Gabrielle A. Lloyd, Bonnie Amelia Dean, Michelle J. Eady, Conor West, Venkata Yanamandram, Tracey Moroney, Tracey Glover-Chambers and Nuala O'Donnell
Work-integrated learning (WIL) is a strategy that enhances student learning and employability by engaging students in real-world settings, applications and practices. Through WIL…
Abstract
Purpose
Work-integrated learning (WIL) is a strategy that enhances student learning and employability by engaging students in real-world settings, applications and practices. Through WIL, tertiary education institutions forge partnerships with industry to provide students with access to activities that will contribute to their career-readiness and personal growth. The purpose of the paper is to explore academics perceptions of WIL from non-vocational disciplines, where WIL opportunities are less prevalent.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed a qualitative, case-study methodology to unpack academics' reflections on the question “What does WIL mean to you?” Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 subject coordinators across a number of non-vocational degrees at one university in Australia. Open coding and thematic analysis was used to explore qualitative data and identify common themes.
Findings
Data suggest that academics largely have placement-based understandings of WIL that cause tensions for embedding WIL meaningfully in their courses. Tensions surface when WIL is perceived as a pedagogy that contributes to the neoliberal agenda that sits in conflict with theoretical approaches and that restrict notions of career.
Originality/value
Although WIL is not relevant in all subjects, these understandings are a useful starting point to introduce WIL meaningfully, in various ways and where appropriate, in order to provide students opportunities for learning and employability development. The paper has implications for faculty, professional learning and institutional strategies concerning WIL for all students.
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Focuses on the approach to interpreting earnings equality found in the writings of a variety of economists and in particular, technological change and its effects on the demand…
Abstract
Focuses on the approach to interpreting earnings equality found in the writings of a variety of economists and in particular, technological change and its effects on the demand skill resulting in earning inequality. Argues that the evidence in favour of the technological effect is weak and presents some alternatives for further consideration.
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Margaret Hodgins and Patricia Mannix McNamara
The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of workplace ill-treatment of administrative and technical staff in the higher education sector, with a particular…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of workplace ill-treatment of administrative and technical staff in the higher education sector, with a particular focus on organisational response.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative interpretative phenomenological research design was employed. Using non-random, purposive sampling strategies nine self-selecting participants from three of the seven universities in the Republic of Ireland were interviewed in person. Data were analysed thematically employing the Pietkiewicz and Smith’s (2012) four-stage data analysis model.
Findings
Thematic analysis yielded four main themes: micro-political nature of bullying, cynicism about the informal response, the formal procedures exacerbate the problem and significant and adverse health impact. Participant narratives engender the lived experience for the reader.
Research limitations/implications
As participants were self-selecting respondent bias is acknowledged.
Practical implications
The findings of this study add to the accumulating evidence that organisations are failing to address workplace bullying.
Social implications
In failing to protect employees, the adverse health difficulties experienced by targets of bullying are further exacerbated.
Originality/value
While the literature yields much in terms of types of behaviours and impact, and argues for anti bullying policies and procedures in the workplace, what is evident is the selective organisational use of policy and procedures and inherent biases in place which expose a reluctance to effectively protect dignity and respect in the workplace.
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Margaret Hodgins, Sarah MacCurtain and Patricia Mannix-McNamara
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.
Findings
There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.
Research limitations/implications
The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.
Practical implications
The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.
Social implications
Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.
Originality/value
That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.