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1 – 10 of over 1000Amrita Hari, Luciara Nardon and Dunja Palic
Educational institutions are investing heavily in the internationalization of their campuses to attract global talent. Yet, highly skilled immigrants face persistent labor market…
Abstract
Purpose
Educational institutions are investing heavily in the internationalization of their campuses to attract global talent. Yet, highly skilled immigrants face persistent labor market challenges. We investigate how immigrant academics experience and mitigate their double precarity (migrant and academic) as they seek employment in higher education in Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
We take a phenomenological approach and draw on reflective interviews with nine immigrant academics, encouraging participants to elaborate on symbols and metaphors to describe their experiences.
Findings
We found that immigrant academics constitute a unique highly skilled precariat: a group of professionals with strong professional identities and attachments who face the dilemma of securing highly precarious employment (temporary, part-time and insecure) in a new academic environment or forgoing their professional attachment to seek stable employment in an alternate occupational sector. Long-term, stable and commensurate employment in Canadian higher education is out of reach due to credentialism. Those who stay the course risk deepening their precarity through multiple temporary engagements. Purposeful deskilling toward more stable employment that is disconnected from their previous educational and career accomplishments is a costly alternative in a situation of limited information and high uncertainty.
Originality/value
We bring into the conversation discussions of migrant precarity and academic precarity and draw on immigrant academics’ unique experiences and strategies to understand how this double precarization shapes their professional identities, mobility and work integration in Canadian higher education.
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Nicola Sum, Reshmi Lahiri-Roy and Nish Belford
Identity, positioning and possibilities intersect differently for South Asian women in white academia. Within a broader migrant community that defines Australian life, these…
Abstract
Purpose
Identity, positioning and possibilities intersect differently for South Asian women in white academia. Within a broader migrant community that defines Australian life, these identities and positioning imply great possibility, but pursuing such pathways within academia is a walk on the last strand of resilience. This paper explores this tension of possibilities and constraints, using hope theory to highlight the cognitive resistance evident in the narratives of three South Asian women in Australian academia.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use collaborative autoethnography to share their narratives of working in Australian universities at three different stages of careers, utilising Snyder's model of hope theory to interrogate their own goal-setting behaviours, pathways and agentic thinking.
Findings
The authors propose that hope as a cognitive state informs resistance and enables aspirations to contribute within academia in meaningful ways whilst navigating the terrain of inequitable structures.
Originality/value
The authors' use of hope theory as a lens on the intersectional experiences of career making, building and progression is a new contribution to scholarship on marginalised women in white academe and the ways in which the pathways of resistance are identified.
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Beatrice Avolio and Jessica Marleny Chávez Cajo
This phenomenological study, conducted within the discourse on the underrepresentation of women in academia, examined the factors influencing the advancement of women academics in…
Abstract
Purpose
This phenomenological study, conducted within the discourse on the underrepresentation of women in academia, examined the factors influencing the advancement of women academics in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprised twenty-one women academics from both public and private universities in Peru. Data were collected through in-depth interviews based on the women's experiences and subsequently processed using Moustakas’ (1994) stages for encoding, categorization, and analysis.
Findings
The study introduces a conceptual framework of nine factors – personal tastes and preferences, attitudes towards science as a vocation, care work, work–life balance, congruent gender roles, occupational segregation, lack of opportunities, low salaries, and lack of gender equality policies – that impact the career progression of women in STEM fields.
Originality/value
The results offer valuable insights for policymakers and academic authorities to address the barriers affecting women academics in STEM. The uniqueness of this paper lies in its investigation in Peru, a country with the highest female labor force participation in Latin America, where women constitute the majority of undergraduate program graduates.
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Fabrício Rios Nascimento Santos, Viviani Silva Lírio and Anderson Moreira Aristides dos Santos
In addition to being a violation of human rights, the practice of child labor can be related to criminality against young people. In view of this, the hypothesis tested in this…
Abstract
Purpose
In addition to being a violation of human rights, the practice of child labor can be related to criminality against young people. In view of this, the hypothesis tested in this article was that child labor aggravates youth homicide through educational level.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used annual data for the 26 states plus the Federal District for the period 2001 to 2014. To do so, the authors used the iterated feasible generalized least squares (IFGLS) estimator under the seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) model.
Findings
The results showed that child labor positively affects the homicide of young people, showing education as a transmission channel through which the effect is materialized. The general conclusion, given this, that work is an alternative for children not to enter the world of crime due to its socializing character, cannot be sustained.
Practical implications
This evidence provides input to the formulation of policies and programs to eradicate or slow child labor. In addition to the social and economic rise of individuals, it is important to emphasize the role of education (human capital) in explaining economic growth.
Originality/value
So far, there is no record of national research that sought to empirically assess the effect of child labor on crime, in particular, on the homicide of young people, considering education as a transmission channel, and this assessment is the contribution of the present study to the economic literature on crime.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0163
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This article explores the affective dimensions of academic librarians’ experiences during the forced pivot to emergency remote teaching because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Abstract
Purpose
This article explores the affective dimensions of academic librarians’ experiences during the forced pivot to emergency remote teaching because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Through semi-structured interviews with librarians at 18 university libraries in Ontario, Canada, the researcher prompted study participants to reflect on how their work and that of other librarians in their organization changed during the period of focus, including the main challenges and opportunities experienced for information literacy instruction.
Findings
This study finds evidence of stress and anxiety among academic librarians teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic, including lack of confidence and skills with eLearning and work-life balance challenges. At the same time, the data show strengths and successes fueled by resilience, collaboration and a growing culture of care, which in many cases, resulted in strong expressions of pride by interviewees on what was achieved during this global health crisis.
Originality/value
This study is one of few adopting a qualitative research methodology to explore the affective dimensions of academic librarians’ experience of information literacy instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its implications are instructive for future pedagogical approaches and workplace culture among information literacy teams, including communication, collaboration, flexibility and leadership support.
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Heriberta Heriberta, Nurdiana Gaus, Muhammad Azwar Paramma and Nursita Utami
Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self…
Abstract
Purpose
Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self, it must be intentionally managed to obtain its optimum results. This study aims to illustrate how personal branding may also pose unintentional and unconscious strategic tool for women academics in academia to help them get wider visibility and increase their chances of getting into leadership positions.
Design/methodology/approach
We employed a case study approach and convenience sampling to select our unit of analysis. Three universities in both public and private universities in the eastern regions of Indonesia were purposefully selected, and interviews were held with 30 female leaders occupying and occupied middle and lower leadership hierarchies.
Findings
Our research shows that, despite their unintentional, unplanned and poorly designed personal branding, women have been able to advance to their current leadership positions by building their own rooms for practising their own preferred leadership values to get them visible and heard. This way is performed through a gendered networking, previous leadership experience and bureaucratic requirements. The consequence of such a practice may limit the range of visibility to getting noticed as worthy individuals for senior leadership roles. This might be one reason why women are scarcely found in senior leadership positions.
Originality/value
We propose that natural strategies of constructing, narrating and marketing or communicating personal branding in academia through authentic actions can also be helpful for the success of women to get to leadership roles in a smaller and ambient environment.
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Juan Manuel Aristizábal, Edwin Tarapuez and Carlos Alberto Astudillo
This study aims to analyze the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Colombian researchers using machine learning (ML) techniques, considering their academic activity, contexts and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Colombian researchers using machine learning (ML) techniques, considering their academic activity, contexts and social norms (SN).
Design/methodology/approach
Unsupervised classification techniques were applied, including principal component analysis, hierarchical clustering with the Ward method and a logistic model to evaluate the classification. This was done to group researchers according to their characteristics and EI.
Findings
The methodology used allowed the identification of three groups of academics with distinct characteristics, of which two showed a high presence of EI. The results indicate that EI is influenced by the connection with the private sector (consulting, intellectual property and applied research) and by the lack of institutional support from universities. Regarding SN, only the preference for entrepreneurial activity over being an employee and the social appreciation of entrepreneurial dedication were identified as predictors of EI.
Originality/value
The use of ML techniques to study the EI of researchers is uncommon. This study highlights the ability of the methodology used to identify differences between two groups of academics with similar characteristics but different levels of EI. One group was identified that, despite rejecting values associated with entrepreneurs, has a high predisposition to develop a career as an entrepreneur. This provides valuable information for designing policies that promote EI among Colombian researchers.
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Bernadette Nooij, Claire van Teunenbroek, Christine Teelken and Marcel Veenswijk
Our study centered on activity-based workspaces (ABWs), unassigned open-plan configurations where users’ activities determine the workplace. These workspaces are conceived and…
Abstract
Purpose
Our study centered on activity-based workspaces (ABWs), unassigned open-plan configurations where users’ activities determine the workplace. These workspaces are conceived and shaped by accommodation professionals (APs) like managers and architects and are loaded with their ideas, ideals, norms and values; therefore, they are normative and hegemonic. Previous research has largely failed to consider how APs’ spatial conceptions materialize in the workplace. To address this omission, we adopted a narrative approach to study APs’ impact during the conceptualization stage.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected via a 10-year at-home ethnographic study at a Dutch university, including observations, interviews, documents and reports. Studying the researchers’ organization allowed for a longitudinal research approach and participative observations. The data focused on the narrative techniques of APs when establishing an ABW.
Findings
In introducing ABWs, APs resorted to two principal narrative strategies. Firstly, the ABW concept was lauded as a solution to a host of existing problems. Yet, in the face of shortcomings, lecturers were often blamed.
Originality/value
Despite the considerable influence of APs on both the physical layout of workspaces and the nature of academic labor, there is little insight into their conceptions of the academic workspace. Our research contributes a novel perspective by revealing how APs’ workspace conceptions drive the narratives that underpin the roll-out of ABWs and how they construct narratives of success and failure.
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Emma Sadera, Elina E.K. Suonio, Joseph Chih-Chien Chen, Rowan Herbert, Dennis Hsu, Branka Bogdan and Bridget Kool
The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics related to strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable training and professional development (PD) of…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics related to strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable training and professional development (PD) of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), teaching assistants (TAs), and tutors. While the continuous, coherent and responsive programmes for such training and PD may address needs that are congruent with the needs of other sessional teachers, the literature has not focussed on GTA training and PD that support the longer-term retention of GTAs as sessional teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
In this scoping review, we devised a search strategy to identify literature relating to the key characteristics of strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and professional development in higher education settings. We were guided by the frameworks for such reviews developed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005), Levac et al. (2010) and Westphaln et al. (2021). We used PRISMA guidelines to guide our reporting processes, and used thematic analysis practice (Braun and Clarke, 2022) as our analytical approach in order to identify and discuss the key themes.
Findings
We identified that strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and PD frame GTAs as future academics and leaders in teaching; provide institutional support and investment in teaching; deliver departmental training; facilitate peer support; provide pedagogical training; implement training strategies; and support the teacher identity of GTAs.
Originality/value
These findings add to the body of research that explores how strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and PD address and meet the needs common to all sessional teachers constrained by the precarity of the part-time faculty/academia. While our findings indicate such training and PD enhance the quality of teaching available to university students, this effect is dependent on institutional support and facilitation of peer and faculty networks.
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Fabian O. Ugwu, Lawrence E. Ugwu, Fidelis O. Okpata and Ike E. Onyishi
This study investigated whether job resources (i.e. strengths use support, career self-management and person–job [PJ] fit) moderate the relationship between perceived involvement…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated whether job resources (i.e. strengths use support, career self-management and person–job [PJ] fit) moderate the relationship between perceived involvement in a career accident (PICA) and work engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a time-lagged design (N = 398; 69% male), and data were collected at two-point of measurements among Nigerian university academics.
Findings
Results of the present study indicated that employees with higher PICA scores reported low work engagement. Strength use support had significant direct positive main effects on employee work engagement and also produced a significant moderation effect between PICA and work engagement. Career self-management (CSM) was positively related to employee work engagement. The moderation effect of CSM on the relationship between PICA and work engagement was also significant. Results of the present study further indicated that P-J fit was related positively to work engagement and also moderated the negative relationship between PICA and work engagement.
Originality/value
Dearth of employment opportunities has led individuals to choose their career by chance, but empirical studies that validate this assertion are lacking. Few available studies on career accident were exclusively conducted in Western European contexts. The current study therefore deepens the understanding of career accident and work engagement in a neglected context such as Nigeria.
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