Giving Meaning to Sport Involvement in Managerial Work

I use a discursive analytical approach to explore ways in which senior managerial men working in nonprofit organizations understand the contribution, if any, of their own sport history to their work skills, how this may vary by organizational contexts and how the subtexts of these discourses may strengthen the dominance of managerial men in a specific context. I used semi‐structured interviews to ask 67 senior managerial men about the role they perceive their sport history plays in their managerial skills. Two overlapping topics emerged from the data: team and leadership skills and perseverance and toughness. I explore the meaning these topics had for the managers and the possible gendered subtexts of these meanings. The findings are situated in the critical feminist management and sport literature.     

Equal or individual treatment: contesting storylines in needs assessment conversations within Swedish eldercare

This article examines the role of care managers and their work in putting policy into practice in micro-interactions with older people in Swedish eldercare. The care managers assess the individual needs of older people, and decide what type of social care and services will be given. Dilemmas in care management are often related to the gap between needs and resources. The aim was to study the positioning of care managers within different storylines advanced in needs assessment conversations. Positioning theory was applied to study discursive practices and discursive strategies within Swedish eldercare. Audio-recorded needs assessment conversations among care managers, older people and their relatives at care planning meetings in connection with hospital discharge were analyzed. Two overall positions were identified for care managers—as ‘professional experts’ and as ‘organizational representatives’—allowing the care managers to maneuver within two contesting storylines: ‘distribution of scarce eldercare resources based on the principles of eligibility and equal treatment’ and ‘older people entitled to eldercare according to their own perceived individual needs’. For social work, the results showed the importance of discussing how care managers might move towards exercising greater professional autonomy, becoming less dependent on their position in the organization.     

Disorganization,disidentification and ideological fragmentation: Verbal and pictorial evidence from a British business school

Rather than focusing on organizing dimensions of society, one may conceptualize disorganization processes, where ideological values incongruence leads to disidentification and ideological fragmentation. Integrating discourse analysis and critical social psychology, I focus on professional organizations facing ideological, managerialist change to develop a typology of multiple‐identity organizations (MIOs) incorporating various degrees of disorganization, rather than the traditional ideographic–holographic dualism. I then apply a creative, visual method to explore how wider ideological tensions between managerial (utilitarian) and professional (normative) values shape lived experiences in a major British business school. Longitudinal verbal and pictorial discursive analysis shows a cacophony of images competing to construct and deconstruct organizational identity over a decade and a half. The organization tends towards disorganization, but somehow retains a sufficient sense of (multiple) identity to survive, suggesting it is myopic to ignore processes and structures that mark and contribute to the ideological fragmentation of MIOs.     

Governance,Accountability, and Organizational Development: Eldercare Unit Managers’ and Local Politicians’ Experiences of and Responses to State Supervision of Swedish Eldercare

This article explores how local politicians and care unit managers in Swedish eldercare experience and respond to state supervision (SSV). Twelve politicians and twelve managers in 15 previously inspected municipalities were interviewed about their experiences of and reactions to SSV in relation to their views of care quality and routines in eldercare practice. The findings indicate that local managers and political chairs perceived SSV in eldercare positively at a superficial level but were critical of and disappointed with specific aspects of it. In terms of (a) governance, chairs and managers said SSV strengthened implementation of national policies via local actors, but they were critical of SSV’s narrow focus on control and flaws in eldercare practice. With regard to (b) accountability, SSV was seen as limited to accountability for finances and systemic performance, and regarding (c) organizational development, SSV was seen as limited to improving routines and compliance with legislation, while local definitions of quality are broader than that. In general, local actors regarded SSV as improving administrative aspects and routines in practice but ignoring the relational content of eldercare quality.     

The state and my happiness: Youth mental health,citizenship education and discursive contestations in contemporary Indonesia

Complementing studies on youth mental health that were mainly depoliticised, this article offers a discursive examination of youth mental health in an Indonesian educational context. We argue that subject positions enabled by the discourse of mental health were at odds with dominant constructions of an ideal Indonesian citizen. Drawing upon qualitative data from 22 teachers and 20 students in a junior high school in Indonesia and analyses of educational policies and textbooks, we identified three discourses underpinning the ideal(ised) constructions of young Indonesian citizen, namely, neoliberalism, (masculine) patriotism and (religious) moralism and discussed how these inhibited youth mental health.     

The Gendered Nature of Managerial Discourse: the Case of a Local Authority

This paper is a response to organizational analysis which highlights the significance of discursive processes in the formation of occupational gender identity. A recurrent weakness in many of these accounts is their focus on the simple dualisms which structure gendered discourse. This tendency is often associated with the abstraction of debate from specific organizational settings. I aim therefore to address the question of the gendered nature of managerial discourse with reference to a case study of a local authority under restructuring. I argue here that the gendered nature of managerial discourse has to be seen as particularly complex, given the way in which it incorporates both ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ identities within an overarching managerial ethos, which is itself related to wider hegemonic projects.     

The Meta Co-production of Community Outcomes: Towards a Citizens’ Capabilities Approach

This article contributes to the growing amount of literature on co-production, focusing on co-production of public outcomes and taking the perspective of local government and public managers. A model for explaining the dynamics of outcomes’ creation at the community level is provided. The core argument of the article is that community outcomes result from a sum of peer production, co-production and inter-organizational collaboration processes promoted and activated at individual, organizational and network level across the public, third and private sectors. Institutional, managerial and organizational implications are discussed. The article argues that local government and public managers are asked to play new roles and to employ a new ethos grounded in a citizens capabilities’ approach.     

Managerial discourse and the restructuring of a district authority

This paper arises out of continuing debates on the class position of managers and professionals in the context of public sector restructuring. Recently, attention has been focused on the self-sustaining and autonomous character of ‘professionalism’ in organisational dynamics. Such an approach underplays the cultural significance of managerial discourse as this is active in the reconstitution of professional work. In a case study of a district authority it is possible to highlight the complex nature of managerial discourse in its relations to both central and local government. This relation is above all mediated by shifting conceptions of public service on the part of managers and those in non-managerial positions. The paper concludes that due to the structural constraints under which local authorities operate directly managerial discourse is becoming increasingly significant in the reconstitution of professional and semi-professional identities.     

It's Not What You Do,But Who You Are: Informal Social Control,Social Status,and Normative Seriousness in Organizations

This paper analyzes the impact of managerial social status on the normative evaluation of managerial acts in organizational contexts. We test several propositions on the relationship between social status and normative evaluation derived from Donald Black's theoretical framework on social control. The research design consists of a factorial survey of 200 managers. Each respondent evaluated the seriousness of a normatively questionable managerial act. In each vignette, the perpetrator's social status was systematically manipulated in either a high or a low condition. The results generally support the argument that the higher a manager's social status the less vulnerable that individual is to unfavorable normative evaluations, holding constant the act. The paper closes with discussion of our findings in light of social structural and rational choice perspectives on informal social control in organizations. Additionally, we discuss methodological issues related to experimental research on informal social control in organizations, the consistency of our findings with those from previous studies of social control across diverse settings, potential theoretical applications and extensions of Black's framework in organizational contexts, and practical implications for the implementation of corporate codes of conduct and corporate dispute resolution systems.     

Management identities in transition: a case study from further education

Since the mid‐1980s. Further Education has experienced deep transformations as the result of market driven reforms and the emergence of ‘new managerialism’ in the sector. The changes affected its governance, purpose, organisation and culture, and had deep influence on the relations and identities in the workplace. This paper explores the response of managers in selected Colleges of FE in England, and their discursive construction of new work identities. It is argued that in mediating the reforms, managers adopt a range of responses and position themselves differentially to the discourses of ‘managerialism’ and the ‘market’. From enthusiastically adopting entrepreneurial management, to resisting, or quietly re‐constructing vocabularies and practices to fit traditional models of professional practice, the managers in this study illustrate the contested nature of implementing reforms in the public sector, and the complex interplay between agency and institutional practice.     

Work–life Balance: Is it Now a Problem for Management?

In Western Australia (WA) there is substantial interest by public sector management in work–life balance (WLB) as a strategy to address labour supply problems. This article considers whether the positioning of WLB as a problem for management provides the opportunity for change resulting in an improved quality of working life in the public sector. We report on the implementation of WLB policies in four WA public sector agencies and conclude that managers are ‘managing’ WLB in a limited way, and largely in an individualized manner, at a level that does not disrupt the usual way of organizing work and employment. For many managers, employees' requests to access WLB policies are perceived as being in conflict with operational goals. The findings highlight the inadequacy of much of the WLB discourse that obscures the tension between, on the one hand, the imperative for managers to implement WLB more effectively and, on the other, organizational practices and the broader social, political and economic context in which management and the organization are located.     

The resonance of moderate feminism and the gendered relations of austerity

During the tenure of the UK Conservative‐led coalition government (2010–15) austerity policy was rolled out in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–08. In this article a discourse analysis of mainstream newspaper representations of austerity, which appeared throughout this period, is undertaken using the principles of Cultural Political Economy (Jessop 2004). Three key questions are posed: 1) How is gender drawn upon to render austerity intelligible? 2) How do these discursive constructions contribute to the reproduction of particular ideas regarding contemporary gender relations? 3) What do these gendered austerity discourses reveal about the institutionalisation of particular forms of feminism? A critical gender discourse which emphasised equality appeared alongside constructions of gender that reproduced problematic assumptions. Made meaningful in this way, austerity, as a strategy for restoring pre‐crash social arrangements, also restored particular aspects of gender relations. This is theorised as the product of the successful institutionalisation of a hegemonic, moderate liberal feminism prior to the financial crash. The findings contribute to debates within feminist scholarship about the dynamics of gender inclusion and extend our understanding of the associated implications for feminist critique.     

Discursive Struggles Animating Individuals’ Talk About Their Parents’ Coming Out as Lesbian or Gay

The goal in the present study was to understand the discourses that animate children’s talk about having a parent come out and how these discourses interplay to create meaning. Data were gathered through 20 in-depth interviews with adults who remembered a parent coming out to them as lesbian or gay. One discursive struggle animated the participants’ talk about their parents’ coming out: the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as wrong vs. the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as acceptable. Analysis of participants’ talk about their familial identities revealed a range of avenues for resisting the negative discourses regarding lesbian and gay identities. The findings highlight discursive power in participants’ talk about their familial identities and how participants organize the conflicting messages they receive in their culture and in relationships regarding family identities.     

Fragments of development: Nation, gender, and the space of modernity

Imagine any process of economic development. How do the social,political, and economic interact in your imaginary development?Who is active and who is passive? What stands in the way? Howis success or failure measured? Who is then credited or blamed?The ways that we think about development are at least partiallyreflective of essentialist constructions that have been producedby societal and theoretical discourses. Bergeron has examinedboth mainstream and critical bodies of literature and emergedwith a powerful set of observations regarding these constructions. The discursive analyses in Fragments of Development demonstrate     

‘Heroes and Matriarchs’: Working‐Class Femininities,Violence and Door Supervision Work

Door supervision work is traditionally seen as a working‐class, male‐dominated trade. In addition, it is deemed to be one that is physically risky, where violence is seen as a ‘tool of the trade’ and where ‘bodily capital’ and ‘fighting ability’ are paramount to the competent performance of the job. This paper is a timely analysis on the manner in which the increasing numbers of women who work in door supervision negotiate their occupational identity and construct their work practices. The analysis focused on the way in which discursive constructions of both violence and workplace identities are variably taken up, reworked and resisted through the intersection of gender and class. This resulted in the identification of two main discourses; ‘playing the hero’ and the ‘hard matriarch’. These findings allow us to theorize that multiple, gendered and classed occupational identities exist beyond normative expectations and can be seen to be both emancipatory for working women, while simultaneously bolstering exploitation, workplace harassment and violent practices.     

Work, family, and managerial attitudes and practices in the European workplace: comparing Dutch, British, and Slovenian financial sector managers

Managers are key actors shaping employees’ capabilities to utilize work–life policies. However, most research on managers’ implementation of these policies has been conducted in liberal welfare states and ignores the impact of institutional context. In this study, we situate managers within specific workplace and national layers of context. We investigated how managers in financial organizations in the Netherlands, UK, and Slovenia talk about the utilization of work–life policies. Managers’ discourses stressed disruption and dependency considerations in these case studies, as in the US research. However, a further management discourse of the moral case or right thing to do also emerged. The lack of resources for replacing staff on leave creates disruption and reduces managers capability to support the use of work–life policies, even when they are statutory or if managers are inclined be supportive (dependency or moral argument). This is likely to impact on parents' capabilities.     

Fragments of development: Nation, gender, and the space of modernity

Imagine any process of economic development. How do the social,political, and economic interact in your imaginary development?Who is active and who is passive? What stands in the way? Howis success or failure measured? Who is then credited or blamed?The ways that we think about development are at least partiallyreflective of essentialist constructions that have been producedby societal and theoretical discourses. Bergeron has examinedboth mainstream and critical bodies of literature and emergedwith a powerful set of observations regarding these constructions. The discursive analyses in Fragments of Development demonstrate     

Performative identity regulation in rehabilitative home care work: an analysis of how experts’ embodied mediation of the managerial ideology ‘activates’ new frontline identities

ABSTRACT

This article explores how therapists when introduced as new so-called frontline ‘experts’ in home care work, become both discursive and embodied mediators for the managerial ideology of rehabilitation, and how their presence regulates the care aides’ subjectivities at work. We show how the managerial discourse of rehabilitation mobilizes the care aides to transform their identity from traditional nurturing to rehabilitation, as a result of promoting the latter as more professional. While the traditional managers/nurses promote the identity transfer through more classic discursive regulation at a distance from ‘the office’, the therapists do so through what we label performative regulation. Performative regulation is exercised by the therapists performing the desired role at the frontline and thus embodies the ideal and transfers it by embodied practices, not directives. With this notion of performative regulation, the article emphasizes the material, physical, embodied and performative dimensions of professional identity regulation.     

Work,parenting and gender: the care–work negotiations of three couple relationships in the UK

Changes globally mean that there are now record numbers of mothers in paid employment and a reported prevalence of involved fathering. This poses challenges to mothers and fathers as they negotiate care–work practices within their relationships. Focusing on interviews with three heterosexual couples (taken from a wider UK qualitative project on working parents), the paper considers care–work negotiations of three couples, against a backdrop of debates about intensive mothering and involved fathering. It aims to consider different configurations of work and care within three different couple relationships. We found that power within the relationships was negotiated along differential axis of gender and working status (full- or part-time paid work). We present qualitatively rich insights into these negotiations. Framed by a critical discursive psychological approach, we call on other researchers to think critically about dominant discourses and practices of working, caring and parenting, pointedly how couples situated around the world operationalise these discourses in talking about themselves as worker and carers.     

A Case Study of State‐Level Policymakers’ Discursive Co‐Constructions of Welfare Drug Testing Policy and Gender,Race, and Class

Welfare provision is distributed based on determinations of recipient worthiness, commonly assessed by racial‐ and gender‐specific characterizations of the poor as constructed through policy discourse. Social constructions of the poor contribute to the construction of welfare policy discourse and subsequently welfare policy. Welfare drug testing policy raises questions of the co‐constructions of race, class, and gender and welfare drug testing discourses. This case study of state legislators’ discourse on welfare drug testing explores these ideas. Using an intersectional perspective, we examine how categories of race, class, and gender give meanings to policy discourses concerning drug testing of welfare recipients, and conversely, how policy discourses concerning welfare drug testing give meanings to categories of race, class, and gender. We find a move away from explicit racialized and gendered discourse, and toward implicit constructions of race and gender, with a predominant explicit focus on constructions of social class in the characterization of an unworthy, suspect, and deviant poor population. The constructions of race, gender, and particularly social class effectively co‐construct welfare drug testing discourse, which justifies welfare drug testing policy in order to manage the derelict poor.