ESRC Social Science Week Workshop: 'Dignity at Work'
Friday 24 June 2005, 09:45
Lancaster University Management School
Dimensions of Dignity in and at Work: A Participative Workshop
Friday 24 June 2005
As part of the ESRC’s Social Science Week 2005, Lancaster University Management School's Department of Organisation, Work and Technology will host a one day participative workshop in order to explore Dimensions of Dignity in and at Work. A group of people from diverse backgrounds will present various views on dignity at work, encouraging audience participation and discussion. The fundamental aim of the workshop is to inform the direction of ESRC funded research conducted by Dr Sharon C Bolton, Lancaster University Management School into dignity in and at work.
Participants who are interested in issues concerning dignity in and at work are invited to attend the workshop. It is hoped that the audience will reflect the diversity of the speakers who are to present their ideas and also be willing to become involved in discussion. Click here for programme details and information on speakers.
Places will be limited to 50 and are strictly on a first come, first served basis.
To book a place please complete and return the booking form.
Background
The small ESRC research project aims to begin an exploration of the concept of dignity and what it means to people in their working lives. Its central aim is to open the doors to a broad understanding and begin to bring conceptual clarity to the notion of dignity in and at work. That is, dignity in work linked with the notion of ‘good work’ and dignity at work linked with how we are perceived and valued as a person in the workplace. Both of these are potentially quite different in how they may be manifested and experienced depending upon one’s place in the world, but both are important contributors to the achievement of dignity.
The research is potentially of great importance in furthering an understanding of the role of work in contemporary society. Dignity at work is a far more complex phenomenon than current studies represent – it is not a simple matter of mis-management, over-long hours, or a poor working environment. Nor is it adequate to concentrate on workplace bullying and harassment as the central facilitator of indignity at work. For how is it that a work situation may be deemed undignified but people are able to carry themselves with dignity nonetheless? Neither is it enough to suggest that equal opportunity, work life balance and anti-bullying policies restore dignity to work, as valuable interventions as they are in themselves. Or to suggest that dignity at work is an unachievable aim due to the deleterious conditions of late capitalism, there can be little doubt that the frameworks that may enable the achievement of dignity are being re-drawn; nevertheless, important as the above issues are, this research project contends that it may be more of a case that we do not see dignity always necessarily destroyed but re-ordered and experienced in different ways.
To form a basis of understanding how such re-ordering may take place requires that the voices of various stakeholders who are interested and implicated in the issues involved in creating and maintaining dignity at work are heard. This one-day workshop is a first step in this process as ideas and discussions on the day will form an important foundation for future research on the topic.
