Suchergebnisse

Using data from a survey of municipal clerks across the United States, this research tests a model of job satisfaction for municipal employees based on research by Ellickson and Logsdon (2001). The primary hypothesis is that the model will not hold true for this subgroup of municipal employees because municipal clerks are different from other public sector employees. Clerks are different in part because their job duties and responsibilities are set out by statute, there is a great deal of autonomy, and the position is one most often held by females. To test the research hypotheses, multivariate regression analysis was employed. Results suggest that this model does not explain the variation in job satisfaction of municipal clerks across the United States as fully as the Ellickson and Logsdon's model did in their study of municipal employees in one city.

Abstract
For some, the history of clerical work epitomizes the way in which technological change and the division of labor result in the deskilling and degradation of work. This paper argues that this perception of clerical deskilling is mistaken, the result of an inaccurate portrayal of traditional clerking, and of a theoretical tendency to (mis)read declines in the prestige and pay of an occupation as stemming from changes in skill. Focusing on Victorian clerks' own descriptions of their work, and moving to the present period, the paper offers an alternative reading of clerical history and of the dynamics of occupational decline.

WILENSKY'S (1959) BASIC SOCIOLOGIC MODEL OF PROFESSIONS, WHICH HAS BEEN APPLIED TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES (MOSHER 1982) AND MODIFIED BY BRANTE (1990) AND RAELIN (1991) IS APPLIED TO CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATIVE STAFF TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER THEY CAN BE PORTRAYED ACCURATELY AS PROFESSIONALS. BRANTE'S TYPOLOGY OF PROFESSIONS INCLUDES A CATEGORY FOR A POLITICAL PROFESSION FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE A SPECIAL FORM OF "TACIT" KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE IN POLITICAL TECHNOLOGY WHICH TRANSCEND DEPARTMENTS AND PARTY LINES. RAELIN ARTICULATES CHARACTERISTICS WIDELY ACCEPTED TO BY TYPICAL OF PROFESSIONAL GROUPS: EXPERTISE, AUTONOMY, COMMITMENT, IDENTIFICATION, ETHICS, AND STANDARDS ENFORCEMENT. CONGRESSIONAL STAFF ARE MORE THAN A MERE OCCUPATIONAL GROUPING OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES AND MORE THAN MERE "CLERKS," AS OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL NOMENCLATURE WOULD SUGGEST. THE FINDINGS ARE BASED ON DATA GATHERED DURING 40 INTENSIVE, EXPLORATORY INTERVIEWS WITH CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATIVE STAFF WHICH WERE CONDUCTED DURING THE FIRST HALF OF 1995, THE EARLY DAYS OF THE 104TH CONGRESS. CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATIVE STAFF CONSTITUTE WHAT BRANTE (1990) REFERS TO AS A POLITICAL PROFESSION; THEY SHARE MOST BUT NOT ALL OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONALS, STAFFERS HAVE HIGH STATUS, EXPERTISE, SUBSTANTIAL BUT QUALIFIED AUTONOMY, COMMITMENT TO THE POLITICAL ENTERPRISE AND PUBLIC SERVICE, AND SOME IDENTIFICATION OF THEMSELVES AS POLITICAL PROFESSIONALS. THEY DO NOT CONTROL ACCESS TO THE PROFESSION NOR HAVE SELF-POLICING MEPY: 1997

The clerk attended his desk and counter at the intersection of two great themes of modern historical experience: the development of a market economy and of a society governed from below. Who better illustrates the daily practice and production of this modernity than someone of no particular account assigned with overseeing all the new buying and selling? In 'Accounting for Capitalism', Michael Zakim has written their story, a social history of capital that seeks to explain how the 'bottom line' became a synonym for truth in an age shorn of absolutes, grafted onto our very sense of reason and trust.