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Transnational shifts experienced by Syrian refugee young adults disrupt their lives. Many start their journey as children, transition into adolescents often in countries of asylum, and resettle as young adults in countries such as Canada with the dream to rebuild their lives. Too old (+16) for the traditional school cycle, they are encouraged into adult education (AE) as their only choice to complete their high school diplomas to obtain minimum wage jobs or continue to higher education. Their progress through AE continues their destabilization, particularly in terms of their aspirations, hopes and dreams. The authors focus on the educational journeys of this population who have largely been forgotten by policies and programs for refugee integration. Drawing upon 29 interviews with Syrian refugee young adults in Quebec, using a theoretical framework of migration/aspirations and critical race theory, the authors highlight how disruption is perpetuated in their education after their arrival rather than stability.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a leading global company used action‐learning based leadership development to accelerate strategic culture change.

It describes the need for change, and the methodology and approach by which the initiative, Impact, generated significant benefits.

The initiative led to financial benefit, as well as measurable gains in customer centricity, collaboration, and innovation. It was also a powerful experience for participants in their journey as commercial leaders.

Impact was created using comprehensive customer feedback and its delivery involved key customers.

The aim of this paper is to explore the importance and development of HR consulting and change management skills.

The paper describes the results of a study of HR consulting and change management skills, and the practical application of consulting and change management skills through professional education combined with action learning in a major global corporation.

The HR professionals in the study, drawn from a wide range of organizations, industries and geographies, tend to have a much higher level of confidence in their consulting and change management skills than the line managers who participated in this research.

In addition to pointing out specific areas where consulting and change management skills need to be improved, the paper demonstrates the value of increased skills through a case example of the impact of improving HR professional consulting and change skills in a top European‐based and global energy company. Following the review of this initiative and its impact, the paper identifies specific practical steps and methods for increasing HR consulting and change management effectiveness.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate whether and to what extent economic transactions are influenced by social structures, power distributions, and cultural understandings through an analysis of exchange at a scrap metal yard in Chicago.

Methodology/Approach – Between March 2000 and December 2002, 72 interviews were conducted with collectors who bring metal to City Iron. With 16 of these collectors the author had a working relationship, assisting the collector in all aspects of the job. Data were coded and analyzed with the assistance of NVIVO, a qualitative data management program.

Findings – The author finds that market transactions are not impersonal and that moral characterizations matter. In this universally risky business in which some level of in-market cheating is expected, material and moral appraisals become intertwined as participants look to extra-market cues and clues in evaluating with whom to transact and how. While the ascription of ethnicity serves as a proxy for the particularistic judgment of trustworthiness, this sorting is accomplished and legitimated by an ostensibly universal moral discourse. Actors evaluate each other using a moral yardstick, paying as much – if not more – attention to what one believes the other is doing when not working as to when one is.

Originality/Value of paper – By focusing on exchange-in-interaction and articulating how economic transactions are culturally embedded, this research contributes to scholarship in the sociologies of work and economies, and provides a glimpse into an understudied work world.

Exploring experiences of participants on an Irish active labour market programme, the purpose of this paper is to examine accounts of everyday forms of resistance to the subject positions offered in the dominant discourse of “doing employment” espoused on such schemes.

Employing narrative research, the process of individual opposition to established work routines is illustrated at the level of meaning, identity and self‐reflection by using the three‐dimensional narrative inquiry space to chronicle three participants’ stories. Their newly formed subjectivities (created by changes encountered in their past lives and the situations they are experiencing in their present realities) challenge the power of the dominant discourse of ‘doing employment’ on these schemes. The paper illustrates how the individuals respond when confronted with feelings of difference between the subject positions offered within the dominant discourse and their own preferred interest.

Their stories suggest different forms of micro‐political resistance, from subtle acts and behaviours through to contesting subjectivities and meanings. The article describes how they exercise power in imposing their own meanings through challenge and reinscription, thus rendering the dominant discourse less robust. This creates space for further challenge and reinscription, possibly enabling others to think differently, such as the author, who has moved from unquestioning acceptance of the dominant discourse to an emerging micro‐political resistance to “doing employment”.

These accounts highlight the relevance of using narrative research to reveal, heretofore, silent stories of how individual work routines disrupt prevailing institutional discourse, depicting situations where a story by challenges a story of.

In this paper, we examine the occupational distribution of individuals who hold bachelor degrees in particular fields in the United States using data from the various waves of the National Survey of College Graduates. We propose and calculate indices that describe two related aspects of the occupational distribution by major field of study: distinctiveness (how dissimilar are the occupations of a particular major when compared with all other majors) and variety (how varied are the occupations among those who hold that particular major). We discuss theoretical properties of these indices and statistical properties of their estimates. We show that the occupational variety has increased since 1993 for most major fields of study, particularly between the 1993 and 2003 waves of the survey. We explore reasons for this broadening of the occupation distribution. We find that this has not led to an increase in reported mismatch between degree and occupation.

Clinical supervision is a crucial workplace practice for professional learning and development. Research is needed to investigate in detail what happens in supervision to understand how this practice contributes to learning. This paper aims to examine how professionals work with knowledge and navigate epistemic challenges in working with problems of practice.

Three pairs of psychologists audio-recorded five consecutive supervision sessions and were interviewed twice during that time. Analysis considered supervision as a site of emergent learning, focusing on what was discussed and how problems were worked on, whether as epistemic objects (open-ended, aimed at generating new insights) or by using an approach to knowledge objects that focused more directly on what to do next.

One pair consistently adopted an epistemic object approach, while another was consistently more action-oriented, focused on knowledge objects. The third pair used both approaches, sometimes expanding the object with a view to gaining insight and understanding, while at other times focusing on next steps and future action.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to study clinical supervision in terms of how knowledge work is done. Foregrounding the epistemic dimensions of supervision, it reveals previously unexplored but consequential differences in how knowledge is worked with and produced as supervisory pairs discuss complex issues of practice.

In Islamic finance (IF), the safety-first rule of investing (hifdh al mal) is held to be of utmost importance. In view of the instability in the global financial markets, the IF portfolio manager (mudharib) is committed, according to Sharia, to make use of advanced models and reliable tools. This paper seeks to address these issues.

In this paper, the limitations of the standard models used in the IF industry are reviewed. Then, a framework was set forth for a reliable modeling of the IF markets, especially in extreme events and highly volatile periods. Based on the empirical evidence, the framework offers an improved tool to ameliorate the evaluation of Islamic stock market risk exposure and to reduce the costs of Islamic risk management.

Based on the empirical evidence, the framework offers an improved tool to ameliorate the evaluation of Islamic stock market risk exposure and to reduce the costs of Islamic risk management.

In IF, the portfolio manager – mudharib – according to Sharia, should ensure the adequacy of the mathematical and statistical tools used to model and control portfolio risk. This task became more complicated because of the increase in risk, as measured via market volatility, during the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007. Sharia condemns the portfolio manager who demonstrates negligence and may hold him accountable for losses for failing to select the proper analytical tools. As Sharia guidelines hold the safety-first principle of investing rule (hifdh al mal) to be of utmost importance, the portfolio manager should avoid speculative investments and strategies that would lead to significant losses during periods of high market volatility.