Kathryn Desai

Abstract

This research paper is the result of a "naturalistic inquiry" to explore job loss, as experienced by displaced senior managers of the Long Term Care System in Ontario, in 1997. The purpose of the study is to describe the experiences of a group of downsized Home Care and Placement Coordination managers, who lost their jobs in the transition to Community Care Access Centres. The methodology included the use of focus groups and in-depth interviews (which were tape recorded), to collect the data from a sample of volunteers across the province. This qualitative study validated other research, which has demonstrated that sudden organizational change has predictable effects on people. The fifteen managers interviewed for this study, demonstrated the familiar five stages of a patient's experience of impending death, as described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. In today's employment uncertainty, Human Resource and Career Counseling personnel can learn from the experience of these former managers. Information about what the experience of job loss means to people and new attitudes about the role of work in our lives, could make the difference between trauma or transition.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Unemployment--Psychological aspects--Case studies; Unemployed--Psychology--Case studies; Executives--Dismissal of--Psychology--Case studies; Downsizing of organizations--Psychology--Case studies; Health services administrators--Ontario--Case studies

Publication Date

1997

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

- Please Select One -

Advisor

Bissell, Stan

Advisor/Committee Member

Winkworth, Gladys

Comments

Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: GV1097.B65R4881995 Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works in February 2014.

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

HSPT-MS

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