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Increasing trends toward casualization of the workforce and job mobility have increased the need for delivery of targeted career counselling relevant to the specific needs of individuals but have not been matched by refinements to vocational interest instruments, which have largely remained focussed on student‐based norms. By investigating the interests and factor structure of the Vocational Interest Survey for Australia (VISA), this study has replicated earlier findings that the unemployed appear to respond with higher mean interest levels on the VISA in comparison to the instrument’s normative sample of secondary students. In comparison to an earlier study of unemployed white‐collar workers, the present study suggests that unemployed managers are able to discriminate between more dimensions of vocational interests than their non‐managerial counterparts. This observation is interpreted as support for a call to investigate the need for multi‐sample norming for vocational interest instruments.

The purpose of this paper is to identify themes on international experiences that impact culture and how these findings will intervene in understanding cross-cultural training programs. Thereby an attempt is made to: evaluate cross-cultural insensitivity influences on cross-cultural shock and willingness to adapt, identify cultural impressions over a short overseas period, provide some insights on cross-cultural training that will improve training practices for cross-cultural assignments.

A diary method was used to analyze the data using NVivo. This research uses diary studies because they have been popular in identifying factors that influence learners to learn, as well as found to be productive to achieve short term experiences. They allow for in-depth analysis, uncovering several findings unlike observation and interviews that cannot reach. In addition, diary text is said to give information on areas of social reality that are not contained in the text. Following this the study used the theme category frequencies to enable us to undertake non-parametric testing of contingency tables.

Several descriptors were identified in this study; the χ²-test indicates that there is a difference in cultural shock experiences on negative cultural sensitivity but no difference in positive cultural sensitivity which was found significant at the p=0.05 level. On the other hand there is a significant association between positive cultural sensitivity and willingness to adjust and no significant association between negative cultural sensitivity and willingness to adjust which was found significant at the p=0.05 level.

This research shows how learning in higher education can take into account the experiences by which learners can use their knowledge and skills for future cross-cultural training in international careers.

These results can be useful in guiding vocational interests. The results of the research offer descriptors of an exploratory nature which can also be used as a reference analysis for consequent phases in cross-cultural training.

Research provides several descriptors on international culture such as culture shock, positive and negative intercultural sensitivity, and willingness to adapt, some of which were significant. Diary method to analyze data are used which is distinctive and unique to understand behavior.

This study uses Hall's (1976) theory of low/high context culture with theories of interpersonal adaptation (Gudykunst, 1985; Patterson, 1983) to test communication preferences, flexibility, and effectiveness in same‐ and mixed‐culture negotiation. Ninety‐three same‐culture low context (Israel, Germany, Sweden, and U.S.), 101 same‐culture high context (Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, Thailand), and 48 mixed‐culture mixed context (U.S.‐Japan, U.S.‐Hong Kong) dyads negotiated a 1 ½ hour simulation. Transcripts were content coded for direct and indirect integrative sequences and analyzed with hierarchical linear regression. Supporting the theory, results revealed more indirect integrative sequences in high context dyads and more direct integrative sequences in low context and mixed context dyads. Direct integrative sequences predicted joint gains for mixed context dyads.

Freire (2000) suggested that all teaching is political; social justice teaching is arguably deeply rooted in encouraging a transformative practice that reduces social inequities. The intersectional identities and realities experienced by classroom participants shape their knowledge of and perspectives on studies based in social justice and, therefore, educators should strive to create lessons that are not in conflict with the knowledge and perspectives of their students (Epstein, 2009). The authors explored how the Coady International Institute teaching staff – who were primarily engaged in leadership training with development practitioners from around the world – included the realities experienced by persons living with disabilities in the global South in their curriculum and classroom discussions. Their research focused on the teaching staff’s existing knowledge of disabled persons’ movements and lived realities in the global South and how their course content addressed those realities. A critical component of this work included content development and direction from persons living with disabilities who have experience in global development studies and in pedagogical design in adult learning contexts. This content, cocreated and/or compiled by individuals with lived experience, will be shared both internally and externally to Coady graduates working in organizations around the world.

This paper aims to analyse the influence of board characteristics on corporate reputation.

In total, 128 Brazilian publicly traded companies from Refinitiv Eikon were analysed between 2016 and 2020. The dependent variable was corporate reputation, whereas the independent variables were board size, gender diversity, board independence and audit committee presence. Multivariate analysis was used.

The results presented empirical evidence that board members can impact corporate reputation. Findings showed that board size, gender diversity and independence positively influence Brazilian companies’ corporate reputation. Conversely, an audit committee had no significant impact on corporate reputation.

The paper presents a contribution to the significance of board members in shaping a company's corporate reputation, using the signalling theory and the resource-based view (RBV) theory.

Regarding practical implications, this work provides subsidies for managers to value board characteristics because they directly reflect on corporate reputation and competitive advantage, leading to more sustainable performance.

The research findings highlight that a diverse board encourages the organisation to improve its workforce, human rights, relations with the community and responsibility for manufactured products.

The relationship between board characteristics and corporate cooperation is poorly established in the literature. Furthermore, the results prove the RBV theory in an emerging context. Similarly, the signalling theory proved helpful in improving Brazilian firms’ corporate reputation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experience of older people and their sense of developing wellbeing, including consideration of the strategies they employ to respond to perceived risk.

An Appreciative Inquiry study was used, which collected data with 58 participants in focus group and individual interviews. Interviews focussed on ways in which older people in South Africa, Australia, Germany and the UK understand and seek to maintain wellbeing.

The changing time horizons of older people lead to perceptions of risk and concerns that embrace societal as well as individual concerns. Often, this leads to a sense of societal responsibility and desire for social change, which is frustrated by a perceived exclusion from participation in society.

In mental health practice and education, it is imperative to embrace the shift from ageist concerns (with later life viewed as risky and tragic in itself) towards a greater sensitivity for older people’s resilience, the strategies they deploy to maintain this, and their desire for more control and respect for their potential to contribute to society.

Variation in time horizons leads to changes in temporal accounting, which may be under-utilised by society. Consequently, societies may not recognise and support the resilience of older people to the detriment of older people as individuals and to the wider society.

With particular reference to insider/outsider qualitative research, the purpose of this paper is to present new understandings about the concepts of literacy and reflexivity, which go against the grain of technical approaches currently privileged under neo‐liberal education systems.

The paper draws on theoretical considerations and empirical data from a qualitative study in literacy education to examine the concept of researcher reflexivity. With multiple methods such as focus groups, on‐line discussions, shared literacy experiences, and researcher's reflections, the qualitative approach was appropriate to unveil thick descriptions of phenomena.

Information from the literature, theoretical framework and transcript analysis is synthesized to present an innovative way of approaching reflexivity in qualitative research, to acknowledge: theory, power, discomfort; and personal, historical, political and sociocultural influences.

Given the small number of participants involved in the case study, results are not representative of the general population.

Deepening researchers’ approaches to reflexivity can lead to cross‐disciplinary collaboration in professional fields such as teaching, engineering and nursing.

An innovative approach to reflexivity, particularly after the completion of a study, can rupture the comfortableness of qualitative researchers’ reflexive processes. A rigorous concept of reflexivity can be useful to scaffold pre‐service teachers during professional internships in schools.

In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular group of academic scientists has responded to neoliberal changes in science policy and funding in Canada. The data we use are from a qualitative case study of 20 basic health scientists affiliated with a research-intensive university in a large Canadian city. We use the PFP/PFU model to explore the symbolic strategies (the vision of scientific quality) and practical strategies (the acquisition of funding and production of knowledge outputs) scientists adopt to maintain or advance their own position of power in the scientific field. We also compare similarities and differences among scientists trained before and after the rise of neoliberal policy. The PFP/PFU model allows us to see how these individual strategies cumulatively contribute to the construction of dominant and alternate modes of knowledge production. We argue that the alignments and misalignments between quality vision and practice that scientists in this study experienced reflect the symbolic struggles that are occurring among scientists, and between the scientific and political field, over two competing logics and reward systems (PFP/PFU).

This chapter describes the work-life balance project, which was the first to investigate the potential of clean language as an academic research interview methodology (Lawley, Meyer, Meese, Sullivan, & Tosey, 2010). It resulted in the publication of an article in the British Journal of Management (Tosey, Lawley, & Meese, 2014) that has since been cited in several academic papers, including Langley and Meziani's (2020) review of interview methodologies in the field of organisational change. This chapter describes the project's methodology and findings and highlights six lessons learnt that have helped to inform the further development of clean language interviewing.