Search results

This study aims to investigate the relationship between national culture and best practices as recommended in country-level corporate governance codes.

Measures for four corporate governance variables – board independence, gender composition, board leadership and meeting frequency – were collected from corporate governance codes for 55 countries. Scores from Hofstede’s cultural dimensions – power distance, individualism vs collectivism, masculinity vs femininity and uncertainty avoidance – were gathered for these same countries. Average scores on the cultural dimensions were compared for groups of countries based on each of the corporate governance variables.

Data analyses reveal significant relationships between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and the four characteristics of corporate governance examined in this study. Results highlight the importance of understanding cultural influences on board characteristics for companies considering international expansions or partnerships.

While prior studies have focused on the influence of national culture at the company level, this study examines the relationship at the regulatory level through review of country-level corporate governance codes.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on career aspirations and experiences explored with senior women organizational scholars employed in neoliberally driven public universities in Aotearoa (New Zealand) legally mandated to serve as a critic and conscience of society.

Over the 18 months period, three sequential research conversations were conducted with each of 12 participants known for their commitment to social justice and planetary well-being. The conversational approach allowed for spontaneous participant-lead development of ideas. Sequencing of conversations allowed for reflection on matters raised in previous conversations.

Vitality and creativity deemed essential to scholarly careers were reportedly under pressure. Career concepts in use indicate a protean commitment to self-direction but also recognized constraints of institutionally driven neoliberal output regimes. Detrimental impacts of neoliberal values permeating their employing institutions were offered spontaneously often in radical feminist terms but paradoxically given liberal feminist remedies.

The 12 diverse transcripts of participant conversations generated remarkable similarities that indicate the influence of career articulations on the social construction of reality. The implications of this interpretation invite further reflection on the consequences of normalization of career metaphors and their implication in the intensification of institutional control, the weakening of professional autonomy and the system preserving restriction of career-related responsibilities.

Highlighting constraints to creativity and vitality necessary for scholarly work can inform further research into professional influences on justice and environmental matters in and beyond the Academy.

In this paper a short review of Aotearoa (New Zealand) as in vanguard of neoliberal intensification globally, the implication of this doctrine in neoliberally driven universities and the impacts on career opportunities, degradations and responsibilities of scholars are explored.

The conversational research process contrasts with more tightly framed empirical research methods by generating spontaneous participant-led articulations of career-related dynamics explored and expanded over subsequent conversations.

This chapter draws on experiences of research with children who work as street traders in Nigeria, with a focus on establishing trust and the related concepts of power and rights. The discussion stems from a study which used a rights-based approach to gather children’s accounts of their experiences of working as street traders within a large market in a Nigerian city. Seventeen children (aged 10–15 years) took part in semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Children talked about difficult situations as they undertook tiring work and received conflicting messages about the importance of making an economic contribution to the family, versus the need to attend school. Researching these accounts entailed a number of ethical challenges, which centred on access and recruitment; consent/assent and participation; sensitivity of research; and researcher positionality. First, recruitment was limited to children with parents/guardians who could give consent, with assent from the children. Second, a relationship of trust had to be negotiated between the researcher and the participating children. This involved acknowledging different elements of adult–child positionality, which had implications for the ways in which children participated in the study. Third, sensitivity was essential given that children could discuss attitudes or activities, which were not universally seen as acceptable. Fourth, researcher positionality influenced all aspects of the study, including access to children, how relationships were forged and the interpretation of data. All of these challenges relied heavily on building trust with children. However, the authors illustrate how trust must be employed cautiously in research with children, given adult–child power disparities.

The purpose of this study is to consider how carer harm is understood, surfaced and responded to in contemporary policy, practice and research.

This paper offers a reflective commentary on the current “state of play” relating to carer harm drawing on existing research and related literature. This study focuses on how we define carer harm and what we know about its impact; lessons from, and for, practice and service provision; and (some) considerations for policy development and future research.

The authors highlight the importance of engaging with the gendered dimensions (and inequalities) that lie at the intersection of experience of care and violence and the need to move beyond binary conceptions of power (lessness) in family and intimate relationships over the life course. They suggest that changing how we think and talk about carer harm may support practitioners to better recognise the impact of direct and indirect forms of carer harm on carers without stigmatising or blaming people with care needs. The findings of this study also consider how carer harm is “hidden in plain sight” on two accounts. The issue falls through the gaps between, broadly, domestic abuse and adult and child safeguarding services; similarly, the nature and impact of harm is often kept private by carers who are fearful of the moral and practical consequences of sharing their experiences.

This study sets out recommendations to this effect and invites an ongoing conversation about how change for carers and families can be realised.

The increased involvement of adults at risk in the safeguarding process has become a prominent issue within English safeguarding policy. However, there is evidence to suggest that actual levels of involvement are still low. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a PhD study in relation to the benefits of advocacy in supporting this involvement in adult safeguarding for older people.

Participants in the study included advocates and social workers who had experience of working with older people through the safeguarding process within two North East England local authorities. A critical realist approach through in-depth interviews was taken with all the participants.

The research findings in relation to the benefits of advocacy in supporting older people going through safeguarding processes are reported. The practical limitations and factors which help and hinder advocacy support within the process are also considered. The theoretical implications for power, empowerment, and advocacy are also explored.

A key limitation of this research is that it did not include older people who had been through safeguarding amongst the participants.

Key implications for practice and policy are discussed.

The paper provides an overview and critique of empowerment in adult safeguarding and the role that advocates play in promoting this key principle.

The current interest in involving all members of the health care team in the evaluation and improvement of care has grown to include patients and recipients of care. Although much is written about how important it is to involve patients there is less information available about how this might be achieved. Even the term ‘involvement’ is itself open to various interpretations and this may result in involving patients in quality improvement remaining in the realms of rhetoric rather than reality. In this article we outline the benefits obtained from the active collaboration of patients with health care professionals in making decisions about their care. We examine ways in which patients’ views about the quality of the care that they receive can be heard and suggest that clinical guidelines might be one way of bridging the knowledge gap between health care professionals and patients so that joint decision‐making becomes more effective.

History teaching in a multi‐cultural society was one of the most frequently discussed topics in educational circles in 1990. Anybody who learned history in the pre‐1960 period would, however, have been surprised to learn that it was thought that “multi‐cultural society” was a new‐thing in the UK. To them the history of these islands seemed to be one wave of invaders after another with a sort of English only established as a universal language some 400 years ago. This strand in our history was matched by another in which brave Britons went off in search of fame and fortune, or to head off a foreign threat, overseas.

Like other European countries, Germany is facing regional physician shortages, which have several consequences on patient care. This study analyzes how hospitals perceive physician shortages and which strategies they adopt to address them. As a theoretical framework, the resource dependency theory is chosen.

The authors conducted 20 semi-structured expert interviews with human resource officers, human resource directors, and executive directors from hospitals in the northwest of Germany. Hospitals of different ownership types, of varying sizes and from rural and urban locations were included in the sample. The interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis.

The interviewees reported that human resource departments in hospitals expand their recruiting activities and no longer rely on one single recruiting instrument. In addition, they try to adapt their retaining measures to physicians' needs and offer a broad range of employment benefits (e.g. childcare) to increase attractiveness. The study also reveals that interviewees from small and rural hospitals report more difficulties with attracting new staff and therefore focus on recruiting physicians from abroad.

Since the staffing situation in German hospitals will not change in the short term, the study provides suggestions for hospital managers and health policy decision-makers in dealing with physician shortages.

This study uses the resource dependency theory to explain hospitals' strategies for dealing with healthcare staff shortages for the first time.

This paper aims to briefly outline the seamless evaluation approach and its application during an evaluation of ORIENT, a serious game aimed at young adults.

In this paper, the authors detail a unobtrusive, embedded evaluation approach that occurs within the game context, adding value and entertainment to the player experience whilst accumulating useful data for the development team.

The key result from this study was that during the “seamless evaluation” approach, users were unaware that they had been participating in an evaluation, with instruments enhancing rather than detracting from the in‐role game experience.

This approach, seamless evaluation, was devised in response to player expectations, perspectives and requirements, recognising that in the evaluation of games the whole process of interaction including its evaluation must be enjoyable and fun for the user.

Through using seamless evaluation, the authors created an evaluation completely embedded within the “magic circle” of an in‐game experience that added value to the user experience whilst also yielding relevant results for the development team.