http://hdl.handle.net/11089/45875 2026-04-17T16:43:28Z 2026-04-17T16:43:28Z Pilch, Szymon http://hdl.handle.net/11089/45928 2023-02-14T02:39:13Z 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

A Career in IT? The Meanings of a Career at Business Process Outsourcing Centers in Poland from a Biographical Perspective Pilch, Szymon The paper reconstructs the ways of attributing meanings to IT specialists’ careers at BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) centers in Poland. The findings rely on empirical data, collected through autobiographical narrative interviews. The technique of analysis applied in the study was inspired by grounded theory methodology and allowed for the identification of a basic social process at the analytical stage, namely, “career planning.” On the one hand, the analysis also showed how IT specialists’ careers are given meanings concerning career planning; there seem to be three main ways of understanding one’s career in IT: (1) in terms of reaching economic and social stability, (2) as a transition period in a career as an IT specialist, (3) with regard to becoming an expert in IT. On the other hand, the second axis of analysis has been conceptualized, which is comprised of other subjective and objective elements that may shape career planning. These include the biographical experiences of work, the context of the Polish BPO industry, and career planning resources. Furthermore, a typology consisting of three ways of attributing meanings to IT specialists’ careers at BPO centers has been put forward and analyzed.

2023-01-31T00:00:00Z Ngcwangu, Siphelo http://hdl.handle.net/11089/45929 2023-02-14T02:39:10Z 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

Skill and Deskilling in Two Automotive Assembly Plants in South Africa Ngcwangu, Siphelo This article presents research on skills development and workplace change complexities within two automotive assembly plants in Pretoria, South Africa. Auto assembly companies are also termed Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Since 1995, South African OEMs have become fully integrated into the global networks of their foreign parent companies. As South Africa’s leading manufacturing sector, the automotive industry’s increasing importance is reflected in its exports, investments, and contribution to the country’s gross domestic product. The two companies are global multinationals situated in one of South Africa’s most globally integrated sectors that have undergone significant mechanization and automation since the 1990s. Therefore, these companies present a relevant site for studying changes in the labor process and the tendencies of deskilling in these workplace environments.The research is based on a qualitative research design that used semi-structured interviews with workers, supervisors, and managers across two plants that assemble motor vehicles in South Africa. The objective of the research was to understand the nature of changes to workplace production methods that influence the character of skills amongst the workforce. This paper studies workers’ experiences on how changes in work processes have impacted their work skills and contributed to the processes of deskilling. Present studies of skills in South Africa have prioritized large-scale labor market aggregate data analysis or reforms in education and training policies of the state. This paper brings a perspective on the labor process changes that are informed by concrete analysis of the production process and how technological changes shape the character of skills formation within automotive assembly plants. The value of such an approach is that it brings to the discussion of technology and workplace change a more specific set of experiences that transcends the often speculative and mythical discussion about the impact of technology on work. This article highlights the importance of understanding workers’ voices, shift supervisors, and managers on the contested nature of skills development within capitalist enterprises. The findings illustrate the contradictory nature of technological change and skills development. This is shown by discussing the following themes that emerged from the findings: 1) worker responses to the introduction of robots in the workplace environment, 2) the deskilling challenge on the two plants, and 3) grappling with the turnover times of capitalist production. I conclude the paper by revisiting the key findings of the research and showing the implications for future studies of deskilling in contemporary capitalist enterprises. The significance of these findings ultimately points to the importance of locating labor processes and deskilling in the context of the political economy of the capitalist mode of production and how it is reshaping the content of work in modern automotive assembly plants.

2023-01-31T00:00:00Z Galia, Riki http://hdl.handle.net/11089/45927 2023-02-14T02:39:11Z 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

Contested Discursive Framing of a Bank’s Cooptative Joint CSR Model Galia, Riki There is a dearth of critical ethnographic research that focuses on the semiotic-discursive features of corporate social responsibility (CSR) framing in business and nonprofit (BUS-NPO) partnerships. This article contributes to CSR scholarship by combining ethnographic methods (participant observation, in-depth interviews, and textual materials) and semiotic analysis to demonstrate how a bank-NPO partnership is discursively framed in the context of agonistic interactions and its implications in terms of cooptation.This article crystallizes two arguments. First, the bank’s joint CSR initiatives represent a discursively framed and validated model of CSR as a commodity aiming at advancing bank interests at the cost of avoiding substantive and sustained social responsibility. Second, the joint CSR model, discursively framed as a cooptative partnership discourse, is effectively realized through the practices of the cooptative relationship between the bank and the NPOs.

2023-01-31T00:00:00Z Bielska, Beata Wójtewicz, Anna Mańkowska, Katarzyna http://hdl.handle.net/11089/45926 2023-02-14T02:39:07Z 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

Experiences of Living with Fat Bodies with Stigma in Poland. An Intersectional Analysis Based on Biographical Interviews Bielska, Beata; Wójtewicz, Anna; Mańkowska, Katarzyna The article offers an analysis of living with a fat body and ways of experiencing it in everyday life in the context of stigmatization of this type of corporality. Biographical interviews with fat people of varying socio-demographic profiles were conducted. The analyses show that having a fat body/being fat is generally a stigma that discredits the individual in the eyes of the so-called normals based on both physical characteristics and character traits allegedly associated with fatness. The participants mainly medicalize and internalize the stigma of fatness and manage it specifically by passing, covering, and coming out. In transgender people, fatness may never take on the characteristics of a stigma, but instead allows the individual to obscure another stigma or conform to social expectations of appearance in line with the gender identity.

2023-01-31T00:00:00Z