Conceptualizing Employee Participation in Organizations

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Wilkinson ◽  
Paul J. Gollan ◽  
Mick Marchington ◽  
David Lewin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Employee Participation ◽  
Joint Decision ◽  
The Social ◽  
Union Representation ◽  
Joint Problem ◽  
Worker Cooperatives ◽  
Job Enrichment ◽  
The One ◽  
Joint Problem Solving

The concept of employee participation is common to many different discipline areas in the social sciences. The form participation takes varies considerably depending on the discipline. On the one hand, it can relate to trade union representation through joint consultative committees and collective bargaining, to worker cooperatives or to legislation designed to provide channels for employee representatives to engage in some form of joint decision making with employers. On the other hand, it can encompass myriad mechanisms that employers introduce in order to provide information to their staff or to offer them the chance to engage in joint problem-solving groups or use their skills at work via job-enrichment programmes. This article examines the dynamics of participation, illustrating how different forms have come to prominence at different periods in recent history. It looks at how these specific practices might interact with one another.

scholarly journals Nurses in action: An introduction to action research in nursing

Curationis ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
E. C. McKibbin ◽  
P. J. Castle
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Health Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Joint Problem ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Joint Problem Solving

Action Research is one of the new generation of qualitative research methods in the social sciences which has special significance for nurses in South Africa. The collaborative, participative and reflective qualities of Action Research appeal to practitioners, and lend themselves to joint problem solving activities in local contexts. This paper sets out a rationale for Action Research, then describes its features, strengths, and limitations. Ways of overcoming the latter are suggested. The paper concludes that Action Research has potential application in the field of nursing, not only for the purposes of practical problem solving, but also for improving the personal and professional practice of nurses, and for emancipating nurses from their subordinate position in the hierarchy of health science.

Defending the Difference

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Natural Entities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Methodological Difference ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

scholarly journals Peirce’s Classification of the Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-278
Author(s):  
Torjus Midtgarden
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Charles Peirce’s classification of the sciences was designed shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. The classification has two main sources of inspiration: Comte’s science classification and Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Peirce’s classification, like that of Comte, is hierarchically organised in that the more general and abstract sciences provide principles for the less general and more concrete sciences. However, Peirce includes and assigns a superordinate role to philosophical disciplines which analyse and provide logical, methodological and ontological principles for the specialised sciences, and which are based on everyday life experience. Moreover, Peirce recognises two main branches of specialised empirical science: the natural sciences, on the one hand, and the social sciences, the humanities and psychology on the other. While both branches share logical and methodological principles, they are based on different ontological principles in studying physical nature and the human mind and its products, respectively. Peirce’s most basic philosophical discipline, phenomenology, transforms his early engagement with Kant. Peirce’s classification of aesthetics, ethics and logic as normative sub-disciplines of philosophy relate to his philosophical pragmatism. Yet his more overarching division between theoretical (philosophical and specialised) sciences and practical sciences may be seen as problematic. Taking Peirce’s historical account of scientific developments into consideration, however, I argue that his science classification and its emphasis on the interdependencies between the sciences could be seen as sustaining and supporting interdisciplinarity and interaction across fields of research, even across the divide between theoretical and practical sciences.

scholarly journals Pragmatisme og "practice turn"

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Antje Gimmler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The Other ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Practices are of central relevance both to philosophical pragmatism and to the recent ‘Practice Turn’ in social sciences and philosophy. However, what counts as practices and how practices and knowledge are combined or intertwine varies in the different approaches of pragmatism and those theories that are covered by the umbrella term ‘Practice Turn’. The paper tries to show that the pragmatism of John Dewey is able to offer both a more precise and a more radical understanding of practices than the recent ‘Practice Turn’ allows for. The paper on the one hand highlights what pragmatism has to offer to the practice turn in order to clarify the notion of practice. On the other hand the paper claims that a pragmatism inspired by Dewey actually interprets ‘practices’ more radically than most of the other approaches and furthermore promotes an understanding of science that combines nonrepresentationalism and anti-foundationalism with an involvement of the philosopher or the social scientist in the production of knowledge, things and technologies.

The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (03) ◽  
pp. 616-618
Author(s):  
Diego Mazzoccone ◽  
Mariano Mosquera ◽  
Silvana Espejo ◽  
Mariana Fancio ◽  
Gabriela Gonzalez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Science Discipline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

scholarly journals Mediation Effect of Perceived Fitness on the Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Sport Practice in Spanish Adolescents

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (23) ◽  
pp. 8800
Author(s):  
Silvia Arribas-Galarraga ◽  
Izaskun Luis-de Cos ◽  
Gurutze Luis-de Cos ◽  
Saioa Urrutia-Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Psychosocial Aspects ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Adolescent Population ◽  
Sport Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

There has been a decrease in sports practices among the adolescent population, and several authors have tried to identify variables that can explain this decrease by analyzing psychosocial aspects such as perceived fitness and self-efficacy. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine the association of perceived fitness and self-efficacy with sport practices and to determine whether perceived fitness is a mediator of the association between self-efficacy and sport practice in Spanish adolescents. The sample was composed of 882 students between 13 and 17 years old from Gipuzkoa (Spain). A descriptive, correlational and direct/indirect effect approach was used, using the PROCESS macro for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Among the results obtained, it is highlighted on the one hand, that perceived fitness significantly correlates with both self-efficacy and sport practice, on the other hand, it is confirmed that perceived fitness is a mediator in the relationship between self-efficacy and sports practice. This finding highlights the importance of psychosocial aspects in efforts to increase sports practice.

In Search of the Proper Scientific Approach: Hayek's Views on Biology, Methodology, and the Nature of Economics

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Beck
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Complex Phenomena

ArgumentFriedrich August von Hayek (1899–1992) is mainly known for his defense of free-market economics and liberalism. His views on science – more specifically on the methodological differences between the physical sciences on the one hand, and evolutionary biology and the social sciences on the other – are less well known. Yet in order to understand, and properly evaluate Hayek's political position, we must look at the theory of scientific method that underpins it. Hayek believed that a basic misunderstanding of the discipline of economics and the complex phenomena with which it deals produced misconceptions concerning its method and goals, which led in turn to the adoption of dangerous policies. The objective of this article is to trace the development of Hayek's views on the nature of economics as a scientific discipline and to examine his conclusions concerning the scope of economic prediction. In doing so, I will first show that Hayek's interest in the natural sciences (especially biology), as well as his interest in epistemology, were central to his thought, dating back to his formative years. I will then emphasize the important place of historical analysis in Hayek's reflections on methodology and examine the reasons for his strong criticism of positivism and socialism. Finally, in the third and fourth sections that constitute the bulk of this article, I will show how Hayek's understanding of the data and goal of the social sciences (which he distinguished from those of the physical sciences), culminated in an analogy that sought to establish economics and evolutionary biology as exemplary complex sciences. I will challenge Hayek's interpretation of this analogy through a comparison with Darwin's views inThe Origin of Species, and thus open a door to re-evaluating the theoretical foundations of Hayek's political claims.

Beyond the Third Way: The Science of Complexity and the Politics of Choice

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Geyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Third Way ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
The One

Focusing on the work of Anthony Giddens, this article reviews his vision of the Third Way and argues that it reflects a new and fundamental ‘complexity’ shift within the social sciences. His ability to partially recognise and integrate this shift into his thinking gives the Third Way much of its power and coherence. However, his unwillingness to accept the shift's full implications and his determination to find the one new way for the left blinds him to its more contingent and complex implications. By coming to terms with the development of complexity theory in the natural and social sciences, this article will attempt to go beyond the Third Way and argue that there is not one, two or three ways, but hundreds.

scholarly journals Patterns of Workplace Innovation in Canada

2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Long
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Profit Sharing ◽  
Quality Circles ◽  
Joint Problem ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
Job Enrichment ◽  
Workplace Innovation ◽  
Joint Problem Solving ◽  
Over Time

This paper reports the results of a large-scale Canadian survey of nine types of workplace innovation — profit sharing, gain sharing, pay for knowledge, job sharing, job enrichment, semi-autonomous work groups, quality circles, labour management committees, and 'other' joint problem solving groups. The paper assesses the incidence ofeach type, patterns of implementation, survival rates, and trends over time.

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