This paper aims to offer a personal view of the changes that have occurred regarding the transition from education into the world of work during the past 50 years.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer a personal view of the changes that have occurred regarding the transition from education into the world of work during the past 50 years.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach taken is that of contrasting how this transition was made in the 1950s to how things happen now in a much more competitive world.
Findings
The transition from any level of education into the world of work is becoming increasingly important in a competitive world and needs to be taken much more seriously.
Originality/value
This paper is one of a series commissioned by the journal on its 50th anniversary. Its originality stems from the personal view of the author.
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The objective of the pilot study reported on here was to identify some of the more elusive “costs and benefits” of work‐based learning (WBL) placements. This was addressed by…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of the pilot study reported on here was to identify some of the more elusive “costs and benefits” of work‐based learning (WBL) placements. This was addressed by exploring the views and experience of a small number of human resource development (HRD) professionals who currently offer supervised work‐based learning placements to full‐time post‐graduate HRD students.
Design/methodology/approach
The small qualitative study outlined was a pilot, focused initially on the perceptions of one set of stakeholders within the placement process, the HRD professionals. By means of questionnaires and interviews the participants were invited to reflect on their interpretation of the tangible and intangible costs and benefits to the organisation, the supervisor/mentor, the student and the university.
Findings
The findings imply that there are a number of non‐financial costs and benefits that may not be widely recognised but which may have significance when seeking/agreeing placement opportunities.
Research limitations/implications
This is a small‐scale study, and may have limited transferability.
Practical implications
In due course the study will be extended to examine the perspectives of other stakeholders.
Originality/value
Evidence from the literature suggests that obtaining and sustaining good quality WBL placements can be difficult. A reflection on potential “non standard” costs and benefits may assist organisations to weigh up these more ephemeral but potentially important factors and aid decision‐making about the viability and desirability of offering WBL placements and at the same time develop awareness of non‐standard costs and benefits amongst those seeking to set up placements for their students.
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Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is highly prevalent in the United States, yet is largely culturally invisible. This study examines what people know about their illness, both before and…
Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is highly prevalent in the United States, yet is largely culturally invisible. This study examines what people know about their illness, both before and after diagnosis, and the relationship to race. The data are from in-depth interviews in 2004 with 53 persons, mostly white or African American, with HCV in the southeastern United States. The respondents have varying educational backgrounds, family incomes, and possible modes of transmission of HCV. Regardless of whether the diagnosis of HCV came as a surprise, respondents had a range of reactions including fear, shock, sadness, and ambivalence. Knowledge of the disease postdiagnosis varies as some people have expert knowledge, moderate knowledge, or inaccurate to no knowledge of the disease. Minority respondents have less knowledge of HCV than whites. This racial disparity in knowledge has profound implications for people with HCV and the larger society.
Sharon Mavin, Patricia Bryans and Rosie Cunningham
The purpose of this paper is to highlight gendered media constructions which discourage women's acceptability as political leaders and trivialise or ignore their contribution.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight gendered media constructions which discourage women's acceptability as political leaders and trivialise or ignore their contribution.
Design/methodology/approach
Media analysis of UK newspapers, government web sites, worldwide web relating to the UK 2010 government election, women MPs and in particular representations of Harriet Harman and Theresa May.
Findings
Media constructions of UK women political leaders are gendered and powerful in messaging women's (un)acceptability as leaders against embedded stereotypes. Being invisible via tokenism and yet spotlighted on the basis of their gender, media constructions trivialize their contribution, thus detracting from their credibility as leaders.
Research limitations/implications
UK‐based study grounded in opportune “snapshot” media analysis during election and resultant formation of UK coalition Government. Focus on two women political leaders, results may not be generalisable.
Practical implications
Raises awareness of the numerical minority status of UK women political leaders, the invisibility‐visibility contradiction and the power of the media to construct women leaders against gender stereotypes. Call for continued challenge to gendered leader stereotypes and women's representation in UK political leadership.
Originality/value
Highlights power of media to perpetuate gender stereotypes of UK women political leaders.
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Liz Matykiewicz and Robert McMurray
The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which certain occupational, organizational and political positions become active sites of leadership construction. Taking as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which certain occupational, organizational and political positions become active sites of leadership construction. Taking as their example the introduction of the Modern Matron in the English National Health Service (NHS) this paper considers how new forms of gender transcending leadership are constituted relationally through a dynamic interplay of historical, nostalgic, social, political and organizational forces.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted within an interpretive paradigm of social constructivism and draws on data from semi‐structured interviews with a purposive sample of 16 Modern Matrons working in a single English NHS Trust. In keeping with inductive, qualitative research practice, data has been analysed thematically and ordered using descriptive, hierarchical and relational coding.
Findings
Their contention is that the Modern Matron presents as a site for relational leadership in respect of both self and other. This paper argues that the construction of Modern Matron usefully points to the ways in which multiple discourses, practices and relations may be intertwined in defining what it is to lead in contemporary organizations. This paper highlights the extent to which leadership is an on‐going relational co‐construction based – in this instance – in the interplay of four factors: nostalgic authority, visibility, praxis and order negotiation. Together, these produce a mode of leading that is neither heroic nor popularist.
Research limitations/implications
Further research might consider how competing temporal, political and organizational imperatives encourage the development of particular sites for leadership, and how such leadership is then re‐performed in practice, as well as the affects/effect on individual and organisational performance.
Originality/value
The data provides opportunity to consider the “lived experience” of leaders in sites that are traditionally gendered female in non‐standard/public sector settings. Moreover, this paper presents empirical evidence in support of leadership as socially constructed and relational, borne of tension between different temporal, spatial and experiential factors, the on‐going negotiation of which both utilises and transcends masculinized and feminized gender performances. The result is a form of “leading” which is often subtle, difficult to identify and self‐effacing.