Search results

As a retired academic, I have written many academic papers over the years. This is not an academic paper; it is a personal account of my experiences in autumn 2007 of six days in an NHS hospital in Wales. My previous experience of hospitals in the UK consisted of having my tonsils out in 1947 and visiting my husband and parents who were patients in the same hospital over the course of the last years of their lives and of visiting friends in hospitals.

The Bangladeshi Migrants Pilot Study establishes the feasibility of applying the methods used in studying the informal support networks of older people in the majority population of Britain, specifically the Wenger support networks typology, to the elders of an immigrant group, and to elders who have remained in the region of origin. The sample consists of Bangladeshis aged 55+ in Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom (N=98), and Sylhet in Bangladesh (N=51) (see Table 1). The paper provides an ethnohistory of Bangladeshi immigration to the United Kingdom, a comparison of the support networks of Bangladeshis living in Sylhet and Tower Hamlets, and a comparison of support networks of Bangladeshis with rural and urban dwellers in the United Kingdom. The Practitioners Assessment of Network Typology (PANT) algorithm produces support network types in 99% of cases and demonstrates that the instrument is applicable in different cultures. Results show little difference between the support networks of Bangladeshis in Sylhet compared with London. There are significant differences between support networks of the Bangladeshi samples and the rural and urban United Kingdom samples.

Limits may be placed on sociability through a sense of social superiority (middle‐class people separating themselves from working‐class on a housing estate), through strength of sociability within the nuclear family limiting outside contacts, or through placing a value on solitude and personal privacy. Inadequate attention has been paid to those who actually “choose” social isolation; in particular, the group formed by those who never marry but choose the single life and its attendant type of social isolation would be worth study, giving consideration to the reasons behind such choices.

This paper describes a dispersed service operated by Age Concern Leominster in North Herefordshire. The service uses local facilities to offer day‐care services to older people living in isolated rural communities. Discussion focuses on the challenges facing a service provider in developing and maintaining a localised service across a diverse range of communities, and presents a series of essential strategies for success.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the central role of critical reflection for practitioners.

This joint paper is informed by a practitioner and an academic perspective and is an output from ongoing research. An MA in Strategic HR provides the initial focus. This partnership programme is informed by action learning ethos and method and the emancipatory potential of critical reflection. The paper illustrates how students talk about becoming critically reflective, and in doing so it explores the opportunities and challenges involved.

It is argued that in order for critical reflection to realise its potential of emancipatory change, pedagogy needs to be underpinned by critical process and critical content. However, it is unfortunate that a majority of critical literature appears to be addressed to an academic audience. The paper also highlights the need to support learning conversations beyond the original set.

The paper highlights the need for development initiatives to support the questioning of taken‐for‐granted assumptions. This draws attention to the necessity of supporting an emerging community of critically reflective practitioners by ensuring an open dialogue about values and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical discussion of a developing epistemology and methodology for a qualitative study of participants of enterprise education in south‐west Ireland, run collaboratively between third level academics, a regional development agency, and entrepreneurs.

The perspective taken is social constructionist, drawing on ideas from identity theory and social learning theory. A discursive approach to entrepreneurship suggests that an entrepreneurial aspect of human identity (as with other aspects) is emergent and relational, developed through dialogue with family, customers, employees, suppliers, competitors and others. In the education programme, aspiring entrepreneurs’ exposure to and close engagement with a network of national and international mentors, coupled with their engagement in risk taking, can be understood through the notion of becoming, through and in relation to others.

The mentor network in the education programme is conceptualised as a community of practice that provides induction for nascent entrepreneurs for stimulating their learning of how to be, their acquisition of status and identify, and not simply their development of practical skills.

The immediate practical implication is that greatest insight would be achieved by a longitudinal study that follows nascent entrepreneurs from start to completion of an education intervention and takes an ethnographic approach.

Findings and the proposed methodology will be of value to those designing and researching entrepreneurship education, where outcomes are desired that go beyond knowledge acquisition.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the invisible role of observational learning in the development of leadership practice. A model of observational learning and leadership practice is suggested to help guide theorizing and design intervention.

The approach takes the form of empirical qualitative research that utilizes a time‐line interview technique with 34 managers to enable in‐depth data to be revealed of observational leadership learning. Data analysis is through a phenomenological grounded theory approach.

The paper illustrates that observational learning from “notable people” is a prominent influence of these managers' conceptions of leadership. Such observational learning differed between men and women and between employed and self‐employed contexts.

The variety, availability and diversity of people to observe and engage with are argued here to have significant implications for the development of leadership practice.

The conclusions suggest that interventions into the leadership development of men and women, and between the employed and self‐employed need to be different and such interventions need to be responsive to established structural practices.

The paper responds to a call for contextualized, in‐depth qualitative research into leadership development, making prominent the significance of observational learning to leadership practice and how such observational learning varies between men and women, and between the employed and the self‐employed. It also provides a model of observational learning and leadership practice to guide understanding of informal leadership development.