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Book part
Publication date: 30 July 2012

Michael Keenan

Purpose – This chapter reflects on my research experiences as a heterosexual man interviewing gay clergy. The chapter focuses on the interviewer/interviewee relationship…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter reflects on my research experiences as a heterosexual man interviewing gay clergy. The chapter focuses on the interviewer/interviewee relationship reflecting on the place of similarity and difference in the research interaction.

Methodology/approach – The chapter reflects on my experiences of undertaking feminist inspired qualitative interviews on sensitive issues.

Findings – The chapter argues for a move beyond a binary understanding of similarity and difference and illustrates interviews as dynamic interactions.

Research limitations/implications – It is hoped that the reflections presented will inform future research in sensitive areas and encourage an open, engaged and reactive approach to interviewing around sensitive topics.

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 30 July 2012

Abstract

Details

Ethics in Social Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-878-6

Book part
Publication date: 8 October 2018

Halvard Vike

In Michael Lipsky’s intriguing analysis of the performance of public bureaucracy – in his classic Street-level Bureaucracy (1980) – he shows, for example, the professional…

Abstract

In Michael Lipsky’s intriguing analysis of the performance of public bureaucracy – in his classic Street-level Bureaucracy (1980) – he shows, for example, the professional discretion they apply may not only involve adapting policy to the individual case, meet real needs in the population, prevent patients, clients, students or users from getting access, etc., but at the same time both have profound policy implications and take very ‘political’ forms. In this chapter, I argue that it is regrettable that Lipsky did not establish a comparative framework for his study. Based on my own ethnographic research in local politics and bureaucratic practice in the municipal world in Norway, I look more closely at the relative autonomy of street-level bureaucracy within the context of universalism – a hallmark of the Nordic welfare state model (Esping-Andersen 1998, 2009) – and explore how it is utilised. The Nordic welfare states are among the most ‘service intense’ states in the Western world, and the personnel working directly with patients, students, clients, etc., play a major role in linking ‘the state’ to the population (Papakostas, 2001, Vike et al., 2002). Thus, the role of the Nordic welfare state’s street-level bureaucracy as a key interface between the state and the population is hard to overestimate (Leira & Sainsbury, 1994). Moreover, as universalism also tends to stimulate what we may call a culture of strong claims (to services) among the population at large, street-level bureaucrats may be able to form strong alliances with other actors, and thus play an important part of the dynamics of power in local politics – where fundamental policy principles such as universalism is at stake.

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Bureaucracy and Society in Transition
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-283-3

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 19 December 2016

Radha R. Sharma and Sir Cary Cooper

Abstract

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Executive Burnout
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-285-9

Book part
Publication date: 10 August 2018

Andani Thakhathi

Contemporary organizations are facing an operating environment characterized by volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and “permanent whitewater.” To sustain high performance in…

Abstract

Contemporary organizations are facing an operating environment characterized by volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and “permanent whitewater.” To sustain high performance in this context, organizations must be able to change and develop as efficiently and effectively as possible. Within organizations, there are actors who catalyze and advance change in this manner; these actors are known as “champions.” Yet the scholar who wishes to conduct research concerning champions of change and organizational development is likely to be met by a highly fragmented literature. Varying notions of champions are scattered throughout extant research, where authors of articles cite different sources when conceptualizing champions; often superficially. Furthermore, many types of highly specific and nuanced non-generalizable champions have proliferated, making it difficult for practitioners and researchers to discover useful findings on how to go about making meaningful changes in their context. The purpose of this study was to address these problems for practitioners and researchers by engendering thoroughness, clarity, and coherence within champion scholarship. This was done by conducting the first comprehensive, critical yet insightful review of the champion literature within the organizational sciences using content analysis to re-conceptualize champions and develop a meaningful typology from which the field can be advanced. The chapter first suggests a return to Schön (1963) as the basis from which to conceptualize champions and, second, offers a typology consisting of 10 meta-champions of organizational change and development – Collaboration, Human Rights, Innovation, Product, Project, Service, Strategic, Sustainability, Technology, and Venture Champions – from which change practice and future research can benefit.

Details

Research in Organizational Change and Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-351-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2019

Charlotte McPherson

Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized…

Abstract

Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized in the contemporary context, can be further compounded by other factors, however, and are particularly amplified by coming from a lower social class background. An additional challenge for young people is associated with place, with youth who live in more remote and less urban areas at a higher risk of being socially excluded (Alston & Kent, 2009; Shucksmith, 2004) and/or to face complex and multiple barriers to employment and education than their urban-dwelling peers (Cartmel & Furlong, 2000). Drawing upon interviews and focus groups in a qualitative project with 16 young people and five practitioners, and using Nancy Fraser’s tripartite theory of social justice, this paper highlights the various and interlocking disadvantages experienced by working-class young people moving into and through adulthood in Clackmannanshire, mainland Scotland’s smallest council area.

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Human Rights for Children and Youth
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-047-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 November 2013

Lynette Riley, Deirdre Howard-Wagner, Janet Mooney and Cat Kutay

This chapter outlines the successful community engagement process used by the authors for the Kinship Online project in the context of Indigenous methodological, epistemological…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter outlines the successful community engagement process used by the authors for the Kinship Online project in the context of Indigenous methodological, epistemological, and ethical considerations. It juxtaposes Indigenous and western ways of teaching and research, exploring in greater detail the differences between them. The following chapter builds on and extends Riley, Howard-Wagner, Mooney & Kutay (2013, in press) to delve deeply into the importance of embedding Aboriginal cultural knowledge in curriculum at the university level.

Practical implications

The chapter gives an account of an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLTC) grant to develop Indigenous Online Cultural Teaching and Sharing Resources (the Kinship Online Project). The project is built on an existing face-to-face interactive presentation based on Australian Aboriginal Kinship systems created by Lynette Riley, which is being re-developed as an online cultural education workshop.

Value

A key consideration of the researchers has been Aboriginal community engagement in relation to the design and development of the project. The chapter delves deeply into the importance of embedding Aboriginal cultural knowledge into curriculum at the university level. In doing so, the chapter sets out an Aboriginal community engagement model compared with a western research model which the authors hope will be useful to other researchers who wish to engage in research with Aboriginal people and/or communities.

Details

Seeding Success in Indigenous Australian Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-686-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 November 2008

Michael Eskay and Keith Willis

A social skill is similar to a skill found in a workplace that involves social interaction. The hallmark of a social skill is the smooth progression toward a goal. As with other…

Abstract

A social skill is similar to a skill found in a workplace that involves social interaction. The hallmark of a social skill is the smooth progression toward a goal. As with other workplace skills, social skills have both cognitive and behavioral components (Attwood, 2003). According to Webster's New World Dictionary (1986), a social skill is a “developmental tool used to interact and communicate with others to assist status in the social structure and other motivations” (p. 23). This means that social rules and social relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways creating social complexity useful in identifying outsiders. The process of learning these skills is called socialization (Barry & Burlew, 2004). Specific examples of social skills may include initiating, responding, and keeping interactions going; greeting others and conversing on a variety of topics; giving and accepting compliments; taking turns and sharing; asking for help and helping others; and including others in activities (Wahlberg, Rotatori, Deisinger, & Burkhardt, 2003). Simply put, social skills are the behaviors we use to work and socialize with other people. As Walker, Todis, Holmes, and Horton (1988) pointed out, social skills are defined as social responses and skills that (a) allow one to initiate and maintain positive relationships with others, (b) contribute to peer acceptance and to a successful classroom adjustment, and (c) allow one to cope effectively and adaptively with the social environment.

Details

Autism and Developmental Disabilities: Current Practices and Issues
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-357-6

Book part
Publication date: 30 December 2004

Angela M. Young

Mentoring processes have been researched extensively, but rarely from a perspective that incorporates issues related to stress. In this chapter, a focus is placed on the common…

Abstract

Mentoring processes have been researched extensively, but rarely from a perspective that incorporates issues related to stress. In this chapter, a focus is placed on the common themes and connections between these two important literature bases. The first part of the chapter describes the mentoring process, including a description of types of relationships, stages of relationship development, and the mentoring exchange. Stress research is presented along with a presentation of research that explicitly examines stress in relationship to mentoring. Specific stress points related to each aspect of the mentoring process will be described and illusted in a conceptual model. The chapter will conclude with suggestions for future research and methods that will enhance both stress and mentoring research.

Details

Exploring Interpersonal Dynamics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-153-8

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