BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20260705T052828EDT-6069eZogiK@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20260705T092828Z DESCRIPTION:\n\nMs. Anna-Maria Broomes\, a doctoral student at 91ºÚÁÏÍø Unive rsity in the area of Organizational Behaviour will be presenting her resea rch proposal entitled:\n\nIntegrating Bottom-Up Initiatives with Formal St ructures for Managing Job Demands\n\n \n\nThursday\, May 23\, 2024 at 1:00 pm – 3:00pm\n\nStudent Committee Chair: Professor Patricia Hewlin and Prof essor Roman Galperin\n\nPlease note that the presentation will be conducte d in person. Please let us know if you wish to attend and we will provide you with the room number.\n\n\nABSTRACT: \n\nOrganizational theory recogni zes the crucial link between managing job demands and fostering employee s uccess. These demands\, including physical\, psychological\, and social pr essures\, can significantly hinder employee performance. Most frameworks a cknowledge that job demands\, while potentially motivating\, can induce st ress and harm both individual workers and overall organizational effective ness. This dissertation explores how proactive employee initiatives can in teract with formal structures to address job demands over time\, offering novel mechanisms to theories of job demands and change\, which often empha size isolated bottom-up or top-down approaches.\n\nIn the first paper\, I address challenges of studying bottom-up change\, such as limited time fra mes and restricted access to employee communications. To overcome these ch allenges\, I propose a unique data source in social science: formal grieva nce texts. These grievances\, spanning over 2500 entries across six years\ , highlight issues such as unfair scheduling\, inadequate safety measures\ , and interpersonal conflict. They provide valuable context for understand ing the real-world complexities of job demands. More specifically\, I use the empirical context of the maritime industry and longshore work to infor m theory development. The study of job demands is especially critical in g lobal shipping\, where longshore workers undertake strenuous and dangerous tasks to load and unload cargo. Frequent and economically debilitating lo ngshore worker strikes across North America highlight an urgent need to fo refront these workers in organizational studies. Through the inductive ana lysis of grievances filed across two collective bargaining cycles and two major strikes\, I explore how seemingly routine challenges to working cond itions may accumulate and transform over time. Triangulating the grievance data with the analysis of organizational policies\, public statements\, n ews articles\, and legislative changes\, I propose that this accumulation can shape employee perceptions of job demands\, foster disruptive workplac e experiences\, and ultimately influence broader organizational processes and future job demands.\n\nIn the second paper\, I take a different approa ch to theorizing about the management of job demands. Ambiguity surroundin g work expectations and job demands can lead to costly implications for or ganizations. Yet theories of job demands often overlook the role of formal contracts in clarifying these demands. To address this limitation\, I pro pose the analysis of textual similarities between collective bargaining ag reements and worker grievances to identify discrepancies between formal st ructures and complaints about job demands. I examine the longshore workers ’ grievance filings to compare how similar these grievances are to each ot her (grievance alignment)\, and the formal contract (contract alignment). I develop novel propositions that categorize different combinations of the se alignment scores (e.g.\, low grievance alignment and high contract alig nment). These configurations capture the interplay between contract clarit y and shared understandings among employees\, reflecting contract efficien cy. I use word embeddings and cosine similarity to construct these alignme nt scores and investigate the relationship between changes to the formal c ontract and variation in alignment configurations. I also validate my meas ures on the formal grievances of checkers\, an occupation working alongsid e longshore workers to verify ship cargo. Analyzing grievance texts throug h this lens offers a unique window into the interplay between formal and i nformal expectations. This approach advances theorizing on contract interp retation and implementation by highlighting types of disconnect between co dified terms and workers' lived experiences.\n DTSTART:20240523T170000Z DTEND:20240523T190000Z SUMMARY:PhD Research Proposal Presentation: Anna-Maria Broomes URL:/desautels/channels/event/phd-research-proposal-pr esentation-anna-maria-broomes-357380 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR