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1 – 8 of 8Sarah J.R. Cummings and Diana E. Lopez
To interrogate the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development” that dominates international development circles, by applying a feminist critical discourse analysis that…
Abstract
Purpose
To interrogate the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development” that dominates international development circles, by applying a feminist critical discourse analysis that prioritizes women's situated experiences as local stories.
Design/methodology/approach
Two existing frameworks for analysing women's entrepreneurship, namely the 5M (Brush et al., 2009) and the 8M (Abuhussein and Koburtay, 2021) frameworks, are used to examine the local stories of women in rural Ethiopia to provide a counter-narrative to the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development”. The local stories are derived from 16 focus group discussions and 32 interviews.
Findings
The findings provide a counter-narrative to the grand narrative of “entrepreneurship for development”, evident in Ethiopia and in international development generally, while demonstrating larger structural issues at play. They challenge entrepreneurship's solely positive effects. While women recognize the benefits of having a business, particularly in terms of financial gains, empowerment and social recognition, they also highlight negative consequences, including uncertainty, concerns for their own personal safety, criticism, stress, limited social life and fear of indebtedness and poverty.
Practical implications
Policymakers, scholars and development professionals are urged to reflect on the limitations of “entrepreneurship for development” and to consider the negative effects that promoting an acritical grand narrative of entrepreneurship could have on women's lives.
Originality/value
The article advances an innovative partnership between feminist analysis and established women's entrepreneurship frameworks to contest dominant assumptions in the fields of entrepreneurship and international development studies. It adds to the limited empirical evidence on women's entrepreneurial activity in Ethiopia, tests the adequacy of the 5M and 8M frameworks in the rural low-income context of Ethiopia, and proposes a 7+M framework as an alternative to study rural women's entrepreneurship in low and middle income countries.
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Margaret Hodgins, Sarah MacCurtain and Patricia Mannix-McNamara
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.
Findings
There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.
Research limitations/implications
The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.
Practical implications
The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.
Social implications
Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.
Originality/value
That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.
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Tra Huynh, Adrian Madsen, Sarah McKagan and Eleanor Sayre
Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design…
Abstract
Purpose
Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users’ needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in human-computer interface design. This paper aims to propose a process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which helps us create data-grounded personas effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
Personas have features that can help address design problems in educational contexts. The authors compare the use of personas with other common methodologies in education research, including phenomenology and phenomenography. Then, this study presents a six-step process of building personas using phenomenographic study as follows: articulate a design problem, collect user data, assemble phenomenographic categories, build personas, check personas and solve the design problem using personas. The authors illustrate this process with two examples, including the redesign of a professional development website and an undergraduate research program design.
Findings
The authors find that personas are valuable tools for educational design websites and programs. Phenomenography can productively help educational designers and researchers build sets of personas following the process the authors propose.
Originality/value
The use and method of personas in educational contexts are scarce and vague. Using the example contexts, the authors provide educational designers and researchers a clear method of creating personas that are relatable and applicable for their design problems.
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Ben Dyson, Donal Howley and Yanhua Shen
The purpose of this paper is to study teachers’ perspectives of social and emotional learning (SEL) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) primary schools.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study teachers’ perspectives of social and emotional learning (SEL) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) primary schools.
Design/methodology/approach
This research was a case study design investigating the phenomenon of SEL in primary schools (elementary school level) in Aotearoa NZ (Stake, 2005).
Findings
The SEL themes that were drawn from the data were: positive interdependence, empowerment, self-management, self-awareness restorative conversations and circle time.
Research limitations/implications
The research challenges the field to work with teachers and community workers to create more in-depth qualitative research knowledge that is contextually relevant to SEL for researchers, educational policymakers and our children.
Originality/value
Based in Aotearoa NZ primary schools, this qualitative research provides a unique perspective of SEL from school-based practicing teachers.
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