Amy L. Fraher

Dreaming of Flying When Grounded: Occupational Identity and Occupational Fantasies of Furloughed Airline Pilots

This article analyses the effects of job loss on the occupational identities of a group of United States pilots, laid off (or ‘furloughed’) twice by their employer in the decade following 9/11. Using a narrative methodology, the paper examines how the childhood dream of flying, referred to as the Phaethon dream, serves as an identity anchor that sustained their occupational identities. When the circumstances of the aviation industry (restructuring, outsourcing, and downsizing) led to extensive lay-offs, this identity anchor functioned in two contrasting ways. Some pilots moved on to retrain and start new careers, without abandoning their occupational identities or relinquishing the dream of flying. Another group of pilots, however, were stuck in occupational limbo waiting to be recalled by their employer, unwilling to forsake this dream and refusing to contemplate a move that would decisively take them out of their pilot seats. The papers contribution lies in theorizing how a dream originating in childhood, linked to a long-standing archetype of flying and subsequently hardened into a shared occupational fantasy, acts as an identity anchor and how this shapes responses to the trauma of job loss. The paper concludes by linking the Phaethon dream to its mythological counterpart in order to highlight its enduring, shared, and unconscious character.

Systems psychodynamics: The formative years of an interdisciplinary field at the Tavistock institute

Systems psychodynamics is an interdisciplinary field amalgamating a triad of influences -the practice of psychoanalysis, the theories and methods of the field of group relations, and the task and boundary awareness of open systems perspectives. Although systems psychodynamics is not a new field of study, there has been a general lack of awareness of its roots, how its formative elements have become intertwined over the years, and the role of the Tavistock Institute in developments in the field. This article provides a synthesis of this history and focuses, in particular,on the intellectual foundations of the Tavistock method of working experientially with groups and the application of this method to the study of organizations.

Invisibilised dirty work: The multiple realities of US airline pilots’ work

ABSTRACT This paper builds upon Heather Höpfl’s intellectual contributions in the areas of identity, dirt, and study of the unseen at commercial air carriers, by examining US airline pilots’ work over the decade between 2000 and 2010. Challenging assumptions about pilots being an elite group of unemotional professionals, findings here reveal how a once prestigious profession devolved into ‘invisibilised dirty work’ in the occupational rhetoric of employees. In contrast to dirty work definitions in which the associated taint is static, externally applied, and predates employees’ entry into their occupation, this study finds pilots’ emotional dirty work involves a changed sense of occupational identity due to industry restructuring and increased managerialism in which employees were forced to perpetuate a charade of safety in a system they believe has become increasingly risky.

Intergenerational conflict at US airlines: an unresolved Oedipal Complex?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how, if at all, organizational dynamics changed at US airlines after an industry wide modification to mandatory retirement age regulations in 2007. Findings challenge assumptions that society, organizations, and employees will all unequivocally benefit from abolishing mandatory retirement by investigating the impact of age-related policy changes on US airline pilots. Design/methodology/approach In total, 43 semi-structured interviews were conducted with captains and copilots from US airlines between September 2010 and July 2011. From this data set, two informant subgroups emerged: first, senior captains averaging 59 years of age; and second, junior pilots averaging 43.5 years of age. Findings Findings revealed that both senior and junior pilots reported retirement age policy changes created an antagonistic environment, pitting employees against each other in competition over scarce resources. Research limitations/implications Paper findings are based on empirical materials collected during an 11 month snapshot-in-time between September 2010 and July 2011 and interview data are based on a small subgroup of US airline pilots who self-selected to participate in the study. Therefore, findings are not unbiased and may not be generalizable across all airlines’ pilot workgroups. Practical implications Considerable research has been conducted identifying the policy and practice changes that employers need to adopt to retain older workers. However, few studies consider the psychological impact of these age-related workplace changes on employees or the organizational psychodynamics they might trigger. Originality/value This paper makes two main contributions. First, through use of the psychoanalytic construct of the Oedipus complex, the paper sheds light on some of the psychodynamic consequences of age-related policy changes. Second, it challenges assumptions about workforce aging and the underlying causes of intergenerational conflict, highlighting ways that policy changes intended to eradicate discrimination against older workers can result in age discrimination against younger employees.

Agonistic Governance: The antinomies of decision-making in U.S. Navy SEALs:

This article expands organization theory about Wicked, Tame, and Critical problems and their associated decision-making styles, Leadership, Management, and Command, by offering a framework that spans across all three which we call “Agonistic Governance”: an approach to decision-making that is premised on the acceptance that complexity generates paradoxes and contradictions and, to be successful, organizational actors must have the agency to positively embrace these, rather than try to eliminate them, recognizing that some failure is the price of overall success. Through an ethnographic study of US Navy SEALs, we suggest that, unlike the cultures of conventional military forces, elite military units can thrive in a leadership environment that is much more subtle, paradoxical and complex, and can be seen as illustrative of Agonistic Governance. Findings reveal that the success of these groups is dependent on the construction of a contradictory decision-making model that recognizes leadership is often as much an art as a science, and an understanding that the willingness to seek out and learn from failure rather than avoid it, is itself part of the solution not the problem. Agonistic Governance offers a way to move from binary thinking rooted in decision-making models that aim to be internally coherent, unilinear and without contradiction, and instead offers a way to accept the irrational and paradoxical prevalent in today’s complex organizational environments. In effect, Wicked Problems can only be addressed by accepting that failure is a prerequisite not a proscription.

The vulnerability of quasi-professional experts: A study of the changing character of US airline pilots’ work

This article contributes to ‘sociology of professions’ theory through the study of changes that occurred in US airline pilots’ work. Findings reveal that airline pilots are quasi-professional experts who developed specialized skills based on talent and experience which allowed them to work autonomously and enjoy a correspondingly high sense of trust and prestige for which they were often well compensated. However, results of this study suggest high labour costs and weak professional communities leave quasi-professional experts vulnerable to managerial cost-cutting and work intensification agendas, particularly during periods of merger, downsizing and other forms of industry restructuring. Findings signal a deprofessionalization of some elite fields in which experts’ specialized skills become devalued and the industry-specific nature of their expertise reduces career options and job mobility. Although the present study identifies this trend in aviation, recent changes in a wide range of industries from healthcare to high-tech portend applicability in a variety of domains.