The purpose of this paper is to explore whether freelance technical writers experience greater ethical issues than do their permanently employed counterparts. Because freelance…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether freelance technical writers experience greater ethical issues than do their permanently employed counterparts. Because freelance technical writers work at the whim of the client, it is possible that the perhaps tenuous nature of this relationship may leave freelance technical writers feeling obligated to complete projects about which they have ethical concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study was conducted through an e‐mail survey, a more detailed e‐mail interview, and a phone interview.
Findings
A clear majority of the respondents in this study have never had ethical issues with their clients and fell that they, not permanently employed writers, are at an ethical advantage in their work.
Research limitations/implications
The respondents for this study worked for clients from a wide variety of fields and industries. Conducting additional research with controls in place to focus on specific, individual fields could prove very enlightening.
Practical implications
Respondents discussed the challenge of clients being wary to trust them as they worked off‐site. These results suggest that freelance technical writers, as a whole, are professionals with a high degree of personal ethics that guide their work lives. Perhaps, this research could allay fears of those previously concerned about having technical writers do work for them away from their corporate plants.
Originality/value
Freelance technical writers and the ethical issues that arise from their work have previously not been studied.
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Kathleen Jablon Stoehr, Kathy Carter and Amanda Sugimoto
The goal of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of the experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers encounter while learning…
Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of the experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers encounter while learning mathematics during their own K-12 years. Specifically, this chapter is an analysis of the personal well-remembered events (WREs) told and recorded by women during their preservice teaching professional sequence. These narrative writings provide a powerful voice for the degree to which mathematics anxiety shape preservice teachers’ beliefs on what it means to learn mathematics. This intersection of teacher knowledge is important, as these are women who are on the professional track to teach mathematics. The focused analysis for this chapter is aimed at ways in which teacher preparation programs could broaden current views of women who have anxiety and confidence issues in mathematics.
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Renée T. Clift, Chris Da Silva Iddings, Donna Jurich, Iliana Reyes and Kathy Short
This chapter is about the multiple forms of collaboration that are crucial to designing and implementing a school and community-based early childhood teacher preparation program…
Abstract
This chapter is about the multiple forms of collaboration that are crucial to designing and implementing a school and community-based early childhood teacher preparation program. Maintaining quality in education and teacher education is a systemic, interdependence among individuals, institutions, and local, state, and national policy makers. We conclude that teacher education redesign is less about courses and pedagogies and more about systemic relationships, routines, and evaluations over time.
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Daniel B. Cornfield, Jonathan S. Coley, Larry W. Isaac and Dennis C. Dickerson
As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status…
Abstract
As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity. Our purpose in this chapter is to introduce and typologize what we refer to as “occupational activism,” defined as socially transformative individual and collective action that is conducted and realized through an occupational role or occupational community. We empirically induce and present a typology from our study of the half-century-long, post-mobilization occupational careers of over 60 veterans of the nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement of the early 1960s. The fourfold typology of occupational activism is framed in the “new” sociology of work, which emphasizes the role of worker agency and activism in determining worker life chances, and in the “varieties of activism” perspective, which treats the typology as a coherent regime of activist roles in the dialogical diffusion of civil rights movement values into, within, and out of workplaces. We conclude with a research agenda on how bureaucratic workplaces nurture and stymie occupational activism as a racially desegregationist force at work and in the broader polity.
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Karleen Gwinner, Marie Knox and Sue Hacking
Arts participation fosters social inclusion in a way that other social and recovery programmes do not. The professional role of an artist is an appealing and socially valid role…
Abstract
Arts participation fosters social inclusion in a way that other social and recovery programmes do not. The professional role of an artist is an appealing and socially valid role in the community. For many people with a mental illness, arts‐based programmes become a catalyst to resume and/or pursue their art practice more seriously. The focus of this paper is to uncover the complex boundaries that exist for artists who have mental health needs in contemporary culture, and to review these artists' perceptions of their opportunities to create a place for their creative expression to emerge in its own right, and not on the basis of their illness. We also comment on the specific issue of public perception of the ‘outsider artist’ and refer in parts to the apparent question of how such art is perceived and treated. This paper refers specifically to the experiences of eight visual artists with mental illnesses living in Queensland, Australia, who contributed to an exhibition titled Artist Citizen as part of a participatory action research programme. The topics of discussion by the eight artists explore familiar themes to mental health: stigma, exclusion and the integration of identity within limited membership groups. This paper details the expressed concerns of the artists around the value and connection of their creative output. It should be relevant and of interest to mental health service personnel for insight into integration and recovery for people with mental health needs into mainstream social and cultural environments.
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Athanasia Daskalopoulou, Kathy Keeling and Rowan Pritchard Jones
Service research holds that as services become more technology dominated, new service provider roles emerge. On a conceptual level, the potential impact of different roles has…
Abstract
Purpose
Service research holds that as services become more technology dominated, new service provider roles emerge. On a conceptual level, the potential impact of different roles has been discussed with regard to service provider readiness, job performance and overall experience. However, as yet, there is sparse empirical support for these conceptual interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the new service provider roles that emerge due to the increase of technology mediation in services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study follows a qualitative methodology. Insights are drawn from in-depth interviews with 32 junior and senior health-care service providers (across 12 specialties) and 5 information governance/management staff.
Findings
This analysis illustrates that new service provider roles include those of the enabler, differentiator, innovator, coordinator and sense-giver. By adopting these roles, health-care service providers reveal that they can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences within their organizations (e.g. service delivery level, peer-to-peer level, organizational level). This paper further shows the relationships between these new service provider roles.
Originality/value
This study contributes to theory in technology-mediated services by illustrating empirically the range of activities that constitute each role. It also complements prior work by identifying that service providers adopt the additional role of sense-giver. Finally, this paper provides an understanding of how by taking on these roles service providers can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences in their organization.
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Kathy Ning Shen and Mohamed Khalifa
Integrating the two‐system (reflective vs. impulsive) model and the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework, the purpose of this paper is to construct and empirically test a model…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating the two‐system (reflective vs. impulsive) model and the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework, the purpose of this paper is to construct and empirically test a model that examines online impulse buying as a phenomenon triggered by system design factors.
Design/methodology/approach
A laboratory experimental design with a 2×2 full factorial design involving 151 undergraduate students was used to validate the effects of system design stimuli on online impulse buying. Interactivity and vividness, two design factors, were manipulated and a fictitious VCD movie store was created, with four storefronts representing each combination of treatments.
Findings
A compelling and sociable virtual experience as conceptualized with telepresence and social presence has a significant effect on buying impulses over and above traditional marketing/product stimuli. Such virtual experience can be created through the usage of interactive and vivid website features. Furthermore, cognition positively moderates the relationship between buying impulse and the actual purchasing behavior.
Practical implications
The findings provide valuable guidance in website design that can stimulate online impulse buying. The results also indicate the importance of providing cognitive intervention at the purchasing stage.
Originality/value
A significant extension of the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework is to introduce presence as the system stimulus that captures the overall virtual experience and to specify the associated design features; i.e. interactivity and vividness. By incorporating the two‐system model, this study offers a theoretical underpinning of the role of cognitive processing in impulse buying.
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Charles J. Fornaciari and Kathy Lund Dean
The emerging research on spirituality, religion and work (SRW) poses concerns for all social scientists. Specifically, the paradigm currently employed for social scientific…
Abstract
The emerging research on spirituality, religion and work (SRW) poses concerns for all social scientists. Specifically, the paradigm currently employed for social scientific research, including measurement techniques, data analysis, and even accepted language, is inadequate for scholarship in the emerging inquiry stream. This paper discusses the current positivist model under which scholarly work derives legitimacy, and explores where the model fails to address the needs of SRW researchers from both conceptual and moral standpoints. Taking lessons from the natural sciences, we show how inquiry, modeling, and knowledge made critical leaps utilizing a post‐positivist creativity within a discipline that struggled with many of the same issues we currently face in the SRW research agenda. The paper concludes with implications for a new research methods paradigm and language that would better serve our understanding of the holistic human experience in organizations, including a discussion of the inherently moral underpinning of our work.
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Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence…
Abstract
Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.
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Erica Gilbertson, Amy Murphy, Sonia Janis, Kathy Thompson and Michael Harris
The purpose of this action research study was to design, implement and evaluate interventions that enhanced the induction program for new teachers in a P-12 school district. At…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this action research study was to design, implement and evaluate interventions that enhanced the induction program for new teachers in a P-12 school district. At the outset, we hoped the study would provide new teacher support resulting in improved teaching practices, increased job satisfaction and/or increased teacher retention among the target population. With this in mind, our research question was: What structures and supports from a school-university partnership facilitate capacity-building among university teacher education faculty, school and district leaders, mentor teachers, and new teachers in the context of an induction program?
Design/methodology/approach
This study used an intervention-centered mode of action research methodology that aims to make systems-level change. This type of action research intends to solve real organizational problems with a focus on conducting “research in action” rather than “research about action” (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014, pp. 5–6). This approach necessitates that data collection and analysis are iterative processes, occurring throughout the research process, instead of solely at the end stages of the research process. Our action research process used Coghlan and Brannick’s (2014) action research cycle model. The cyclical four-step process includes constructing (verifying the problem in the local context), planning action, taking action and evaluating action. Facilitated by the interim director of a Professional development schools (PDS) partnership in the Southeastern United States, a team of co-researchers which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators used action research methodology to create systemic change that enhanced the district’s induction program. We collected data through multiple qualitative methods, including surveys, focus groups, observations and interviews during the course of three action research cycles. These data and our theoretical framework (complex adaptive systems theory and social network theory) informed two major interventions that supported new teachers during the challenging first year of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Findings
The interventions and the research process were mutually beneficial for both institutions and contributed to professional learning and growth at the individual, group and system levels. The three major findings described include: (1) engaging in collaborative action research is mutually beneficial for both schools and universities; (2) induction programs benefit from university resources; (3) learning communities build all educators’ professional capacity.
Research limitations/implications
Our research recommendations are: (1) more research is needed on the benefits of school-university partnerships to induction programs; (2) school-university partnerships should leverage action research to improve systems; (3) within school-university partnerships, the connection between collaborative leadership and sustainability requires further research. One limitation was that this study was conducted in a single school-university partnership context involving a large public university and a mid-sized public school district that had a well-established partnership. More induction-centered research is needed in different types of school-university partnership contexts that have varying levels of longevity and partnership structures.
Practical implications
Our recommendations for practice include (1) school-university partnerships should leverage collaborative learning communities to catalyze individual, group and systems-level learning and change, and (2) school-university partnerships must prioritize induction support to strengthen the teaching profession.
Originality/value
Since Hunt’s (2014) literature review on induction support in PDS partnerships, very few empirical studies have been conducted in this research area. This study, which examined induction support in a PDS partnership over a two-year period, makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on induction teacher support in school-university partnership contexts. Facilitated by the interim director of a PDS partnership, a team of co-researchers, which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators, used action research methodology to create systems-level supports that enhanced the district’s induction program.