What was your dissertation topic?
What was your dissertation topic?
What was your dissertation topic?
Aitziber Arregi, Mondragon Unibertsitatea PhD, tells us about his experience
What was your dissertation topic?
To understand my dissertation topic, that tackles a lot of issues related with people in a cooperative setting, I think I need to give some historical context.
People are the nerve centre of organisations and, what’s more, in the modern global economy markets are becoming more and more competitive and dynamic. Taking workers into account, involving them in the project and including them in the business strategy is of utmost importance for achieving greater organisational performance.
Because of that, attempts are being made to move towards more participative models. And the function and role of human resource management departments are changing and becoming very important, it’s becoming a strategic function.
Under that umbrella, in my PhD dissertation I did a case study of the ULMA Architectural Solutions industrial cooperative, which belongs to MONDRAGON. In particular, three empirical studies were done that had their own goals.
In the first one, workers’ perceptions about the organisational climate and participation in capital were examined. The second one analysed the perceptions of workers, differentiated by professional category (direct or indirect labour), of human resources management practices. And lastly, the third one analysed how Covid-19 influenced workers’ perceptions in relation to their participation in management through institutional channels and internal communications mechanisms and how Covid-19 influenced the psychological results and emotions felt by workers.
Given the importance of discerning the perceptions of workers who do direct and indirect labour, a lot of focus was put on those collectives in the three research projects.
In the studies, qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used and evidence was gathered in three differentiated time frames using different data collection techniques.
How did you experience the doctoral dissertation process?
In my opinion, the word that best describes my dissertation process would be “intense”. Intense, because the work is demanding and it takes time to do quality work. Intense, because the act of publishing scientific articles in high impact scientific journals is a rigorous task that doesn’t just depend on the researchers. And that creates some uncertainty and even stress. Intense because, even though all three studies are highly inter-related, finding and writing a common thread through all of them wasn’t an easy task. And intense because a doctoral dissertation involves a lot of steady, concentrated work with a very clear focus or perspective about the goals you want to achieve, even though sometimes the goals and focus change and the process can get a little chaotic.
But despite that, the dissertation process culminated with a feeling of total satisfaction insofar as both the studies presented, which have contributed to the scientific literature and the cooperative studied, as well as the researcher’s learning process.
What did this doctoral dissertation provide you as a professional and as a person?
It might sound trite, but it’s true that my dissertation made me grow personally and professionally. At a professional level, I acquired a lot of new skills that I may not have acquired if I hadn’t done the dissertation. Furthermore, it let me listen to workers and members of a cooperative I’m not a member of in a totally impartial way and see diverse realities.
At a personal level, the dissertation helped me set priorities and manage emotions but, above all, it made me realise there are things outside my control and it’s important and necessary to accept them.