Books/Book Chapters

Economic Crises and the Changing Influence of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on Public Policy

John Hogan — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:37:02 PDT

This chapter examines the dramatic changes in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ (ICTU) influence over public policy during the latter half of the twentieth century. The chapter focuses upon the impact economic crises have had on the ICTU’s role in policy-making. The chapter concentrates, in particular, upon four periods, the late 1950s, 1970, the early 1980s and 1987, when the ICTU found its influence over public policy radically transformed. By the late 1950s the trade union movement was invited into the policy-making process by a government desperate to revive a sclerotic economy. During the following decade the ICTU played an integral part in the development of economic and social programmes. In 1970, due to concerns over inflation and the increasing level of industrial disputes, the ICTU, initially under government pressure, became a party to centralised bargaining. The National Wage Agreements that the ICTU was a party to during that decade were marked by their integration with government budgetary policy. With active state involvement in industrial relations came ICTU involvement in policy-making. However, by the early 1980s the Irish economy was in serious difficulties again. This, combined with trade union and employer disillusionment that the centralised agreements were not achieving their respective objectives of full employment and low inflation and a new collation government determined to remove the unions from the corridors of power, led to the collapse of the national agreements and ICTU finding itself shut out of the policy-making process. The years afterwards saw the economy continue to stagnate and the ICTU marginalised as a policy-making influence. By 1987, with Ireland teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, a new Fianna Fáil government came to power seeking to promote a three year national pay agreement with the unions and employers, in the hopes of reviving the economy. The ICTU, weakened through marginalisation and membership losses, favoured a return to centralised pay agreements. However, these agreements ultimately came to encompass a wide range of economic/social policy commitments that went far beyond the agreements of the 1970s.

Interactive Web-Based Simulation for Supply Chain Education

John Crowe et al. — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:41:08 PDT

Knowledge economies are based on the concept of knowledge transfer between education institutes and stakeholders. In response, the significant move away from traditional teaching methods to the emerging paradigm of eLearning has become increasingly in evidence across many academic disciplines. To assist in the transition from traditional learning to eLearning, more interactive and virtually orientated teaching aids are needed. This chapter introduces a simulation-based learning framework that integrates web-based simulation and a web content management hierarchy model. Using the complex subject of supply chain management as a case study, the new framework allows users to examine various real-life strategic management scenarios, encourages group work and has remote access capabilities for distance learning. Interactive learning is facilitated using the web-based simulation portal, enabling instructors to demonstrate the complexity of decisions in multiple criteria environment and also show the users the impact of strategies on performance. Supply chain simulation creates an animated experience and better understanding of system dynamics including risk. The framework assists in the knowledge and skills transfer between third-level education institutes and their stakeholders, primarily industry partners and the wider community

Qualitative Methodology Discussion

Marian Crowley-Henry et al. — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:32:40 PDT

This chapter presents a discussion on the nature of qualitative research. In it, a number of contributors to the book sit down for a general roundtable discussion on qualitative methodologies. Here they express their thinking in relation to a range of questions on qualitative methodologies put to them by the moderator, one of the editors of the volume. The objective of the chapter is to provide readers with an insight into a free flowing discussion amongst academics on the nature of qualitative research. This takes the readers outside of the carefully structured arguments of the authors, as set out in their various chapters, and presents their thinking on the topic at an instinctual level. This is also something that dissertation students are not often exposed to – an insight into the debates that occur between academics on the nature of research. Such an insight will show that, even amongst those utilising qualitative research as a tool, there are widely differing opinions as to how to approach this topic. Hopefully, readers will also be able to take from this chapter the idea that stimulating discussions amongst peer groups is a great way of teasing out the intricacies of complex subject matters. They will see that failure to reach consensus on an issue is not a bad thing, as in research, as with many other areas of life, there are often no right or wrong answers, only results that require interpretation. Most of all, this chapter presents a myriad of ideas on the ways in which qualitative research can be utilized in the search for answers to questions.

Introduction: Approaches to Qualitative Research

John Hogan et al. — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:48:49 PDT

Undertaking a dissertation can be a daunting prospect, irrespective of whether a student is an undergraduate or a postgraduate. The idea of having to start with a blank sheet of paper and finish with anything between 15,000 words for an undergraduate dissertation, and 100,000 words of a PhD dissertation, is an arresting thought. But, even these coarse figures fail to capture the true extent of the work involved, as a finished dissertation is usually only a distillation of volumes of work and words that far exceed the finished product ultimately presented. The various chapters present examples for dissertation students in terms of how they might go about conducting qualitative research. Additionally, the chapters’ findings show how students might consider presenting their own findings. To this end, each of the chapters has been structured like a mini dissertation with introductions, brief literature reviews, methodology sections, and finally analysis. Thus, the book was written with the intention of assisting dissertation students as they grapple with the difficulties of selecting and implementing a research strategy.

Irish Business and Society: Governing, Participating and Transforming in the 21st Century

John Hogan et al. — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:37:16 PDT

Irish Business and Society is a contemporary exploration of the wide-ranging debates surrounding the relationships between business and society in 21^st century Ireland, providing a context in which to question and inform our perspectives on both. The book consists of diverse and thought-provoking contributions from leading business researchers, economists, sociologists and political scientists from Ireland and abroad, which address five central themes:

-- The Making and Unmaking of the Celtic Tiger

-- Governance, Regulation & Justice

-- Partnership & Participation

-- The nature of Irish Borders within Ireland, Europe & the Wider World

-- Interests & Concerns in Contemporary Ireland

At a Distance: Learning about Cross-cultural Virtual Teams in an International Management Course

Mikael Søndergaard et al. — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:43:00 PDT

This chapter narrates our experiences designing and teaching an international management course which was technologically enhanced to include cross-cultural interactions between the US and Denmark. Our rationale, that issues regarding globalization have accelerated the need to bring together through virtual means people from different cultures to engage in collaborative performance at a distance, was addressed in the context of theoretical concerns regarding cultural differences. We discuss the theoretical premises on which we based the course, illustrate the three core distance activities that we designed for these purposes, evaluate the general outcome in light of our objectives, and assess their value for others engaged in teaching courses such as ours. At the end, we link our experiences to broader issues pertaining to distance-education in today’s university environments.

Focusing on Process and History: Path Dependence

Paul Donnelly — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:13:41 PDT

In recognition of the calls for more processual and historically informed organizational theorizing, this chapter considers the notion of path dependency, an approach which holds that a historical path of choices has the character of a branching process with a self-reinforcing dynamic such that preceding steps in a particular direction induce further movement in the same direction, thereby making the possibility of switching to some other previously credible alternative more difficult. Path dependence seeks to assess how process, sequence and temporality can be best incorporated into explanation, the focus of the researcher being on particular outcomes, temporal sequencing and the unfolding of processes over time. Thus, proceeding from a consideration of the position afforded history in the organizational literature, this chapter outlines the tenets of path dependence theory, before sketching out its application in the practice of doing research.

Forming Ireland's Industrial Development Authority

Paul Donnelly — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:34:54 PDT

Tracing the creation and (re)production of Ireland’s Industrial Development Authority (IDA) through the lens of path dependence theory, the story charts the IDA’s creation within protectionism. In parallel with the gradual shift away from protection towards free trade, the story follows the IDA’s emergence as the state’s pre-eminent industrial development agency, its re-creation as a state-sponsored organisation and the growing political, institutional and monetary resources afforded it in return for delivery on objectives, largely in the shape of new job creation. However, the increasing reliance on foreign investment to meet targets, at the expense of indigenous industry, eventually surfaces as a challenge in the early 1980s and culminates in the IDA being split into separate agencies in 1994. Today, supporting export-oriented, foreign multinational organisations, which employ some 136,000 people and account for some for €110bn or 70 per cent of total exports, and continuing to promote and attract inward investment (IDA, 2010), IDA Ireland remains an important organisation in the Irish enterprise development institutional landscape.

Constructing and Disciplining the Working Body: Organisational Discourses, Globalisation and the Mobile Worker

Marian Crowley-Henry et al. — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:28:50 PDT

We consider the ethical treatment of people working in organizations along the relativism/absolutism continuum. Work is a dominant activity in people’s lives and a core part of people’s identities. In it is the managerial realm of Human Resource Management where the focus on the working body primarily resides. The construction and disciplining of the working body is theoretically and empirically explored in this chapter. Do organizations construct and discipline their workforce as a means to their organizational ends (as resources), or do they treat them as means in themselves (as humans)? We trace organizational discourses that emphasize resources rather than humans and discuss the ethical ramifications of doing so. Working through Foucault’s governmentality, enclosure, partitioning and ranking constructs, we present managerialist organizational discourses where compartmentalization and standardization across categories are favoured. To investigate our conceptual review empirically, we analyze and interpret qualitative interviews collected from a sample of self-initiated international assignees living in the South of France. The choice of this particular sample permitted us to isolate individuals operating on their own agency (self-initiated international assignees have, by their very nomenclature, embarked on an international working experience/career through their own agency). Their experiences illustrate how the interviewees construct themselves, and are constructed, as international working bodies. The extent to which the individuals in the sample constructed their own work/career paths within organizational boundaries in their new international context/environment is disputed, despite the apparent self-initiated and agential nature of the respondents in the sample. Our blend of theoretical concepts in organizational discourses and their internalization in the empirical sample of self-initiated international assignees furthers the discussion on the ethical nature of organizational discourses, where the “human” in human resources is largely ignored. We contribute to the ongoing debate between relativism and absolutism, arguing that equating people with material resources is to consider people as a means to an end, thereby going against the Kantian necessity to treat people as ends in themselves.

An Overview of Discourse Analytical Approaches to Research

Brendan O'Rourke — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 03:10:13 PST

The field of discourse analysis (DA) is vast, varied and contested with traditions ranging from conversational analysis (Sacks, 1995, [1964-1972]), to more Foucauldian inspired approaches (e.g. Kendall & Wickham, 1999), to critical discourse approaches (Van Dijk, 2001; Fairclough, 2003). This diversity means that this overview is necessarily selective. Nonetheless, this introduction should provide a platform from where readers can then further investigate those currents of DA that are of particular interest. In order to locate DA within the range of methodology discussed in this volume, and to argue for the unity of various DA approaches, a short history is outlined. A survey of DA is then provided, organized by what various approaches mean by ‘discourse’ and by what theories and concepts they use for analysis. An illustrative exercise in the discourse analysis of some interview data is then given. Finally, a guide to further reading and resources is provided for the reader who wishes to study discourse analysis in greater depth.

The Negotiation and Consumption of Mediated Masculinities in the Artistry of the Male Self

Deirdre Duffy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:30:03 PST

Much research has been conducted to date considering the construction of identity in many disciplines. However this essay explores Irish men’s construction of their identity in tandem with their lived existence in the social world. The interrelations and influences of their family, friends, peers and the media, ultimately human interdependency itself, all serve as potential cues upon which young men borrow to craft their own masculine identity.