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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the financial decision-making process of farmers and to highlight the potential role that improved farm financial management (FFM) could play in developing sustainable farm enterprises.

This paper adopts a qualitative approach with 27 semi-structured interviews exploring farmers’ financial decision-making processes. Subsequently, the interview findings were presented to a focus group. Sensemaking theory is adopted as a theoretical lens to develop the empirical findings.

The evidence highlights that FFM has a dual role to play in farmer decision-making. Some FFM activities may act as a cue, which triggers a sensebreaking activity, causing the farmer to enter a process of sensemaking whilst some/other FFM activities are drawn upon to provide a sensegiving role in the sensemaking process. The role of FFM in farmer decision-making is strongly influenced by the decision type (strategic or operational) being undertaken and the farm type (dairy, tillage or beef) in operation.

The literature suggests that the majority of farmers spend little time on financial management. However, there are farmers who have quite a high level of engagement in FFM activities, when undertaking strategic farm expansion decisions. Those FFM activities help them to navigate through operational decision-making and to make sense of their strategic decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and theorize the type of hate-love relationship to performance measurement systems (PMSs) that individual researchers tend to develop in academia. To this end, the paper draws upon Foucault’s writings on neoliberalism to analyse PMSs as neoliberal technologies holding certain qualities that can be expected to elicit such ambivalent views.

The paper is based on a qualitative interview study of researchers from three Swedish universities, who were asked to reflect upon questions related to three overall themes, namely, what it means to be a researcher in contemporary academia, the existence and use of PMSs at their universities and if/how such PMSs affected them and their work as researchers.

The empirical findings show that the hate-love relationship can be understood in terms of how PMSs are involved in three central moments of governmentality, where each such moment of governmentality tends to elicit feelings of ambivalence among researchers due to how PMSs rely on: a restricted centrifugal mechanism, normalization rather than normation and a view of individual academics as entrepreneurs of themselves.

Existing literature has provided several important insights into how the introduction and use of PMSs in academia tend to result in both negative and positive experiences and reactions. The current paper adds to this literature through theorizing how and why PMSs may be expected to elicit such ambivalent experiences and reactions among individual researchers.

Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014). Much of the research on rape culture focuses on the experiences of heterosexual women, and few studies have explored rape culture in the context of dating apps. This chapter explores how men who have sex with men (MSM) understand and experience rape culture through their use of Grindr and similar dating apps. A thematic analysis of interviews with 25 MSM dating app users revealed problematic user behavior as well as unwanted sexual messages and images as common manifestations of rape culture on dating apps. Participants explained that rape culture extends beyond in-app interactions to in-person encounters, as evident by incidents of sexual violence that several participants had experienced and one participant had committed. Participants were unsure about the extent to which MSM dating apps facilitate rape culture but asserted that some apps enable rape culture more than others. This chapter demonstrates the importance of investigating sexual violence against people of diverse gender and sexual identities to ensure their experiences are not minimized, ignored, or rendered invisible.

Qualitative research that involves the use of human participants calls for the need to protect those participants to give their honest view during data collection. This is an important part of every primary data collection in qualitative studies using interviews. This paper aims to investigate all available ethical considerations that need to be observed by the researcher when conducting primary data collection through interview and to explore the theories that underpin the ethics in qualitative studies.

This paper systemically reviewed existing qualitative data on ethics and gathered information that were analysed and presented on the topic area.

The findings show that ethical considerations deal with the various approaches adopted by the researcher to make the participants feel safe to participate in any given researcher. During an interview process in qualitative research, the findings show that anonymity, voluntary participation, privacy, confidentiality, option to opt out and avoiding misuse of findings are ethical considerations that must be observed by the researcher. The outcome of the investigation also shows that deontology and utilitarianism, rights and virtue are the main theories that underpin ethical considerations in research.

The rights of the research participants need to be respected in qualitative research to assist in gathering accurate information to achieve the objectives of study. This and other ethical principles such as anonymity, privacy, confidentiality, voluntary participation and option to opt out guide the researcher to systematically adhere to data collection approaches that yield valid results in qualitative data collection using interviews.

There has been an unprecedented increase in online learning worldwide, including in teacher education. However, student lurking can be a common issue, leading to a non-interactive learning environment.

The authors employed a qualitative case study with thematic analysis to examine a novel “self-directed” pre-service teacher online degree module that engaged students in regular peer-feedback, which intended to promote student engagement and interactivity. The research questions were as follows: To what extent did the seminar series represent the principles of self-directed learning and were learning outcomes effective from the process? And, how effective was the use of peer feedback?

The thematic analysis revealed that student progression and course completion was successful, and it represented some principles of self-directed learning; but (a) it cannot be presumed that pre-service teachers are competent in giving (peer) feedback and (b) pre-service teachers may need specific guidance and training for providing competent feedback.

This paper is highly original in respect of its combination of the self-directed learning framework with use of peer feedback, to engage students in an interactive learning environment. The present paper identifies that peer feedback is a powerful tool in online learning; peer feedback can supplement self- and teacher-assessment; but it should not be assumed that pre-service teachers are competent in providing (peer) feedback – pre-service teachers may need specific training in providing feedback.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate US noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO) in South Korea and devise planning and management procedures that improve the efficiency of those missions.

It formulates a time-staged network model of the South Korean noncombatant evacuation system as a mixed integer linear program to determine an optimal flow configuration that minimizes the time required to complete an evacuation. This solution considers the capacity and resource constraints of multiple transportation modes and effectively allocates the limited assets across a time-staged network to create a feasible evacuation plan. That solution is post-processed and a vehicle routing procedure then produces a high resolution schedule for each individual asset throughout the entire duration of the NEO.

This work makes a clear improvement in the decision-making and resource allocation methodology currently used in a NEO on the Korea peninsula. It immediately provides previously unidentifiable information regarding the scope and requirements of a particular evacuation scenario and then produces an executable schedule for assets to facilitate mission accomplishment.

The significance of this work is not relegated only to evacuation operations on the Korean peninsula; there are numerous other NEO and natural disaster related scenarios that can benefit from this approach.

The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the backpacker label by reconstructing it using the historical antecedent of drifting. Following the deconstruction of backpacking’s near past, the author build a clearer conceptual foundation for backpacking’s future.

The study is framed by scenario planning, which demands a critical review of the backpacking and an appreciation of its history in order to understand its future.

Backpacking, ever evolving, remains difficult to articulate and challenges researchers to “keep up” with its complexity and heterogeneity. This paper argues that researchers must learn more about how backpacking “works” by opening a dialogue with its past, before engaging in further research. The paper finds that a poor conceptualisation of backpacking has led to a codification of backpacker criteria.

Backpacking remains a research topic which draws disparate researchers using criteria that produces disparate results and deviations. By understanding its past, researchers will be better placed to explore the emancipatory impulses that drive backpackers today and in the future.

This papers’ value lies in the retrospection process which explores backpacking’s near past so as to “make sense” of present research and present scenarios for it is the immediate future. The paper re-anchors backpacking by investigating the major historical, social and cultural events leading up to its emergence.

Commercially produced educational materials often reflect the pedagogical beliefs and culture(s) of the content developers. While many teachers involved in teaching English as a foreign language have relied on commercially published content in the past, the advent of ubiquitous technology has afforded them the ability to create content that is contextualised and to share it with other educators across the globe. The purpose of this study is to investigate cultural determinants which affect the pedagogical decisions of teachers when designing content.

This case study, conducted at a higher educational institution in the Gulf, addresses the issues that arise when cultures or ideologies of educators as material developers are different to that of the target audience. Three semi-structured interviews with teachers were conducted in an effort to understand cultural determinants that influence decision-making about pedagogy when creating in-house content to motivate undergraduate students on an English language program in the United Arab Emirates.

The results of this study indicated that the participants maintained mainly essentialist perspectives of local cultures and sub-cultures and their thinking in content creation was not all that different to that of commercial publishers.

This study holds implications for awareness-raising and pedagogical training for educators involved in in-house content development.

This case study addresses an area that has been under-researched in the Gulf region.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse two approaches to paramedic service clinical governance and quality management from the perspective of two groups of paramedics and paramedic managers working in North America.

A case study approach was utilised to describe and analyse paramedic service medical direction in North America and contrast this with the professional self-governance and clinical governance systems operating in other high-income countries. Researchers interviewed participants at two remote North American sites, then completed transcription and thematic analysis.

Participants identified three themes: first, resourcing, regulatory frameworks and fragmentation; second, independent practice facilitators and barriers; and third, paramedic roles and professionalisation. Those trained outside North America tended to identify self-regulation and clinical governance as the preferred approach to quality management. Few participants had considered paramedicine becoming a self-regulating health profession.

In North America, the “medical direction” model is the dominant approach employed to ensure optimal patient outcomes in paramedic service delivery. In contrast, other comparable countries employ paramedic self-regulatory systems combined with clinical governance to achieve the same ends. This is one of two studies to examine medical direction from the perspective of paramedics and paramedic managers.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuro-developmental condition that has frequently been pathologised in career research and broader society to date. The study seeks to reframe such assumptions through a qualitative positive-focused exploration of career stories of ADHD adults, elicited through a strength-focused technique with wide applicability for coaching and other career-based development activities.

Situated in a strength-focused coaching psychology paradigm, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews with 17 participants, using an adapted feedforward interview technique (FFI) rooted in positive psychology (PP), to investigate individuals' strengths and successful career experiences.

Narrative thematic analysis of the transcripts identified two core themes: “the paradoxical nature of strengths” and “career success as an evolving narrative”. The participants described how they have achieved career success both “in spite of” and “because of” ADHD. The use of the FFI demonstrated a helpful and easily taught method for eliciting personal narratives of success and strengths, an essential foundation to any coaching process.

This research provides a nuanced overview, and an associated conceptual model, of how adults with ADHD perceive their career-based strengths and experiences of success. Further, the research shows the value of using a positive psychological coaching approach when working with neurominority individuals, using a successful adaptation of the FFI. The authors hope that the documentation of this technique and the resulting insights will offer important guidance for managers as coaches and internal and external career coaches, as well as providing positive and relatable narrative resources for ADHD adults.