Mechanisms of Organizational Commitment: Adding Frames to Greedy Institution Theory

How do organizations that make significant physical, emotional, and intellectual demands foster commitment and loyalty from voluntary participants? Greedy institution theory (Coser 1974 ) answers this question by identifying structural elements that foster participants' undivided commitment to “greedy” groups, those in which participants' involvement interferes with and takes precedence over their involvement in other social spheres. In this article, I argue for the expansion of greedy institution theory to include frames and framing processes as “greedy” organizational tools that work on the microinteractional level. Using data from an ethnographic study of an intensive program that prepares low‐income students of color to attend elite boarding high schools, I show how the organization's “family” frame mobilized participants and encouraged interpretations and interactions that helped students persist in the program and remain committed to the organization. I argue that turning our attention to frames and framing processes will increase our understanding of the tools organizations use on a microinteractional level to build and repair participants' loyalty and commitment.     

Managing Organizational Emotions: Framing Feelings of Illegitimacy in the Radical Women's Prison Movement

Abstract

This article examines how activists manage the potentially deleterious emotions that arise in social movement organizations. Using data from a case study of an organization in the contemporary radical women's prison movement in California, I explore how feelings of illegitimacy are managed and sublimated by activists, during the course of organizational life, to sustain participation in the movement. Drawing on framing theory, I find that organizational frames serve as mechanisms that manage and focus activists' feelings, delimit movement strategies, and inspire and legitimate collective action.     

Work‐to‐School Transitions in the Age of the Displaced Worker: A Psychology of Working Perspective

Frank Parsons (1909) founded the vocational guidance movement more than 100 years ago within the context of a shift from an agricultural to an industrial workplace. Today, globalization, workforce diversity, and the financial instability related to the Great Recession present numerous challenges to workers across the economic spectrum. In addition to highlighting Parsons's continued influence on career counseling practice, the authors draw on David Blustein's (2006) psychology of working to enhance the understanding of the needs of dislocated workers. Using case examples, the authors demonstrate how to incorporate insights from the psychology of working to address social justice, financial, relational, and self‐determination concerns among this vulnerable population. Counseling strategies for clients in transition, especially those considering educational options, are provided.     

Framing the Fat Body: Contested Meanings between Government,Activists, and Industry*

Sociologists have long recognized that social problems do not derive solely from objective conditions but from a process of collective definition. At the core of some social issues are framing competitions, struggles over the production of ideas and meanings. This article examines competing cultural meanings about the fat body. Through frame analysis of organizational materials, I map the contested field of obesity and document three cultural frames—medical frame, social justice frame, and market choice frame—as represented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the food industry group the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), respectively. Using the “framing matrix,” I explore each frame's key signature elements and discuss its social and cultural significance. Notably, each frame leads to different outcomes for social equality and how society thinks about fat bodies, health, and public policy.     

Constructing identity and oppositional knowledge: The framing practices of peace movement organizations during the Persian gulf war

Social movement organizations (SMOs) engage in the formation of public policy and social beliefs by framing issues and events for the public. These framing activities may offer an alternative source of knowledge and challenge status quo definitions of important social issues. Analyzing the statements and press releases of four peace movement organizations during the seven months of military escalation and war in the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991, this article explores the structure and content of social movement framing of a specific event. Findings suggest that the shape and content of the frames used by these SMOs are rooted in a complex amalgamation of each organization's historical and public identity, intended audiences, and contemporary motivations and organizational goals. The collective identity of an organization influences the shape and content of the organization's framing activities. The organizations studied made use of their specific structural and organizational strengths as part of a credentialing process, wherein they shaped their oppositional voices so they could be heard and accepted by specific audiences. This was in turn a matter of the organization's historical practice, the ways it presented that history, and how it constructed its con temporary collective identity (e.g., as Quakers or as Catholic peacemakers). All of this is done with a view toward claiming a voice in the public debate, a voice that may help the SMO create oppositional bases of knowledge, influence public policy, sustain and embolden members, and establish a historical record of opposition.     

Effect of framing on cognitive processing in public relations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of message framing on cognitive processing by employees of an internal organizational message. A between-subject factorial experimental design with random assignment was used to test the moderating role of message frames on cognitive processing. Subjects in the study produced a significantly different number of thoughts in response to messages with different frames. The different frames presented also resulted in generation of different topics of thought for participants. This difference in cognitive response to a message may point to a difference in the salience of the message for the audience. The results of this study underscore the need for public relations practitioners to understand the needs and motivations of internal audiences and to contextualize internal messages for increased effectiveness in persuasion.     

Krafting the obesity message: A case study in framing and issues management

This study examined the application of framing theory in issues management. Using case study methodology, the researchers analyzed message frames used by Kraft Foods in its public response to the obesity crisis, how the Kraft frames were reported by the media and whether Kraft's approach might help define effective framing and issues management practices in public relations. The study suggested that framing was indeed useful in Kraft's attempt to manage the issue of obesity.     

Mobilizing Resistance to Privatization: Communication Strategies of Salvadoran Health-Care Activists

In September 2002, unions representing public health-care employees in El Salvador – doctors, nurses, blue-collar workers, and clerical staff – began a strike that would last for over 9 months, in protest of government plans to privatize medical services in the Salvadoran Social Security Institute. This paper focuses on the methods that the unions and their allies used to communicate their policy arguments and the motivations for the strike to the Salvadoran public. Specifically, I examine the endogenous factors that shaped their communication strategy and the movement traits that enabled them to carry this out successfully. Coverage of the lengthy conflict by the country's two leading newspapers is examined in order to sketch a synopsis of counter-movement framing that the activists confronted. Interviews with movement leaders reveal that they relied primarily on direct, nonmediated communication channels to counteract the media's framing, and that the organizational diversity of the movement was an enormous advantage for these methods.     

Manufacturing American Identity Among Immigrant Workers: Colorado Fuel & Iron Company at the Turn of the 20th Century

Extant research indicates that white racial framing is utilized to rationalize discrimination, but less work has examined how the white racial frame becomes filtered into institutional settings such as corporations and instilled within its programs and practices. This paper analyzes white racial framing in the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company during the early twentieth century as part of its effort to Americanize and control its racially diverse workforce. The company developed a special unit headed by a physician and proponent of eugenics to promote “social betterment.” Our findings show how dominant racial ideologies were embedded within the company's conceptualization of social betterment and how these ideas influenced corporate programs aimed at mollifying the workforce and increasing productivity. We discuss the implications of our research for future analyses of historically embedded racial framing.     

Telling Our Stories: Narrative and Framing in the Movement for Same-Sex Marriage

Although framing and narrative are both well-documented discursive features of social movements, the difference between them is often overstated; where frames are treated as logical, authoritative, and abstract, the usefulness of narratives is frequently documented in relation to pre-mobilization phases of movement development such as identity and community building. Drawing on an analysis of Connecticut's Judiciary Committee hearings on same-sex marriage, I challenge this distinction and elucidate the relationship between storytelling and framing, showing how narrative is used to make packages of frames cohesive and compelling. In demonstrating how proponents of the legislation deployed narratives and frames simultaneously, this research contributes to scholarship on the function and configuration of discursive strategies for social movements.     

Psychologische Verträge und Arbeitsbeziehungen im Downsizing

Today, human resource downsizing and parallel organizational restructuring are on the agenda of many German companies. These changes not only produce work specific emotions for employees and members of work councils but also change psychological contracts embedded in the regulating context of different co-determination structures. This article presents partial results on the topic, from a research project promoted by the ?Hans-Böckler-Foundation“. It analyses the subjective patterns of interpretation, the employees and the work council–s response to continuous human resource downsizing processes.     

Factors affecting social presence and word-of-mouth in corporate social responsibility communication: Tone of voice,message framing,and online medium type

To understand how tone of voice, message framing, and type of online media affect public perceptions and reactions to an organization in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, this study conducted a 2 (tone of voice: human voice vs. organizational voice) x 2 (message framing: gain-focused vs. loss-focused) x 2 (online media: Facebook vs. organizational blog) online experiment (N?=?394). Conversational human voice and gain-focused framing significantly influence the social presence of the organization and publics’ positive word-of-mouth intention. Publics’ intention to generate positive word-of-mouth was highest when the organization used conversational human voice with gain-focused message and conveyed the message on its Facebook page.     

Communicating strategically in the face of terrorism: The Spanish government's response to the 2004 Madrid bombing attacks

With the re-emergence of insurgency tied to terrorism, governments need to strategically manage their communications. This paper analyzes the effect of the Spanish government's messaging in the face of the Madrid bombing of March 11, 2004: unlike what happened with the 9/11 bombings in the USA and the 7/07 London attacks, the Spanish media did not support the government's framing of the events. Taking framing as a strategic action in a discursive form (Pan & Kosicki, 2003), and in the context of the attribution theory of responsibilities, this research uses the “cascading activation” model (0030 and 0035) to explore how a framing contest was generated in the press. Analysis of the coverage shows that the intended government frame triggered a battle among the different major newspapers, leading editorials to shift their frame over the four days prior to the national elections. This research analyzes strategic contests in framing processes and contributes insight into the interactions among the different sides (government, parties, media, and citizens) to help bring about an understanding of the rebuttal effect of the government's intended frame. It also helps to develop an understanding of the role of the media and the influence of citizens’ frames on media content.     

Workfare Programs

Abstract

Workfare initially originated as an approach to guide welfare recipients towards self-sufficiency. Today, the same strategy is being utilized as a desperate means by the States to move welfare recipients into the workforce in order not to suffer further cuts in federal assistance.

This paper reviews many of the common barriers which participants experience as they attempt to move from being welfare recipients to employees. In addition, it presents effective workfare programs, identifies critically needed support services for workfare participants, and suggests policy recommendations for the future.     

‘I Hate It,But It Still Sounds Good’: Collective Identity and the Evaluation of Oppositional Frame Resonance

While activists often respond to claims advanced by their opposition, little is known about how oppositional rhetoric is evaluated. This study focuses on the evaluation process, examining how movement actors assess the resonant appeal of oppositional frames. I analyze how activists in the American pro-choice movement respond to a faction of the pro-life movement that primarily frames abortion as harmful to women. Drawing on focus group conversations with pro-choice activists, I find feminist collective identity and their own experience advancing gendered frames influence which oppositional frames pro-choice actors consider most likely to resonate with a non-activist audience. These judgments subsequently guide decisions about how to respond to oppositional frames and construct of counterframes. I find activists to use collective identity to rule out potential strategies and tactics they feel are in conflict with what the group represents. I argue that in cases where similarities exist between frames and counterframes, experience advancing rhetoric superficially similar to that of the opposing movement provides strategic insight. Movement actors draw on lessons learned from their own collective framing experiences to evaluate how audiences will respond to oppositional frames with comparable cultural themes. These experiences serve as a guide, informing activists' perceptions of the frames a non-activist audience will be most likely to embrace, which frames must be addressed, and which can be safely ignored. This study emphasizes movement actors' agency and strategic decision-making processes, demonstrates how collective identity influences the framing process, and contributes to knowledge of how group experiences and identity affect perception and strategy.     

Launching the workplace flexibility movement: work family research and a program of social change

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Workplace, Work Force & Working Families program was established in 1994 and ended in 2011. Over the course of its 17-year lifespan, this program – through its vision, commitment and unique, pragmatic grant-making strategies – pioneered the interdisciplinary field of work–family research and spearheaded a national movement to create more flexible workplaces that effectively meet the needs of employees and employers. The program's first strategic phase supported high-quality, multidisciplinary research to examine what was happening within working families at all stages of their lives, both at home and at work. Results from these investigations highlighted the structural mismatch between the needs of this diverse workforce – comprised increasingly of working parents and older workers – and the demands of a rigidly structured workplace requiring full-time, full-year work, with little to no flexibility in how, when, or where work gets done. After a decade of scholarly research documenting that the challenges facing American families were not private, individual problems but public, societal concerns, the Sloan Foundation designed and launched in 2003 the National Workplace Flexibility Initiative. Its goals were twofold: to make workplace flexibility a compelling national issue and to establish it as a standard of the American workplace. As a result of the collective efforts of Sloan-supported organizations and people, the stage is now set for a social movement to realign the structure of the American workplace to the needs of the twenty-first century workforce. Lessons for subsequent research-driven social movements close the article.     

The death of bin Laden: How Russian and U.S. media frame counterterrorism

This study explored how Russian and U.S. newspapers covered the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 through the lens of framing theory. Results reflect significant disparity in how media in different countries covered the same event, suggesting that terrorism events were framed as national concerns rather than global issues, thus potentially limiting governments and the media from building a shared understanding with international audiences. The findings also indicate that more robust media relations efforts are needed to counter simplistic media counterterrorism frames. Finally, the study identified new frames for counterterrorism including secrecy and humanizing terrorists. These new frames suggest the need to expand the framing literature to provide a better understanding of how the media cover counterterrorism, which may impact the U.S. government's public diplomacy and counterterrorism efforts.     

Frame Changes and Social Movement Contraction: U.S. Peace Movement Framing After the Cold War*

This study analyzes framing processes and their relationships with ongoing social movement change. We examine peace frames found among U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOS) in its period of contraction at the end of the Cold War. On the basis of analysis of a unique two-wave survey of US. peace movement organizations in 1988 and 1992, we assess the extent to which organizational framing of the peace problematic changed. We found an overall shift in emphases from more bilateral frames like the nuclear weapons freeze to frames emphasizing multilateralism and global interdependence. PMO frame transformations that took place between 1988 and 1992 represent a trend towards broader, more radical (or structural) and less exclusive peace movement frames. We describe the frame transformations observed here as the emergence of “retention frames.” Retention frames embody several dimensions of movement abeyance structures and serve to sustain organizational continuity across episodes of movement surges and contraction.     

Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media,organizational PR,and the public

This study focuses on the implicit framing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the interplay between the news media, organizational public relations (PR), and the public. The aim of the study is to investigate the multidirectional causal relationships between these three domains in terms of the use of implicit frames. An automated content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and organizational press releases is employed. In addition, Google Trends data is examined in order to determine implicit frames of CSR among the public. Monthly level Vector Autoregression (VAR) analyses show different effects across frames. Overall, in line with our expectations, results show positive effects of the news media on the public and of organizational PR on the news media. Moreover, contrary to expectations, we found a negative effect of the public on the news media and mixed results with regard to the effect of the public on organizational PR. Investigating the multidirectional relationships between the news media, organizational PR, and the public provides insights into how they – as a domain – affect and get affected by each other in their communications.