Stefanie Hetzner, Helmut Heid and Hans Gruber
This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how individual characteristics and perceived contextual conditions shape reflection in professional work, particularly in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how individual characteristics and perceived contextual conditions shape reflection in professional work, particularly in workplaces that provide a variety of work experiences related to changes. The authors examine the effects of personal initiative, self-efficacy and perceived psychological safety in work relations with colleagues and supervisors on individuals’ reflection at work.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 84 client advisors who had recently been affected by major changes in retail banking workplaces participated in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire consisting of instruments to map their self-rated personal initiative, self-efficacy beliefs, reflection at work and perception of psychological safety in work relations with colleagues and supervisors. The data were analysed by performing correlation analyses and hierarchical regression analyses.
Findings
The results revealed that both individuals’ personal initiative and self-efficacy significantly positively affect reflection at work. An individual’s perception of psychological safety – particularly among peers – positively predicts reflection.
Originality/value
This paper enriches the research on reflection in professional work, particularly against the backdrop of workplace changes. This is done by emphasising the power of individuals’ proactive role and initiative-taking work behaviour; positive beliefs in their own capabilities, e.g. managing the various opportunities involved in workplace changes; and their perception of a psychologically safe environment within a work group that is characterised by interpersonal trust, mutual respect and supportive cooperation.
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Stefanie Hetzner, Martin Gartmeier, Helmut Heid and Hans Gruber
The purpose of this paper is to analyse employees' perception of a change at their workplaces and the requirements for learning, and factors supporting or inhibiting learning in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse employees' perception of a change at their workplaces and the requirements for learning, and factors supporting or inhibiting learning in the context of this change.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection included personal face‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews with ten client advisors in the retail‐banking department of a German bank. The interviews took place during a time when the participants' workplaces were affected by a drastic change, namely the implementation of an integrated consulting concept. The data were analysed by a qualitative, content analysis approach, adapting Billett's framework for analysing workplace changes.
Findings
Challenges and requirements for learning as a consequence of the workplace change were analysed. The results show that the employees realised many affordances of the modification of work routines, especially concerning work performance, professional knowledge, and professional role. Thus, employees recognised the change as an opportunity for the acquisition of knowledge and competence development.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the understanding of workplace change's effect on employees' knowledge, work routines and professional development.
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Johannes Bauer, Dagmar Festner, Hans Gruber, Christian Harteis and Helmut Heid
Epistemological beliefs are fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning. Research in university contexts has shown that they affect the ways and results of…
Abstract
Epistemological beliefs are fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning. Research in university contexts has shown that they affect the ways and results of student learning. This article transfers the concept of epistemological beliefs on workplace learning. The basic assumption is that employees' epistemological beliefs affect whether they perceive their workplace as learning environments. A study was conducted in which the interrelation of employees' epistemological beliefs with their appraisal of the workplace as supportive for learning was investigated. Additionally, the role of professional hierarchical levels concerning work‐related epistemological beliefs was analyzed. No significant interrelation between epistemological beliefs and workplace appraisal was found. Groups from different professional hierarchical levels did not differ in their workplace appraisal. Consequences about future research about the role of epistemological for workplace learning are discussed.
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In interviews, Jamie Lee Curtis positions Halloween (2018) as a #MeToo film. As merely self-serving publicity, this reading is far too simplistic. In Halloween (1978) Laurie…
Abstract
In interviews, Jamie Lee Curtis positions Halloween (2018) as a #MeToo film. As merely self-serving publicity, this reading is far too simplistic. In Halloween (1978) Laurie Strode is victimised; she then assumes the role of quintessential Final Girl as described by Carol J. Clover, providing the template for the entire sub-genre of horror slasher films birthed in its wake. However, in the similarly titled 2018 film, Laurie is no longer a victim. Instead of following the role of the stereotypical Final Girl of slasher films, she falls more in line with one of Yvonne Tasker's Warrior Women.
This chapter investigates Laurie Strode's transformation throughout the Halloween franchise. Once passive and victimised, Laurie has evolved: No longer the Final Girl – or victim – her position and behaviour in this film is much more in line with the neoliberal Warrior Woman of action films. Thus, the film assigns her the role of action heroine as a vehicle for responding to the concerns of the #MeToo era – and in this era, women are no longer victims. Women can and will fight back.
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Action in the 1980s to a large extent belonged to the hard, hyper-masculine physiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who seemed to embody the aggressive…
Abstract
Action in the 1980s to a large extent belonged to the hard, hyper-masculine physiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who seemed to embody the aggressive, go-getting, testosterone-fuelled spirit of the age. Except, as this chapter argues, it would be a mistake to take these representations of masculinity at face value.
Susan Jeffords has noted the evolution of Schwarzenegger's Terminator character from hard-bodied killer to nurturing father figure, linking this to the change in perceptions of masculinity between the Reagan and Bush eras. Indeed, as Schwarzenegger moved into the 90s his films increasingly played with notions of ‘the feminine’ – from the nurturing Schwarzenegger of Kindergarten Cop (1990) to the ‘maternal’ Schwarzenegger of Junior (1994).
This chapter focuses on Schwarzenegger's Commando (1985), the first film in which he plays a contemporary, ‘normal’ (though still unusually muscular) man: a widowed ex-special forces commando and now full-time father, named John Matrix. The act of naming this supposed he-man ‘Womb’ is only the beginning of the film's surprising and subversive disquisitions on gender. In between (and sometimes during) the expertly staged fist fights, gun battles and explosions, homoeroticism, the male gaze and gender stereotyping all bubble away under the surface. Schwarzenegger's body is presented for scrutiny in a way previously reserved for female Hollywood stars, and the film's antagonist, an embittered former colleague who is obsessed with Matrix in a way that verges on the erotic, transcends butch and enters the realms of macho camp. The film questions and subverts presumptions about the masculine and the feminine, while still delivering an ostensibly macho, quintessentially 1980s action film.
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Up until the turn of the millennium, there had been very little positive representation of women and women in action characters in the action film genre. Two notable exceptions…
Abstract
Up until the turn of the millennium, there had been very little positive representation of women and women in action characters in the action film genre. Two notable exceptions were Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies and Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise. Whilst this has certainly changed over the last 20 years, one action/horror/science fiction heroine remains neglected: Project Alice in the six Resident Evil films. Portrayed by Milla Jovovich, and loosely based on the platform game character, Project Alice is strong, driven, motivated and tough. This chapter will, through detailed analysis of character, her physical presence through the clothing she wears, psychogeographical aspects, her use of weapons and narrative arc, clearly demonstrate the importance of Project Alice to the horror genre.
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C. Min Han, Kyung Ae Kim and Hyojin Nam
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how corporate philanthropy (CP) can affect consumer perceptions of Japanese multinationals, for which there exists strong…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how corporate philanthropy (CP) can affect consumer perceptions of Japanese multinationals, for which there exists strong animosity in Asia, and how this animosity can be attenuated.
Design/methodology/approach
The study first examines Japanese firms in China (Study 1) and then Japanese, European and local firms in Korea (Study 2).
Findings
The results suggest that CP activities can have a positive effect on the consumer recognition of company localness and they can also attenuate company animosity for foreign multinationals. In addition, the findings suggest that Japanese multinationals can benefit greatly from CP activities in Asia than for domestic and other foreign firms.
Research limitations/implications
The study found that consumers do not have ethnocentric attribution biases in evaluations of CP activities by foreign multinationals, as suggested by attribution theory (Hewstone, 1990; Nisbett, 1971).
Originality/value
There is limited evidence supporting the effects of CP activities by foreign multinationals from a country of origin for which there exists strong animosity.
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This study examines the effect of a Medicaid disenrollment on employment, sources of health insurance coverage, and health and health care utilization of childless adults using…
Abstract
This study examines the effect of a Medicaid disenrollment on employment, sources of health insurance coverage, and health and health care utilization of childless adults using longitudinal data from the 2004 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. From July to September 2005, TennCare, the Tennessee Medicaid program, disenrolled approximately 170,000 adults following a change in eligibility rules. Following this eligibility change, the fraction of adults in Tennessee covered by Medicaid fell by over 5 percentage points while uninsured rates increased by almost 5 percentage points relative to adults in other Southern states. There is no evidence of an increase in employment rates in Tennessee following the disenrollment. Self-reported health and access to medical care worsened as hospitalization rates, doctor visits, and dentist visits all declined while the use of free or public clinics increased. The Tennessee experience suggests that undoing the expansion of Medicaid eligibility to adults that occurred under the Affordable Care Act likely would reduce health insurance coverage, reduce health care access, and worsen health but would not lead to increases in employment.