Dirty Work and Dirtier Work: Differences in Countering Physical, Social, and Moral Stigma

Human-animal interactions, occupational health and well-being in pig slaughterhouses of Colombia: Exploring worker perceptions and practices

Public concern about global health has forced the meat industry to make technological, operational and logistical improvements, but human-animal interactions are rarely considered from an animal welfare perspective. A total of 171 workers from 12 pig slaughterhouses were interviewed about their occupational perceptions and practices affecting their health and well-being, and human-pig interactions. Ninety percent of the workers interviewed were male, between 18 and 30 years old, with high school education, < 7 years of experience, and learned their work in the slaughterhouse. In terms of human-animal interactions, we found that the nature of the tasks performed by each worker had an impact on their perceptions of pigs, particularly those involving work with live animals (outdoors) and stunning and bleeding (indoors). In addition, respondents show disapproval of cruel practices and a high level of awareness of pig pain and concern to alleviate it. However, there are neutral responses to statements that show some weakness in their feelings towards pigs. Forty per cent of respondents reported having at least one of the health problems and had suffered occupational accidents. The most common types of accidents were falls, cuts and animal aggression. These accidents were related to incorrect movements, especially in the morning, by personnel > 40 years of age, with > 7 years of experience, and the upper and/or lower extremities were most affected. Our results indicate that fatigue caused by factors such as line speed, uncoordinated operations, and risky behavior by workers, is the main cause of workplace accidents in slaughterhouses. Based on this evidence, we conclude that adjustments of work break/rest intervals and improvements of working conditions are necessary to reduce fatigue, improve safety, and enhance work efficiency.

Effect of healthcare professionals' perceived occupational stigma on organizational citizenship behavior: a moral cleansing perspective

BACKGROUND

Occupational stigmatization in Chinese healthcare institutions has intensified due to negative public events (e.g., kickbacks, bribes, and patient conflicts). While previous studies have mainly focused on the negative effects of stigma on practitioners' physiological and psychological states of practitioners with low prestige, little attention has been given to the moral psychological mechanisms involved or the potential positive outcomes. This study aims to explore the moral mechanisms of healthcare professionals' perceived occupational stigma on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), with a specific focus on the potential effects of moral credibility loss, moral sensitivity, and occupational prestige.

METHODS

This study employed a hierarchical regression method to test the theoretical model, using data from 554 healthcare professionals (including 311 physicians and 243 nurses) from 7 hospitals in China. Confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression, bootstrapping analysis (= 5000 times) and simple slope test using SPSS and AMOS were employed.

RESULTS

The empirical results demonstrate that healthcare professionals' occupational stigma enhances OCB by increasing moral credibility loss, with moral sensitivity playing a moderating role. Additionally, this study categorizes healthcare professionals into two groups based on occupational prestige: physicians (high occupational prestige) and nurses (relatively lower occupational prestige). The findings indicate that occupational prestige not only moderates the positive relationship between occupational stigma and moral credibility loss but also moderates the relationship between moral credibility loss and OCB.

CONCLUSIONS

This study comprehensively explores healthcare professionals' occupational stigma and reveals its positive moral effects, specifically in enhancing OCB through the moral cleansing perspective. These findings offer a novel understanding of occupational stigma, providing practical guidance for improving professional ethics and OCB.

Strategic In/Visibility of Turkish Egg Donors: Reproductive Labor, Secrecy, and Stigma in the Transnational Bioeconomy

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Northern Cypriot clinic, I examine how practices of secrecy function as strategic tools for invisibilization in the lived realities of Turkish egg donors engaged in an illicit, gendered, and stigmatized form of reproductive labor, both within and across national borders. Combining feminist studies of reproductive labor with an analysis of secrecy, stigma, and dirty work, I adopt a notion of secrecy as an embodied social practice to explore ethnographically how secrecy is integral to the bioavailability of Turkish egg donors. Secret practices enable these young women to intimately navigate gendered moral, health, socio-legal, and financial concerns within the challenging wider context of restrictive reproductive biopolitics, a legally ambigious cross-border biomedical market, fragile socio-economic conditions, and a heteropatriarchal sexual culture in Turkey. For Turkish egg donors, who opt for strategic invisibilization, moral and financial concerns sometimes override health and legal considerations. Secrecy sustains this transnational bioeconomy while simultaneously concealing its exploitative harms and risks.

Providers' experiences with abortion care: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

Induced abortion is one of the most common gynecological procedures in the world, with as many as three in every ten pregnancies ending in abortion. It, however, remains controversial. The objective of this scoping review was to explore and map existing literature on the experiences of those who provide abortion care.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

This exploratory review followed the Levac et al. guidelines and was reported in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR checklist. CINAHL, Cochrane, EMBASE, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Web of Science were used to identify peer-reviewed, original research articles published on providers' experience of abortion. We identified 106 relevant studies, which include a total sample of 4,250 providers from 28 countries and six continents. Most of the studies were qualitative (n = 83), though quantitative (n = 15) and mixed methods (n = 8) studies were also included. We identified two overarching themes: (1) Providers' experiences with abortion stigma and (2) Providers' reflections on their abortion work. Our findings suggest that providers from around the world experience challenges within society and their communities and workplaces which reinforce the stigmatization and marginalization of abortion and pose questions about the morality of this work. Most, however, are proud of their work, believe abortion care to be socially important and necessary, and remain committed to the provision of care.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this review provide a comprehensive overview on the known experiences of providing abortion care. It is a key point of reference for international providers, researchers, and advocates to further this area of research or discussion in their own territories. The findings of this review will inform future work on how to support providers against stigmatization and will offer providers the chance to reflect on their own experiences.

AN EVALUATION OF INDOOR SEX WORKERS' PSYCHOSOCIAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY IN METRO VANCOUVER, CANADA

Criminalization of sex work is linked to increased risk of violence and lack of workplace protections for sex workers. Most jurisdictions globally prohibit some or all aspects of sex work with New Zealand constituting a notable exception, where sex work has been decriminalized and regulated via OHS guidelines. We used the Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Sex Industry (NZ Guide) as an analytical framework to examine the lived-experiences of psychosocial OHS conditions of indoor sex workers in Metro Vancouver under end-demand criminalization. We drew on 47 semi-structured interviews, conducted in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese in 2017-2018, with indoor sex workers and third parties providing services for them. Participants' narratives were analyzed using a coding framework based on the NZ Guide's psychosocial factors section, including safety and security from violence and complaints processes, which highlighted specific OHS shortcomings in the context of end-demand sex work legislation in indoor sex work environments. Participants identified a significant lack of OHS support, including a lack of safety training, right to refuse services, and access to justice in the context of labour rights violations or fraud, robbery or violence. Our findings emphasize the benefits of full decriminalization of sex work to facilitate sex workers' access to OHS through development and implementation of OHS guidelines designed by and for the indoor sex industry. OHS guidelines should focus on labour rights and protections, including development of sex workers' right to refuse services and access to justice.

Psychiatrists' occupational stigma conceptualization, measurement, and intervention: A literature review

Psychiatrists require frequent contact with and treatment of patients with mental illnesses. Due to the influence of associative stigma, psychiatrists may also be targets of stigma. Occupational stigma warrants special consideration because it significantly affects psychiatrists' career advancement, well-being, and their patients' health. Given that there is no complete summary of this issue, this study reviewed the existing literature on psychiatrists' occupational stigma to clearly synthesize its concepts, measurement tools, and intervention strategies. Herein, we emphasize that psychiatrists' occupational stigma is a multifaceted concept that simultaneously encompasses physically, socially, and morally tainted aspects. Currently, standardized methods to specifically measure psychiatrists' occupational stigma are lacking. Interventions for psychiatrists' occupational stigma may consider the use of protest, contact, education, comprehensive and systematic methods, as well as the use of psychotherapeutic approaches. This review provides a theoretical basis for the development of relevant measurement tools and intervention practices. Overall, this review seeks to raise public awareness of psychiatrists' occupational stigma, thereby promoting psychiatric professionalism and reducing its stigma.

Decent Work, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Posttraumatic Growth From the Psychology of Working Perspective: A Three-Wave Study of Military Personnel

Scholarly interest in the relationship between decent work and mental health based on the Psychology of Working Theory has recently increased. This study evaluated the indirect effects of survival, social contribution, and self-determination needs satisfaction on the relationship between decent work and trauma-related mental health among military personnel. We conducted a three-wave survey over 1 year. Results showed that decent work predicted satisfaction of the three basic needs. Additionally, survival needs directly predicted posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, while social contribution and self-determination needs directly predicted posttraumatic growth. Finally, decent work had a significant indirect effect on posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms via survival needs, whereas decent work had significant indirect effects on posttraumatic growth via social contribution and self-determination needs. Our findings suggest that the more military personnel perceive their work as decent and feel that their three basic needs are fulfilled, the more posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms diminish, and posttraumatic growth increases. We discuss the implications and need for follow-up studies.

"The Stigma is what you do": Examining the Relationship Between Occupational Stigma and Worker Outcomes in the Aged Care Context

Negative social evaluations about aged-care work continue to discredit those who perform this type of work. Drawing on 'dirty work' literature from the field of management and stigma theory from the field of psychology, this study examines occupational stigma in the context of aged-care work and its relationship with negative outcomes for people who work in aged care. Findings from a path analysis revealed that aged-care workers (n = 185) who ascribe occupational taints and poor occupational conditions with aged-care work perceive aged-care work as being stigmatized, and in turn, are more likely to internalize this stigma. Through this process of perceiving and internalizing occupational stigma, aged-care workers experience greater psychological distress, job dissatisfaction, and turnover intentions. This research fills a void within the gerontology literature regarding the psychological processes underlying how occupational stigma may come to negatively impact this workforce. Findings offer practical implications for policy reform and managerial training.

Overcoming communicative separation for stigma reconstruction: How pole dancers fight content moderation on Instagram

This article investigates how stigmatized groups get organized to fight stigmatization through content-moderation practices on social media platforms. We apply a communicative understanding of stigmatization and stigma management, theorizing stigmatization as disruptive for a stigmatized group’s communicative connections to (non-)stigmatized groups. This communicative separation makes it particularly difficult for the stigmatized to organize the beneficial relations to other (non-)stigmatized groups needed to reconstruct stigma jointly. In this article, we investigate how stigmatized groups reconstruct their stigma despite communicative separation. Empirically, we build on a netnographic case study of pole dancers protesting a shadowban on Instagram. Shadowbanning represents a stigmatization practice that moderates content based on its association with sex work. The analysis shows how pole dancers and other stigmatized groups manage stigmatization through a process of stigma maintenance and stigma reconstruction. By emphasizing their difference to sex work through assimilating fitness jargon and distancing themselves from the sex industry, the pole dancers maintain the stigma but regain their communicative abilities by siding with Instagram. This victory initiates a shift in emphasizing solidarity and allows pole dancers and other stigmatized groups to embrace the stigma, forge new ties, and reach out to (non-)stigmatized groups to reconstruct stigma jointly. This study extends the stigma management literature by showing the interlinkage between different stigma-management strategies and their implications for overcoming communicative separation. We conclude by discussing the hardships of organizing stigma reconstruction and stigmatized groups’ strategies to overcome them.

Body care of older people in different institutionalized settings: A systematic mapping review of international nursing research from a Scandinavian perspective

Body care is considered a key aspect of nursing and imperative for the health, wellbeing, and dignity of older people. In Scandinavian countries, body care as a professional practice has undergone considerable changes, bringing new understandings, values, and dilemmas into nursing. A systematic mapping review was conducted with the aims of identifying and mapping international nursing research on body care of older people in different institutionalized settings in the healthcare system and to critically discuss the dominant assumptions within the research by adapting a problematization approach. Most identified papers reported on empirical research with a biomedical approach focusing on outcome and effectiveness. Conceptual papers, papers with a focus on the perspectives of the older people, or contextual and material aspects were lacking. The research field is dominated by four dominant assumptions: Body care as an evidence-based practice, body care as a relational ethical practice, the body as a body-object and a body-subject, the objects in the body care practices as nonrelational materialities. Given the complexities of professional body care practices, there is a need for other research designs and theoretical perspectives within nursing that expand our understanding of body care taking into consideration the multiple social and material realities.

Interviews with Indian Animal Shelter Staff: Similarities and Differences in Challenges and Resiliency Factors Compared to Western Counterparts

Animal shelters in India are at the forefront of efforts to improve free-ranging dog welfare and tackle animal overpopulation. In terms of cultural and political context, access to resources, and public health challenges, they operate in a very different environment than Western counterparts. Despite these distinctions, current sheltering literature is largely centered around countries such as the United States. The goal of this exploratory study was to examine the experiences of Indian animal shelter staff. Researchers conducted ten semi-structured interviews, in a mix of Hindi and English, with managers, veterinary nurses, and animal caretakers from three shelters. Using thematic analysis, shelter challenges as well as resiliency factors that enable staff to cope with these challenges were identified. Key challenges were inadequate funding, community conflict, and high intake numbers. Resiliency factors included flexibility, duty of care, co-worker relationships, and understanding animal needs. The results of this qualitative study revealed that the experiences of shelter staff are shaped by social, political, and cultural factors and that there is a need for further, context specific research on Indian sheltering rather than only relying on Western perspectives.

My Work Is Meaningless: The Consequences of Perceived Occupational Stigma for Employees in High-Prestige Occupations

Occupational stigma is pervasive, but there is a lack of understanding about how it impacts the behaviors of employees in relatively high-prestige occupations. We draw on the job characteristics model and social information processing theory to establish hypotheses about the effects of occupational stigma on the withdrawal behavior of employees in a relatively high-prestige occupation (preschool teacher). We suggest that perceptions of skill variety and task significance among high-prestige employees may be negatively influenced due to occupational stigma perception. In addition, occupational stigma conveys information to employees that the work they do is not appreciated by beneficiaries. For those reasons, making it difficult for them to perceive the meaningfulness of their work. This lack of meaningful experience is in turn positively associated with employees’ withdrawal behavior. Furthermore, we propose that these indirect effects are moderated by perceived job embeddedness of employees. Based on data collected at two time points from 466 preschool teachers in China, we find that occupational stigma is positively related to employees’ withdrawal behavior through meaningfulness. In addition, the negative relationship between perceived occupational stigma and experienced meaningfulness is stronger for employees with high job embeddedness than for employees with low job embeddedness.

Stigmatization and Interpersonal Deviance Behaviors of Tour Guides: The Influence of Self-Identity Threat and Moral Disengagement

Severe tour guide stigma is a significant problem hindering tourism development. Based on self-identity threat and moral disengagement theory, this study analyzed the relationship between tour guide stigmatization and tour guides’ interpersonal deviance behavior. Survey data collected from 241 tour guides at three different points in time showed that tour guide stigmatization was positively related to tour guides’ interpersonal deviance behavior and that self-identity threat mediated this effect. The results also show that moral disengagement moderated the effect of tour guides’ self-identity threat on interpersonal deviance behavior, as well as the indirect effect of tour guide stigmatization on tour guides’ interpersonal deviance behavior via self-identity threat. This study enriches theoretical research on tour guide stigmatization and offers practical suggestions for solving stigmatization problems for tour guides and organizations.

Identity work at the intersection of dirty work, caste, and precarity: How Indian cleaners negotiate stigma

Drawing from in-depth interviews of cleaners employed in the cleaning industry in India, the study examines the ongoing process of constructing a positive identity among dirty workers. Cleaners respond to the intense identity struggles emerging from caste stigma, dirty taint, and precarity by constructing ambivalent identities. Cleaners’ identity work is constituted by the very identity struggles they encounter, and their efforts to negotiate stigmatized identities further create identity tensions. Apart from accenting the paradoxical duality inhered in identity work, the findings show how caste/class inequalities are reworked in a neoliberal milieu and reproduced in identity construction processes. The findings call attention to caste as an important social category in organizational studies that has implications for work identities, dirty work, and precarious work.

Providers' Experience of Abortion Care: Protocol for a Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Despite being one of the most common gynecological procedures in the world, abortion care remains highly stigmatized. Internationally, providers have noted negative impacts related to their involvement in the services, and abortion care has been described as "dirty work." Though much of the existing research focuses on the challenges of providing, many have also highlighted the positive aspects of working in abortion care. Despite the steadily increasing interest in this area over the past decade, however, no one has sought to systematically review the literature to date.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this review is to systematically explore published studies on the experiences of abortion care providers to create a narrative review on the lived experience of providing abortion care, reflecting on what is already known and what areas require further exploration.

METHODS

This review will be conducted according to the framework outlined by Levac et al, which expanded on the popular Arksey and O'Malley framework. We will systematically search for peer-reviewed articles in 6 electronic databases: CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Web of Science. Following a pilot exercise, we devised a search strategy to identify relevant studies. In this protocol, we outline how citations will be assessed for eligibility and what information will be extracted from the included articles. We also highlight how this information will be combined in the review.

RESULTS

As of December 2021, at the time of writing, we have searched for articles in the electronic databases and identified 6624 unique citations. We intend to fully assess these citations for eligibility by the end of January 2022, chart and analyze data from the eligible citations by the end of March 2022, and submit a journal article for peer review by late spring 2022.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this review will provide a comprehensive overview on the known experiences of providing abortion care. We also anticipate that the findings will identify aspects of care and experiences that are not reflected in the available literature. We will disseminate the results via a publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal and by presenting the findings at conferences in the areas of abortion care, obstetrics, and midwifery. As this review is a secondary analysis of published articles, ethical approval was not required.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/35481.

Stigmatized Work and Stigmatized Workers

Stigmas pervade organizational life. A stigma is a discrediting social evaluation that devalues an individual or group. We review research on stigmatized work and stigmatized workers, with a particular emphasis on how people become stigmatized and what they (and others) do about it. To do so, we connect stigma to other concepts in its nomological net and compare multiple models of stigma dynamics. We consider the intertwining nature of stigma and identity/image, how context affects stigma, and how stigma is managed by both the stigmatized and the nonstigmatized. We also offer critiques of key blind spots in workplace stigma research and point toward future research in this area that is more interconnected with other literatures and more inclusive of overlooked populations. Our vantage point is that workplace stigma continues to be an exciting domain of research with a high potential for theoretical discoveries and practical applications.

Oddity as Commodity? The body as symbolic resource for Other-defying identity work

While studies on the work people undertake on their ‘identities’ in professional contexts tend to focus on inner conversations between different possible selves, this paper considers the impact of ‘inherited’ prescriptions and expectations on such inner conversations and the entwining of identity work with historic conditions written onto the body. It does so by studying performing artists with dwarfism. Taking into account their long history of stereotypical roles within the entertainment sector and their visibly ‘different’ body which guarantees to solicit the gaze of others, this study considers identity in terms of the corporeal positioning of the self of artists whose position on stage is often morally disputed, both inside and outside the community of people with dwarfism. Analysing how people use their Othered bodies as a symbolic resource for identity work, we describe three different ways of engaging in embodied identity work: identity ‘ethicalisation’, through stereotype- avoiding bodywork, ‘queering’, through stereotype- provoking bodywork, and ‘distancing’, through stereotype- acting bodywork. Each strategy is an attempt to redress the incoherence between preferred (personally aspired) and ascribed (historically inherited) identity. By analysing how people preserve an aspirational self and defy the image of being Other, this study contributes to existing debates by highlighting the role of history and the symbolic use of ‘oddity’ as an instrument in embodied identity work. In addition, it offers a reflective note on the problem of ‘academic exoticism’ through the sensitisation of Other bodies and on the potential of able-bodied allyship to attenuate the lack of disability knowledge in management and organisation studies.

The Social Construction of Stigma in Aged-Care Work: Implications for Health Professionals' Work Intentions

Background and Objectives

Although society has cultivated a deeper appreciation for essential health services, societal discourses reinforce a stigma of working in aged care. Drawing on dirty work and Stigma Theory, this study aims to investigate stigma in the context of recruiting health professionals.

Research Design and Methods

We employed a mixed-methods design to examine the nature and implications of the stigma of working in aged care. A path analysis was used to test whether health professionals’ (n = 159) negative perceptions of aged-care work would negatively predict their willingness to work in aged care. A linguistic analysis was conducted to understand how health professionals’ (n = 168) use of language positions themselves toward or away from engaging in aged-care work.

Results

Quantitative findings revealed that perceptions of physical taint directly predicted lower willingness to perform aged-care work. Perceptions of social taint, moral taint, and poor occupational conditions negatively predicted willingness to work in institutional aged care, indirectly via social devaluation. Findings from the linguistic analysis demonstrated that health professionals (re)produce stigma through aligning themselves with devaluing discourses about aged-care workers, work, and institutions.

Discussion and Implications

This study provides insight about the role that stigma plays in the aged-care recruitment crisis, with implications for aged-care institutions. Societal discourse may obstruct the employment of health professionals in aged care because it can (re)produce the stigma of working in aged care. Recommendations for ways to reduce the impact of this stigma include public messaging and training.

You stay home, but we can't: Invisible 'dirty' work as calling amid COVID-19 pandemic

Research on calling has largely focused on its benefits for employees. This study contends that experiencing work as a moral duty based calling in invisible-dirty occupations can yield both favorable and unfavorable employee outcomes. Whether employees feel burdened or supported in their work and family roles depends on the demands and resources provided by the workplace. In a sample of 175 janitors at a large government hospital designated for treating COVID-19 patients in the national capital region of India, hypothesis testing results support that work calling is positively associated with both positive (job performance, subjective career success), and negative (work-family and family-work conflicts, burnout) outcomes. Further, job demands strengthen the relationship of work calling with work-family and family-work conflicts, and burnout, whereas, job resources augment the relationship between work calling and job performance, and subjective career success.

Accentuating dirty work: Coping with psychological taint in elite management consulting

In this study, we develop the concept of dirty work by identifying new ways in which it is coped with. Traditionally, studies of dirty work have focused on how physical, social, or moral dirtiness is downplayed or normalized by workers in often physically tough “manual” occupations. We consider psychological dirtiness in work that is “knowledge intensive” and where high occupational status shields the need to protect oneself from stigma associated with dirty work. Based on interviews with management consultants working in stressful jobs in elite professional service firms, we complement the emerging literature on coping with the experience of dirty work by identifying three self-tainting tactics that consultants draw on to accentuate, rather than normalize dirty work: explication, stressing ambiguity, and humor. The motives behind these taint accentuation tactics varied from criticizing the working conditions in the sector, to the opposite, stressing one’s abilities and commitment to potential clients and managers. Where dirty aspects of work have been more psychological, accentuation was used for impression management and as a form of critique. We conclude with a discussion of the wider implications for research and practice, especially in terms of how coping with dirty work is shaped by occupational context, the kind of dirtiness (physical or psychological, social or moral), and the interests of occupational audiences.

["They always think you're a killer"-slaughterhouse workers' reactions to moral stigma]

Schlachthofarbeit hat einen schlechten Ruf und viele Schlachter erfahren moralische Stigmatisierung, obwohl Fleischkonsum die dominante Ernährungsform westlicher Gesellschaften ist. Moralische Stigmatisierung von Schlachthofarbeitern wurde bisher nicht systematisch untersucht. Der Artikel beantwortet die Forschungsfragen, welche Strategien des Umgangs mit moralischer Stigmatisierung sich unter Schlachthofarbeitern finden und wie sie sich zu hegemonialen Erzählungen zu ihrem Beruf verhalten. Der theoretische Rahmen des Artikels basiert auf soziologischen Theorien zu Kultur, Stigma und dirty work. Zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfragen wurden 13 problemzentrierte Interviews mit Arbeitern aus sechs deutschen Schlachthöfen mittels Qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet. Die Analyse ergab, dass Schlachter auf moralische Stigmatisierung reagieren, indem sie diejenigen kulturellen Ideen, die der Stigmatisierung zugrunde liegen, infrage stellen und für die Gültigkeit der eigenen kulturellen Ideen über „Schlachttiere“ argumentieren. Ferner nutzen die interviewten Schlachthofarbeiter starre Gruppengrenzen, um die Autorität externer Akteure zur Urteilsbildung über Schlachthofarbeit zu delegitimieren. Der Artikel ist innovativ, da er erstmals systematisch die Reaktionsweisen von Schlachthofarbeitern auf moralische Stigmatisierung untersucht.

Exploring providers' experience of stigma following the introduction of more liberal abortion care in the Republic of Ireland

OBJECTIVE

To explore if abortion care providers in the Republic of Ireland experience abortion-related stigma.

STUDY DESIGN

The survey was distributed to abortion care providers working in community and hospital units nationwide. We measured stigma using the 35-item version of the Abortion Providers Stigma Scale (APSS). We also collected data on demography, professional involvement in providing abortion care, and risk of burnout (measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory).

RESULTS

Of the 309 providers invited to take part, 156 (50.5%) completed the survey between January to May 2020. The sample reported a mean score of 70.9 on the total scale of the APSS. This was comparable with the scores of providers in a Massachusetts-based study but was lower than a sample of providers from across the USA. Linear regression analyses found that the Irish hospital-based obstetricians (b = 10.51, 95% CI 3.16-17.86) and midwives/nurses (b = 10.88, 95% CI 2.3-19.47) reported higher stigma than their colleagues working in general practice.

CONCLUSIONS

Comparing the scores of the current sample to published studies highlight the factors that may drive stigma in the Irish context. The Irish providers reported fewer issues in disclosing their abortion work than providers in the USA, which may be explained as they also reported fewer experiences of judgment and discrimination. They did, however, report higher levels of social isolation. Additionally, the findings suggest that providing surgical and/or later-gestation abortion care and providing within the hospital environment may present additional challenges for staff which increase level of stigma.

IMPLICATIONS

Despite widespread support for the expansion of the abortion care services, providers in Ireland still experience stigma related to this work. Our findings suggest that Irish providers, particularly those working in hospitals, may benefit from supports to reduce abortion-related isolation and challenges posed by collegial interactions or later-gestation care.

Stigma & dirty work: In-group and out-group perceptions of essential service workers during COVID-19

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on essential service workers has given rise to their newfound "hero" status, resulting in a dramatic shift of their occupational value. Service work has been long envisioned as "dirty work", and further, stigmatized by members of society (the Out-Group), until recently. This study utilized occupational stigma theory to identify the mechanisms under which both essential service workers and society at large came to unify around the importance of perceived dirty work in the United States. Critical discourse analysis was employed as a qualitative methodology, particularly examining the In- and Out-Group's coping mechanisms for coming to terms with the value of "dirty" service work heroes. Theoretical implications include the utilization of stigma theory for Out-Groups, and revealed a previously undetected Out-Group coping tactic. Practical implications include the urgency for keeping the "hero" story alive so that all service workers benefit from the movement.

The organizational inclusion turn and its exclusion of low-wage labor

As most scholarly work on the conceptualization of organizational inclusion seems to be implicitly based on contexts of high-wage labor, this article investigates whether the common themes of organizational inclusion as identified by Shore et al. (2018) also align with the low-wage labor context. Our respective analysis identifies several mismatches between the current conceptualizations of organizational inclusion and the needs and interests of low-wage workers. Consequently, we offer suggestions for adapting these conceptualizations: by paying attention to (1) material and physical safety next to psychological safety, (2) opportunities of non-task-oriented involvement in the workgroup and (3) the recognition and accommodation of low-wage workers’ voices and needs. Furthermore, we argue to extend the scope of scholarly work on organizational inclusion by taking into account the broader (historical) social order and different stakeholders who influence the organizational processes of inclusion and exclusion. By engaging with the current “inclusion turn” and providing adaptations, this article contributes to a less “exclusive” conception of organizational inclusion as well as outlines where the organizational inclusion approach might come up against its own limits.

Managing the Second “A” in Alcoholics Anonymous

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of how hidden organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) manages the dialectical tension between concealment and revelation. Despite research on AA’s successes and failures across disciplines, scholars have not thoroughly uncovered how AA communicates internally and externally to maintain the desired level of the organizational visibility. AA’s visibility management is critical in terms of achieving the organizational goals of AA.

Design/methodology/approach

To capture how AA communicatively manages the visibility of the organization, the author attended and observed the World Meeting of AA. As a participant-observer, the author did ethnographic fieldwork at the World Meeting.

Findings

During the convention, various types of communication strategies AA used to maintain the dialectical tension of concealment/revelation as well as celebrate its international convention became apparent. In particular, AA responded the tension strategically by choosing segmentation, denial and education at the World Meeting.

Originality/value

The author’s observation was suitable to describe AA’s anonymous communication practices. Its empirical finding was valuable for future research.

Close Encounters: Intimate service interactions in lap dancing work as a nexus of ‘self-others-things’

Drawing on ethnographic research on lap dancing work, this paper focuses on how the subjectivities, interactions and settings that constitute the lap dancing industry come into being through three interrelated processes of encoding, embodying and embedding. In considering how these processes combine to ‘enact’ the industry, the paper draws on Merleau Ponty’s understanding of the world as a dynamic nexus of ‘self-others-things’. Focusing on how this nexus shapes lived experiences of intimate service interactions, the analysis considers how dancers continually negotiate customers’ expectations of the service encounter given the ways in which these are: (i) encoded in depictions of lap dancing work in marketing and advertising materials on club websites; (ii) embodied by lap dancers through their interactions with customers; and (iii) embedded within the materiality of lap dancing clubs. The paper shows how intimate service encounters can be understood as the outcome of a nexus of ‘self-others-things’ through which particular organizational subjectivities and settings are brought into being through these three interrelated processes.

Dirty jobs and dehumanization of workers

The present study aims at expanding research on dehumanization in the work domain by exploring laypeople's dehumanizing perceptions towards stigmatized workers. Starting from Hughes' (1951, Social psychology at the crossroads, Harper & Brothers, New York; Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999, Academy of Management Review, 24, 413) concept of 'dirty work', the present research aims to demonstrate that the different types of occupational taint elicit distinct dehumanizing images of certain occupational groups. Employing a cluster analysis, the results showed that workers in the physical taint cluster were most strongly associated with biological metaphors, workers in the social taint cluster were perceived as most similar to objects, and workers in the moral taint cluster were perceived as most similar to animals. The theoretical and practical implications are considered.

Moral or Dirty Leadership: A Qualitative Study on How Juniors Are Managed in Dutch Consultancies

Professional service firms in Western Europe have a reputation for putting huge pressures on their junior employees, resulting in very long work hours, and as a consequence health risks. This study explores moral leadership as a possible response to the stigma of such dirty leadership. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 consultant managers and with each one of their juniors, and found that managers put several pressures on their juniors; these pressures bring high levels of stress, lowered wellbeing and burnout. Society considers such a pressuring leadership style morally dirty. To counteract the experience of being seen as morally dirty, we found that consultant managers were normalizing such criticisms as commonly assumed in dirty work literature. However, they also employed several moral leadership tactics to counteract the negative consequences criticized in society. However, in addition to the well-known individual-level tactics, consultant managers and their juniors also reported moral leadership support at the organizational level, like institutionalized performance talks after every project, trainings, specific criteria for hiring juniors, and policies to recognize and compliment high performance. Still, we cannot conclude these moral leadership approaches are moral by definition. They can be used in an instrumental way as well, to further push performance.

Entrepreneurial engagement in a depleted small town: Legitimacy and embeddedness

Our study of entrepreneurial engagement within a depleted New Zealand community contributes to understanding the role of place and legitimacy in entrepreneurial practice. General decline characterised Stanton until a newcomer entrepreneur started several businesses that rejuvenated the town. She became a local economic hero to many stakeholders; but others deployed social narratives of place that drew on different values. Our analysis of interactions shows how perceptions of place legitimise or vilify and we demonstrate how place intercedes upon economically generated legitimacy of entrepreneurial practice. Social constructions of place and notions of embeddedness influenced this entrepreneurial enactment. Conceptually, we challenge ideas about universal legitimacy ensuing from economic entrepreneurial benefits. Our theoretical contribution offers socio-spatial propositions for understanding entrepreneurial legitimacy through place.

Motivational factors for engaging in dirty work entrepreneurship among a sample of African immigrant entrepreneurs in South Africa

Orientation: South Africa is witnessing a large number of African immigrants coming into the country. These immigrants seek formal and informal employment. One sector favoured is ‘dirty work’ within the informal sector.Research purpose: To investigate the immigrants’ motivational factors influencing migration and dirty work entrepreneurship in South Africa.Motivation for the study: Because of the dynamic nature of political and economic circumstances that affect a country’s employment options, calls have been made for empirical focus on understanding the career development processes of neglected sample groups such as immigrants and even those engaged in dirty work.Research approach/design and method: A qualitative research approach was utilised based on the narratives and stories of 27 immigrant entrepreneurs in the informal sector engaged in dirty work careers.Main findings: Three narratives emerged as motivating factors for migrating: (1) socio-economic issues, (2) lack of opportunities and (3) experience of a new life. Furthermore, three motivational factors led into dirty work careers: (1) challenges of breaking into formal employment because of immigration rules, (2) motivation from social networks the immigrants belong to and (3) an enterprising spirit, driven by ambition.Practical/managerial implications: Based on the findings, interventions can be proposed to assist not only those engaged in dirty work but also migrants and citizens seeking opportunities in this sector.Contribution/value add: This study advances the literature in dirty work research within a South African context. Further, the study gives currency to an often neglected yet important sample group in dirty work entrepreneurship, who also happen to be immigrants.

Development and Validation of the Workplace Dignity Scale

As organizational scholars have become critically attuned to human flourishing in the workplace, interest in workplace dignity has grown rapidly. Yet, a valid scale to measure employees’ perceptions of dignity in the workplace has yet to be developed, thereby limiting potential empirical insights. To fill this need, we conducted a systematic, multi-study scale development project. Using data generated from focus groups ( N = 62), an expert panel ( N = 11), and two surveys ( N = 401 and N = 542), we developed and validated an 18-item Workplace Dignity Scale (WDS). Our studies reveal evidence in support of the WDS’ psychometric properties, as well as its content, construct, and criterion-related validity. Our structural models support predictive relationships between workplace characteristics (e.g., dirty work, income insufficiency) and dignity. Moreover, we observed the incremental validity of workplace dignity to account for variance in employee engagement, burnout, and turnover intentions above and beyond the explanatory effects of organizational respect and meaningful work. These results demonstrate the promise of the WDS for organizational research.

Let’s Not “Taint” Stigma Research With Legitimacy, Please

We propose that stigma and legitimacy are distinct constructs. Drawing from extant research, empirical observations, and the theoretical assumptions of both constructs we assert that, in spite of increasing efforts to equate stigma as illegitimacy, the opposite of legitimacy, that it is not. Specifically, we argue that organizations and their actors can be both stigmatized and legitimate at the same time. With this recognized, we propose a stigma-focused research agenda, separate from - and untainted by - legitimacy. Further, we propose an agenda that broadens conceptualizations of audiences and their dynamics, addresses how normal “deviants” take action in the face of stigma, and reconceptualises how audiences and the stigmatized interact.

Disgust, stigma, and the politics of abortion

Despite the growing body of research on the emotion of disgust – including its relationship to political ideology, moral judgment, matters of sex and sexuality, and death – the global reproductive rights movement has paid relatively little attention to the role disgust plays in the debate over abortion. By focusing on the right of a woman to make her own decision about an unwanted pregnancy, the pro-choice community has allowed anti-choice groups to define and frame the abortion procedure, abortion providers, and women who have abortions in terms associated with disgust. This commentary encourages further examination of what triggers disgust, its measurement, and ways of mitigating it, which could be useful for reducing abortion stigma, in future legal cases and in abortion research, advocacy, and communications.

Appropriation process of dirty work: focus on health executives in a medical services restructuring

Purpose

The literature related to the dirty work had been mobilised to explain how the changes in hospitals (technification and increasing complexification work in particular) affected the allocation of the function between the various corporation (physicians, nursing staff, administration), and contributed to make them evolve. The purpose of this paper is to better understand in a context of organisational change what is the process that allows individuals to appropriate the dirty work that one tries to delegate to them.

Design/methodology/approach

To deal with this issue, for a year and a half, the authors conducted a longitudinal case study based on the evolution of the organisational merger between to medical units in a French hospital.

Findings

The results showed that the appropriation of dirty work first needs the acceptance of task shifting, then a phase to normalise dirty work through various tactics (reframing, refocusing, and team recognition). The authors also emphasised the essential role played by these activities to enhance collaboration between doctors and caregivers in their quest for restructuring and institutionalising change.

Originality/value

While the literature on dirty work focuses on the “how and why” the allocation of the function between the various corporation can evolve, this research investigates more in depth the working of the appropriation process itself. The issue of appropriation introduces a new element in the framework of dirty work and can constitute an interesting focus for managers looking to enhance organisational change.

Identity and identification at work

Work identity and identification have generated a great deal of interest in the fields of organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Given several theoretical perspectives available to study work identity, the field has developed in somewhat haphazard fashion with independent streams of research investigating the same or highly similar phenomena. In the present review, we provide a broad overview of theoretical approaches and topics in work identity literature to inform and guide future integration. We review over 600 published articles and organize the literature along two dimensions: level of identity inclusiveness (i.e., individual, interpersonal, and collective) and static/dynamic approaches to identity change. Within each review category, a brief summary of extant research is provided, along with suggestions for future research.

Routinized killing of animals: Going beyond dirty work and prestige to understand the well-being of slaughterhouse workers

Slaughterhouse workers face the reality of industrialized meat production on a daily basis, experiencing firsthand the routinized killing of animals. This occupation provides a window through which to view one key way in which animals and organizations intersect in modern society. Given its proximity to death and undesirable required tasks, working in a slaughterhouse is classified as ‘dirty work’. Current theorizing, however, does not address how the intentional killing of animals may impact workers beyond its inherent dirtiness and low prestige. In this study, we draw upon and extend dirty work theory to further understand the unique nature of work that involves the intentional killing of animals. Regression analyses of data from 10,605 Danish workers across 44 occupations suggest that slaughterhouse workers consistently experience lower physical and psychological well-being along with increased incidences of negative coping behavior. Our findings hold while statistically controlling for occupational prestige and overall dirtiness. Additionally, we compare the pattern of results with a comparable occupation that does not involve animal killing, suggesting specific outcomes associated with routinized killing of animals. Building upon extant research and considering our findings, we discuss the theoretical implications regarding dirty work and the intentional killing of animals in organizations.