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School principals make sense of multiple messages, policies, and contexts within their school environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine specifically how school leaders make sense of hiring and subjective evaluation of on‐the‐job teacher performance.

This qualitative study drew from 42 interviews with 21 principals from a mid‐sized Florida school district. Two rounds of semi‐structured interviews (one to two hours each) were conducted with the informants over two summers (2005‐2006). The multi‐year study allows the authors to assess the consistency across principal participants.

Principals' personal beliefs, background, and experiences were found to shape their conceptions and preferences for teacher characteristics. School type (e.g. elementary, secondary, levels of poverty) also influenced principals' perceptions of and preferences for specific applicant and teacher characteristics. Principals in the sample, however, showed surprising consistency towards certain characteristics (caring, subject matter knowledge, strong teaching skills) and job fit (person‐job). Sampled principals reported that each vacancy is different and is highly dependent on the position, team, and individuals. Regardless of the position or school setting, federal, state, and district mandates strongly influenced how principals made sense of the hiring process and on‐the‐job performance.

The findings underscore the complexity of the human resource functions in education and raise important questions of how school leaders reconcile personal preferences and building‐level needs with demands from the district, state, and federal levels.

The authors' findings offer important insight into the complex conceptualizations that principals hold and the balances that must be struck in the face of policy and hiring constraints. How principals make sense of teacher quality, however, has not been examined. This study contributes to the extant research and makes a theoretical contribution to studies using a cognitive frame to understand school leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which charter school leaders influence the understanding and conception of accountability policy and how that understanding translates into practice. In particular, this paper draws from sense-making theory and research on charter school leaders to identify their pre-existing understandings, their shared interactions, and their interpretations of accountability policy as they relate to professional development and instructional practices.

This paper uses the qualitative case study approach to document the organizational processes of charter schools. Data for the study were collected in two elementary charter schools over the course of 18 months. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data because this method is compatible with the inductive, concept-building orientation of all qualitative research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two charter school leaders and twelve charter school teachers. In-depth interviews with the leaders were also conducted to gain a deeper understanding of sense-making. In addition pertinent staff meetings, professional development sessions, and informal interactions between charter leaders and teachers were observed.

While the charter school leaders in this study were inclined to adopt approaches that reinforced their pre-existing understandings, they did so using interpretative frameworks that sought to enact policies they deemed most crucial at the school level. These frameworks included metaphors and modeling, both of which reflected the policy signals received from the institutional environment. The leaders’ use of metaphors and modeling incorporated accountability policy into messages that encouraged constructive instructional practices, including data-driven analysis, project-based learning, and technology use.

This paper broadens discussions about charter school leaders and accountability in three ways. First, it explores how school leaders interpret and adapt policy signals. Second, it delineates the frameworks used by charter school leaders to identify and make sense of accountability policy. Finally, this paper highlights the ways in which charter school leaders influence the teachers in their school buildings through shared sense-making.

The purpose of this paper is to study patients' attitudes to nurses and investigate what hampering factors occur in the actual nursing situation and what patient features might affect cooperative climates.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with 11 male inpatients suffering prostate cancer. The interviews were personal narrations based on open‐ended questions. The theoretical basis is founded in sense‐making, trust and competence.

Existential issues related to nursing care were interpreted by nurses as a need for (technical) information. However, respondents indicated a need for professional support regarding their whole life. The social climate seems not to be optimal for existential talk owing to hospital routines. Patients' personal traits also affect the propensity to cooperation, and three types were distinguished: cooperating patients; passive patients; and denying patients. Nurses' competence may be regarded as hierarchical levels from optimising single items, over system optimisation and to optimisation from the patient perspective. The study indicates that not even first‐level requirements are met.

Only patients' views were studied. Nurses' perceptions would add additional insights. Lack of personal relations and cooperation between patient and nurse may decrease service quality. Patient attitudes seem to be a major obstacle. For some patients, passively receiving technical information may be an excuse for not wanting to participate in mutual sense‐making. The supposed need for technical information may also be an excuse for nurses to avoid more sensitive issues.

Better quality of care involves changing patient perceptions and attitudes to what constitutes nursing competence.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to transform one's perception of workplace stressors, moving beyond the idea of merely surviving or coping with stress to “thriving” within what is becoming a non‐negotiable level of stress in the workplace.

The researchers generated a working definition of work stress thriving based on current literature, then conducted a content analysis of qualitative interviews to develop an empirically‐grounded understanding of factors differentiating a stress transformation response from a coping response to workplace stressors.

The study revealed key characteristics of a stress transformation response to stress challenges in the work place: systemic cognitive appraisal, inclusive communication strategies, collaborative and sustainable problem solving, individual learning and growth, and organizational positive impacts.

As a pilot study, limitations to the research include a relatively small sample size and only one type of work environment. More empirical work is needed to test the model, develop and validate measures of stress transformation.

Findings provide the foundation for further empirical research into stress transformation, and will potentially lead to the development of measures, training interventions, organizational structures, and work processes to enhance stress thriving within organizations.

The findings provide preliminary insights into tools for both organizational leaders and employees to respond more sustainably to increasingly stressful, fast paced, and complex work environments.

The study provides an original conceptual perspective on the concept of stress management, calling for a paradigm shift that views stress as desirable and conducive to optimal performance.

This paper aims to focus on corporate social responsibility and workplace well-being by examining Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX)-listed companies’ labour disclosures.

Year-ending 2007 and 2010 annual report disclosures of 31 IDX-listed companies are analysed. The widely acknowledged Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines are used as the disclosure index checklist.

The results reveal that the overall labour disclosure level increases from 21.84 per cent in 2007 to 30.52 per cent in 2010. The levels of four of the five specific labour disclosures also increase with employment being the exception. The results further show that the Indonesian Government does not influence the increase in the levels of the overall labour disclosure or the four categories showing increased disclosure but, surprisingly, does significantly affect the decrease in the level of the employment category.

It is implied that the government is at best ambiguous given that, on one side, the government regulates all corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and reporting but appears to coercively pressure companies to hide employment-specific issues.

It is implied that Indonesian companies need to have “strong and influential” independent commissioners on the boards to counter any possible pressures from the government resulting in lower disclosure levels.

This paper provides insights into the “journey” of labour-related CSR disclosure practices in Indonesia and contributes to the literature by testing one specific variant of isomorphic institutional theory, namely, coercive isomorphism.

Holding domestic violence perpetrators accountable for their abusive behavior is the number one objective of batterer intervention programs (BIPs), typically consisting of same‐sex psychoeducational counseling groups. However, such programs have been found to be only marginally successful in reducing recidivism rates. To be more effective, programs need to take into account the complexities of intimate partner violence. The purpose of this article is to offer clinicians working in the field of partner violence suggestions to help them enlist client cooperation and teach responsibility while taking into account the prevalence of mutual abuse dynamics.

The article draws on findings from the research literature as well as the author's 20 years of clinical experience conducting domestic violence offender treatment groups for both men and women.

Among individuals court‐mandated to batterer intervention, many are involved in mutually‐abusive relationships. Emerging literature indicates that some are also primarily victims. This poses a dilemma for batterer intervention group facilitators, who must work within a legal framework in which individuals are deemed to be either perpetrators or victims.

Implications of this article for partner violence policy and practice include a need for more flexible, evidence‐based laws on partner violence.

There are few practice articles on working with the various forms of abuse dynamics within a clinical setting, and this is the first that is focused on group treatment. The article should be of value to clinicians working directly with domestic violence perpetrators and victims, as well as to the policy makers who conceptualize, create and fund these programs.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the current debate on value-intention link by investigating the hitherto unexplored relation between the concepts of the multidimensional work ethic profile and entrepreneurial intentions (EIs). In addition, this research seeks to offer specific insight into the work values and EIs of United Arab Emirates (UAE) national youth in an effort to contribute to decision making and policy formation for enhancing entrepreneurship.

In total, 309 UAE youth completed an Arabic version of the short form multidimensional work ethic profile (MWEP-SF) and a measure of EI.

Results confirm the value-intention link and support the view that values can direct work choices in entrepreneurship. The regression model identifies that the work ethics of wasted time, leisure, and self-reliance positively predict EI, while centrality of work is unrelated to EI.

The relation between work values and EI of youth is underexplored in the context of the UAE. The current extreme underrepresentation of UAE nationals in the private sector of the UAE economy highlights a significant problem for the UAE strategy of workforce nationalization. As the current findings reveal that the UAE youth possess work values which can predict EIs, the policy initiatives in the UAE may encourage Emirati nationals to more actively participate in the new venture creation and development. This will potentially facilitate the government to achieve the balance between public sector employability and self-employment contributions in the private sector.