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Employee management and animal care: a comparative ethnography of two large-scale dairy farms in China Chen, Maria
Abstract
Farm management can directly and indirectly affect animal care. I explored how farm management affected animal care on 2 large dairy farms in China (anonymized as Farm A and Farm B). I used a mini-ethnographic case study design, living for 38 days on Farm A and 23 days on Farm B. I conducted participant observation and ethnographic interviews with farm staff positions within 5 departments in Farm A and 6 departments in Farm B. In addition, I conducted 13 semi-structured interviews (7 on Farm A; 6 on Farm B). I used template analysis to generate key themes. On both farms, workers believed that animal care practices had improved over time, due to 3 key employee management factors: 1) organizational culture, 2) competency of worker and management, and 3) an effective incentive system. These results suggest that animal care may be improved in this context by: 1) promoting a culture in which workers have ‘grit’ and are eager to learn, 2) ensuring basic worker wellbeing, and 3) using animal care outcomes as performance indicators linked to pay.
Item Metadata
Title |
Employee management and animal care: a comparative ethnography of two large-scale dairy farms in China
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2021
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Description |
Farm management can directly and indirectly affect animal care. I explored how farm management affected animal care on 2 large dairy farms in China (anonymized as Farm A and Farm B). I used a mini-ethnographic case study design, living for 38 days on Farm A and 23 days on Farm B. I conducted participant observation and ethnographic interviews with farm staff positions within 5 departments in Farm A and 6 departments in Farm B. In addition, I conducted 13 semi-structured interviews (7 on Farm A; 6 on Farm B). I used template analysis to generate key themes. On both farms, workers believed that animal care practices had improved over time, due to 3 key employee management factors: 1) organizational culture, 2) competency of worker and management, and 3) an effective incentive system. These results suggest that animal care may be improved in this context by: 1) promoting a culture in which workers have ‘grit’ and are eager to learn, 2) ensuring basic worker wellbeing, and 3) using animal care outcomes as performance indicators linked to pay.
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2021-04-14
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0396696
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2021-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Citations and Data
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International