Lisa Fisher - Böcker

Organizations and U.S. workers across the life course indicate increased interest in flexible work arrangements. More organizations have flexibility on the books, but rates of utilization remain low, and both workers and organizations note operational challenges and concerns. Noticing the commonality of these experiences across organizational settings and the need for more in-depth examination of workplace structure and culture not limited to circumstances immediately surrounding flexibility, Lisa Fisher set out to identify specific elements of the structure and culture of work that impeded flexibility in an organization that had a history of struggle with it. Using interviews and non-participant observation to conduct a qualitative case study, she found that the struggle, happening on the ground within the daily processes of work, was not the result of unsupportive management or overly-cautious employees. Instead, she found evidence of something much more powerful and all-encompassing: a system of silence surrounding flexibility. Fisher begins the book with a thoughtful account of the history and current state of flexibility in the U.S. within a framework that considers changing demographics, organizational perspectives, neoliberalism, globalization and lingering problems with how we think about flexibility. She then provides an in-depth analysis of the structure and culture of work at the organization studied, which culminates in a model specifying the workings of the system of silence as a phenomenon nested within the work environment and larger cultural ideas about work and workers. Fisher shows how things assumed to be unrelated to flexibility can still have bearing on the ways that an organization understands and approaches it. She thereby develops a rich, informative account of struggle and resilience, change and adaptation, confusion and sense-making, and obstacles and pathways, an account which suggests important theoretical implications and provides practical tips for organizations that are serious about flexibility.

Understanding America’s Gun Culture focuses on building understanding of some of the issues associated with US gun culture and the contemporary debate about the availability and use of guns. This edited volume is unique in that it draws on a wide variety of disciplines and presents perspectives on both sides of the debate. Contributors hail from the academic disciplines of history, social work, criminal justice, sociology, religion, and theological ethics as well as policy agencies. Some chapters examine the issues social-psychologically to help readers better understand dynamics within the debate. Others pose important ethical and philosophical questions about gun culture. Still others address practical policy solutions for enhancing gun safety and minimizing gun violence, even bringing in international perspectives. Together, the chapters create a thought-provoking compilation that offers insightful findings, considers theoretical and practical implications, and invites further exploration of the topic.

Despite employee engagement literature spanning more than three decades, persistent challenges remain, and many seem to be permeating organizations from the outside in. Organizations invested in current structures, adhering to larger cultural ideas and taking cues from other organizations compartmentalize engagement as a people problem and relegate it to a space outside of normal operations. This is the employee engagement dilemma. The US macro-cultural lens focusing on individualism and meritocracy reinforces and confirms this approach and the logic underlying it. These cultural ideas drive scholars and practitioners toward ever closer examination of circumstances within organizational settings, and so the dilemma remains. In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Great Resignation, the employee engagement stakes have never been higher, especially for organizations with remote workforces. In A Creative Approach to the Employee Engagement Dilemma: Larger Cultural Influences and New Theoretical Insights, Fisher employs a symbolic interactionist lens and other theoretical tools to interrogate the current trajectory and make visible foundational cultural assumptions operating in and influencing organizations from the outside that delimit our thinking about and undermine engagement before it even begins. Equipped with these larger cultural insights, Fisher then revisits the engagement literature and broader scholarly offerings to pull in novel insights, applied research solutions, and new directions for future studies.

Understanding America's Gun Culture focuses on building understanding of some of the issues associated with U.S. gun culture and the contemporary debate about the availability and use of guns. This edited volume is unique in that it draws on a wide variety of disciplines and presents perspectives on both sides of the debate. Contributors hail from the academic disciplines of history, social work, criminal justice, sociology, religion, and theological ethics as well as policy agencies. Some chapters examine the issues social-psychologically to help readers better understand dynamics within the debate. Others pose important ethical and philosophical questions about gun culture. Still others address practical policy solutions for enhancing gun safety and minimizing gun violence, even bringing in international perspectives. This second edition includes literature published in the last two years and two new chapters, one focusing on gender within gun culture and another that features a conversation between the editors and an ethnographic researcher with broad expertise in gun culture and research and policy trends. Together, the chapters create a thought-provoking compilation that offers insightful findings, considers theoretical and practical implications, and invites further exploration of the topic.