Stella Williams, Anatoli Karypidou, Catherine Steele and Lorna Dodd
The purpose of this paper is to adopt the perspective of personal construct theory to conceptualise employability. The study explores differences in the implicit employability…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to adopt the perspective of personal construct theory to conceptualise employability. The study explores differences in the implicit employability theories of those involved in developing employability (educators) and those selecting and recruiting higher education (HE) students and graduates (employers).
Design/methodology/approach
A repertory grid technique (RGT) was employed to uncover the implicit theories of 22 employers and 14 educators across the UK.
Findings
A total of 717 constructs were elicited. A differential analysis of data gathered demonstrated several areas of consensus among employers and educators (including emotional management, confidence, professionalism), as well as divergence in representations of commitment, proactivity, interpersonal competencies and vision to the conceptualisation of employability.
Practical implications
Findings from this analysis indicate a need to integrate group process assessments within undergraduate programmes and recruitment procedures.
Originality/value
This study represents a personal construct approach to employability, utilising the unique value of RGT to further inform our understanding of employability within an HE context. This study contributes to an understanding of employability as a continually re-constructed concept. This study provides insights to its nature via two information rich cases that have extensive knowledge on the topic.
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Olivier Boiron, Carole Deumié, Léna Raviol and Margalith Benech-Kopelianskis
This chapter aims to present the context, the approach and the pedagogical tools deployed at École Centrale Marseille (ECM) to promote gender equality in engineering education…
Abstract
This chapter aims to present the context, the approach and the pedagogical tools deployed at École Centrale Marseille (ECM) to promote gender equality in engineering education. The ECM has put several mechanisms in place such as challenging traditional gender stereotypes, social representation of the engineering profession and facing the realities of a professional world that is overwhelmingly masculine, including awareness of the glass ceiling effect on access to positions of responsibility and prevention of sexual harassment. The ECM model combines multidisciplinary studies with a professional grounding with the aim of educating students to be able to transform society. In 1997, the ECM founded the Mediterranean Network of Engineering Schools with the main goal of fostering sustainable development in the Mediterranean basin. The ECM has been part of the community of practice on gender equality initiated by Mediterranean Network of Engineering Schools through its participation in the H2020 TARGET project on gender equality in research and higher education.
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David S. DeGeest and Ernest H. O’Boyle
To review and address current approaches and limitations to modeling change over time in social entrepreneurship research.
Abstract
Purpose
To review and address current approaches and limitations to modeling change over time in social entrepreneurship research.
Methodology
The article provides a narrative review of different practices used to assess change over time. It also shows how different research questions require different methodologies for assessing changes over time. Finally, it presents worked examples for modeling these changes.
Findings
Our review suggests that there is a lack of research in social entrepreneurship that takes into account the many different considerations for addressing how time influences outcomes.
Originality/value
This chapter introduces an analytic technique to social entrepreneurship that effectively models changes in predictors and outcomes even when data are non-normal or nested across time or levels of analysis.
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Payal Mehra and Catherine Nickerson
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication preferenc;s reported by different generations in the Indian workplace, as well as investigating the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication preferenc;s reported by different generations in the Indian workplace, as well as investigating the relationship between communication preferences, communication climate and employee satisfaction with the organizational communication. The authors therefore examined managers’ preferences for different communication media across two different generations, as well as their perceptions of the communication climate and their overall satisfaction with their organizations’ communication.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested an interaction model comprising ease of use of communication medium, communication climate and communication satisfaction, on 822 Indian managers belonging to two different generations. In doing so, they used a survey to investigate managers’ preferences for different media, their perceptions of the communication climate within their organizations and their overall satisfaction with the communication that takes place. The authors drew on studies on media richness theory, on communication climate and on inter-generational differences.
Findings
The findings show that while communication satisfaction in general was low across both generations, Generation Y employees recorded the lowest levels of satisfaction. In addition, a manager’s generational category does not moderate the relationship between media use and communication satisfaction, but it does moderate the relationship between communication climate and communication satisfaction. In terms of the ease of use associated with different types of media, the differences between the generations were largely stereotyped, although moderate media (VC, chat, voicemail) were preferred over rich media (face-to-face meetings) or lean media (fax, memos and emails), by all managers.
Practical implications
Senior management in India must shed their bureaucratic mind-set to promote openness in the communication choices that are considered acceptable, leading to more effective decision-making and problem solving. Mobile phones, chats, wikis, podcasts, video-conferencing and email should be officially embedded into the organizational communication culture to facilitate state-of-the-art knowledge management practices. More multi-generational teams and mentorship programmes need to be implemented to make a wider variety of media acceptable to all managers, which will in turn improve communication satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study is original in that it unpacks the influence of media use and communication satisfaction across Gen X and Gen Y, who will be moving into more senior positions in India in the next decade. In doing so, it provides a snapshot of organizational communication in an important emerging economy and provides recommendations as to how organizational communication may be made more effective in the future. Organizations in India and elsewhere can improve their organizational communication by enhancing transparency and by making a wider variety of media accessible, and therefore acceptable, to different generations of managers.
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John Devapriam, Catherine Thorp, Freya Tyrer, Satheesh Gangadharan, Lammata Raju and Sabyasachi Bhaumik
People with learning disabilities have high dependency needs and high prevalence of physical, psychological and social morbidities. Some studies have shown that South Asian and…
Abstract
People with learning disabilities have high dependency needs and high prevalence of physical, psychological and social morbidities. Some studies have shown that South Asian and white populations have a similar prevalence of learning disabilities and related psychological morbidity (McGrother et al, 2002), although other studies have shown an increased prevalence of severe levels of learning disabilities in the South Asian population (Emerson et al, 1997). The aim of this study was to compare stress levels and unmet service needs in informal carers of South Asian and white adults with learning disabilities.A sample of 742 informal carers was selected from the Leicestershire Learning Disability Register. Data on carers' and subjects' demographic details, stress levels and unmet service needs were analysed and compared using chi‐square tests and logistic regression analyses. Substantial differences were observed between the two groups. Carers of South Asian adults with learning disabilities reported significantly higher levels of care provision and unmet needs. Major stress was reported in 23% of carers. This was more common in carers with poor health, in those caring for younger adults, carers of adults with psychological symptoms, and in those with an expressed need for moral support or respite care.Stress is common among informal carers of adults with learning disabilities and inequalities, in reported care given and unmet needs, exist between carers of South Asian and white adults. Practitioners need to be aware of factors associated with stress when assessing carers in this population.
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Catherine J. Taylor, Laura Freeman, Daniel Olguin Olguin and Taemie Kim
In this project, we propose and test a new device – wearable sociometric badges containing small microphones – as a low-cost and relatively unobtrusive tool for measuring stress…
Abstract
Purpose
In this project, we propose and test a new device – wearable sociometric badges containing small microphones – as a low-cost and relatively unobtrusive tool for measuring stress response to group processes. Specifically, we investigate whether voice pitch, measured using the microphone of the sociometric badge, is associated with physiological stress response to group processes.
Methodology
We collect data in a laboratory setting using participants engaged in two types of small-group interactions: a social interaction and a problem-solving task. We examine the association between voice pitch (measured by fundamental frequency of the participant’s speech) and physiological stress response (measured using salivary cortisol) in these two types of small-group interactions.
Findings
We find that in the social task, participants who exhibit a stress response have a statistically significant greater deviation in voice pitch (from their overall average voice pitch) than those who do not exhibit a stress response. In the problem-solving task, participants who exhibit a stress response also have a greater deviation in voice pitch than those who do not exhibit a stress response, however, in this case, the results are only marginally significant. In both tasks, among participants who exhibited a stress response, we find a statistically significant correlation between physiological stress response and deviation in voice pitch.
Practical and research implications
We conclude that wearable microphones have the potential to serve as cheap and unobtrusive tools for measuring stress response to group processes.
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In terms of education attainment in the United Kingdom, the white working class remains the lowest performing ethnic group, and their academic underperformance has ominous…
Abstract
In terms of education attainment in the United Kingdom, the white working class remains the lowest performing ethnic group, and their academic underperformance has ominous implications for their long-term life chances. This chapter investigates how white working-class boys experience pathologization and deficit discourses in their schooling as they negotiate the discipline structures in three educational sites in South London (two state comprehensive schools and one Pupil Referral Unit). Drawing upon empirical data from an in-depth sociological study of 23 white working-class boys (Stahl, 2015), this chapter makes theoretical connections between how pathologization – both within the school and wider society – contributes to how these young men become constructed with and through deficit discourses contributing significantly toward low academic achievement. Where whiteness often equates to power and entitlement, in the schooling contexts of this study whiteness was often socially constructed as undesirable and equated with low aspirations, stagnation, and antieducational stances.
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Le patrimoine est la totalité du passé, ce que nous ont transmis nos anctres. C'est également ce que nous transmettrons aux générations futures.
This chapter seeks to help and support online educators in their efforts to improve tomorrow. Specifically, the chapter shares practical strategies and tools that online educators…
Abstract
This chapter seeks to help and support online educators in their efforts to improve tomorrow. Specifically, the chapter shares practical strategies and tools that online educators can easily apply, adapt, and/or personalize in order to help promote a mindfully multicultural classroom in their online classrooms and programs. The chapter includes a wide range of actionable tools and exercises to help online instructors optimize the learning experience for all students by building upon the unique strengths and diverse cultural backgrounds of all students in their online classrooms. The strategies help instructors leverage diversity as a means to promote equity and social justice in online programs and, ultimately, the world as a whole. The chapter relies upon Gollnick and Chinn’s (2017) six beliefs that are fundamental to multicultural education and presents strategies from two perspectives or lenses (student-focused and faculty-focused). Approaching the issue from a dual-sided lens is intended to best support the ultimate goal of improving the student learning experience. Emphasis is placed on both public and private interactions between faculty and students. Public interactions include all discussion board and announcement communications. Public interactions also include resources that are shared in the online classroom for all students’ benefit.
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Vincent Geloso and Michael Hinton
We construct a new consumer price index for Canada covering the period from 1870 to 1900. Unlike previous indexes, it includes prices of clothing and household furnishings. This…
Abstract
We construct a new consumer price index for Canada covering the period from 1870 to 1900. Unlike previous indexes, it includes prices of clothing and household furnishings. This is important because these previously neglected components accounted for roughly 20% of consumers' expenditures. Moreover, the price of cotton goods, the most important textile product used for clothing and household furnishings, fell by half between 1870 and 1900 (much faster than other components of the price level). This has ramifications for both the level and trend of Canadian GDP. Because the largest changes in estimation concern the 1870s, we show that the country grew substantially faster than generally believed. It outpaced the United States so much that it entered the twentieth century with an improved economic standing relative to its southern neighbor.