Search results

1 – 7 of 7
Open Access
Article
Publication date: 8 February 2024

Anne Margrethe Glømmen, Beate Brevik Sæthern and Rikard Eriksson

This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used an action research approach, by uniting theory and practice to explore new ways of learning and evolve the field of practice in education. Thematic analysis was used to identify and organise patterns or themes that emerged from the data.

Findings

The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors' perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors' search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites.

Research limitations/implications

The low number of participants means the results cannot be generalised, and voluntary participation may have led to more motivated involvement and positive results.

Practical implications

This study shows that mentoring has had an impact on students' development of intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity through regular meetings with individuals from a different cultural background. Mentoring seems to have revealed insights into underlying prejudices and changed perspectives towards better understanding, thus increased acceptance of other cultures.

Originality/value

Search for similar studies shows a lack of research that operationalises and specifies the learning outcomes that mentors gain from being a mentor.

Details

International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6854

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 January 2021

Evans Korang Adjei, Lars-Fredrik Andersson, Rikard H. Eriksson and Sandro Scocco

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of immigration on the labour market outcomes of low-educated natives (i.e. residents without a university diploma). Using the…

4918

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of immigration on the labour market outcomes of low-educated natives (i.e. residents without a university diploma). Using the labour market competition theory, which argues that the labour market effects of natives depend on the skill set of immigrants, the paper addresses whether immigrants are complementary to or substitutes for native workers.

Design/methodology/approach

Longitudinal matched employer–employee data on Sweden are used to estimate how low-educated natives, in regions experiencing the greatest influx of refugees from the Balkan wars, responded to this supply shock with regard to real wages, employment and job mobility between 1990 and 2003.

Findings

First, the analysis shows that low-educated native workers respond to the arrival of immigrants with an increase in real wages. Second, although employment prospects in general worsened for low-skilled workers in most regions, this is not attributable to the regions experiencing the largest supply shock. Third, there are indications that low-skilled natives in immigration-rich regions are more likely to change workplace, particularly in combination with moving upwards in the wage distribution.

Originality/value

Rather than seeing an emergence of the commonly perceived displacement mechanism when an economy is subject to a supply shock, the regional findings suggest that high inflows of immigrants tend to induce a mechanism that pulls native workers upwards in the wage distribution. This is important, as the proportion of immigrants is seldom evenly distributed within a nation.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 48 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 June 2020

Rikard Eriksson and Pål Ellingsen

The aim of this article is to describe work relations between leaders and counsellors in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). The study focuses on communication…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this article is to describe work relations between leaders and counsellors in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). The study focuses on communication, control, work ethos, worldview and digital production management (DPM).

Design/methodology/approach

This article is based on two empirical studies from the same research project at the NAV in the south of Norway called “Leadership and client orientation in NAV”. The research design led to a qualitative interview method being used to collect and analyse the opinions and experiences of the interviewees (Merriam, 2009).

Findings

The study found that (a) leaders use DPM to control employees, (b) communicative and regulative aspects of working in NAV, (c) contradictory simultaneous work demands on leaders and counsellors and (d) the symbolic rationality of work in NAV. The aspects (a) to (d) show a specific worldview in NAV. The study also found aspects of work ethos in NAV, such as a strong will to help and do well for the user and at the same time meet NAV's financial and administrative requirements (Lundquist, 1998; Byrkjeflot, 2008). It is fruitful to describe this situation using the concept of symbolic rationality.

Originality/value

Through symbolic rationality, the study has identified the possibility for further research on the hybrid professionalism of leadership and counsellorship, at three levels in the ambidextrous public sector. The first is the epistemological level, where the concept sets limits on how a social situation such as NAV can be spoken about and understood. A second level is the theoretical level, where categories and logics can be formed and that are seen as being applicable to work in NAV. The third and final level is the practical level, where the concept of symbolic rationality and the meanings connected with it shape leaders' and counsellors' professional practice in the public sector.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 33 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 June 2009

Francis Lee

This article seeks to investigate the individualistic ideas, practices, and student identities that developed in correspondence education in the mid twentieth century. In doing so…

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the individualistic ideas, practices, and student identities that developed in correspondence education in the mid twentieth century. In doing so a number of questions about the individualistic pedagogy and identities in correspondence education are posed. How was individualism to be achieved? What pedagogic practices were used? Who could students learn from? What was the desired identity of the students? How were the student’s material circumstances understood? In attempting to answer these questions the article aims to increase understanding of the individual pedagogy and the construction of the ‘independent learner’ at work in correspondence education during its golden age.

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 38 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 February 2020

Martin Löwstedt and Rikard Sandberg

Research concerned with standardization of the construction process has generally considered the challenges from only rational and instrumental perspectives. The purpose of this…

Abstract

Purpose

Research concerned with standardization of the construction process has generally considered the challenges from only rational and instrumental perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to foreground a social perspective of this challenge. Specifically, the work of construction site managers is explored through a professional work lens in order to emphasize significant misalignments with the principles of standardized production in the construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are drawn from a longitudinal (2014–ongoing) case study of site managers’ work in a large Swedish construction company. The research design is characterized by an explorative approach, altogether consisting of 44 in-depth interviews at the site manager level (28) and at other managerial levels (16). All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed particularly to highlight two contrasting dominant discourses: “standardized construction production” and “site manager work.”

Findings

The findings show that site manager’s work is enmeshed with a particular type of professional expertise and identity that is ideologically crafted around a proclivity for free and independent work. It is outlined in detail how these social dimensions of work are enacted to form an ongoing (and successful) resistance to organizational initiatives that are based on principles of standardization.

Originality/value

This study improves our understanding of an unresolved social challenge that impedes the transformation toward more standardized construction production. It adds new perspectives and value to current research by reminding that (and how) significant changes in production processes also seriously implicate professional work.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 27 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 1997

Jaroslav Mackerle

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the…

6042

Abstract

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 14 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2005

Jaroslav Mackerle

Ceramic materials and glasses have become important in modern industry as well as in the consumer environment. Heat resistant ceramics are used in the metal forming processes or…

5130

Abstract

Purpose

Ceramic materials and glasses have become important in modern industry as well as in the consumer environment. Heat resistant ceramics are used in the metal forming processes or as welding and brazing fixtures, etc. Ceramic materials are frequently used in industries where a wear and chemical resistance are required criteria (seals, liners, grinding wheels, machining tools, etc.). Electrical, magnetic and optical properties of ceramic materials are important in electrical and electronic industries where these materials are used as sensors and actuators, integrated circuits, piezoelectric transducers, ultrasonic devices, microwave devices, magnetic tapes, and in other applications. A significant amount of literature is available on the finite element modelling (FEM) of ceramics and glass. This paper gives a listing of these published papers and is a continuation of the author's bibliography entitled “Finite element modelling of ceramics and glass” and published in Engineering Computations, Vol. 16, 1999, pp. 510‐71 for the period 1977‐1998.

Design/methodology/approach

The form of the paper is a bibliography. Listed references have been retrieved from the author's database, MAKEBASE. Also Compendex has been checked. The period is 1998‐2004.

Findings

Provides a listing of 1,432 references. The following topics are included: ceramics – material and mechanical properties in general, ceramic coatings and joining problems, ceramic composites, piezoceramics, ceramic tools and machining, material processing simulations, fracture mechanics and damage, applications of ceramic/composites in engineering; glass – material and mechanical properties in general, glass fiber composites, material processing simulations, fracture mechanics and damage, and applications of glasses in engineering.

Originality/value

This paper makes it easy for professionals working with the numerical methods with applications to ceramics and glasses to be up‐to‐date in an effective way.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 22 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

1 – 7 of 7