scholarly journals Professional Agency, Identity, and Emotions While Leaving One’s Work Organization

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Vähäsantanen ◽  
Anneli Eteläpelto

This study investigated the enactment of professional agency in an emotionally troubled work context emerging from a conflicted relationship between the professional and the work organization. Narrative interviews with Finnish educators were utilized. The findings indicate that the enactment of agency was in part framed by the educators’ rational interpretations of the relationship between themselves and their employer, plus their work history and future prospects. However, it was simultaneously embedded with contradictory emotions, such as a sense of being undervalued, fear, and a sense of empowerment. Within this framework, multifaceted professional agency was enacted particularly via leaving the organization. This was also a means of upholding one’s professional identity and resisting the organization’s work practices. The paper contributes to the theorizing of professional agency, particularly regarding its emotional dimension, and elaborates the significance of an emotional relationship between professionals and their organizations. Keywords: career, educators, emotions, meaningful work, narrative research, professional agency, professional identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4045
Author(s):  
Simon L. Albrecht ◽  
Camille R. Green ◽  
Andrew Marty

Meaningful work and employee engagement have been the subject of increasing interest in organizational research and practice over recent years. Both constructs have been shown to influence important organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, wellbeing, and performance. Only a limited amount of empirical research has focused on understanding the relationship within existing theoretical frameworks. For this study, meaningful work is proposed as a critical psychological state within the job demands-resources (JD-R) model that can therefore, in part, explain the relationship between job resources and employee engagement. Survey data collected from 1415 employees working in a range of organizations, across a number of industries, were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). In support of expectations, job variety, development opportunities, and autonomy, each had a significant and positive direct association with meaningful work. These job resources also had a significant and positive indirect effect on employee engagement via meaningful work. Although job variety, development opportunities, autonomy, and feedback had significant positive direct associations with engagement, contrary to expectations, supervisor support had a negative association with engagement. The final model explained a sizable proportion of variance in both meaningful work (49%) and employee engagement (65%). Relative weights analyses showed that job variety was the strongest job resource predictor of meaningful work, and that meaningful work was more strongly associated with employee engagement than the job resources. Overall, the results show that meaningful work plays an important role in enhancing employee engagement and that providing employees with skill and task variety is important to achieving that goal. Practical implications, study limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.


Author(s):  
Rumi Tano ◽  
Hiroko Miura ◽  
Katsuo Oshima ◽  
Kanako Noritake ◽  
Hideki Fukuda

Objective: The need to make sense of coherence in placement support for student dental hygienists has been shown. On this basis, this study investigated the relationship between the sense of coherence of student dental hygienists and their view of the profession and attitude to work in order to clarify how they perceive their prospects for employment. Methods: The subjects were graduation-year students at all of the dental hygienist training institutions in Japan, and anonymous, self-administered questionnaires were sent to the institutions by post in 2019. The results were analyzed by χ2 tests, as well as one-way analysis of variance and multiple comparisons using Tukey’s test, with the level of significance set at 5%. Results: Of 6270 questionnaires that were returned, 6264 were analyzed. The sense of coherence (SOC) component senses were manageability (F(26,221) = 5306.06, p < 0.01), meaningfulness (F(26,222) = 4373.48, p < 0.01), and comprehensibility (F(26,216) = 3986.12, p < 0.01), with meaningfulness scoring significantly higher than the other two (p < 0.01). Analysis with SOC scores divided into the low, medium, and high groups showed a relationship between the SOC of student dental hygienists and their view of the profession and attitude to work (p < 0.01), such that higher SOC scores were associated with a better view of the profession and a better attitude to work (F(26,225) = 282.18, p < 0.01). Conclusions: The results suggest that education that increases SOC in dental hygienist training programs may positively affect future prospects for student dental hygienists.


1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Aronsson

The aim of this article is to examine how increased worker control-on the individual as well as on the collective level-may be a means to reduce the risk of work environment-related stress and diseases. Control is also an important element in socialization processes and in work reform activities directed to a democratization of working life. The concept of control connects a number of research perspectives. It deals with the individual and the collective level, as well as the relationship between them, and it may be a bridge between a social psychological and a psychobiological perspective. In this article, the author considers the control concept primarily from a stress perspective, but also examines how production techniques, legislation, and management strategies create the structure of control at work.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Flávio Chedid Henriques ◽  
Michel Jean-Marie Thiollent

Este artigo é resultado de uma tese de doutorado que teve como objetivo identificar inovações no campo da organização do trabalho produzidas pelas experiências de empresas recuperadas por trabalhadores no Brasil e na Argentina. A tese central defendida é a de que as limitações impostas pela hegemonia do modo de produção capitalista não encerram a possibilidade de construção de novas relações sociais de produção. Os cinco estudos de caso realizados e a experiência de levantamentos da totalidade das experiências de empresas recuperadas nos dois países forneceram elementos que permitiram problematizar em vários aspectos a organização capitalista do trabalho e, por meio de uma crítica prática, como sugere Rebón (2007), propiciaram a reflexão sobre a possibilidade de superação do modelo hegemônico, que não passa apenas pela inovação no interior das organizações, mas também da relação dessas empresas com seus territórios.Palavras-chave: empresas recuperadas por trabalhadores; organização do trabalho; autogestão; estudos organizacionais críticos. Abstract: This article is the result of a doctoral thesis which aims to identify innovations in the field of labour organization produced by the experiences of companies recovered by workers in Brazil and Argentina. The central thesis defended is that the limitations imposed by the hegemony of the capitalist mode of production do not dismiss the possibility of building new social relations of production. The five case studies and the experience with surveys of all experiences recuperated enterprises in the two countries provided information that allowed questioning in several respects the capitalist organization of work and, through a critical practice, as suggested Rebón (2007), propitiated reflection on the possibility of overcoming the hegemonic model, it is not only about innovation within organizations, but also the relationship of these companies with their territories. Keywords: companies recovered by workers; work organization; workers self-management; critical management studies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105150
Author(s):  
Lin Xie ◽  
Yanjuan Li ◽  
Wenjie Ge ◽  
Ze Lin ◽  
Bingyu Xing ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Jennifer H. Gao

The relationship between organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) and leadership behavior (Monitor, Producer, Consideration for Others, and Trust in Others) and burnout (Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Accomplishment) were explored and discussed in this chapter. Data were collected from 341 Chinese manufacturing workers in Southern China. Results revealed that organizational socialization was highly and negatively correlated with Emotional Exhaustion, but highly and positively with Personal Accomplishment. Monitor, Consideration, and Trust were highly and negatively correlated with Emotional Exhaustion, but all the four leadership behaviors were highly and positively correlated with Personal Accomplishment. Regression revealed Training and Monitor to be significant predictors of Emotional Exhaustion, and Understanding, Coworker Support, and Trust explained significant variance of Personal Accomplishment. Management implications are discussed, and future research is indicated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-78
Author(s):  
Lina Qian ◽  
Haiquan Huang

Abstract Teacher identity formation provides a direction for the development of autonomy (Huang & Benson, 2013). However, the process of identity formation is complex and how this process influences teacher autonomy has not been sufficiently studied. To contribute to knowledge in this field, the present study investigated the relationship between teachers’ attitudes toward teacher identity and teacher autonomy. We first observed 14 Chinese College English teachers’ classroom teaching. Following that, we conducted stimulated recall interviews with all the teachers to pinpoint their autonomous practices. Finally, we conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate these teachers’ attitudes toward their identities. One of the main findings was that the teachers who held a positive attitude toward their professional identity were more autonomous in their teaching practices than those with a negative attitude. The findings invite us to conclude that teachers’ attitudes toward their professional identity are positively associated with teacher autonomy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document