Qualitative and historiometric methods in leadership research: A review of the first 25 years of The Leadership Quarterly

In the spirit of the 25th anniversary edition of The Leadership Quarterly, as the world's premier outlet for leadership research, we have reviewed qualitative and historiometric research across those 25 years. Qualitative research is a complex and cluttered area of scholarship. This is not because there is an inherent confusion about it. Rather, it is because ‘qualitative’ research is a cover-all term for a wide range of research strategies, paradigms, parent disciplines, sources of data, and methods of analysis for them. More so than in previous journal review articles, we explored variation in qualitative analysis as well as variety in qualitative data. In terms of methodologies, our efforts concentrated on case study, content analysis, grounded theory and historiometrics. We also examined trends toward post-positivism, post-modernity and liquid modernity, and their resultant benefits for researching leadership. Future directions for leadership research are posited.     

Politics and Esthetics

This essay examines the intersection and history of esthetics and politics. Esthetics now provides specific forms or categories of understanding for politics and public life; in the language of social movements, esthetics often supplies the ‘frames’ by which we perceive the world. I discuss the sociological literature on esthetics, and explore some of its connections to politics broadly conceived. I argue that an adequate sociological approach to esthetic politics must explore the history, characteristics, and intersection of the esthetic sphere and popular culture, for these two realms have influenced political ideas and practices.     

Rock Up: An initiative supporting students' wellbeing in their transition to secondary school

This paper reports the background and findings of the community-based pilot program ‘Rock Up’ to school. The Rock Up program was directed at a niche section of young students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 to respond to identified risk factors associated with disengagement from formal education. The Rock Up approach was to energise these students' connection to learning as they approach the difficult stage of transition from primary school to secondary school. Ultimately, Rock Up aims to assist those students in their development of wellbeing, within and outside of the school environment. The operational measures of wellbeing covered; academic, social, emotional, behavioural, and school absence. Thirteen students, who had been identified by their respective teachers, were invited to participate in individual and/or group activities that focused on their wellbeing and developing their readiness for secondary school. Written and verbal feedbacks from students, teachers, parents, and the program facilitator, were in the main very positive. Analysis of the data of the first round of the program using a three-wave questionnaire and a participatory action research approach indicated the need to proceed to a new round using more refined processes. When fully developed, Rock Up is intended to be the vanguard for collaborative practice between the education and community sectors throughout Victoria and to be an example of an efficient and effective model of transition for this age-group.     

基于知识融合的水利工程硕士教育协同培养观

工程硕士教育是社会进步、时代发展、工程需要的产物,工程硕士的教育培养方法也必须紧跟社会需求。由于工程硕士主要来自于生产施工现场人员,有别于全日制的在校学生,对工程硕士协同各方资源进行知识融合教育显得尤为必要。     

Effects of neighborhood walkability on healthy weight: assessing selection and causal influences

Studies that examine the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and weight are limited because residents are not randomly distributed into neighborhoods. If associations are found between neighborhood characteristics and weight in observational studies, one cannot confidently draw conclusions about causality. We use data from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) that contain body mass index (BMI) information from all drivers holding a Utah driver license to undertake a cross-sectional analysis that compares the neighborhood determinants of BMI for youth and young adults. This analysis assumes that youth have little choice in their residential location while young adults have more choice. Our analysis makes use of data on 53,476 males and 47,069 females living in Salt Lake County in 2000. We find evidence of residential selection among both males and females when BMI is the outcome. The evidence is weaker when the outcomes are overweight or obesity. We conclude that studies that ignore the role of residential selection may be overstating the causal influence of neighborhood features in altering residents’ BMI.     

Costing Mixed Coxian Phase-type Systems with Poisson Arrivals

Previously, we developed a modeling framework which classifies individuals with respect to their length of stay (LOS) in the transient states of a continuous-time Markov model with a single absorbing state; phase-type models are used for each class of the Markov model. We here add costs and obtain results for moments of total costs in (0, t], for an individual, a cohort arriving at time zero and when arrivals are Poisson. Based on stroke patient data from the Belfast City Hospital we use the overall modelling framework to obtain results for total cost in a given time interval.     

An Extended Mixture Distribution Survival Tree for Patient Pathway Prognostication

Mixture distribution survival trees are constructed by approximating different nodes in the tree by distinct types of mixture distributions to improve within node homogeneity. Previously, we proposed a mixture distribution survival tree-based method for determining clinically meaningful patient groups from a given dataset of patients’ length of stay. This article extends this approach to examine the interrelationship between length of stay in hospital, outcome measures, and other covariates. We describe an application of this approach to patient pathway and examine the relationship between length of stay in hospital and/or treatment outcome using five-years’ retrospective data of stroke patients.     

Serial Entrepreneurs

This study focuses on the dynamic nature of entrepreneurship through an analysis of serial entrepreneurs, those individuals who engage in multiple start-ups, management buyouts, management buy-ins and combinations of these activities. The paper develops a typology of habitual entrepreneurship and then examines serial entrepreneurs in detail as a subset of such entrepreneurs. The processes involved and the effects of individuals undertaking sequential ventures are analysed. The study identifies three types of serial entrepreneurial behaviour namely venture repeaters, organic serials and serial dealmakers, distinguished by the motivations and the methods used to develop their ventures. Case-study evidence from the study also indicates that the role of active investors varies according to the type of serial entrepreneur and venture.