POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION AND CAPABILITIES: INSIGHTS FROM YOUNG WOMEN IN RURAL UGANDA

ABSTRACT

This paper presents findings from the third stage of a longitudinal, qualitative study involving nine female participants from a class cohort in a secondary school in rural Uganda. Since 2004–05, this study has tracked the progress of these young women's lives, and the present aspect of the study explores the ways in which they have found that post-primary education has impacted their adult lives, particularly with respect to employment-related factors. I draw upon the conceptual construct of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (1999) to interpret and present data. Findings considered in this paper indicate that post-primary education has been crucial to the capabilities development and socioeconomic well-being of the participants’ lives.     

Workplace Relationship Quality and Employee Information Experiences

This study examined the extent to which the amount and quality of work‐related information employees received was associated with the quality of their relationships with peer co‐workers and their immediate supervisors. Results indicated that supervisor–subordinate relationship quality was positively related to both the amount and quality of information employees received from their immediate supervisor. In addition, employees’ proportions of information peer relationships were negatively related, and their proportions of collegial peer relationships were positively related, to the quality of information they received from their co‐workers. Regression analyses also indicated that the quality of information employees received from their supervisors and co‐workers was positively related to their job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.     

We Are People First: Framing Organizational Assimilation Experiences of the Physically Disabled Using Co-Cultural Theory

This study explores how organizational members with disabilities experience and manage organizational assimilation in the workplace. The organizational socialization model was used to initially analyze participants' assimilation experiences and co-cultural theory was used as a framework for examining how participants negotiate assimilation. Interviews with 24 participants with physical disabilities were analyzed. Results illustrate a dynamic and difficult process of managing and negotiating assimilation, using a variety of communication strategies such as accommodation (attempts to keep some cultural identity) and assimilation (attempts to conform), as opposed to separation (rejecting common connection with dominant members and bonding only with co-cultural members).     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Organizational Dissent and Workplace Freedom in Five European Economies

Individuals in five European countries—Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (n = 1184)—completed a survey exploring the relationship between organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Results revealed workplace freedom of speech is positively correlated with dissent among the entire sample in France and in Germany. Results in Spain were nonsignificant. In the United Kingdom, there was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and dissent. There was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and articulated dissent and a positive relationship with latent dissent in Finland. Moreover, MANCOVA testing showed nationality to have a significant effect on organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Germans scored the highest on dissent and workplace freedom with Spain scoring the lowest.     

The Most Integrated Hour in America: Reframing the Organizational Discourses of Church Purpose

Religious organizations have increasingly drawn the attention of communication scholars. This interest is due in part to the significant role these organizations have in building social capital – particularly in regard to improving racial/ethnic relations. This potential has remained largely unrealized, however, since the Civil Rights Movement over 50 years ago. Consequently, this study seeks to understand how church pastors frame the ambiguous discourse of organizational purpose. Building on an earlier research phase that included 42 pastoral interviews, this study adds to our understanding of framing practices via three dialectical tensions: integration-segregation, belief-practice, and vertical-horizontal. The analysis also reveals how these dialectics were framed through improbability, double bind, alternation, selection, connection, and transcendence, as well as their impact upon ethnic relationships. Theoretic and practical implications are provided.     

Speaking Up Competently: A Comparison of Perceived Competence in Upward Dissent Strategies

Recent dissent research indicates that employees report using several different strategies for expressing their dissent to management and supervisors (i.e., upward dissent). The purpose of this study was to compare previously recognized upward dissent strategies in terms of perceived competence. Employees completed a survey instrument that asked them to assess the competence of different upward dissent strategies. Results indicate that employees perceived solution presentation to be the most competent upward dissent strategy, followed by direct-factual appeal, repetition, and circumvention. Threatening resignation was perceived as the least competent upward dissent strategy.     

Organizational Dissent as a Function of Organizational Justice

This study examined the relationships between perceptions of organizational justice and enacting organizational dissent. Participants were 107 full-time employees working in various organizations. Results indicated that employee perceptions of distributive and interpersonal justice negatively predicted latent dissent, while perceptions of informational justice positively predicted latent dissent. Perceptions of interpersonal justice were the strongest predictor of latent dissent. Perceptions of justice were not related to articulated or displaced dissent. Future research should continue to explore triggering agents of dissent in organizations.     

Information adequacy,job satisfaction and organizational culture in a dispersed‐network organization

This investigation examined the relationship of information adequacy to job satisfaction and organizational culture in a healthcare organization with both office and field personnel. Information adequacy was assessed in four areas: personal performance, organizational policies, organizational performance, and organizational objectives. Comparisons of field and office personnel indicated that they did not differ on information adequacy or job satisfaction; they did, however, differ on several dimensions of organizational culture. Also, the relationship of information inadequacy to job satisfaction and organizational culture differed for employees depending on whether they worked primarily in the field or primarily in the office. Implications of the findings are drawn for organizations with a dispersed‐network structure.     

‘He’s a battler. He’s not a quitter:’ the narrative framing of Jerry Kill’s health-related organizational exit

The abrupt retirement of Jerry Kill, the University of Minnesota’s head football coach, for health reasons during the 2015 season ignited intensely emotional reactions from diverse organizational stakeholders. Our essay analyzes the public discourses surrounding Kill’s organizational exit. Specifically, we explore how audiences co-constructed multiple and conflicting narratives about his departure, concurrently praising and blaming Kill for his body management. We highlight how these discourses construct complex subjectivities for working individuals who experience chronic illness. We conclude by discussing how the narrative frames implicate broader discursive struggles between the cultural values of health and work.     

Copyright Information Management and the University Library: Staffing,Organizational Placement and Authority

Copyright plays a central role in numerous activities within higher education, and educating a university community about copyright law should be a priority, if only to protect the institution from lawsuits. But, based upon a literature review, institutions devote a more resources to other intellectual property activities – plagiarism detection, technology transfer and illegal file sharing management – than for general copyright education activities. Utilizing Mintzberg's organizational model and its discussion of organizational placement and legitimacy as a conceptual framework, this study explores the current copyright education structures among the universities that comprise the Consortium on Institutional Cooperation, otherwise known as the CIC or the Big Ten, to determine whether organizational placement, credentials of individuals, and resources devoted to this activity affect the legitimacy of the office and the authority of copyright officers to fulfill their responsibilities. The results of this study suggest that organizational placement, while it plays a role, is not nearly as important as the credentials of the individual in the position in conveying legitimacy.