Search results

Those entrusted with leading corporations and organizations into the 215t century face profound changes. They must address severe competitive pressures, globalization of markets, and deregulation, as well as an increasingly sophisticated, diverse customer base. All this is taking place as the workforce is becoming more diverse and its values and expectations are changing in fundamental and challenging ways. As a result, it has become clear that leaders of organizations must quickly develop business strategies and manage performance in significantly more creative and flexible ways.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the perception and psychosocial impact of caregiving for Latino family caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and compare them to non-Hispanic (NH) white caregivers.

The paper opted for a survey design using the Screen for Caregiver Burden, Perceived Stress Scale, Short Form 36 Health Survey, Symptom Questionnaire, Center for Epidemiologic Depression, Sense of Coherence, Coping Resources Inventory, and the Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ-85). A total of 202 participants with 53 Latino caregivers (majority were Mexican-Americans) and 149 NH white caregivers also completed an in-depth qualitative interview describing their experience as caregivers.

Latino caregivers, as compared to NH white caregivers, have higher subjective and objective caregiver burden and lower general health, social function, and physical function. They also reported higher levels of bodily pain and somatic symptoms. Caregivers experience a great deal of stress that can adversely affect their emotional and physical well-being. Latino cultural values influence the meaning ascribed to caregiving and how caregivers attempt to balance a perceived duty to family.

The sample was a convenience sample of caregivers responding to an invitation to participate. The Latino sample included primarily caregivers of Mexican-American descent and represented Latinos living in the South West section of the USA. Future research needs to include Latinos of diverse nationalities.

The paper points out crucial differences between NH white and Latino caregivers. Understanding how Latino cultural values influence how Latinos perform and feel about caregiving duties may facilitate support for caregivers.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study Latino caregiving. Two bilingual and bicultural researchers were part of the research team facilitating the collection and analysis of qualitative data.

This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree level learners in response to the question: “What is civic engagement”? The aim in using this approach, with final year degree learners from different countries, but pursuing the same degree, was to compare and contrast their understanding of civic engagement.

Learners completed their drawings and then discussed their drawings in small groups. All of their drawings were initially examined quantitatively before a sample of six drawings were selected for in-depth qualitative examination.

Using learner-generated drawings enables learners convey visually what can be challenging to verbalise. After the exercise, some learners discovered that they had a good basic appreciation of civic engagement.

Describing civic engagement pictorially forced participants to think about what the essence of civic engagement was for them.

This study shows how a collaborative learning experience, rather than a competitive comparison of performance, facilitates learners readily demonstrating their level of understanding and appreciation for civic engagement.

Case in Point (CIP) is an interactive leadership development method pioneered by Ronald Heifetz. CIP instructors follow a fluid class structure, in which group dynamics and student concerns become catalysts for learning. CIP proponents defend the method’s potential to help students experience real life leadership challenges. To date, however, very limited research exists on the effectiveness and risks of the CIP. This case study research explored the risks and rewards of CIP as experienced by a professor and her students in two courses. The first case was a graduate course at a liberal arts college. The second case was an undergraduate course at a large public institution. Results revealed considerable variability in student experiences. Students in the graduate course were divided. While some strongly supported the instructor and the CIP method, others felt alienated and lost. Students in the undergraduate course clearly enjoyed the experience, dealing well with uncertainties and frustrations and forging strong bonds among each other and with the professor. CIP instructors, therefore, may need to manage an uneven environment. Risks include student frustration, increased conflict, and instructor exhaustion. Rewards include helping students experience leadership challenges and creating a close to real life environment. Instructors are urged to consider the ethical implications of CIP and to seek university and peer support.

It has been well documented that the successful use of technology in K-12 education improves student achievement. However, both K-12 schools and higher education institutions have not been able to systematically provide preservice and inservice teachers with adequate training and support. This chapter will examine the K-12 school–university partnership literature, and identify critical support elements that are necessary for successful change related to technology both in higher education and the K-12 classrooms. Additionally, we will introduce two characteristics from the NCATE Partnership Standards and how schools and universities can use them to guide relationships and how they approach the school technology reform process.

A new vehicle for user instruction in academic libraries could be a hypertext library guide distributed on the World Wide Web. This article considers the advantages of an electronic library guide, and the particular advantages and problems of producing one using HTML (hypertext markup language) on the World Wide Web. Existing library guides on the Web are reviewed, and found to be impressive if capable of improvement. Some of the broad design issues are also reviewed, and the possible content of a guide discussed. Likely future developments are then considered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of self‐service banking technology and investigates customers' perceptions of internet banking self‐service within the Irish financial services sector. This qualitative study of the Irish retail banking sector explored consumers' e‐banking interactions and experiences in addition to assessing the dimensions critical to e‐banking service quality.

A purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit 20 consumers representing the desired range of demographic characteristics (e.g. sex, age, profession), previous internet experience levels and product‐related knowledge.

Despite commonalities between traditional service quality and e‐banking service quality dimensions, due to the remote form of the online encounter, many traditional service quality attributes were found to be redundant and instead e‐dimensions such as web usability, trust, access and information quality service recovery and flexibility emerged as important to e‐banking service provision. Based on an extant review of the literature ten e‐service dimensions were proposed and evaluated empirically in the context of e‐banking service quality. Overall, process quality emerged as key within the online context, with nine out of the ten proposed e‐banking dimensions relating to the service process.

The paper contributes to previous research by adding to existing knowledge regarding what constitutes e‐banking service and the determinants critical to e‐banking service quality. The paper makes key recommendations towards enhancing current online financial services quality and delivery.

This paper is a qualitative study of how social sciences faculty construct their research workflows with the help of technological tools. The purpose of this study is to examine faculty scholarly workflows and how both tools and practices support the research process. This paper could inform academic libraries on how to support scholars throughout the research process.

This is a qualitative study case study of ten faculty members from six research universities from the United States and Canada. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and recorded. Atlas.ti was used to code and analyze the transcripts; each participant was a separate case. Descriptive coding was used to identify digital tools used for collaboration; process and descriptive coding was utilized to examine practices in scholarly workflows.

Through case study analysis the results of this study include the role of technology in faculty research workflows. Each workflow was grouped into four categories: information literacy, information management, knowledge management, and scholarly communication. The findings included scholars creating simple workflows for efficiency and collaboration and utilizing workarounds.

The study did not observe faculty in the process of doing research and, thus, only reports on what the researchers say that they do.

The research is unique in that there is almost no research on how social scientists conduct their research workflows and the affordances/impasses of this process.