Rapid change in a South African tertiary institution: Implications for occupational social work

Universities, like most organisations, are in a state of continuous transformation. The past decade has seen dramatic changes taking place at universities in South Africa, which have impacted on employees, especially academics. This article focuses on the transformations at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape, and recounts the qualitative findings of a small-scale research project, conducted by the first author, which provide a flavour of the way in which UFH academics perceived and responded to a fast changing university milieu. It examines the strengths which sustained them and argues that universities should help people to identify and utilise such strengths within their organisations by employing occupational social workers. The authors, both social work trained and former practitioners, have written this article jointly under the auspices of a three-year British Council Higher Education Link Programme between the Social Work Department at the University of Fort Hare and the Community and Criminal Justice Studies Division at De Montfort University, Leicester.     

Are ‘journalists’ own problems’ aggravating their hostility toward public relations?—A study of Korean journalists

Journalists’ own job problems have been found to be detrimental to media recognition of public relations: journalists vent frustration from their worsening job conditions at public relations practitioners. This outlook of occupational psyche casts a shadow over the bright prospect for media recognition of the profession. Journalists’ problems operate outside media relations, thus beyond direct attempts of public relations practitioners at media recognition via enhancing professionalism in their practices. There have been, however, only a few qualitative studies on this significant issue, all pointing to journalists’ occupational psyche running against media recognition. The purpose of this study is to determine quantitatively whether journalists’ own job satisfaction and their envy of public relations practitioners lead to their negative attitude. A survey of 128 Korean off-line journalists was conducted, and its results suggested that occupational psyche has little influence on media attitude—contrary to the findings of previous qualitative studies. For future study, this paper issues a call for cross-country, comparative research on the subject of journalists’ occupational psyche.     

流动劳动力的人力资本与就业身份选择——基于东部和中西部地区在京就业者的比较

利用2006年＂北京市1‰流动人口调查＂数据,分别考察来自东部和中西部地区的在京流动劳动力的就业身份构成,并运用Logistic回归法分析人力资本对流动劳动力不同就业身份选择的影响及作用机制。研究发现,流动劳动力的人力资本提升对改善其就业身份有显著正面影响;受教育年限和健康状况对中西部地区流动劳动力更为重要,对流动劳动力成为雇主的正向影响明显高于来自东部地区者。据此认为,在提升劳动力人力资本之外,针对流动劳动力的系统性边缘化制度安排需要打破。