomes of combining bureaucratic control and shared governance
in a high tech workplace. Detailed safety protocols, rules, and rhetoric, combined with efforts to give
workers more responsibility for safety in the workplace, create tendencies toward worker alienation, shame
with regard to injuries, potential for complacency, and fear of bureaucratic processes. The data for this
study come from focus group interviews with 30 workers in a high tech research and production facility.
Based on these findings, we suggest that half-shared governance, under a wider bureaucratic institutional
environment, will consistently lead to these kinds of unintended outcomes.
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Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (City University of New York, USA)
E-Mail address: cepstein@qc.cuny.edu
Opportunity and Identity: Interaction Effects in Lawyers Choice of Careers in the Public Interest
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This paper examines factors affecting law students' choice of careers in the public interest. In this paper we
explore the decision-making processes of students in their third year of law school using a sample of two
elite private and two public law schools. Previous studies have focussed on explaining why students
abandon careers in the public interest (Stover, 1989;Granfield, 1992) or isolated a single factor such as
economic considerations (Kornhauser and Revesz, 1995).
This study shows that decisions are made not by any one particularly salient factor, but through the
interaction of several structural and cultural factors which we see clustered around issues of ideological
commitment, opportunity structure, economics, reference groups and cultural capital. The paper shows
how the law school experience creates, reinforces or constrains the influence of each of these dimensions.
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Julia Evetts (University of Nottingham, UK)
E-Mail address: julia.evetts@nottingham.ac.uk
The Sociological Analysis of Professionalism: occupational change in the modern world
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The paper analyses and explains the appeal of the concepts of profession and professionalism and the
increased use of these concepts in different occupational groups, work contexts and social systems. The
paper begins with a brief preliminary section on defining the field where it is suggested that a shift of focus
is required from a preoccupation with defining 'profession' to analysis of the appeal to 'professionalism' as
a motivator for and facilitator of occupational change. Then the paper examines two past, alternative and
contrasting, sociological interpretations of professionalism (as normative value system and as ideology of
occupational powers). In the third section the paper argues that, in the 1990s, a third interpretation has
developed which includes both normative and ideological elements. Sociologists have returned to the
concept of professionalism in attempts to understand occupational and organizational change and the
prominence of knowledge work in different social systems and global economies. The fourth section
returns to the question of the appeal of the concept of professionalism in promoting and facilitating
occupational change, and considers how the balance between the normative and ideological elements of
professionalism is played out differently in occupational groups in very different employment situations.
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Anna Ferro/Ivana Fellini (University of Milano Bicocca, Italy)
E-Mail address: anna.ferro@unimib.it
Mobility and migration of workers in the Information and Communication Technology: polices and
strategies of Italian firms.
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The case of international labour migrations among workers of Information and Communication
Technology will be analysed through labour demand and recruitment strategies of ICT companies. This
research is about the polices, reasons and methods of recruitment of foreign workers in the Ict sector facing
aspects like skill shortage, cost of labour, work permit systems, company structure and market trends. A
picture of the ICT sector in Italy will provide a background reference to its market and occupational
conditions and a synthetic overview of some statistical data will be provided. The paper will highlight how
firms of different size and nature act differently (multinational and national firms, software house
companies and vendor companies). It will explore the different outcomes of foreign workers recruitment
with reference to the firms polices of recruitment (from the internal or external labor market) and the
different outcomes of workers international migration (physical or virtual, permanent or temporary)
through interviews to HR mangers.
The present paper is connected to the ongoing European research Pemint (http://www.pemint.ces.uc.pt) that
is studying the international labor migrations in five countries in three sectors (ICT, construction and
health).
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Ann Lennarson Greer (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA)
E-Mail address: agreer@uwm.edu
Community Institutions after Community: Organizational Demiurge in the Hospital?
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The crisis in western health care may be seen as one less of cost and rationality than of solidarity and
accountability, forced by societal dynamics that now extend globally. Increasing societal scale includes: 1)
technological and organizational change wherein activities, including health care, are separated out,
specialized, and formalized; 2) changes in work and family life including entry of women into the labor
force; and 3) occupational, economic, and life style differentiation within formerly cohesive communities.
The transformation disrupts premises of community responsibility and accountability.
I employ data from a 27-year longitudinal interview study of twenty-five hospitals in an U.S. Midwestern
region. Interviews began in1975 with, approximately, the emergence of the "crisis." Hospitals created by
spatial, ethnic and professional communities as nonprofit nongovernmental creatures faced: 1) enhanced
technological capacity and workforce complexity; and 2) attenuated community affiliation and support.
Efforts at regional coordination gave way to a market model wherein contractual purchase of segmented
services replaced philanthropic commitments and bureaucratic measurement and accountability replaced
trust and solidarity. Competition hastened organizational consolidation, product-driven planning, and
managerial control as hospitals pursued security and autonomy. Unresolved tensions remain in the form of
persistent value conflict internally and unmet public expectations.
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Scott Greer (University College London, England)
E-Mail address: s-greer@nwu.edu
Health in the welfare state: Knowledge, power, and policy outcomes in the four UK health systems
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Health is emotional, fearsomely expensive, organizationally complicated and diverse, which should make it
a much bigger part of welfare state studies than it has been; other than studies of the presence or absence of
national health insurance, many questions remain unasked. This paper takes up the challenge of asking
some of them by explaining the extent and form of health care system variation.
It takes the natural experiment of health care in the United Kingdom, where decentralization in 1999 turned
one largely unified health system into four separate ones, each subject to a different elected government.
This paper examines and explains the four systemsdivergence from that baseline in the cases of service
organization, extent of service provision, and relations with the professions. Each of these outcomes is a
proxy for a key value found in cross-national welfare state studies, respectively, allocation,
decommodification, and extent of market relationships in the public services. In each policy field there has
been substantial divergence.
In each policy field, it finds that the main force has been the strength of advocacy coalitions within the
health politics arena; policy, the distribution of funds, and even the funding level are wholly or partly
explained by the distribution and preferences of health organizations. This reflects the importance of
information, mobilizing capacity, importance in implementation and public profile of the actors.
Governments, acting at a disadvantage on all these fronts, respond to the key health interest groups, even if
it has serious consequences for their other goals. This finding contributes to answering a question common
to countries with public health systems, namely how these systems have continued to grow while many
other parts of the welfare state are reformed or allowed to stagnate.
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Wilbur C. Hadden/Jerald Hage (University of Maryland, USA)
E-Mail address: wch@cdc.gov/jerryhage@aol.com
Globalizastion and Organizational Survival: Lessons for the Protection of Jobs
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Given current street demonstrations about globalization, now is an opportune time to consider whether
there are potential strategies fo saving jobs and not just in the developing countries but the developed ones
as well. And while some academics do not believe that globalization exists, one finds a considerable loss
of jobs in such traditional industries as toys, textiles, and footwear.
To provide some lessons, this paper reports on the demise of the American non-rubber footwear industry
during the period of 1940-1989. In what approximates a natural experiment, there is one twenty-five year
period in which the industry was a net explorter and a second twenty-five year period in which the industry
largely and quickly collasped. The analysis focuses on which kinds of firms survived and provides some
lessons as to why.
The theory of organizational strategies for survival extends the theoretical literature on organizations by
moving beyond Stinchcome's (1965)concept of organizational imprinting by suggesting that there are
historical epochs when new generic forms emerge. One of these forms is most appropriate for survival in
the contemporary period of globalization. Furthermore, the work of Carroll (1987) is extended by
recognizing large vs. small generalists and specialists.
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Ulrich Heisig/Wolfgang Littek (University of Bremen, Germany)
E-Mail address: uheisig@iaw.uni-bremen.de
The German System of Professions as a Small Enterprise Undertaking. Comparative Advantages and
Restrictions
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Our paper deals with preconditions and outcomes of the comapatively small enterprise structure in
Germany. The specific German occupational division of labor results from strict state regulation.
Professional services are predominately offered by autonomous self-employed individual practioners. This
form of service organization is widely accepted because it allows for close personal contact and individual
treatment. On the other hand, work specialization is limited, which restricts efficiency gains and makes the
system rather expensive. On the basis of empirical data from a Britisch-German study we shall (1)
demonstrate the advantages and restrictions of the German mode of oranizing professional work. (2) We
shall describe how professions and the state deal with the restrictions, and (3) we shall offer an
interpretation of causes and consequences of presently upcoming changes in organizational forms, and an
outlook on the future developments on the basis of case studies on lawyers, psychotherapists and
pharmacists. We shall seek correlations with work satisfaction amd motivation, as well as the strong
"feminization" of professions in recent years and the specific female preferences to working conditions
(part-time etc.).
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Chung Yan Ip (University of Oxford, England)
E-Mail address: chung.ip@nuffield.ox.ac.uk
An Insecure and Stratified Professional Workforce: A Case Study of Employment Experiences of Young
Contract Academics in Higher Education in Hong Kong
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Basing on twenty-seven in-depth interviews with young professionals who have engaged in contingent
academic positions in universities in Hong Kong, I construct an intra-professional hierarchy of these young
contract academic professionals to account for their diverse career experiences and employment
conditions. On the one hand, they are all engaging in contingent employment and at the lowest end of the
professional hierarchy, experiencing insecure employment conditions, oppressive workload, and
marginalised environment. On the other, they are divided among themselves in level of career security,
degree of decision-making power and job autonomy, nature of work assignment, availability of support for
academic activities, etc. Indeed, they are far from a monolithic category under the heading of contract
academics. The investigation of the diverse experiences of young contract academic professionals enables
me to argue that they are not only an insecure workforce, but also a stratified one. To improve their
marginal status and to enhance their employability, they employ various means, like developing a portfolio
of teaching and research experiences, participating in international conferences and industry-wide
meetings, establishing interpersonal networks in the academia, etc. Nevertheless, due to the importance of
institutional affiliation and resources for professional growth and career development, they deny the
possibility in adopting new forms of work, such as portfolio-working and boundaryless career.
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Alison Konrad/Kathleen Cannings (Temple University/Uppsala University, USA/Sweden)
E-Mail address: akonrad@shm.temple.edu
Asymmetrical Demography Effects on Perceived Reward and Social Outcomes: Differential Effects of
Leader Gender and Work Unit Gender Composition Amongst Swedish Doctors
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This research examined the association between gender composition of the work context and perceived
reward and social outcomes for women and men. A nationally representative sample of 594 male and 430
female Swedish medical doctors responded to a survey asking them to report the gender composition of
their medical unit, the gender of their immediate supervisors and the gender of the head of their work
organizations. Participants also responded to previously validated measures of perceived fairness,
discrimination, organizational support, exclusion, and gender harassment. Findings indicated that: (1)
women who worked in medical units with a larger percentage of men reported more gender harassment, (2)
women who had a male supervisor reported less organizational support, and (3) women who worked in an
organization with a male head reported more gender discrimination. For men, gender composition was
unrelated to any of the outcome measures. Relational demography effects appear to be asymmetrical and
stronger for members of historically subordinate groups. In addition, demography at different levels of
analysis has predictable, differential effects on perceived reward and social outcomes. Specifically,
demography of the leadership is more strongly associated with reward outcomes while coworker
demography is more strongly associated with social outcomes. Limitations of the study and implications
for theory are discussed.
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Ellen Kuhlmann (University of Bremen, Germany)
E-Mail address: e.kuhlmann@zes.uni-bremen.de
New organizational models in health care systems – the regulatory mechanisms of professionalism
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Restructuring of the health care system is on top of the political agenda in Western nations. Regulatory
strategies directed to the organizations, and 'tools' from the management and industrial sector seem to be
most promising to further processes of change. Strengthening of primary care, integrative models, and
teamwork are the catchwords. Currently, the aims are similar in western nations, but the transformations on
the organizational level show huge differences. These differences are primarily explained with regard to
welfare state theories.
In this paper I propose a bottom-up approach, and introduce professionalism in the debates of health care
reforms. Material from German case studies serves to point out the fruitfulness of this approach. The
findings reveal that top-town incentives and legislative regulation do not show reasonable success, whilst
professionalism can work as an 'engine' for change. The new organizational models and networks of
physicians studied here are not driven by economic and management incentives. The targets are a
professional practice of trust and confidence, and 'good' care. To conclude, professionalism must not work
to the opposite of organizational change, if its regulatory power is taken into account, a broader range of
strategies for change in health care comes into view.
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Yu Ying Lee (Fenjia University, Taiwan)
E-Mail address: yylee@fcu.edu.tw
The bride maker: the formation of bridal industry in contemporary Taiwan
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This paper offers a case study to illustrate the de-skillization and re-skillization process of wedding
photographer in Taiwanese bridal industry. The bridal industry itself in Taiwan transforms from a simple
photo studio to a multiple bridal shop. I argue that the bridal shop plays a pivotal role in packaging the
bride and effectively creates spectacular wedding photography in contemporary Taiwan. What is special
about the bridal shop is that it not only takes pictures but also offers almost all the services a wedding
couple may need, including wedding gowns, formal dress hire services, bridal make-up and hairdresser
services. Furthermore, what is distinctive about the bridal shop is the way that it encompasses production,
distribution, retailing and, in effect, consumption as well. In this paper I will concern with how and why
these developments around modern wedding photography have occurred in Taiwan.
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Ramon Nemesio (University of Valencia, Spain)
E-Mail address: ramon.nemesio@uv.es
The Organization-State: Science fiction or plausible prognosis?
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The idea is to gain a better understanding of the significance of present-day social processes and
developments: We'll see in a different light such issues as the evolution of the economy, globalization, new
technologies, environmental problems etc. if we look at them from the point of view of their role in the
emergence of the "organization-state" (this concept is to be defined in the paper).
On the other hand there is the question of democracy: In principle the tendency to a macro-organization of
the scope of a state is a tendency to more hierarchy and less democracy. But must it necessarily be so? The
proposed paper will advance the hypothesis that precisely that sort of macro-organization offers the
possibility of a very far-ranging democracy. But, on what factors does it depend? Can we control those
factors?
These questions lead us in turn to other questions concerning the state and evolution of democracy in the
present: Is political democracy fading away? Is organizational democracy possible?
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Gerd Paul (Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut, Germany)
E-Mail address: gpaul@gwdg.de
The new economy and their workers revisited: back to normality?
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Our contribution tries to draw an elaborated picture of the work reality in the core sectors of the German
new economy: multimedia, internet, software. We argue that optimistic visions of a complete new way of
working and living in the rise of the internet and the current "it was all fake" backlash miss the reality of
start-up firms in these sectors.
Our conclusions derive from a 2001/2002 study on small networking firms. We observe a moderate impact
of the start-up firms on the labour market. Tele-co-operation has specific instability factors. Assumptions
about the virtual firm and the social figure of a new "Californian style" entrepreneur are close to wishful
thinking. Characteristics of the classical small firm owner are dominant. We criticise the "small companies
– large networks" thesis and the "free-lance- economy" (Pink).
Visions of the "post-modern" employee underestimate the strong motivational role of togetherness and
recognition. Moral values are important and constitute together with orientations of an alternative, non-
alienated job a specific self-image.
Entrants in the high-tech jobs are still mainly high qualified young males. Referring to the "women and
technology" discussion we deliver explanations for exclusion.
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Joyce Rothschild (Virginia Tech University, USA)
E-Mail address: joycevt@aol.com
Whistleblower Disclosures and Public Responsibility: Personal Ethics, the Decision to Expose
Wrongdoing, and Organizational Repercussions
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Based on in-depth interviews with 300 whistleblowers from all walks of life and all regions of the United
States, this presentation will address the sorts of ethical positions, or senses of responsiblity, that
lead employees to decide to blow the whistle on wrongdong they have observed, from the desire to protect
others from harm to the belief that illegal conduct should be stopped. Data on the extent of organizational
retaliation against the whistleblower will also be presented, along with an analysis of how the
whistleblowing disclosure coupled with the severe retaliation that it so often engenders, sends the
whistleblower on a journey to exoneration that often alters the whistleblower's career, political attitudes and
belief in their own integrity.
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Ying-Jung Yeh (National Central Univ., Taiwan)/Jyh-Jer Ko (National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan)
E-mail: yyeh@cc.ncu.edu.tw
The Effects of Different Work Status on Nurses' Attitudes and Behaviors
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Contingent work arrangements, known as temporary work, part-time work, contract work,
short-term employment etc. have been recognized as one of the strategies to increase firms'
flexibility and competitive advantage. In health care industry, the use of contract, or
part-time nurses has become a common practice, where the flexible work arrangements are
crucial in maintaining health care service. The purpose of this study is to compare the
performance, and quality of work life for nurses under different work arrangements.
Questionnaires were distributed to both regular and contract/part-time nurses from selected
hospitals in Taiwan in 2002. A total of 419 questionnaires were returned and analyzed. The
results suggested no differences between regular and contingent nurses in their expectation
of employers' obligation (i.e. psychological contract). In terms of the fulfillment of the
psychological contracts, we found no difference between regular and contingent nurses in
received training, but regular nurses reported having higher fulfillment in both
transactional and relational types of psychological contracts. Regular nurses reported
engaging in more organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) than contingent nurses.
Meanwhile, we found professional commitment, psychological fulfillment can predict regular
nurses' OCBs, but only professional commitment can make influence on contingent nurses'
citizenship behaviors, which implies there may be a different motivating mechanism for
contingent nurses. The study suggests that the changing nature of work and the emerging needs
for different types of workers be further explored in the existing motivation theories.
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M. Zilbovi (University of Sao paulo, Brazil)
E-Mail address: mzilbovi@usp.br
The Spread of Eva and the Implications for Management of Non-Financial Companies
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Economic Value Added is a technique for controlling companies widely spread since its publication in
1991, by Stewart. Stewart and others stress that traditional accounting methods could not show the amount
of economic value a company is creating or destroying. Value measurement has, become a central issue for
management. The economic value added represents the economic value of a company for its shareholders,
whom can change positions almost instantly in the financial global arena.
The adoption of EVA has tremendous implication for management itself, especially for non-financial
managers. The traditional physical indicators, like productivity, do not work as indicators of value creation,
and EVA has become a model for embedding, in all areas and levels of management, a financial
worldview. Thus, EVA is operating as a mean of changing worldviews all around companies. This
movement is generating frictions between production and finance in completely new terms, up to date with
the broad global financial picture.
Our aim in this paper is to discuss the whole array of problems that arise from the incorporation of this
technique and, with it, a financial view of management by managers that were used to evaluate their work
and to take decisions using other frameworks.
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Gilles Verpraet (CNRS GRASS, France)
E-Mail address: verp@ehess.fr
Teaching Professions inside the Knowledge Society. Place, contributions, challenge
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The classification of the teaching profession inside the model of the knowledge society underlines their
specific contributions to the knowledge production and valorization. But the sociological analyzis of the
professional occupations highlights a gap between the orientation of teaching focused on the transmission
and the appropriation of knowledge, the teaching practices in situation and the synchronic codification of
competence management on the other 40 teachers of the secondary schools have been questionned on their
occupational situations. Teachers relations to childrens, to the biographic development, and to stages in the
appropriation of knowledge focus on the social relations developed with the knowledge process. The
cognitive model associated with competence management is not well adjusted within theses practices of the
teaching profession. The second stage of analyzis concern their professional differentiation. The
reconstruction of the capabilities developed by teachers permit to clarify these tensions and disjunctions of
définitions. To overcome this heuristic tension we must differentiate the framework of knowledge society,
between knowledge construction, knowledge appropriation, and competence management.
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Marc Zune (University of Liege, Belgium)
E-Mail address: m.zune@ulg.ac.be
Information Technologists and Boundaryless Careers: Fact or Fiction?
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Information Technology (IT) professionals are said by the managerial literature to be emblematic of
"boundaryless careers". According to the proponents of this trend, the career perceived as a variable subject
to organizational contexts, imposed restrictively on individuals, would now be superceded by a model of
career free from any constraint, promoting self-interest and self-employment, resulting in a purely
subjective definition of success in terms of career path. In other words, careers would involve independent
individuals; moving from one job to another according to their individual preferences. IT professionals are
presented as the emblematical population of this evolution, because of their very high rate of inter-
organization mobility.
A longitudinal and qualitative follow-up of forty IT professionals we carry out since 1998 critically assess
this managerial thesis about "boundaryless careers."
Beyond the specific analysis of IT professionals, our research thus clearly evidences the complexity of
building professional paths that can not, as claimed by the managerial trend of nomad careers, be
considered as a simple switch from a configuration "organizational – position imposed" to a configuration
"job market – chosen position". While the paths evidenced are characterized by more individualization in
terms of choices, the absence of common and pre-determined beacons (formal career plans), with instead a
more project-oriented approach of the route. But however, the actors' discourse don't match the views of the
"nomadists" according to whom there would be an emergence of a "capitalistic" career model, only
motivated by the maximization of one's own capital on a "commodified" job market, with no investment at
all in organizational and professional spheres. To the contrary, this research shows that while this argument
has been invoked at certain moments of the history of the individuals, it is only a single modality of a much
more rich and complex grammar. In fact, the results increasingly show that there are so many forms of
professional path, developed from different models of ideal careers. They shed a light on actors frequently
switching from a feeling of autonomy to a feeling of constraint in the pursuit of their route, invoking,
according to the circumstances and their position in their professional cycle, various argument fields to
justify the inflexion or even the turning points, sowing their path.
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