The changing locus of workplace control in the English further education sector

Abstract

This document is the submitted version of the journal article, as originally submitted to the journal prior to the peer-review process. There may be some differences between the published version and this version and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

The effect of the recession on the quality of working life of UK managers: an empirical study

“…These findings are consistent with those of authors such as Burchell et al (2002) and Felstead et al (2004). In a world where the organisational rhetoric often focuses on employee engagement (Shuck and Wollard, 2010) and empowerment (Chiles and Zorn, 1995), recent trends seem to be pushing in the opposite direction with managers feeling that their levels of task discretion are declining as performance management regimes become more pervasive and intrusive (Bowles and Cooper, 2012;Mather et al, 2009). In addition, other research we have conducted reveals that the prevailing leadership styles in UK business organisations (which are overwhelmingly seen as authoritarian, bureaucratic and reactive) are styles which do much to undermine employee engagement (Worrall and Cooper, 2013).…”

Teachers’ personal web use at work

“…The education sector is often seen as a site of managerialism ( Gleeson and Knights, 2008;Mather and Worrall, 2007) that has eroded teacher autonomy and deprofessionalised the workforce (Avis and Bathmaker, 2004;Mather, Worrall and Seifert, 2009) via the implementation of strategies of surveillance and punitive performance management. The result is work intensification (Mather, Worrall and Seifert, 2008) which leads to the boundaries between work and home life becoming ever more permeable as was evidenced in this study with the majority of respondents doing work at home, 40.07% extensively or very extensively -with increasing levels of work to do, teachers are subject to 'home invasion' (Page, 2011b), completing tasks at home in an effort to meet their responsibilities.…”

“…Henle and Blanchard (2008) characterise PWU (they use the term cyberloafing) as emotion focused coping of the escape-avoidance type, analogous to disengagement in Carver and Scheier's (1989) scale of coping strategies. Here, PWU is a response to workplace stressors and, given the demands of work intensification (Mather, Worrall and Seifert, 2009) and high levels of stress in the education sector (Court and Kinman, 2008), it is perhaps unsurprising that coping becomes a key attribute for teachers: 42.2% of respondents to this survey agreed or strongly agreed that PWU at work was a form of stress relief. However, coping as defined by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), is a transaction between the individual and the environment that is seen 'independently from its outcome' (Folkman et al, 1986, p848).…”

English Language Teaching management research in post-compulsory contexts: still ‘crawling out’?

“…Despite the creeping commercialisation and managerialism that have become integral to the administration of traditional public education in some Western jurisdictions (Mather, Worrall, and Seifert 2009), business-oriented approaches have often been adopted as unavoidable measures by institutions that, until now, have traditionally taken an educational imperative as their starting point. However, many, if not most, postcompulsory ELT institutions, by contrast, take a commercial imperative as their starting point.…”