| In this dissertation, I provide a qualitative examination of rights-based organizational tensions generated in a crisis over human/labor rights concerns. This project is motivated by two research problems: First, even though rights are often honored, articulated, and acclaimed, the actual organizational practices of rights often result in tensions and contradictions. Second, despite the overwhelming acceptance of rights in political and social domains, rights often become points of conflict and disagreement rather than a means to a resolution. In this project, I analyzed a case of the unionization of parish workers within the U.S. Roman Catholic Church in order to illustrate how individuals used rights to navigate these problems.;The case examines, in particular, how human and labor rights are related and seen as separate or as intersecting, how they are strategically mobilized in organizational settings, and how they are negotiated in larger institutional contexts. Furthermore, this case study observes how participants negotiate and manage the institutional contradictions and tensions they experience in institutionalizing rights discourse. The case, thus, provides an ideal setting for examining rights-based tensions.;Institutional theory and various qualitative research methods provided the theoretical and practical ground from which I engage these problems. Specifically, institutional theory helped me unravel one particular way that individuals experienced these tensions by foregrounding how rights become institutionalized through symbolic negotiation. This theoretical frame was used to address the following research questions: (a) When, how, and by whom are labor rights treated as human rights? (b) How do individuals manage the contradictions they experience regarding various applications of rights? I engage these questions through in-depth moderately scheduled interviews and archival research.;The ensuing analysis explores how participants' understanding of rights enable particular movements of discourse and how participants went about negotiating the contradictions they experienced. Ultimately, I argue that rights served as a type of organizing discourse that is fragmented and contingent rather than stable and constant. This shows that when individuals institutionalize a symbol, the process is often one of discursive alignment and misalignment. |
