The AOM theme this year is "Making organizations meaningful." This indicates a need not only for the initial academic research, which AOM members tend to be pretty good at, but also a degree of activism, an effort to effect change. My co-author and I will be presenting the paper below, please see the title and extended abstract. We've done the academic research, have reviewer comments, and get to look forward to the discussion session repartee. Perhaps we can try to publish. Yet, all of that is just the first step.
How do we go about the second step? How do we conduct an organized effort to effect change in the employment practices of the U.S. Roman Catholic church? What are the best steps to take? In what order? To what effect?
While we may have a few ideas of our own, the MSR membership may include individuals with profound experience or creative notions regarding these very 'next step' questions. If you wish to be involved in a loose association of those interested in effecting a just cause employment policy shift within U.S. Roman Catholic employment, I would be grateful to hear from you in the next week to 10 days. We would circulate the paper (with reviewer comments) and then I will 'chair' / document our discussions; we can get together at Anaheim. Our "work" could itself become a viable research study for next year's AOM/MSR submission; we would be testing the hypothesis that MSR research about ultimate values in society can actually result in effective, empirically evident, social change outcomes. Or, depending on what happens, something else.
There is no need to be a Roman Catholic to participate. Disciples of Saul Alinsky, for example, would be more than welcome :-) . Australians, as you'll read, would also be great to have on board.
> Let's see how MSR can incubate a functional, focused effort at social change - that second step of this year's AOM theme.
An email to me of your interest would be welcome:
cttack@gmail.com. I'll get a Dropbox folder going for the data as this develops, if it does.
Best from Denmark on Great Prayer Day (Store Bededag),
Charles T. Tackney (on behalf of my co-author)
U.S. Roman Catholic diocesan and archdiocesan "at will" employment practices and Roman Catholic Social Teaching
> Charles T. Tackney and Alexander Turøy
Theology of the workplace root cause analysis of employment practices by Roman Catholic archdioceses and dioceses in the United States, as publicly manifest on websites, indicates a systematic, widespread policy commitment by bishops and archbishops to "at will" dismissal prerogatives as direct or indirect employer. While consistent with U.S. employment law, most industrialized nations follow a "just cause" practice, suggestive of a continuing employment relationship, where employers are bound to dismiss only for a good reason. The U.S. bishops' preferential option for this managerial prerogative is contrary to the Roman Catholic social teaching (RCST) they profess; it is inconsistent with the principles of justice given in the Church Code of Canon Law; it is even at variance with explicit U.S. Roman Catholic social justice advocacy for the U.S. by the employing bishops themselves. The evidence indicates a startling degree of institutional mendacity due to these contradictions between teaching and practice, often of the most coercive type. Our study documents the two-tier employment regime policies of contemporary U.S. Roman Catholicism: one of just cause employment for clergy and religious, the other of a fundamentally contingent, often explicitly anti-union, domestic U.S. status for teachers, hospital and parish staff, and other employees throughout the 194 diocese and 32 archdioceses. There are two exceptional archdioceses, which appear to enact justice in employment relations. Comparatively, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference offers a comprehensive model for justice in employment in its national policies. For the workplace evangelization of American culture, reflection by and training of U.S. hierarchy and clergy in socially responsible human resource management consistent with RCST seems urgently indicated.
End of abstract.