Search results
1 – 10 of 40Claire K. Robbins and Lucy A. LePeau
Researcher development is an important but underexplored topic with implications for knowledge production, graduate education, faculty development and equity in higher education…
Abstract
Purpose
Researcher development is an important but underexplored topic with implications for knowledge production, graduate education, faculty development and equity in higher education. The purpose of this constructivist instrumental case study was to understand how the process of writing and publishing from qualitative dissertations sparked researcher development among two pre-tenure faculty members in higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
Two researchers and seven data sources (i.e. six essays and one dialogue transcript) were used to construct the case. Researchers first inductively and independently coded the data sources. Researchers then collectively used the constant comparative technique (Charmaz, 2014) for data analysis.
Findings
Data analysis uncovered an iterative, three-phase process of seeking “better ways” (Evans, 2011) to translate dissertations into publications. This process included (1) recognizing one or more issues in the research design or conveyance of data, (2) rallying in a multitude of ways to seek better ways to address the issue(s) and (3) resolving the issue(s) by following internal voices and finding “better ways”.
Originality/value
Findings offer implications for faculty members’ approaches to mentoring and graduate preparation, and for postdoctoral and early career scholars’ agentic approaches to publishing, teaching and reflecting on one’s own researcher development.
Details
Keywords
Rosemary J. Perez, L. Wesley Harris, Jr, Claire K. Robbins and Cheryl Montgomery
The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed identities during graduate school and the effects of leveraging agency.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used critical constructivist qualitative methods (i.e. interviews and visual methods) to explore how 44 graduate students across an array of disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences targeting one or more of their socially constructed identities.
Findings
In response to oppressive or invalidating experiences related to their socially constructed identity, participants engaged in self-advocacy, sought/created support via community, conserved their psychological and emotional energy and constructed space for identity-conscious scholarship and practice. Although participants leveraged their agency, the strategies they used were often geared toward surviving environments that were not designed to affirm their identities or support their success.
Research limitations/implications
This study highlights the need for additional research to complicate educators’ understandings of how graduate students respond to oppressive or invalidating experiences and the nature of bi-directional socialization processes.
Practical implications
The findings of this study reinforce the need to foster equitable and inclusive graduate education experiences where students may use their agency to thrive rather than to survive.
Originality/value
Few studies examine graduate students’ agency during their socialization to their disciplines and fields. This study adds complexity to researchers’ understandings of bi-directional socialization processes in the context of graduate education.
Details
Keywords
Jarett D. Haley, Amber N. Williams, Rosemary J. Perez and Claire K. Robbins
The purpose of this study is to explore how US graduate students described their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education and engagement experiences outside their academic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore how US graduate students described their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education and engagement experiences outside their academic departments.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a critical constructivist qualitative approach and methods (i.e. interviews) to explore how 44 graduate students across various disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA described their DEI education and engagement experiences outside their departments.
Findings
Students identified expanded DEI and professional knowledge as key learning outcomes, while also highlighting the benefits and negative effects of the identity-centered (dis)connection, community and personal fulfillment that came from these experiences.
Research limitations/implications
Given that DEI education and engagement opportunities addressed some students’ needs and were unsatisfactory for others, more scholarship on the nature of these experiences is needed to better understand factors that contribute to students’ desirable and undesirable outcomes. There are also practical implications for faculty who advise graduate students and administrators who are responsible for funding the campus spaces in which these experiences occurred (e.g. graduate colleges, identity-based student organizations).
Originality/value
Few studies have explored graduate students’ participation in DEI education and engagement opportunities outside of their academic departments. Consequently, the efficacy of these initiatives, and the extent to which students benefit from them, warrant investigation. This study, thus, adds to researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of this topic by highlighting the benefits and limitations of these experiences for graduate students.
Details
Keywords
Purpose: The issue of whether participation in online peer-support communities has positive or negative impacts on the psychological adjustment of cancer patients warrants further…
Abstract
Purpose: The issue of whether participation in online peer-support communities has positive or negative impacts on the psychological adjustment of cancer patients warrants further explorations from new perspectives. This research investigates the role of personality traits in moderating the impact of online participation on the psychological adjustment of cancer patients in terms of their general psychological well-being and cancer-specific well-being.
Methodology: Study participants consisted of adults diagnosed with leukemia. Questionnaires were collected from 111 participants in two leukemia-related forums in China, Baidu Leukemia Community and Bloodbbs. Information regarding the personality traits, online participation, and psychological adjustment were collected using an online questionnaire. A linear regression model was used to test the moderation effect of personality traits on the relationship between online participation and psychological adjustment.
Findings: The main effect of participation in online support communities on psychological adjustment was not statistically significant. Importantly, two personality traits (i.e., emotional stability and openness to experience) moderated the relationship between online participation and psychological adjustment to cancer. Leukemia patients with high emotional stability and high openness to experience reported better psychological adjustment as they participated more in the online community. However, this was not the case for patients with low stability and low openness, who reported worse psychological adjustment as their participation in the online support community increased.
Value: This study introduces two personality moderators into the discussion of how participation in online support communities influences the lives of cancer patients. The moderation effects help to explain why there have been contradictions in the findings of previous studies. In addition, this study adds to the current literature on online support communities as little research on this topic has been conducted outside of the US and Europe. Practically, this study not only highlights the need to evaluate the personality traits of patients who are recommended to participate in online communities, but also underlines the necessity of intervention in these communities.
Details
Keywords
Adela McMurray, Don Scott and Claire A. Simmers
The purpose of this paper is to examine the constituents of personal discretionary non-work activities and their influence on the work values ethic (WVE).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the constituents of personal discretionary non-work activities and their influence on the work values ethic (WVE).
Design/methodology/approach
The constituents of personal discretionary non-work activities and their relationship to the WVE for 1,349 employees drawn from three manufacturing companies were surveyed. The data was used to test a measure of WVE, to develop a valid measure of personal discretionary non-work activities and to test a model of the relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and a WVE.
Findings
Data obtained from the survey enabled the identification of a valid measure of personal discretionary non-work activities and the components that made up this measure. A measure of WVE was shown to be both valid and reliable, and a model of the relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and WVE was tested.
Research limitations/implications
A positive relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and WVE was identified. However, the study was not designed to investigate motivations and such relationships should be the subject of future research.
Practical implications
Personal discretionary non-work activities were shown to be of importance for a major proportion of the study’s respondents and to contribute to the employees’ work ethic.
Originality/value
The study has extended the non-work and work literature and has identified a formative non-work measure that was able to be tested in an overall model.
Details
Keywords
This chapter pulls together the main strands of Child Labour in Global Society, and addresses their implications for the sociological study of children’s lives, schooling and…
Abstract
This chapter pulls together the main strands of Child Labour in Global Society, and addresses their implications for the sociological study of children’s lives, schooling and slavery.
In popular and scholarly discourses there is a tendency to emphasize the differences between the social lives of children and those of adults rather than the similarities and continuities; to misrepresent children’s social activities in comparison with those of adults; to rationalize the differential way in which children’s social activities and participation are assessed and rewarded relative to those of adults; and to fortify children’s actual and/or assumed marginal situation in modern society.
There are sociological gains to be had from emphasizing the comparable features and structural links between ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’ due especially to the common participation of children and adults in productive labour.
The way in which children’s social activities are differentially assessed and rewarded is reflected in how children are denied full citizenship rights, and so are non-citizens.
In particular, children are denied the right to freely exchange their labour power on the labour market.
While viewing educational labour as forced labour does not sit well with ideas about children and childhood in modern society, doing so is consistent with the element of compulsion in for instance the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Being compulsorily required to perform educational labour is indicative of how in modern societies children are owned and in slavery, not just of the de facto kind, but also of the de jure kind.
Details
Keywords
In the early 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor could be classified as an Austrian economist. The author reconstructs the intertwined paths of Kaldor and Friedrich A. Hayek to disequilibrium…
Abstract
Purpose
In the early 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor could be classified as an Austrian economist. The author reconstructs the intertwined paths of Kaldor and Friedrich A. Hayek to disequilibrium economics through the theoretical deficiencies exposed by the Austrian theory of capital and its consequences on equilibrium analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.
Findings
The integration of capital theory into a business cycle theory by the Austrians and its shortcomings – e.g. criticized by Piero Sraffa and Gunnar Myrdal – called attention to the limitation of the theoretical apparatus of equilibrium analysis in dynamic contexts. This was a central element to Kaldor’s emancipation in 1934 and his subsequent conversion to John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). In addition, it was pivotal to Hayek’s reformulation of equilibrium as a social coordination problem in “Economics and Knowledge” (1937). It also had implications for Kaldor’s mature developments, such as the construction of the post-Keynesian models of growth and distribution, the Cambridge capital controversy, and his critique of neoclassical equilibrium economics.
Originality/value
The close encounter between Kaldor and Hayek in the early 1930s, the developments during that decade and its mature consequences are unexplored in the secondary literature. The author attempts to construct a coherent historical narrative that integrates many intertwined elements and personas (e.g. the reception of Knut Wicksell in the English-speaking world; Piero Sraffa’s critique of Hayek; Gunnar Myrdal’s critique of Wicksell, Hayek, and Keynes; the Hayek-Knight-Kaldor debate; the Kaldor-Hayek debate, etc.) that were not connected until now by previous commentators.
Details
Keywords
Lawrence Dooley and Claire Gubbins
Despite growth in use of inter-organisational relationships for knowledge co-creation, many collaborations struggle to realise the synergistic benefits of these networks. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite growth in use of inter-organisational relationships for knowledge co-creation, many collaborations struggle to realise the synergistic benefits of these networks. This paper aims to explore the evolving dialectic tensions evident within an inter-organisational relationship and the governance consideration to optimise the knowledge process.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal case of a university-industry knowledge network is selected for study. The single case analysis aligns with the dialectical epistemology, which dismisses the expectation of homogeny or constancy across network cases.
Findings
The research highlights the circular condition between dialectic tensions evident within inter-organisational relations and the governance mechanisms developed to synthesis the network knowledge discovery capability. The research shows that these tensions are a natural part of the network existence and often advantageous to knowledge creation. The research also highlights that governance is required at multiple levels within the network entity to optimise knowledge exchange and discovery.
Originality/value
The research adds to the limited application of dialectical thinking to inter-organisational networks. It highlights the structural and relational governance mechanisms that interplay to optimise their knowledge process capability. The research also highlights the multiple levels within networks at which tensions can originate, requiring knowledge governance at the micro, meso and macro level to address the complexity of the inter-organisational relationship. This research provides a better understanding of how knowledge within inter-organisational relations can be managed for mutual benefit and value creation.
Details
Keywords
Thomas E. Vermeer, Alan K. Styles and Terry K. Patton
Recent news articles about pension funding issues highlight the importance of transparent financial reporting and disclosures for defined benefit pension plans. Using…
Abstract
Recent news articles about pension funding issues highlight the importance of transparent financial reporting and disclosures for defined benefit pension plans. Using pension-related data for local governments in Michigan and Pennsylvania, we provide descriptive evidence regarding the actuarial methods and assumptions adopted and the factors that explain a government’s propensity to adopt optimistic actuarial methods and assumptions that reduce the annual required contribution. Our descriptive data suggests that actuaries are making aggressive assumptions for some governments' pension benefits. Our regression results also suggest there is an association between monitoring mechanisms, fiscal constraints, and socioeconomic factors and the choice of optimistic actuarial methods and assumptions that reduce the annual required contribution. The GASB should consider our findings as they determine whether existing standards should be clarified or whether allowable actuarial methods and assumptions should be restricted.