Robert Bowen and Sophie Bennett
This paper aims to evaluate how places approach the promotion of local food products and what it means to produce, consume and support local produce in a rural region.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate how places approach the promotion of local food products and what it means to produce, consume and support local produce in a rural region.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a participatory action-reflective approach through a series of three focus groups held over consecutive weeks with nine participants. This included local food producers, artists and community members, with data collected through focus group discussions, reflective video diaries and a questionnaire. The research was conducted in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, a region with entrepreneurial potential but lacking a reputation for food.
Findings
Findings demonstrate confused perceptions of local identity, leading to a clichéd image of the region. As such, an origin brand may do little to enhance the value of local produce or increase economic prosperity in places that lack an established identity. Places with a more recognised reputation for food, such as Wales, could benefit from an origin brand, similar to Brittany.
Originality/value
The study extends the academic understanding of place branding by investigating the value of using origin branding in promoting food products. The context of a lesser-known region highlights the importance of awareness and reputation for the successful implementation of the brand. Additionally, the unique community-led action-reflective methodology provides a holistic model in exploring the effective development of the brand.
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Sophie Hennekam and Dawn Bennett
The purpose of this paper is to examine artists’ experiences of involuntary career transitions and its impact on their work-related identities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine artists’ experiences of involuntary career transitions and its impact on their work-related identities.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews with 40 artists in the Netherlands were conducted. Self-narratives were used to analyze the findings.
Findings
Artists who can no longer make a living out of their artistic activities are forced to start working outside the creative realm and are gradually pushed away from the creative industries. This loss of their creative identity leads to psychological stress and grief, making the professional transition problematic. Moreover, the artistic community often condemns an artist’s transition to other activities, making the transition psychologically even more straining.
Originality/value
This study provides in-depth insights into how artists deal with changes in their work-related identities in the light of involuntary career transitions.
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Sophie Hennekam, Sally Macarthur, Dawn Bennett, Cat Hope and Talisha Goh
The purpose of this paper is to examine women composers’ use of online communities of practice (CoP) to negotiate the traditionally masculine space of music composition while…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine women composers’ use of online communities of practice (CoP) to negotiate the traditionally masculine space of music composition while operating outside its hierarchical structures.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a mixed methods approach consisting of an online survey (n=225) followed by 27 semi-structured in-depth interviews with female composers to explore the concept and use of CoP. Content analysis was used to analyze the survey responses and interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to interpret respondents’ lived experiences as relayed in the interviews.
Findings
The findings reveal that the online environment can be a supportive and safe space for female composers to connect with others and find support, feedback and mentorship, increase their visibility and develop career agency through learning and knowledge acquisition. CoP emerged as an alternative approach to career development for practicing female music workers and as a tool which could circumvent some of the enduring gendered challenges.
Originality/value
The findings suggest that online CoP can have a positive impact on the career development and sustainability of women in male-dominated sectors such as composition.
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Sophie Hennekam and Dawn Bennett
The purpose of this paper is to examine the precarious nature of creative industries (CIs) work in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, with a focus on job security, initial and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the precarious nature of creative industries (CIs) work in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, with a focus on job security, initial and on-going training and education, and access to benefits and protection.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports from a largely qualitative study featuring an in-depth survey answered by 752 creative workers in the three locations.
Findings
Survey data identified common themes including an increase in non-standard forms of employment and the persistence of precarious work across the career lifespan; criticism of initial education and training with particular reference to business skills; the need for and challenges of life-long professional learning; and lack of awareness about and access to benefits and protection. Respondents also reported multiple roles across and beyond the CIs.
Practical implications
The presence of common themes suggests avenues for future, targeted creative workforce research and signals the need for change and action by CIs educators, policy makers and representative organizations such as trade unions.
Originality/value
While precarious labour is common across the CIs and has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide, a lack of comparative studies has made it difficult to identify themes or issues that are common across multiple locations.
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Sophie McKenzie, Jo Coldwell-Neilson and Stuart Palmer
The purpose of this paper is to understand the career development and employability needs of undergraduate information technology (IT) students at an Australian University, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the career development and employability needs of undergraduate information technology (IT) students at an Australian University, and their relation to students’ career interest. While many factors and stakeholders contribute to student career development, this study focused specifically on the student experience. Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) is used as an approach to understand the students’ needs of career development and employability.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was completed by 126 IT students to record information about students’ career development and employability background and needs.
Findings
The results demonstrate that SCCT helps understand the factors that impact on IT students’ career development, with their outcome expectations and self-efficacy informed by prior studies in IT and their need for access to “IT professionals” to contribute towards their career interest. In addition, IT students rely on academic achievement and experiential learning, rather than career resources, to guide their career development and employability.
Research limitations/implications
The data collected in this study are limited to one discipline (IT) at one university, which necessarily limits the generalisability of the specific results.
Practical implications
Career development is a complex, life-stage-dependant and discipline-specific process that varies for every decision maker. This research makes an important contribution in presenting the IT student experience and demonstrates how an appropriate career development model can help understand students’ needs. This outcome will help educators better support IT students to build the career interest.
Originality/value
This study explored the often-overlooked student experience of career development, providing valuable insight into IT students’ needs.
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Sarah Dodds, Rebekah Russell–Bennett, Tom Chen, Anna-Sophie Oertzen, Luis Salvador-Carulla and Yu-Chen Hung
The healthcare sector is experiencing a major paradigm shift toward a people-centered approach. The key issue with transitioning to a people-centered approach is a lack of…
Abstract
Purpose
The healthcare sector is experiencing a major paradigm shift toward a people-centered approach. The key issue with transitioning to a people-centered approach is a lack of understanding of the ever-increasing role of technology in blended human-technology healthcare interactions and the impacts on healthcare actors' well-being. The purpose of the paper is to identify the key mechanisms and influencing factors through which blended service realities affect engaged actors' well-being in a healthcare context.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper takes a human-centric perspective and a value co-creation lens and uses theory synthesis and adaptation to investigate blended human-technology service realities in healthcare services.
Findings
The authors conceptualize three blended human-technology service realities – human-dominant, balanced and technology-dominant – and identify two key mechanisms – shared control and emotional-social and cognitive complexity – and three influencing factors – meaningful human-technology experiences, agency and DART (dialogue, access, risk, transparency) – that affect the well-being outcome of engaged actors in these blended human-technology service realities.
Practical implications
Managerially, the framework provides a useful tool for the design and management of blended human-technology realities. The paper explains how healthcare services should pay attention to management and interventions of different services realities and their impact on engaged actors. Blended human-technology reality examples – telehealth, virtual reality (VR) and service robots in healthcare – are used to support and contextualize the study’s conceptual work. A future research agenda is provided.
Originality/value
This study contributes to service literature by developing a new conceptual framework that underpins the mechanisms and factors that influence the relationships between blended human-technology service realities and engaged actors' well-being.
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Willem Standaert, Sophie Thunus and Frédéric Schoenaers
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between virtual meeting participation and wellbeing. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between virtual meeting participation and wellbeing. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that participation in more virtual meetings is associated with both negative and positive wellbeing indicators.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was sent to 3,530 employees across five Belgian universities in April 2020. Useful data from 814 respondents was collected and analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
The authors find support for their hypotheses, namely that participating in more virtual meetings is associated not only with negative wellbeing indicators (workload, stress and fatigue) but also with a positive wellbeing indicator, namely work influence.
Research limitations/implications
Given the unique work-from-home context during the pandemic, the generalizability of our findings may be limited. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the literature on Meeting Science and Virtual Work, as it is the first study to empirically relate virtual meetings to wellbeing indicators, including a positive one.
Practical implications
As virtual meetings and work-from-home are expected to remain prevalent, understanding wellbeing implications is of high managerial importance. Their findings can be useful for (HR) managers who develop flexible work policies for a post-pandemic world.
Social implications
The findings draw attention to the importance of maintaining a healthy balance between productivity and wellbeing in creating a sustainable work(-from-home) context.
Originality/value
The COVID-19 lockdown provided a unique opportunity to obtain insight on the relationship between virtual meetings and wellbeing at an unprecedented scale.
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Sophie R. Homer, Linda Solbrig, Despina Djama, Anne Bentley, Sarah Kearns and Jon May
Rates of mental ill-health among postgraduate research students (PGRs) are alarmingly high. PGRs face unique challenges and stigma around accessing support. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Rates of mental ill-health among postgraduate research students (PGRs) are alarmingly high. PGRs face unique challenges and stigma around accessing support. The purpose of this paper is to introduce The Researcher Toolkit: a novel, open-source, preventative approach to PGR mental health. The Toolkit empowers PGRs and promotes positive research culture. This paper describes and evaluates the Toolkit to encourage adoption across the sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Four workshops were designed by integrating researcher development, critical pedagogy and psychological knowledge of well-being. A diverse group of PGRs co-designed workshops and delivered them to their peers. Workshops engaged 26% of the PGR population (total 116 attendees). PGR Workshop Leaders and attendees submitted anonymous, online feedback after workshops (74 total responses). A mixed-method approach combined quantitative analysis of ratings and qualitative analysis of open-ended comments.
Findings
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Workshops were universally appealing, enjoyable and beneficial and the peer-support approach was highly valued, strongly supporting adoption of the programme in other universities. Findings are discussed alongside wider systemic factors and recommendations for policy.
Practical implications
The Toolkit translates readily to other UK institutions and can be adapted for use elsewhere. Recommendations for practice are provided.
Originality/value
The Researcher Toolkit is a novel PGR well-being initiative. Its originality is threefold: its approach is prevention rather than intervention; its content is new and bespoke, created through interdisciplinary collaboration between psychologists, researcher development professionals and PGR stakeholders; and support is peer-led and decentralised from student support services. Its evaluation adds to the limited literature on PGR well-being and peer-support.
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Pre-existing music has been used to underscore the moving image since the days of ‘silent’ film, and this practice is still commonplace today in Hollywood and beyond. Such music…
Abstract
Pre-existing music has been used to underscore the moving image since the days of ‘silent’ film, and this practice is still commonplace today in Hollywood and beyond. Such music may be ‘classical’ or ‘popular’ and can feature within the narrative of a movie diegetically, non-diegetically, or both. With regard to art music in film, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often the composer of choice, given the popularity and familiarity of many of his compositions. However, his music is employed cinematically in a range of different situations and for a variety of purposes.
In this chapter, I focus on ways in which compositions by Mozart are used to manifest the music and death nexus present in the narrative of three films that were released in different decades. ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni (1787) features in the first film I analyse, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945), with the aria being linked to the symbolic death of the moral compass of the protagonist. I then consider the inclusion of music from one of Mozart's symphonies in the storyline of the film Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), the narrative of which includes the themes of deception and murder. The final film I examine is I am David (Paul Feig, 2003), in which one of the characters sacrifices his life to save that of his friend. Each example encapsulates death as embodied affect, with Mozart's music specifically impacting upon the emotions of the protagonists.
Valentina Dolce, Monica Molino, Sophie Wodociag and Chiara Ghislieri
This paper aims to explore the interplay between international experiences and male and female top managers' career paths, taking into consideration gender differences…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the interplay between international experiences and male and female top managers' career paths, taking into consideration gender differences. Furthermore, the research investigates the specific job and personal demands and resources related to the different types of international work experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides an in-depth subjective reconstruction of the international professional experience of 37 male and female top managers employed in Italy, using semi-structured interviews.
Findings
Participants highlighted the benefits of their international assignments (IAs) in terms of the development of managerial, soft and cross-cultural skills. Family issues and cultural differences were frequently cited as challenges by the top managers interviewed. Culture shock and perceived difficulty in managing multicultural teams were reported by both women and men. Men reported experiencing long periods of separation from their family more often than women and cited the support of their partner as a valuable resource. In addition to the support of a partner, women also indicated that certain job resources and welfare policies played a crucial role. Moreover, women appear to be more interested in work-family management issues, thus suggesting that the traditional division of roles between men and women continues to persist in Italy.
Originality/value
This study provides an insight into the extrinsic factors linked to career success, as well as the challenges and the resources associated with different forms of global work other than traditional expatriation. It takes into consideration a specific country, Italy, where a traditional family paradigm persists, providing an insight into better understanding the link between IA experiences and gender roles in global mobility. Managerial implications are also discussed.