Enterprise Social Policy as a Means of Development of Social Work

Abstract

Since its professional beginnings, social work has been a major actor and instrument of social policy. This study is a reconstruction of the development of social work in enterprises implemented as part of enterprise social policy in the territory of Bohemia and Moravia between the years 1876-1989. Using a hermeneutical approach based on historical research, the author explores the transformation of societal institutions, communities and structures. In current specialized literature, social work in enterprises is only described in fragments, without any link to the content or the implementation of social policy realized in individual enterprises. The current volume presents an approach to fill this blank space, using a hermeneutical research design in correspondence to the concept of social and economic history. As the author is able to show, social policy measures realized in the Vítkovice Ironworks, Baťa, can be seen as comprehensive programmes of care for workers which created a supportive environment for the constitution of professional social work in the area.