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1 – 10 of 196Ingrid Schoon, Andy Ross and Peter Martin
Understanding the factors and processes facilitating entry into science related occupations is a first step in developing effective interventions aiming to increase a skilled…
Abstract
Purpose
Understanding the factors and processes facilitating entry into science related occupations is a first step in developing effective interventions aiming to increase a skilled science base. This paper intends to address individual as well as family and school related influences on uptake of science, engineering, technology and health related careers.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on data collected for two British birth cohorts: the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study, a developmental‐contextual model of career development is tested, comparing the experiences of over 17,000 men and women during the transition from school to work.
Findings
The findings suggest that there is a persisting gender imbalance both in terms of aspirations and occupational attainment. Interest and attachment to a science related career are formed early in life, often by the end of primary education. School experiences, in particular, are crucial in attracting young people to a career in science.
Research limitations/implications
Much remains to be done to improve intake in science related occupations, especially regarding recognition and access to science related courses at school, and rendering school experiences more relevant and engaging for young people.
Originality/value
Comparing career transitions in two longitudinal cohorts allows the study of careers over time, linking early influences to later outcomes, and enables the identification of stable and changing patterns in antecedents and outcomes.
This ethnographic chapter takes the reader into the wider lifeworlds of the ethnographic participants of this study and their entrepreneurial efforts to make a living from the…
Abstract
This ethnographic chapter takes the reader into the wider lifeworlds of the ethnographic participants of this study and their entrepreneurial efforts to make a living from the increasingly commodified and sportified world of lifestyle sports. It contextualises this trend within the challenges, barriers and anxieties that surround youth transitions into adulthood in late-capitalism; the increasingly blurred line between work and leisure and the rise of ‘prosumption’ and its impact upon modes of capital accumulation.
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Audrey Laing and Jo Royle
The purpose of this paper is to identify current marketing initiatives undertaken by UK chain booksellers and analyses them in the context of established retailing and marketing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify current marketing initiatives undertaken by UK chain booksellers and analyses them in the context of established retailing and marketing theory. Thus, established scholarly theory is being examined in a novel research setting.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper includes evidence and findings from semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews with various book trade experts working at different levels within the trade.
Findings
Focusing on the strategies behind the chains' marketing techniques, the paper concentrates in particular upon the new emphasis by UK chains upon serving a wider clientele and their efforts to establish individual identities and be “community responsive”. This has resulted in a re‐emphasis both upon customer service and on the relationship between bookseller and customer. New developments in the facilities to be found in chain bookshops, such as coffee shops and the proliferation of sofas and browsing areas are analysed as to their contribution to bookshop “atmosphere”.
Originality/value
This research is both timely, responding to calls from the trade for research and original, given the dearth of research on the book trade. The findings are examined within the context of academic theory in related fields, such as retailing, marketing and consumer behaviour. As such, findings from this highly original research are relevant both for the trade and for the wider academic community regarding their application and consideration in other scholarly settings.
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Clare Lyonette and Rosemary Crompton
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief summary of a series of papers presented at the gender, class, employment and family conference, held at City University, London, in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief summary of a series of papers presented at the gender, class, employment and family conference, held at City University, London, in March 2008.
Design/methodology/approach
The conference involved 25 papers presented by invited speakers, and the report is based on summary notes, observations and conference abstracts.
Findings
This report summarises a range of contributions, theoretical and empirical, to the continuing debates on gender and class inequality in Britain, Europe and the USA. The evidence presented not only demonstrated the persistence of gender and class inequalities, but also provided a critique of the “individualisation” thesis. The contribution of both normative and material factors to gender inequality was extensively explored. The discussions focused upon a series of tensions and contradictions – between “sameness” and “difference” feminism; choice and constraint; capitalist markets and the human requirement for caring work.
Originality/value
Many of the papers drew on original empirical research, both quantitative and qualitative, using sophisticated methodologies. Longitudinal findings (cohort studies) were well represented, as were cutting‐edge theoretical contributions.
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Jacqueline Scott and Jane Nolan
This editorial aims to explore some of the reasons why women and men do not experience the revolutionary forces of new technologies in the same way.
Abstract
Purpose
This editorial aims to explore some of the reasons why women and men do not experience the revolutionary forces of new technologies in the same way.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews a series of research and conceptual papers which were first presented at a seminar at the University of Cambridge organised by the Economic and Social Research Council's Gender Equality Network
Findings
Taken together, the papers show the dynamic interdependence of work undertaken in both the public and private spheres and the role of different forms of new technologies in influencing inequalities in the division of labour
Originality/value
The collection of papers is probably unique in that its focus is not just on paid work but also on the implications of technological change for gender equality in domestic labour.
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Lynn E. Shanahan, Mary B. McVee, Jennifer A. Schiller, Elizabeth A. Tynan, Rosa L. D’Abate, Caroline M. Flury-Kashmanian, Tyler W. Rinker, Ashlee A. Ebert and H. Emily Hayden
Purpose – This chapter provides the reader with an overview of a reflective video pedagogy for use within a literacy center or within professional development contexts. The…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter provides the reader with an overview of a reflective video pedagogy for use within a literacy center or within professional development contexts. The conceptual overview is followed by two-case examples that reveal how literacy centers can serve as rich, productive research sites for the use and study of reflective video pedagogy.
Methodology/approach – The authors describe their ongoing work to develop and integrate a reflective video pedagogy within a literacy center during a 15-week practicum for literacy-specialists-in-training. The reflective video pedagogy is not only used by the clinicians who work with struggling readers twice a week, but it is also used by the researchers at the literacy center who study the reflective video pedagogy through the same video the clinicians use.
Practical implications – Literacy centers are dynamic sites where children, families, pre/in-service teachers, and teacher educators work together around literacy development. Reflective video pedagogies can be used to closely examine learning and teaching for adult students (i.e., clinicians) and for youth (i.e., children in elementary, middle, and high school) and also for parents who want their children to find success with literacy.
Research implications – In recent years “scaling up” and “scientific research” have come to dominate much of the literacy research landscape. While we see the value and necessity of large-scale experimental studies, we also posit that literacy centers have a unique role to play. Given that resources are scarce, literacy scholars must maximize the affordances of literacy centers as rich, productive research sites for the use and study of a reflective video pedagogy.
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Heather Tolland and Emma Drysdale
The purpose of this paper was to explore the well-being and experiences of working from home (WFH) for psychology staff across a range of specialties working within one health…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to explore the well-being and experiences of working from home (WFH) for psychology staff across a range of specialties working within one health board in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 161 clinical psychology professionals took part in an online survey that explored experiences of WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed well-being during this period.
Findings
A number of challenges with WFH were identified, including challenges with carrying out clinical work (e.g. communication difficulties, risk assessment) and fewer opportunities for collaborative working and technical/equipment issues. During the WFH period, 46% experienced fatigue, 45% felt stressed and anxious and 30% felt lonely and isolated, compared to normal. Physical health complaints were also common with 37% experiencing aches/pains in back compared to normal and 40% experiencing headaches or migraines.
Practical implications
Remote therapy should be directed to those with less complex needs or who require straightforward assessments. There should be increased access to occupational health assessments and provision of ergonomic furniture when WFH, and all staff should be supported to access well-being resources available within the health board. Further evaluation should be carried out to support evidence-based practice of remote clinical work.
Originality/value
Few studies have explored the experiences of WFH and/or remotely from the perspectives of clinical psychologists in a Scottish health board. It is expected that this way of working will continue, albeit to a smaller extent; therefore, WFH policy will be informed by the findings.
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Recent work on the theory of teams and team reasoning in game interactive settings is due principally to the late Michael Bacharach (Bacharach, 2006), who offers a conception of…
Abstract
Recent work on the theory of teams and team reasoning in game interactive settings is due principally to the late Michael Bacharach (Bacharach, 2006), who offers a conception of the individual as a team member, and also to Martin Hollis (1998) and Robert Sugden and Natalie Gold (Sugden, 2000; Gold & Sugden, 2007), and is motivated by the conflict between what ordinary experience suggests people often to do and what rationality prescribes for them, such as in prisoner's dilemma games where individuals can choose to cooperate or defect. The source of the conflict, they suggest, is an ambiguity in the syntax of standard game theory, which is taken to pose the question individuals in games ask themselves as, “what should I do?,” but which might be taken to pose the question, particularly when individuals are working together with others as, “what should we do?” When taken in the latter way, each individual chooses according to what best promotes the team's objective and then performs the role appropriate as a member of that team or group. Bacharach understood this change in focus in terms of the different possible cognitive frames that individuals use to think about the world and developed a variable frame theory for rational play in games in which the frame adopted for a decision problem determines what counts as rational play (Janssen, 2001; Casajus, 2001).In order to explain how someone acts, we have to take account of the representation or model of her situation that she is using as she thinks what to do. The model varies with the cognitive frame in which she does her thinking. Her frame stands to her thoughts as a set of axes does to a graph; it circumscribes the thoughts that are logically possible for her (not ever, but at that time). (Bacharach, 2006, p. 69)Sugden understands this framing idea in terms of the theory of focal points following Thomas Schelling's emphasis on the role of salience in coordination games (Schelling, 1960), and his theory similarly ties decision-making to the way the game is understood (Sugden, 1995). This all recalls what Tversky and Kahneman (1981, 1986) termed standard's theory's description invariance assumption, whose abandonment makes it possible to bring a variety of the insights from psychology to bear on rationality in economics.
– The purpose of this paper is to explain how an organization’s performance measurement system can influence the appropriateness of an organization’s responses to threats.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how an organization’s performance measurement system can influence the appropriateness of an organization’s responses to threats.
Design/methodology/approach
Inductive and deductive reasoning, drawing on major theories and on empirical findings in the management literature.
Findings
An organization’s performance measurement system can influence the effectiveness of the organization’s detections of threats and the appropriateness of the organization’s responses to threats and, in these ways, contribute to the organization’s robustness and sustainability.
Practical implications
Formation of an appropriate performance management system can prove critical to both detection of and responses to organizational threats. As such, an organizational performance management system can contribute to organizational robustness and sustainability.
Originality/value
The idea, that an organization’s performance measurement system can influence the effectiveness of the organization’s detections of threats and the appropriateness of the organization’s responses to threats, is not articulated in the management literature. Thus, the research reported here is original and would seem to have value to the research community, the organization design community (as an organization’s control systems are an important component of its architecture), and the management community.
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