Colin Lizieri and Louise Finlay
Formal portfolio selection strategies based on modern portfoliotheory have increasingly been applied to real estate markets, despitethe difficulties posed by the characteristics…
Abstract
Formal portfolio selection strategies based on modern portfolio theory have increasingly been applied to real estate markets, despite the difficulties posed by the characteristics of property as an investment asset. As markets have “gone global”, so portfolio theory has been used to define international property portfolio strategies. Suggests that many of these studies are flawed, in that they neglect both methodological developments in portfolio theory and, critically, the economic fundamentals that drive property markets. This can lead to the adoption of investment strategies that create portfolios with a high exposure to risk. Outlines alternative approaches to global real estate investment.
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Steven Devaney and Colin Lizieri
Structured sale and leasebacks and corporate property asset outsourcing are often claimed to have benefits that seem to be inconsistent with financial theory. Eight such UK deals…
Abstract
Structured sale and leasebacks and corporate property asset outsourcing are often claimed to have benefits that seem to be inconsistent with financial theory. Eight such UK deals are analysed to investigate the impact on corporate value. The results show that impacts are contingent ‐ on the capital structure of the firm, on the use of the capital raised and on market attitudes towards management and the sector. Two apparently similar deals can have quite different outcomes: benefits to shareholders and bondholders cannot be simply assumed.
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Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations in Denmark and the United States, this chapter compares discourses and experiences of young unemployed professionals engaged in…
Abstract
Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations in Denmark and the United States, this chapter compares discourses and experiences of young unemployed professionals engaged in networking. Common across both sites is the kind of emotional labor perceived to be required for effective networking, with workers frequently drawing on romantic dating as a key metaphor. However, engagement in such emotional labor is more intense and pervasive for American jobseekers, while Danish jobseekers express greater concern about potential exploitation of the other party, corruption, and pressure to conform to norms of marketability. The chapter discusses possible links among networking experiences, hiring practices and political-economic contexts in the United States and Denmark.
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Research into the experience of BSc Psychology students and graduates in the graduate transition was carried out to enquire if ontology is central to educational transformation;…
Abstract
Purpose
Research into the experience of BSc Psychology students and graduates in the graduate transition was carried out to enquire if ontology is central to educational transformation; if professional work experience is important in the process of becoming; and how graduates experience the transition from student to professional. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In this qualitative longitudinal in-depth interview investigation four one-year work placement students were interviewed twice and five graduates were interviewed at graduation and again two years later. Student transcriptions were analysed thematically and graduate transcriptions received interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Findings
Placement students became legitimate participants in professional life. Graduates thought that BSc Psychology should enable a career and were dissatisfied when it did not. Professional psychology dominated career aspiration. Relationships and participation in work communities of practice were highly significant for learning, personal and professional identity and growth.
Practical implications
Ontology may be central to educational transformation in BSc Psychology and is facilitated by integrated work experience. A more vocational focus is also advocated.
Originality/value
The UK Bachelor’s degree in psychology is increasingly concerned with employability however becoming a professional requires acting and being as well as knowledge and skills and Barnett and others have called for higher education to embrace an ontological turn. This is explored in the context of BSc Psychology student experience and reflection on work placements, graduation and early career development.
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Louise Lemire and Christian Rouillard
The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the impact of psychological contract infringement (independent variable) on organizational commitment, exit, voice and neglect…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the impact of psychological contract infringement (independent variable) on organizational commitment, exit, voice and neglect (dependent variables) within a Canadian federal public organization located in Quebec, where individual (e.g. age), organizational (e.g. stricter rule enforcement) and situational (e.g., employment alternatives) variables are controlled.Design/methodology/approach – A pre‐tested questionnaire (204 questions) on the psychological contract was distributed to 357 Canadian civil servants in a one site federal department. One hundred and thirty‐two questionnaires were returned and considered usable for research, for a 37 per cent response rate. Bivariate analysis was performed on the various determinants and individual responses to psychological contract violation, including organizational commitment, departure designs and counterproductive behaviors.Findings – Results clearly illustrate the great complexity of the link between organizational variables and individual reactions and shed light, on a higher level, on the need to outgrow arguments that reduce bureaucracy to its mere perverse effects. These results suggest that the managerial challenge is not so much to produce a shift from an environment where the rule of law, standards and regulations prevails to an open and flexible environment where individual autonomy is prized as it is to ensure compliance with normative and regulatory constraints.Originality/value – The research seeks to enrich the knowledge base on the subject area because previous research has dealt almost exclusively with the psychological contract within large private companies.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the transition to community life, in relation to vocational goals and aspirations, for 18 people with traumatic brain injury following the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the transition to community life, in relation to vocational goals and aspirations, for 18 people with traumatic brain injury following the discharge from a neurological rehabilitation hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was a longitudinal qualitative study, framed within interpretivism. A phenomenological approach was employed. Participants, their significant other, and members of the rehabilitation team involved in their care were interviewed at the time of discharge from the ward, after six months and one year following discharge from the ward.
Findings
Themes which emerged from the data gave insights into the meaning and value of vocational occupations, impact of rehabilitation, insight and awareness, environmental influences, alteration to the life‐course and moving forward to a new life. Throughout, issues of identity and reconstruction were identified.
Practical implications
Use of alternative paradigms to the traditional medical viewpoint can raise awareness of issues of identity and biographical reconstruction which are less widely reported in rehabilitation literature.
Originality/value
Goals could be re‐framed and include moving forward to a life with meaning and purpose. For many, this could involve work and vocational occupations but for others it may not. The need to address concerns which are priorities of those in receipt of care is highlighted in order to support interventions and the reconstruction of identity and a life with value.
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Nancy J. Adler and Joyce S. Osland
Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let…
Abstract
Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women’s leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing to society as global leaders? Why at this moment in history is there such a marked increase in the number of women leaders? Are we entering an era in which both male and female leaders will shape history, both symbolically and in reality? And if so, will we discover that women, on average, lead in different ways than men, or will we learn that role (global leader) explains more than gender? This chapter reveals the accelerating trends of women joining men in senior leadership positions, establishes the relationship of women leaders to our overall understanding of global leadership, and sets forth an agenda to accomplish much needed research and understanding.
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To consider how knowledge about social class is produced in research and how it can become obscured from view through certain empathic practices of representation.
Abstract
Purpose
To consider how knowledge about social class is produced in research and how it can become obscured from view through certain empathic practices of representation.
Methodology/approach
A number of data extracts, generated through participant observation and focus group interviews, are reflexively (re)considered in the chapter. These are drawn from an ethnographic study, previously undertaken by the author with a class of 25 young women in one private, selective girls’ school in the United Kingdom.
Findings
Social class was found to be silenced in the accounts which resulted from the research. This relative neglect is considered to have resulted from the primacy given to gender in a feminist project; to an over-emphasised sense of empathy and due to the desire to build and maintain respect and rapport. Strategies of empathic identification and representation should not be evaded altogether, but they need to be carefully considered (how and why are they used and to what effect?) and not taken up too readily, so that researchers don’t inadvertently re-inscribe the inequalities they are seeking to eliminate.
Originality/value
The chapter argues that greater attention needs to be paid to the class-making practices which researchers and participants engage in during and after fieldwork. Social class is brought to the foreground in the analyses presented.
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Daniel Martínez-Ávila, Richard Smiraglia, Hur-Li Lee and Melodie Fox
The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic designation (some might say a “classification”) for a group of writings that are recognized by the public in some particular way? What does it mean when a search engine, or catalog, asks a user to enter the name of an author? And how does that accord with the manner in which the data have been entered in association with the names of the entities identified with the concept of authorship?
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use several cases as bases of phenomenological discourse analysis, combining as best the authors can components of eidetic bracketing (a Husserlian technique for isolating noetic reduction) with Foucauldian discourse analysis. The two approaches are not sympathetic or together cogent, so the authors present them instead as alternative explanations alongside empirical evidence. In this way the authors are able to isolate components of iconic “authorship” and then subsequently engage them in discourse.
Findings
An “author” is an iconic name associated with a class of works. An “author” is a role in public discourse between a set of works and the culture that consumes them. An “author” is a role in cultural sublimation, or a power broker in deabstemiation. An “author” is last, if ever, a person responsible for the intellectual content of a published work. The library catalog’s attribution of “author” is at odds with the Foucauldian discursive comprehension of the role of an “author.”
Originality/value
One of the main assets of this paper is the combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis with phenomenological analysis for the study of the “author.” The authors turned to Foucauldian discourse analysis to discover the loci of power in the interactions of the public with the named authorial entities. The authors also looked to phenomenological analysis to consider the lived experience of users who encounter the same named authorial entities. The study of the “author” in this combined way facilitated the revelation of new aspects of the role of authorship in search engines and library catalogs.