Suchergebnisse

PurposeThis research investigates the issues of concern for American film and television (TV) unions, the features of issues, whether issues are threats, opportunities or mixed evaluations, and unions' distributive or integrative approaches to issues (Walton and McKersie, 1965).Design/methodology/approachThe first author interviewed 25 union leaders and used thematic analysis to identify issue characteristics and evaluations of issues as threats, opportunities or mixed. Using language analysis, the authors then connected these evaluations to integrative or distributive approaches.FindingsThe findings revealed three larger issues of concern (positioning the union and jurisdiction, shifting patterns of risk and negotiating and enforcing contracts) and five characteristics (locus, boundary, manageability, predictability and scope). These characteristics then determined how interviewees viewed issues as threats, opportunities or mixed evaluations. Three characteristics grouped together to form threats: external locus, indistinct boundaries and low manageability. Indistinct boundaries contributed to assessments of issues as mixed. These issue types, characteristics and interpretations revealed a metaphorical above- and below-the-line differentiation among film and TV unions based on the members continued ownership of their work. With one exception – BTL unions on positioning union and jurisdiction – leaders' language reflected distributive approaches to issues.Originality/valueThis study delves deeper into Walton and McKersie's (1965) classical two-part classification of issues by adding a typology of characteristics and operational definitions to aid in identifying threats, opportunities and mixed evaluations through the novel use of issue analysis in industrial relations.

This study examined the conflict framing of union leaders as they reacted to changes in the entertainment industry. The analysis revealed how participants named conflict‐based issues and attributed blame for them, cast them as whole stories, or reframed them. Overall, the leaders of two types of unions differed in their naming and blaming of controversial issues. This study suggested that naming and blaming of conflict‐based issues operated differently for the two types of unions. Leaders who employed naming singled out critical agenda items and often used reframing, while union leaders who depicted issues as whole stories resisted reframing the issues.

This study examines coverage of the 2008-2009 negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers, through 148 articles published in the Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. News coverage tended to focus on actions, strategies, and procedures; unions' actions against management, rather than management's actions against unions; intra- and inter-union conflict rather than conflict within management; and economic consequences only in a broad sense.

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are significant contributors culturally, socially, and economically, but little research has focused on their management of organizational crises. Research has been quickly documenting impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on different sectors, but again less so for NPOs. This is significant because research and recommendations developed in one sector (such as for-profit corporations) may not translate to others (such as NPOs). NPOs are particularly vulnerable due to their dependence on public financial support and demands on their resource during crises. We report on a unique and unfortunate opportunity to assess response dynamics from a half year before (2019) and a half year after (2020) the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We draw on a unique dataset (combining surveys at two points in time, Twitter use data, and financial information, from 578 NPOs) to develop a general model (grounded in the discourse of renewal theory) of five sources of influence (communication, organizational resources, crisis experience, crisis management, crisis impacts) on three types of strategic responses by nonprofits (retrenchment, persevering, and innovating) to COVID-19. Higher levels of communication, crisis experience, and crisis management all predicted greater tendencies for persevering and innovating in response to COVID-19. The implications for research and practice include extending crisis communication research to the nonprofit sector and demonstrating how NPOs can strengthen themselves to recover from COVID-19 or the next crisis.