The roles played by managers in exercising workplace discipline have been of long‐standing academic interest. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the way that the distinctive functions of operational managers and HR practitioners may interact and shape the nature and outcomes of disciplinary procedures and processes. This article examines this through a series of organisational case studies. It suggests that dimensions of control between operational managers and HR practitioners are fundamental to understanding the nature of workplace discipline. Furthermore, it argues that this relationship is crucial in determining the prospects for a shift towards greater flexibility in the management of discipline, as called for by Gibbons and reinforced by the Employment Act 2008. Therefore, findings suggest that questions of managerial preparedness to embrace this new agenda must also consider the role played by HR practitioners in embedding a culture of formality.
This paper addresses the issues involved in the management of professional employees through an examination of the management of professional engineers in a sample of electronics companies. It is argued that a measure of evaluation and control is secured through the development of organisational positions which combine elements of both technical and managerial work and through the operation of personalised systems of reward. The potentially demotivating effects of hierarchical structures of control are moderated by forms of work organisation which blur the distinction between employees and management, and by the development of managerial philosophies which stress a commonality of identity uniting those at different levels of the organisational hierarchy. The development of such philosophies is related to the nature of professional organisation within engineering and to the male-dominated nature of the work environment. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the applicability of this analysis to the study of the management of professional employees more generally.
Occupational cancer research methods was identified in 1996 as 1 of 21 priority research areas in the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). To implement NORA, teams of experts from various sectors were formed and given the charge to further define research needs and develop strategies to enhance or augment research in each priority area. This article is a product of that process. Focus on occupational cancer research methods is important both because occupational factors play a significant role in a number of cancers, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality, and also because occupational cohorts (because of higher exposure levels) often provide unique opportunities to evaluate health effects of environmental toxicants and understand the carcinogenic process in humans. Despite an explosion of new methods for cancer research in general, these have not been widely applied to occupational cancer research. In this article we identify needs and gaps in occupational cancer research methods in four broad areas: identification of occupational carcinogens, design of epidemiologic studies, risk assessment, and primary and secondary prevention. Progress in occupational cancer will require interdisciplinary research involving epidemiologists, industrial hygienists, toxicologists, and molecular biologists.
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