Exploring care relations in later life: disentangling notions of care and choice

The experience of later life varies widely and is often framed in terms of the active lifestyles of the Third Age and the frailty and abjection of the Fourth Age. This thesis sought to understand how the concepts of care and choice are enacted, experienced and interrelated in the context of both informal and formal care in later life and how older people themselves, their families and significant others understand and experience these concepts. The discourse of personalisation that dominates care services has led to an emphasis on individual choice, control and independence so that those in need of care are faced with what has been described as the ‘logic of choice’, a focus on individual responsibility rather than care. Adopting a Feminist Foucauldian theoretical approach and drawing on Tronto’s (1993) ethic of care, this thesis explores the experiences of older people and their informal carers through dialogical narrative analysis. The stories begin with the recognition by individuals that there is a need for care and how this need is met through negotiations with families and significant others. As needs increase the physical and logistical limits of informal care by individuals are reached, often leading to a need to ‘choose’ formal care. Rather than impacting solely on the care recipient, formal care is shown as being an experience that is shared with informal carers. Indeed, the participants depict how informal care continues alongside formal care and how the boundaries between them become blurred. I argue that a binary division between actively making choices and being a passive recipient are not appropriate to understandings of care. By disentangling the notions of care and choice this thesis explores the extent to which these concepts are relevant to the experience of older people in specific care situations.

Institutional complexity in Thai state-owned enterprises:the implementation of performance measurement systems

This study explores institutional complexity in Thai State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). In doing so, a qualitative approach has been employed in this study in order to identify institutional logics in the field of Thai SOEs and to understand organisational and individual perceptions of institutional complexity in the implementation of performance measurement systems (PMS) and how they respond to the complexity. To achieve this goal, two Thai SOEs were studied, both of which faced challenges in the implementation of Economic Value Management (EVM) and Balance Scorecard (BSC) as well as difficulties in linking their individual BSC and incentive systems. The qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews and document reviews. The empirical aspects of this study reveal that the institutional logics in the field of Thai SOEs are the logic of bureaucracy, commercial operations, social activities, seniority and unity. Regarding the multiple institutional logics embedded, SOEs experienced the institutional complexity in the implementation of PMS. The results suggest that the organisations have decoupled the EVM and loosely coupled the BSC from organisational practices to cope with institutional complexity and conflict institutional demands. Also, the evidence shows that the institutional logics influence SOEs’ actions towards resisting changes incentive systems and the relationship between individual BSC and incentives.

Challenging masculinity in CSR disclosures:silencing of women’s voices in Tanzania’s mining industry

This paper presents a feminist analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a male-dominated industry within a developing country context. It seeks to raise awareness of the silencing of women’s voices in CSR reports produced by mining companies in Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and women are often marginalised in employment and social policy considerations. Drawing on work by Hélène Cixous, a post-structuralist/radical feminist scholar, the paper challenges the masculinity of CSR discourses that have repeatedly masked the voices and concerns of ‘other’ marginalised social groups, notably women. Using interpretative ethnographic case studies, the paper provides much-needed empirical evidence to show how gender imbalances remain prevalent in the Tanzanian mining sector. This evidence draws attention to the dynamics faced by many women working in or living around mining areas in Tanzania. The paper argues that CSR, a discourse enmeshed with the patriarchal logic of the contemporary capitalist system, is entangled with tensions, class conflicts and struggles which need to be unpacked and acknowledged. The paper considers the possibility of policy reforms in order to promote gender balance in the Tanzanian mining sector and create a platform for women’s concerns to be voiced.