Management and Marketing - Doctoral Theses
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Item Working relationships in family business: a psychological contract theory perspective(University College Cork, 2024) O'Leary, Olivia; Murphy, Linda; Sherman, Ultan; Duggan, JamesFamily businesses have long been recognised as pillars of economies worldwide, with Ireland boasting a rich history of such enterprises dating back centuries. Despite their prevalence, the distinct characteristics of family businesses present challenges, with their unique dynamics and working relationships often shaping their success or failure. Drawing upon psychological contract theory, this study investigates the formation and content dimensions of psychological contracts among family and non-family employees in family businesses. By comparing and contrasting these perspectives, this study uncovers the underlying processes and implications for the working relationship within family businesses. Conducted through an exploratory qualitative study with four independent family-owned retailers in Ireland, the study revealed distinct patterns in the formation of the psychological contract and illustrated that both family and non-family employees’ psychological contract formation is influenced by critical factors such as pre-entry and post-entry episodes, information sources, and agency relationships. However, family members have a protracted psychological contract formation process rooted in early organic experiences through their family membership. Non-family employees experience psychological formation through recruitment and standardised organisational entry processes. The research uncovers distinctive terms in the psychological contract with family employees, often emphasising familial obligations and legacy preservation, while non-family employees prioritise career development and stable employment. Both family and non-family employees feel obligated to the community in which the business operates. These findings shed light on the unique dynamics at play within family businesses, highlighting the importance of understanding and addressing the diverse needs and expectations of employees. This study contributes to both psychological contract theory and the unique context of family businesses. Furthermore, this thesis deepens our understanding of psychological contract theory by introducing novel concepts such as dormant psychological contracts and the influence of family relationships on employment arrangements. It advances psychological contract theory by demonstrating how early experiences shape working relationships in family businesses. It contributes to the family business domain by illuminating the role of HRM processes and co-workers in constructing psychological contracts in working relationships. Practically, this research offers valuable insights for organisational leaders and HR practitioners in managing working relationships within family businesses. By recognising and addressing the distinct dimensions of psychological contracts, family businesses can build positive employee-organisation relationships, enhance employee engagement, and ultimately improve organisational outcomes. Overall, this thesis comprehensively explores the formation of psychological contracts in family businesses, offering theoretical contributions and practical implications for organisational practice.Item The reasons for staying when so many depart: an exploratory study of junior hospital doctors’ intentions to stay in Ireland(University College Cork, 2024) Seathu Raman, Siva Shaangari; McDonnell, Anthony; Beck, Matthias; Irish Research CouncilVoluntary turnover continues to be a significant issue impacting the ability of the Irish healthcare system to provide the necessary level of care to its citizens. Junior hospital doctors are at the bedrock of hospital care, but Ireland has a substantial issue with the numbers departing to other countries. Much research has focused on why hospital doctors are leaving in such large numbers with poor working conditions being amongst the most cited reasons for this. Using a qualitative methodology involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews with more than 30 junior public hospital doctors, this thesis addresses two interrelated research questions. First, why do some junior hospital doctors intend to stay in their roles despite the prevalent challenges and poor working conditions which cause many to leave? Second, did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the working and personal lives/experiences of doctors and their intention to stay, and if so how? Addressing these questions are important through enabling a move away from the somewhat narrow focus in the literature on turnover (i.e. why doctors leave) by providing a more enriching and holistic perspective through focusing on intentions to stay . This additional perspective has become more commonplace in the broader employee turnover literature but has received little consideration in the healthcare literature and context. Job embeddedness theory is employed to unpack the organisational (on-the-job) and community (off-the-job) factors that influence doctors’ intentions to stay in their jobs. The study illustrates the crucial role of community embeddedness, which arises from doctors’ fit and links, and their reluctance to sacrifice connections, with family, social networks, culture, lifestyle, and the local community. In other words, non-work factors are especially critical in why these doctors remain working in Ireland. This study also provides empirical data on the lived experience of junior hospital doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it offers rich accounts and narratives of the positive and challenging impacts that these critical workers were faced with regarding work and non-work practices and how these were influencing their intention to stay. This thesis demonstrates the value of applying job embeddedness theory in the healthcare field and in helping us understand junior hospital doctor retention through illustrating the important, yet different, roles that organisational and community embeddedness play in retaining doctors. While the study adds to the existing calls for greater investment in staffing, improved working conditions, and more consistent implementation of HRM practices, the argument is also made for a more proactive approach to assisting doctors, especially those from other countries, in becoming embedded in their communities to improve their intentions to say, and as result aid organisational retention. While we find strong levels of embeddedness amongst many doctors, this is entirely left to individuals themselves rather than there being any assistance offered.Item Nurturing blue growth: enabling sustainable development of emerging marine sectors(University College Cork, 2024) Giannoumis, Jessica; Wheeler, Andrew; Dooley, Lawrence; Cummins, ValerieCurrent marine resource exploitation practices and management are unsustainable as resource degradation is ongoing and coastal regions struggle to realise sustainable development of marine resources. The key topic of this research is expanding knowledge on the reconciliation of environmental and economic models regarding the sustainable development of marine resources through the EU-introduced concept of blue growth. In the context of this research, blue growth refers to the sustainable development of marine resources, generating livelihoods, and securing well-being from innovation in emerging marine sectors. Blue growth development attracted interest across Europe and beyond, as the utilisation of marine resources is viewed as an opportunity to meet climate change obligations, enable a transition away from finite resources, and creating employment opportunities, thereby enabling long-term regional economic development. Blue growth development initially focused on the development of five emerging marine sectors with economic growth potential including coastal tourism, aquaculture, ocean renewable energy including offshore wind development, seabed mining, and marine biotechnology. Yet, EU coastal regions struggle with the realisation of blue growth as they received limited guidance from the European Commission on what blue growth is and what successful blue growth development looks like. This highlights a need to investigate what nurtures blue growth to enable coastal regions to realise their blue growth potential. This qualitative and interdisciplinary research focuses on the potential of blue growth in coastal regions focusing on the development of emerging marine sectors. In the context of this research, a region refers to coastal regions with common economic activities and characteristics, such as access to regionally specific marine resources, and common administrative characteristics such as specific political and governmental functions, e.g., regional economic development policies. Within the scope of this research, emerging sectors refer to rapidly growing industries utilising innovative technologies to enable sustainable development of regions, job creation, and technological advancement. This research investigates the manifestation and effectiveness of an EU intervention, the ProtoAtlantic project which includes regions of Orkney (SCT), Cork (IRE), Brest (FR), Porto (PT), and Las Palmas (SP) and two in-depth cases in Norway and Scotland. ProtoAtlantic was a Interreg Atlantic Area project, initially funded from November 2017 to October 2020, due to Covid-19, the project was extended to October 2021. The study harnessed an opportunity to engage with a wide range of multiple stakeholders representing stakeholders from government, industry, and academia. Data collection from the ProtoAtlantic cases included extensive desktop research and policy analysis of marine and generic development strategies in each case, analysis of regional blue growth stakeholder workshops which were carried out in each region, as well as analysis of additional material provided through the ProtoAtlantic project such as the outcomes of the ProtoAtlantic accelerator programme, and semi-structured interviews with nine regional stakeholders. The two deep dive cases included the offshore wind sector development around the DeepWind cluster in Scotland and the Norwegian aquaculture sector. Data collection from the in-depth cases included extensive desktop research and policy analysis of marine development strategies with particular focus on offshore wind development in Scotland and aquaculture development in Norway, in addition to 32 semi-structured interviews. To date, limited scientific attention has been paid to blue growth realisation from a marine governance perspective. Even less research has been undertaken to understand blue growth development from a business perspective. The research aim was to expand on how economic opportunities can catalyse sustainable development in a marine context. By achieving economic sustainability, coastal communities may consequently be in a better position to achieve environmental and social sustainability. The findings of this research address this research gap and provide practical contributions on how decisionmakers in coastal regions can nurture and realise their regional blue growth potential. In-depth analysis found that blue growth requires a systems approach which enables the integration of blue growth antecedents, this has been lacking from current marine management approaches. Furthermore, the study found that economic development approaches to marine resource management can secure well-being of coastal communities and ensure sustainable practices to marine resource utilisation. This research offers a modification of Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems framework, the expansions of the framework provide insight into collective action, the role of technology development, and the need for bespoke regional approaches to identify and realise blue growth. This research examines the role of regional stakeholders, the need for entrepreneurial activity and clustering activities in driving blue growth development and offers recommendations for policymakers and decisionmakers in coastal regions to nurture blue growth adoption and development. This research also presents a Practitioner’s Guide to Blue Growth which offers relevant questions to enable practitioners and intermediaries in the identification and realisation of their regional blue growth potential.Item From a constitutional ban to reproductive justice? Trans/formations of past and present abortion governance in Ireland(University College Cork, 2023) Waltz, Charlotte; Leane, Máire; O'Riordan, Jacqui; Irish Research Council; Cultuurfonds; VSBFonds; Hendrik MullerfondsFollowing the Repeal of the constitutional ban on abortion in May 2018, abortion care in Ireland was implemented on 1 January 2019. Under the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, abortion is now legally available during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, in later cases where the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk, and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. Abortion provision remains criminalised for medical practitioners outside of those parameters. The legal, cultural, social, and political shift in governance after the repeal of the constitutional ban provides fertile ground to move away from moral understandings of abortion and to explore abortion care as policy, practice and lived experience for both service user and provider. This thesis examines the emergence of abortion care practices and norms under the transformed post-Repeal governance framework from 2019 to 2021, the period which is subject to the Government Review of the Health Act 2018. Drawing on existing publicly available information and ethnographic fiction, this thesis unpacks how abortion governance is put into practice and how this shapes service users' and providers’ engagement with abortion care in Ireland. It critically examines how governance under the new legal context in Ireland is translated into the provision of abortion care, which systemic inequities and contexts shape access and provision, and evaluates to what extent abortion governance has moved towards reproductive justice. The conceptual framework develops and employs the concepts of reproductive justice (Ross, 2017; Ross and Solinger, 2017), reproductive governance (Morgan and Roberts 2012), moral governance (Mishtal, 2015) and feminist understandings of biopower (De Zordo and Marchesi, 2015; Foucault, 1997a; 1997b; 1995; 1990). Together they combine to enable a situated reading of past and present abortion governance in Ireland and inform the entire research process. Abortion governance is historically contextualised through a reproductive justice frame and different ways of knowing and experiencing abortion care are foregrounded throughout the thesis. The methodological approach develops and deploys creative feminist and reproductive justice methods (Davis and Craven, 2016; Günel, Varma and Watanabe, 2020; Ross and Solinger, 2017). The methodology incorporates a reflexive and creative writing approach which seeks to capture embodied experiences with abortion care (Ingridsdotter and Kallenberg, 2018). Ethno-fictional vignettes provide the means to illustrate embodied experiences of service users and providers that can be difficult for more dominant academic approaches to capture, and to critically appraise the first three years of abortion care provision from a reproductive justice perspective. As such, this thesis presents a new way of analysing and understanding contemporary abortion care in Ireland. The research identifies four main post-Repeal governance mechanisms: the legal framework under the Health Act 2018, controlling of information and maintaining a culture of secrecy, framing of abortion as exceptional, and exclusionary and delaying processes of governance change. These mechanisms demonstrate central continuities between pre- and post-Repeal abortion governance, despite the transformative moment of the Repeal referendum in 2018. The legalisation of abortion does not guarantee an expansion of considerations of embodied experiences with care, nor does it significantly transform moral governance mechanisms of the past. The ethno-fictional vignettes give voice and visibility to often hidden experiences of abortion service provision and use. This unique approach to conducting research on abortion provision in Ireland reveals that abortion access and provision continue to be problematic and inequitable and highlights how lived engagements with care are intricately tied up with governance. This thesis thus shows that post-Repeal abortion governance in Ireland does not reflect reproductive justice and, moreover, impedes further transformations towards it.Item An investigation into how team resilience emerges in work(University College Cork, 2022) Dillon, Lorraine; O'Brien, Elaine; Sherman, Ultan; Leka, Stavroula; University College CorkTeam resilience in the workplace has emerged as a significant topic of debate among organisational scholars. Team resilience is the ability of a team to positively adapt when faced with adversity. The aim of this research is to explore how team resilience emerges at work. This thesis combines two theoretical perspectives namely the job demands-resources theory and high-quality connections theory to explore the unique features of team resilience. Adopting a mixed methods approach, phase one consists of an online survey with 102 participants from the services and educational sector. Phase two draws on semi-structured interviews with 23 higher educational workers to explore their lived experiences of resilience within their teams specifically during Covid-19. Findings illustrate that while job demands predominately hinder the emergence of team resilience as they can be viewed as stressors, job resources have the opposite effect as they can be considered motivational. Findings also indicate that the quality of relationships play a major role in how team resilience emerges. This research articulates many contributions. Theoretically, this study brings together the job demands-resources and high-quality connections theory to explore how team resilience emerges. In doing so enables us to understand the individual and team level factors that impact team resilience and how these levels work together. Empirically, this thesis provides novel insights into the impact of Covid-19 on team resilience. Practically, this research calls attention to those factors that facilitate and inhibit the emergence of team resilience which holds particular relevance to organisations given ongoing efforts to develop resilience in workplaces in turbulent times.