{"id":10861,"date":"2016-10-08T16:31:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T00:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/?p=10861"},"modified":"2016-10-09T11:24:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T19:24:26","slug":"mismanagement-and-dignity-at-work-at-ubc-ubcnews-bced-ubysseynews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/2016\/10\/mismanagement-and-dignity-at-work-at-ubc-ubcnews-bced-ubysseynews\/","title":{"rendered":"Dignity at work and #mismanagement at #UBC #ubcnews #bced #ubysseynews"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been questions about what we mean by \u201cmismanagement” at the University of British Columbia? What is meant\u00a0by claims that\u00a0at key moments in the past two years, there was evident\u00a0mismanagement by\u00a0the Board of Governors<\/a>?\u00a0Some\u00a0faculty members juxtaposed the BoG’s\u00a0failures\u00a0against the University Act<\/a>\u00a0and best practices<\/a>\u00a0or Nolan Principles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do we mean by suggesting that UBC’s Committee of Deans establishes a bad model for the\u00a0campus (i.e., mismanagement, e.g., no agendas, minutes, etc.)<\/a>? What is meant by\u00a0mismanagement by\u00a0omission of a policy to regulate the appointment of Associate Deans<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Or, what is meant by charges\u00a0that specific programs, such as UBC\u2019s Master of Educational Technology program, a proverbial digital diploma mill<\/a>, are\u00a0mismanaged? What is meant by the mismanagement of a\u00a0Career Advancement Plan<\/a>?<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s a clarification and why good management matters:<\/p>\n

Workers tend to have a keen sense of mismanagement when they experience it and academic workers are no different. Academics have a keen sense of academic mismanagement when they see it.<\/p>\n

The sense used here is not<\/em> the common legal definition of\u00a0gross mismanagement<\/a>, e.g., \u201ca continuous pattern of managerial abuses, wrongful or arbitrary and capricious actions\u2026\u201d Nor is\u00a0it used in the sense of\u00a0financial mismanagement<\/a>\u00a0(e.g., p. 274).<\/p>\n

Rather, mismanagement in most UBC cases refers to simply a failure to adhere to best practices (of accountability, equity, governance, hiring, etc.). The concern is with omissions. Of course, omissions may be intentional and this does not preclude arbitrariness, deception, or a destitution of integrity, etc.<\/p>\n

In Dignity at Work<\/em><\/a>, the key text on the topic, Hodson (2004) articulates in detail the short and long-term effects of mismanagement. The basic thesis is this: \u201cWorking with dignity is a fundamental part of achieving a life well-lived, yet the workplace often poses challenging obstacles because of mismanagement or managerial abuse\u201d (frontispiece).<\/p>\n

In the first paragraph then, Hodson prefaces: \u201cEven where abuse is commonplace and chaos and mismanagement make pride in accomplishment difficult, workers still find ways to create meaning in work and to work with dignity\u201d (p. 3). We see this in the most exploited workers at UBC: Sessional Lecturers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first hurdle in the quest for dignity at work, Hodson says, \u201cis thus the possibility of mismanagement and abuse\u201d (p. 83). Indeed, \u201cmismanagement and abuse have a central role in generating resistance and undermining citizenship in the workplace.\u201d And he emphasizes, the buck stops at the top:<\/p>\n

Chaotic and mismanaged workplaces undercut workers\u2019 pride and erect barriers to quality work. The consequences of poorly organized workplaces can also spill over to coworker relations, further undermining organizational effectiveness. (p. 109)<\/p>\n

Hodson concludes: \u201csignificant denials of dignity remain in the workplace. Chief among these are mismanagement and abuse\u201d (p. 273).<\/p>\n

Helps explain the state of working conditions in various programs and units at UBC, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been questions about what we mean by \u201cmismanagement” at the University of British Columbia? What is meant\u00a0by claims that\u00a0at key moments in the past two years, there was evident\u00a0mismanagement by\u00a0the Board of Governors?\u00a0Some\u00a0faculty members juxtaposed the BoG’s\u00a0failures\u00a0against the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,2249,287,2251,2255,2256,727698,1223,4570,2273,2275,2276],"tags":[1288925,1288923,1288941,1288949,1288936,1288963,1288964],"class_list":["post-10861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-freedom","category-accountability","category-administration","category-budgets-funding","category-corporate-university","category-corruption","category-critical-university-studies-2","category-governance","category-mismanagement","category-students","category-unions","category-working-conditions","tag-academic-freedom","tag-administration","tag-budgets-funding","tag-ethics","tag-governance","tag-unions","tag-working-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10861"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10886,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10861\/revisions\/10886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}