Doctoral Dissertation Research: Making a Living at Making a Difference - Oppositional Consciousness and Collective Identity in Employees of Nonprofit Social Service Organizations

博士生雷切尔·赖特(雪城大学)将在约翰·S·伯迪克博士的指导下，研究美国非营利组织员工中的新形式的对立意识。非营利组织是美国经济中规模最大、增长最快的部门之一。尽管非营利组织的类型差异很大，但该项目专门针对提供社会服务的非营利组织，有效地填补了自由市场中政府管理的社会福利计划和营利性服务之间的差距。作为劳资关系关键紧张的场所，这些组织被广泛视为无私和有弹性的员工的避风港，但它们却是工作场所不平等日益加剧的地方。这组非营利组织提供了一个理想的场所，用于研究如何调用和部署文化来阻止工会和其他形式的反对行动，但它们也提供了一个机会，以掌握可能导致反对意识的过程。研究将在田纳西州的孟菲斯进行，为期12个月。研究人员将通过公布的名单，对非营利性服务组织中的项目主管、经理和协调员进行分层随机抽样。她还将通过半结构化访谈和服务组织活动中的参与者观察来收集数据。这项研究的发现将有助于社会科学关于工作和劳动的理论，扩大人种学领域，将非工会形式的抵抗包括在内，并将重点放在一群有新型不满的工人身上，这些人到目前为止一直没有得到研究。这项研究也是及时的，因为最近的社会、人口和经济变化扩大了对非营利组织提供的许多服务的需求。在需求增加的同时，工作人员更替、效率和与客户的合法性等挑战也影响了工作环境和服务质量。这项研究还将为研究生的教育提供支持。

Doctoral student Rachel Wright (Syracuse University), supervised by Dr. John S. Burdick, will investigate new forms of oppositional consciousness among employees of nonprofit organizations in the United States. Nonprofit organizations are one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the American economy. Although types of nonprofits vary widely, this project focuses specifically on nonprofit organizations that provide social services, effectively filling the gap between government-administered social welfare programs and for-profit services in the free market. A site of a key tension in labor relations, these organizations are widely viewed as a haven for selfless and resilient employees, yet they are places of growing workplace inequality. This group of nonprofit organizations provides an ideal site for investigating the ways culture can be invoked and deployed to inhibit unionization and other forms of oppositional action, but they also provide an opportunity to grasp the processes that may lead to oppositional consciousness.The research will be carried out in Memphis, Tennessee, over a twelve-month period. The researcher will interview a stratified random sample of program directors, managers, and coordinators in non-profit service organizations, as identified through published lists. She also will collect data through semi-structured interviews and participant observation in service organization activities. Findings from this research will contribute to social science theory on work and labor by widening the ethnographic field to include non-union forms of resistance and by focusing on a group of workers with new types of grievances that have until now escaped study. This research is also timely in that recent social, demographic, and economic shifts have expanded the demand for many of the services that nonprofits provide. This increased demand has coincided with challenges such as staff turnover, effectiveness, and legitimacy with clientele that affect the work environment and the quality of services. The research will also support the education of a graduate student.