Töötajate arusaamad oma rollist ja töökoha kui organisatsiooni representatsioon Integratsiooni Sihtasutuse näitel
Date
2009
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
The subject of the Master's thesis: The Employees' Understanding of their Role and the
Representation of a Job as an Organisation based on the example of the Integration
Foundation
In the given paper the author's main subject of inquiry was the answer to the question „What
is the employees' of the Integration Foundation personal role awareness like (i.e. The
understanding and expectations concerning the goals and content of their work, satisfaction
and motivation) in the context of the organisation and how is this connected to their
understanding of the role of the organisation in the society?“ through two main aspects.
The first aspect is the individuals' relation to structure or the job, which is based on the
typology by the English culturologist Margareth Archer, where she divides people into meta-,
autonomous and community reflexive and simply passive categories. According to her
metareflexive people are rather orientated towards reaching a higher cultural ideal,
autonomous reflexives wish to promote their own personal career and community reflexives
devote mostly to their home and friends and what happens at work is not so relevant for them.
Passive and the type that do not have an active attitude towards the goals of their life and
things just happen to them.
Secondly, as a basis of study the author used the organisation theories referenced in Maaja
Vadi's research and tied them to Archer's typology.
In order to perfect the theory of organisation the author looked at Garreth Morgan's
organisation metaphors, which helped characterise the contradictory roles in the Integration
Foundation. Mostly the mechanistic and „brain“ type of holographic organization were
focused on and as well were tied to Archer's typology.
The empirical material for the study was gathered by internal communication audit and later
qualitative research (focus group and in-depth interview). In addition, in some cases the
results of the external communication audit were taken into consideration.
When introducing the Integration Foundation the author analysed its goals, vision, mission,
structure and values and discovered that in belonging to several sector at a time this
organisation is most similar to the quasi-NGO (QANGO) disquisition which most common in
England. This kind of organisations in form belong to the non-profit sector, but in reality are
governed by the state and in the boards of such organisations are mostly politicians.
After that the author analysed in opposition pairs the empirical data by incorporating the
recipients' answers in the qualitative study with other studies carried out in the foundation.
Towards the end patterns of sensing a work position at the Integration Foundation were
formed where a table to be analysed was created by tables of thematic opposition pairs
according to which end of the scale the employees were placed in preceding research. 4
clearly distinct groups formed. Firstly groups A and B, who viewed the foundation as fundcentred
(group B was separate because people who belonged in this group accepted this role
of a formal cash machine). Secondly groups C and D, to whom the foundation was rather
politics-centred (group D was distinct because of a clearer sense of being a team). Thirdly
group E, which viewed the foundation as competence-centred and finally group F, to which
the Integration Foundation was a formal place of work, the role of which is not important.
From the viewpoint of independence and political influence the most important conclusion
was that those who feel a stronger political influence have, according to their own words, less
freedom and liberty of choice. This kind of situation is very negative to the metareflexive
type, but the community and autonomous type are rather more content with the foundation's
role as in reality still an agent of the government. Towards political influence and
independence group A was critical, group B more acquiescent, groups C and D understanding
and supportive.
The metareflexive type in particular connected their own motivation with the ability to say
their say in the matters. The main conclusion from the internal audit was that in the
foundation people's opinion is seldom asked, even less do employees share their opinions and
even less are their opinions taken into consideration. At the same time motivation to continue
working at the foundation was very low. A clear connection formed between these two
conclusions, which allows the author to propose that the more employees are fitted in, the
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more motivated they feel. The least motivated were people belonging to group A and the most
people belonging to group E.
From the responses also became clear what motivates and keeps the employees working in the
foundation. For most the most important and primary thing was great colleagues. A little
fewer respondents valued the work. The most common reason for talking about work in that
case was complaining about its volume and intensity. It was then possible for the author to
divide the people who considered work the most important as autonomous reflexive and those
valuing people the most as community reflexive. Group D valued colleagues the most and
group E talked about work the most.
The liveliest discussion was brought about by the question about the employees' vision of
their role (content experts vs bureaucrats) and the role of the Integration Foundation in the
society (a mechanistic organisation orientated towards giving out money vs a competence
centre bearing the metaphor of a network creating „brain“). There was no clear sign of only
the content experts thinking of the foundation as a competence centre and the bureaucrats as a
money machine in the study, but the content experts had more expectations that the
foundation should be more of a competence centre and less a mechanic money machine. It
appears that especially the metareflexive type was discontent with their role as a bureaucrat
and the foundation as a money machine. The bureaucrats, who were in the majority, viewed
the foundation more as both a money machine and a competence centre, but they seemed
more acquiescent with the current situation. The respondents were categorised according to
Archer's typology in a way that the bureaucrats remained more in the autonomous reflexive
category and the content experts in the metareflexive.
When talking about the change in time, the recipients saw the foundation in the past as more
of a small and a „brain“ type of organisation, where they were able to deal with the content
more and for the future there was also the expectation of having more to do with content.
In the study was also included the change of employees' understanding of their job position in
case of a change in their job title. Those who preferred the name of a project manager also
valued more the role of taking the lead and responsibility and those who wished to be content
experts preferred the title of a coordinator. Quite a big proportion of the respondents were
neutral in this matter. In the light of Archer's typology the author divided the coordinators as
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metareflexive, project managers as autonomous reflexives and the people who did not care
about their title as community reflexive.
In conclusion the author concludes that taking into consideration the controversial role of the
Integration Foundation more attention should be paid to the groups with different needs.
Among the Integration Foundation workers there is no common or dominating view of its
goals and content and the purpose of its organisation communication should be the unification
of the opposition between all the different views and integration of the different standpoints.
In addition, the author considers it important that in the mission, vision and goals of the
Integration Foundation the declared role would seem real for the employees, that work force
would be used more thoughtfully, that the motivation system, cooperation with the employees
and support services would be developed towards creating a competence centre, i.e. using
Morgan's metaphors a „brain“-type organisation.
Keywords
magistritööd