Browsing by Author "Hope-Hailey, Veronica"

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    Dilemma theory: towards a conceptual framework for intercultural management teams
    (2003-02) Besso-Cowan, Jonathan Michael; Hampden-Turner, Charles; Hope-Hailey, Veronica
    The primary contribution of this thesis is to extend the application of dilemma theory from the study of individuals, to the study of what actually happens, at the level of intercultural encounter in small groups of managers. The thesis makes additional conceptual contributions to the domains of culture, small groups and trust. This thesis explores what insights may be gained from applying dilemma theory to intercultural team dynamics. It adopts a phenomenological perspective, specifically drawing on Hampden-Tumer’s dilemma theory and Levinas’ philosophy of ethical hermeneutics. The thesis explores the conceptual derivation of dilemma theory. It explores the concepts of the virtuous circle, spiralling towards resolution (Bateson’s ‘pattern which connects’) and the alternative vicious circle, exhibiting increasing instability until splitting occurs. An alternative derivation of dilemma theory from Halacha (‘The Way’ of Jewish Law) which guides this author, is suggested. The thesis applies primarily qualitative methods of data collection to an intense study of small intercultural group processes over time. Data was obtained from two culturally diverse teams of six people, by hermeneutic analysis of semi-structured interviews, transcripts of audiotaped team discussions and the teams’ collective written descriptions of their progress. Triangulation of these three methods can be considered as a hermeneutic variant of dilemma methodology allowing the patterns of interactions in the teams, arising out of the interactions of values and their resolution or otherwise, to be measured and team process dynamics to be described. The results were supported by the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, which allows for resolution. The more cohesive group showed a tendency to dilemma resolution and embracing diversity. The other group worried about diversity, ignored the concerns of the most obviously ‘other’ team member, was distressed and almost fragmented, showing a lesser ability to resolve dilemmas and a tendency to splitting. This thesis concludes that there is a general ability to resolve dilemmas in cohesive teams which value diversity and a lesser ability in teams, which suffer from considerable disharmony. If a team is considered as a fractal of a larger society, the contribution may have relevance to all forms of diversity.
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    The Emotions of Management and the Management of Emotions: A Case Study of Middle Managers in a Change Context
    (Cranfield University, 2006-03) Moore, Caroline; Hope-Hailey, Veronica
    The over-rational portrayal of middle managers has the intended or unintended consequence of masking and marginalising the emotional dimension demanded in this role. This research critically examines emotion at work, exploring how it is shaped and bound up with concepts such as control, power and fear. The framework used particularly focuses on both the emotions of control, and the control of emotions, which gives empirical support to the critique of over-rational views of management work. This research takes place longitudinally within an engineering company who have recently downsized by 50%, in a community which is tightly knit and lacks alternative employment opportunities. The overriding narrative of `site survival' is the key local discourse used, and this is explored through several discursive themes in evidence on site. This study explores how managerial emotion work involves the suppression and expression of emotion on a number of levels, as managers face off to multiple allegiances, some in direct tension with each other. This study illustrates how emotions are not merely the business of the individual, but are dynamic social constructions, and argues for an emotional framework that is relational rather than entitative. Emotions, their expression and suppression, are subject to, and situated within, numerous structural factors, and managers are subsequently both constrained and enabled by their environment. Far from being powerless, it is argued that managers are able to employ a number of resistant strategies and exert a degree of personal agency to alleviate tight emotion control. It is concluded that in times of change, emotion work represents a large but invisible part of the middle manager's role, yet is unacknowledged, unsupported and unscripted. By peeping beyond the `over-rational iron cage', this study provides rich empirical accounts which enhance our understanding of the emotion work carried out by middle managers.
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    The Intra-organisational power of the Personnel Department in Higher Education in the UK
    (Cranfield University, 2004-02) Farndale, Elaine; Hope-Hailey, Veronica; Asch, Rachel
    Personnel departments in general have a poor reputation for power and influence, although little is known empirically about their position in Higher Education institutions (HEI). There are various factors in the HEI context that suggest that the department should be important but not necessarily powerful. Therefore, by applying existing theory (strategic contingencies theory) to examine the determinants of power and the perceived level of power of the department, a more detailed view of the power of the Personnel department in Higher Education (HE) can be observed. The strategic contingencies theory model proves to be a reliable approach to apply in this context, and demonstrates clearly how the Personnel department is consistently rated lower than other administrative departments on the indicator variables. However, in order to go beyond the static picture of structural power sources sketched from strategic contingencies theory, institutional theory is drawn upon to try to understand how the current situation of low power has arisen. Particular elements of the institutionalised HEI context are explored to discover their effect on both the determinants and levels of power. These elements include the historical status of institutions, eth extent of professionalism in departments, and the sophistication of use of information systems in service delivery; all factors discussed in existing institutional theory arguments. Based on 144 questionnaire responses from a total of 73 HEIs across the UK, the quantitative analyses show differences in the power of Personnel departments in institutions with different historical characteristics, however professionalism and the use of information systems do not show clear relationships with power. Further qualitative data collection from seventeen interviews with HEI senior managers highlights how professionalism in the HEI context has a much broader definition than professional qualification and identity for the Personnel department. the use of information systems is also shown to be equally primitive across institutions in the current HEI context, preventing an evaluation of sophistication of use from yielding conclusive results.
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    Reconstructing Careers: New Deals for Old: Rhetoric or Reality ?
    (Cranfield University, 2002-01) Adamson, Stephen; Hope-Hailey, Veronica
    From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s economic and technological forces created significant pressure on organisations to downsize and delayer in order to maximise asset utilisation, retain competitive advantage and, literally in some cases, survive. In the wake of these changes it seemed the classic, bureaucratic organisational career was also under threat of survival as organisations were no longer able to offer a job for life, and with it the promise of regular hierarchical progression. Thus, the 'death' of the traditional career was proclaimed. As a result, academics began to assert that we were witnessing a fundamental redefinition of the individual-organisation relationship, and that the new imperative was to re-contract with individuals, rebuild trust, and thus strike up a new deal. This talk of the demise of the career and, with it, the old, relational 'deal' began to take on the character of a universalistic truth, and by the mid-1990s academics and practitioners alike were widely announcing the arrival of 'the New Deal'. This research offers a challenge to this pervasive rhetoric. It is argued that analysis of employees' own talk on the issue at an important historical point in the new deal storyline indicates a much more contextually- specific and emergent phenomenon than the rhetoric implies. In pursuit of this broad aim, the research takes a contextualist-interpretivist, theory- generating approach. More specifically, from the perspective of Social Constructionism it is argued that we can only talk of the emergence of new deals when such deals are part of employees' daily realities, as evinced by their talk about careers. The foundation of the research is twenty four semi-structured interviews, coupled with in-depth analyses of the two case study organisations in which this data were generated: the Bank of England and IBM (UK) Limited. Discourse Analysis represents the theoretic al/methodological lens through which the data are analysed, and thus the actual talk of subjects in each case study organisation is presented in order to consider the organisation and function of their talk. The emphasis, however, is on the discourses evident in (or absent from) subjects' talk and, in particular, the vocabularies of 'new' and 'old' deals. The contributions of the research can be expressed as follows. First, by catching employees at the cusp of the change process in each of the case study organisations, the research makes a unique, processual contribution to our understanding of the apparent demise of the 'old deal' and emergence of the 'new' in two specific contexts. By examining individuals' own talk of these changes, and of the implications for their careers, it shows how their understandings were changing. Second, the research points up the distinction between linguistic elements (discourses, interpretative repertoires, vocabularies) that were context-specific, and thus culturally forined, versus those that were transcontextual and emergent in subjects' talk and which were therefore likely to be present, or continue to emerge, after the new deal had become a 'reality'. Thus, the research indicates how assumptions about careers change over the longer term and how new perspectives do and will continue to emerge. Third, the research makes a methodological contribution to the field, principally in its illustration of the application of Discourse Analysis and its ability to raise 'novel' questions for those concerned with the nature of the subjective career.