Presidential Signing Statements and Executive Power

A recent debate about the Bush administration\u27s use of presidential signing statements has raised questions about their function, legality, and value. We argue that presidential signing statements are legal and that they provide a useful way for the president to disclose his views about the meaning and constitutionality of legislation. In addition, basic tenets of positive political theory suggest that signing statements do not undermine the separation of powers or the legislative process and that, under certain circumstances, they can provide relevant evidence of statutory meaning. Although President Bush has raised many more constitutional challenges within his signing statements than prior presidents have, at least on their face these challenges are similar to challenges made by other recent presidents, such as President Clinton. Whether Bush\u27s views of executive power are significantly different from Clinton\u27s, and if so, whether they are inferior, remain open questions, but these issues are independent of whether signing statements are lawful

Employee mistreatment and muted voices in the culturally diverse workplace

This study examines mistreatment through the perspectives of employees with different cultural backgrounds and positions in order to understand the ways in which some voices are muted and others are privileged. Mistreatment is interactional, distributive, procedural, or systemic abuse of employees taking place at both interpersonal and institutional levels on the basis of cultural diversity. Narrative analysis of semi‐structured interviews with employees of a large research and development organization revealed three types of muted narratives used to respond to mistreatment (muted‐but‐engaged, angrily disengaged, and resigned) as well as one type of privileged response. The narratives provided evidence of two processes by which voices became muted: repeated silencing over time and silencing through ambiguity of policies

You and me will never part: a study of Black women's best friendships

The existing literature on women's friendship lacks information about Black women's friendships. Few researchers (e.g., Goins, 2011; Denton, 1990) have looked specifically at Black women's friendship and the role they play in Black women's lives. This project answers the call set forth by Houston (2002) and others for more work to be done in interpersonal communication about African Americans from within the African American community. This project found that Black women's best friend relationships begin with similarities, loyalty, understanding and dependability. Once the women become best friends, they must be honest, loyal/trustworthy, understanding, positive, and spend time together. They maintain their friendship with open communication within their friendship, the modes of communication they choose, and the topics of conversations that they have. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Making sense of safety

The increased calls for an improved academic safety culture currently being issued by regulatory organizations outlines a very prescriptive approach to addressing safety in colleges and universities. This study focused on how academic researchers made sense of and responded to the safety programs that have been instituted by their organizations. The focus was on scientific researchers who have active research laboratories. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed with grounded theory. The results indicated that these researchers grounded their understanding of safety and of institutional safety programs in their professional identity, developed during their own educational and early professional experiences. Further study is warranted to determine if these findings are indicative of these scientific fields across the country. This data suggested that prescriptive compliance requirements regarding safety activities would not be easily accepted by these groups if they were not consistent with this identity. While they were not overtly noncompliant, they did resist institutional safety requirements placed on them that were not in line with the social norms of their professional group. These results could lead to an altered approach towards addressing safety concerns at colleges and universities. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Striving to be unique, the search for voice: identity construction and performance among creative writers and the navigation of a hegemonic system

This thesis examines the Academic Creative Writing Economy (ACWE) as a hegemonic system and how its members navigate the governing rules of this system. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 25 ACWE members and were later transcribed following Strauss and Corbin's (1990) grounded theory methodology. To analyze the 188 single-spaced pages of transcripts, a cultural-critical rhetorical lens is employed, viewing the data through Butler's (1999) identity theory and Foucault's (1965, 1972, 1977) theory of dominant discourses. The analysis produced four emergent themes: the hegemonic nature of the ACWE, the rules of the hegemonic system, voice as central to writers and what is at stake in the face of governing rules, and online publishing outlets as resistive shelters and forces against the ACWE. The rules of the system are enforced via system sanctioned stages (i. e. workshops and publications) and therefore inform system members' voices with or without the system members' knowledge. Despite this hegemonic, cyclical effect, the system aids writers as it provides an economic shelter. This shelter coupled with the resistive structures within the walls of the ACWE, prevent a total conversion to stagnant writing. In addition to outlining these governing rules, this thesis also examines the performance and construction of voice among system members; and how these performances and constructions are changing in the face of both a technological boom and a rise in the number of programs within the ACWE. I argue for further study of creative writers by Communication scholars focused on identity theory, as creative writers have always had mediated identity performances via their work and now the general population is adopting these mediated performances through social media. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

International organizations and multicultural workforces: an examination of organizational culture and group muting

Contemporary organizations have become composite structures of any number of nationalities and cultures. The forces of globalization have forced organizations to begin internationalizing by establishing production sites in other countries. This trend became increasingly common as the twentieth-century progressed and technological resources improved (Robertson & White, 2008). Current scholarship on the issues faced by international organizations has left a number of potentially important variables unexamined, such as the number of members of a cultural group versus their structural position within the organization. It has also raised an equally significant number of questions that must be answered, such as how organizational cultures are affected by internal cultural tensions and potential group muting. This research aimed to uncover the tensions present at the site of an international organization and the resulting organizational culture that developed from those tensions. Interview data was collected from a Japanese international organization comprised of a wide variety of national cultures. That data was qualitatively analyzed using thematic analysis and the constant comparative method. Muted group theory was used to analyze the negotiation of cultural voice within the organization through the identification of resistance strategies. Organizational culture theory was utilized to uncover the elements of the organization that contributed to its discursive environment. Findings revealed that members of the Japanese national culture along with native English speakers expressed the most muting, but the organizational culture encouraged cultural expression, alleviating internal tension. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Communicating the reality of dating in childfree, heterosexual, professional African American women who never married

Communication related to the dating experiences of childfree, heterosexual, and professional African American women who never married were examined. Using an interview research method prescribed by Irvin Seidman, a sample of six women from this demographic participated in two separate in-depth interviews. The first interview covered career, family, and dating; the second addressed marriage, children, and parenting. Results generated three primary themes from across the data sample impacting this dating lifestyle: stable parental marriage examples, a career that enables singleness, and skepticism about marital happiness. Additionally, three secondary themes were identified from parts of the sample: a lack of the right partner, a lingering desire for children and spiritual/religious doctrine. The findings were theoretically aligned with the social construction of reality, whereby communication from a group of individuals sharing an experience establishes their situation’s authenticity versus upholding the perceived understanding held by society. Practical implications of depression, interracial dating and social stressors offered additional understanding of this study. Further research through a larger study sample, as well as applying social learning theory through secondary analysis to examine modeling of the sample’s long-term parental marriages provide additional opportunities from this investigation. Furthermore, new research offering an African American male response to data, topics regarding emerging adults and a subsequent examination of a similar LGBTQ demographic may provide an interesting comparison in light of newly-legalized marriage equality. Over all, this research addressed and accounted for current limitations in existing literature on the subject matter. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries