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1 – 10 of 513Mathilde Vandaele and Sanna Stålhammar
Education in sustainability science is largely ignorant of the implications of the environmental crisis on inner dimensions, including mindsets, beliefs, values and worldviews…
Abstract
Purpose
Education in sustainability science is largely ignorant of the implications of the environmental crisis on inner dimensions, including mindsets, beliefs, values and worldviews. Increased awareness of the acuteness and severity of the environmental and climate crisis has caused a contemporary spread of hopelessness among younger generations. This calls for a better understanding of potential generative forces of hope in the face of climate change. This paper aims to uncover strategies for fostering constructive hope among students.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines, through qualitative interviews, the characteristics of constructive hope amongst proactive students enrolled in university programs related to global environmental challenges. Constructive hope describes a form of hope leading to sustained emotional stability and proactive engagement through both individual and collective actions.
Findings
The findings are presented according to four characteristics of constructive hope: goal, pathway thinking, agency thinking and emotional reinforcement. This shows how students perceive the importance of: collaboratively constructing and empowering locally grounded objectives; reinforcing trust in the collective potential and external actors; raising students’ perceived self-efficacy through practical applications; teaching different coping strategies related to the emotional consequences of education on students’ well-being.
Originality/value
We outline practical recommendations for educational environments to encourage and develop constructive hope at multiple levels of university education, including structures, programs, courses and among students’ interactions. We call for practitioners to connect theoretical learning and curriculum content with practice, provide space for emotional expressions, release the pressure from climate anxiety, and to foster a stronger sense of community among students.
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Sedigheh Karimpour, Majid Elahi Shirvan and Mojdeh Shahnama
The present study explores five Iranian English language teachers’ hopes by drawing on an ecological approach as its conceptual underpinning.
Abstract
Purpose
The present study explores five Iranian English language teachers’ hopes by drawing on an ecological approach as its conceptual underpinning.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from narrative frames and semi-structured interviews.
Findings
Analyses of our data highlighted how teacher- and student-related factors caused fluctuations in teachers’ hopes. In addition, our findings indicated that while teachers’ past teaching experiences increased their hope, teachers’ lack of agency and economic inflation were among the most significant factors that decreased teachers’ hope in their profession.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first studies in the field of language studies with an ecological perspective on language teachers' hope.
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Bekir Bora Dedeoğlu, Caner Çalışkan, Tzu-Ling Chen, Jacek Borzyszkowski and Fevzi Okumus
This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness in the workplace, life satisfaction, affect, hope and expressivity among hotel employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model was tested via structural equation modeling based on the empirical data collected from hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey.
Findings
The research findings suggest that emotional deprivation and social companionship have a significant impact on life satisfaction, that life satisfaction has a significant impact on positive and negative emotions, and that positive and negative emotions have the same impact on pathways and agencies.
Originality/value
The research findings should assist researchers and practitioners to understand the behaviors of hotel employees in continuous interaction and relationship with individuals to motivate them while providing more effective services.
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L. J. McElravy, Gina Matkin and Lindsay J. Hastings
Although service-learning increases several important development and learning outcomes in college students (Yorio & Ye, 2012), it is not clear whether service-learning is better…
Abstract
Although service-learning increases several important development and learning outcomes in college students (Yorio & Ye, 2012), it is not clear whether service-learning is better preparing these students for their future careers (Gray, Ondaatje, Fricker, & Geschwind, 2000). To better understand the influence of service-learning on student development, an exploration of a leadership service-learning course and an important workplace attribute, Positive Psychological Capital, are theoretically explored.
Vathsala Wickramasinghe and Chamudi Mallawaarachchi
The study aims to investigate organization interventions experienced by employees during the lockdown for Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), and…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate organization interventions experienced by employees during the lockdown for Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), and the effect of these organization interventions on hope.
Design/methodology/approach
The respondents for the study were employees in full-time white-collar or professional job positions; they performed their job roles by way of work from home (WFH) in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.
Findings
Results showed that employees maintained high levels of hope while working from home. The study identified four organization interventions that (a) promote collaborative and coordinated work, (b) promote meaningful goals and a sense of social support, (c) alleviate psychological strain and (d) assist in maintaining physical health. These four organization interventions increased hope during the COVID-19 lockdown while working from home.
Originality/value
The literature calls for research on intervention studies explaining the promotion of hope. The present study was built on the theories of positive organizational behaviour, conservation of resources theory and hope theory. The findings support that these three traditional theories have lasting theoretical resonance in explaining present-day phenomena with unique applications.
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Kenzie Latham-Mintus and Scott D. Landes
The purpose of this chapter is to reconsider the five principles of Elder et al.'s (2003) life course theory while centering disability status as an axis of inequality. We use…
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to reconsider the five principles of Elder et al.'s (2003) life course theory while centering disability status as an axis of inequality. We use existing research from the fields of the sociology of disability, disability studies, and aging and the life course to reflect on ways in which each life course principle can better attend to the experiences of disabled people. We start with the principle of time and place and discuss how cohort and period effects facilitate a deeper understanding of disabled people's experiences historically. Next, we analyze the principle of timing with an emphasis on cumulative dis/advantage to establish how disability status is an axis of inequality that contributes to the accumulation of social disadvantage and intersects with other axes of inequality (e.g., race, class, and gender). Then, we discuss the two principles of agency and linked lives and employ the concept of “bounded agency” to describe how ableism limits the agency of disabled people. Finally, we examine the principle of life-span development and discuss how adaptation and resilience are contextual and an ordinary part of human experiences. We conclude by offering recommendations for both life course and disability scholars to consider in hopes of broadening our theoretical and empirical knowledge about the lives of disabled people at every stage of the life course and the mechanisms by which resources are stratified by disability and age.
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Märt Vesinurm, Inka Sylgren, Annika Bengts, Paulus Torkki and Paul Lillrank
This article aims to clarify the concepts used to understand, analyze and improve a patient’s progress through a health service system. A patient pathway describes plans and…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to clarify the concepts used to understand, analyze and improve a patient’s progress through a health service system. A patient pathway describes plans and intentions. Within it, we distinguish between the clinical pathway of decisions and interventions and the care pathway of supportive activities. As a patient pathway is implemented, it turns into a patient journey of what is done, what happens to a patient’s medical condition and what is experienced and felt. We introduce “patient journey disruption” (PJD) as a concept describing the events that need to be prevented from happening to accomplish integrated, coordinated and seamless care.
Design/methodology/approach
The method used in this paper is concept analysis. First, an expert steering group worked to refine the concept of PJDs; second, an analysis of similar concepts from related fields was done to root the concept into existing theories, and third, semi-structured interviews with professionals and patients were done to test the concept of PJDs in the home care context.
Findings
PJDs are agency-based harmful events in the execution of the care pathway that deviate the patient journey from what can be reasonably expected. PJDs are management failures, which is why they should be studied by healthcare operations management (HOM) and service science scholars with the intention to find ways to prevent them from happening.
Research limitations/implications
This study has limitations, including presenting conceptual ideas and preliminary results that are only indicative.
Practical implications
We believe that the introduction of the concept of PJDs into the literature provides a new, systematic way of approaching the different shortcomings in our healthcare production systems. Moreover, by systematically identifying different PJDs, interventions can be designed and targeted more appropriately.
Originality/value
Managerial challenges regarding healthcare processes have been studied but have not been well defined. The concept of PJDs is an original, well-thought-out definition.
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Andrew M. Jefferson and Samantha Jeffries
The chapters in this book show that it is possible to conduct studies on the intersections between gender, criminalization, imprisonment, and human rights in Southeast Asia. In…
Abstract
The chapters in this book show that it is possible to conduct studies on the intersections between gender, criminalization, imprisonment, and human rights in Southeast Asia. In this conclusion, we draw out the implications of this emerging scholarship. More specifically, we critically examine how common talk about “individual needs” risks blinding criminal justice reformers to the structural, gendered dynamics that render people criminalizable and imprisonable. We explore the potential of the concept of participation to strengthen understandings and activism around gendered harms, and grapple with the thorny issue of for whom we speak. We advocate for cross-cultural understandings, developed in collaboration and through partnership, to productively challenge the ethnocentrism of criminology and propel truly transformative agendas. Three steps are identified to decenter research and activism: Scholars and activists must acknowledge the risks of attending to need while not attending to the drivers of need; resist the temptation to operate only within the limits defined by the authorities, the state, the academy, or agencies set up to protect; and generate “home grown,” counter-hegemonic solutions that push back against the tendency to universalize, colonize and deny difference.
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Matt Crosslin, Kimberly Breuer, Nikola Milikić and Justin T. Dellinger
This study explores ongoing research into self-mapped learning pathways that students utilize to move through a course when given two modalities to choose from: one that is…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores ongoing research into self-mapped learning pathways that students utilize to move through a course when given two modalities to choose from: one that is instructor-led and one that is student-directed.
Design/methodology/approach
Process mining analysis was utilized to examine and cluster clickstream data from an online college-level History course designed with dual modality choices. This paper examines some of the results from different approaches to clustering the available data.
Findings
By examining how often students interacted with others, whether they were more internal or external facing with their pathway choices, and whether or not they completed a learning pathway, this study identified five general tactics from the data: Individualistic Internal; Non-completing Internal; Completing, Interactive Internal; Completing, Interactive, and Reflective and Completing External. Further analysis of when students used each tactic led to the identification of four different strategies that learners utilized during class sessions.
Practical implications
The results of this analysis could potentially lead to the creation of customizable design models that can assist learners as they navigate modality choices in learner-centered or less-structured learning design methodologies.
Originality/value
Few courses are designed to give the learners the options to follow the instructor or create their own learning pathway. Knowing how to identify what choices a learner might take in these scenarios is even less explored. Preliminary data for this paper was originally presented as a poster session at the Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference in 2019.
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Basheer M. Al-Ghazali and Bilal Afsar
The construct of psychological capital or PsyCap (consisting of the positive psychological resources of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resilience) has been demonstrated to…
Abstract
Purpose
The construct of psychological capital or PsyCap (consisting of the positive psychological resources of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resilience) has been demonstrated to relate to employees’ attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of positive psychological capital on mental health, readiness for organizational change, and job insecurity in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 567 hotel employees working in hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A quantitative approach was used and employees were requested to fill the questionnaires.
Findings
Results show that psychological capital enhances an employee’s mental health and readiness for the organizational change. Moreover, PsyCap is found to negatively impact the perceptions of job insecurity among hotel employees. The study has useful managerial implications for hoteliers, especially, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
This is the first study of its kind to link hotel employees’ positive psychological capital with their perceptions about job insecurity and mental health. COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world fiercely and new normal expects employees to be ready to embrace changes in organizations. This study contributes to the literature on hospitality management by linking psychological capital with hotel employees’ readiness for organizational change in the context of Coronavirus.
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