Talking of HRD

This paper draws upon research exploring the emergence of HRD within the British National Health Service (NHS), the aim being to investigate how HRD has been talked into being, is talked about and accomplished through talk. HRD is conceptualized as a socialand discursive construction, and as discursive action. It is argued that conceptualizing HRD as a social and discursive construction can help identify and explain changes in ways of thinking and talking about HRD. Conceptualizing HRD as discursive action can help explain and justify HRD activity, in that much of what HRD practitioners and academics ‘do’ is ‘talk’. This paper explores these concepts and introduces a typology of the discourses of training and development (T&D), HRD and strategic HRD (SHRD), labelled Tell, Sell and Gel. It is suggested that this typology is a useful analytical tool for those practising HRD, providing ameans for HRD professionals to identify and analyse, and possibly change, their practices and discourse(s). The paper introduces a way of identifying how HRD might be talked ‘about’ and theorizes how discursive activities (the talk) might be changing.     

Testing Enterprising Tendency In Occupational Groups

The administration of a test of enterprising tendency showed that business owner-managers were significantly more enterprising than other occupational groups, namely teachers, nurses, civil servants, clerical trainees and lecturers and trainers. This test, which aims to measure key characteristics of enterprising people, is described within this paper. Key enterprise characteristics may include a high need for achievement, a high need for autonomy, calculated risk-taking, an internal locus of control and a creative tendency. The result of this pilot study may suggest that the occupation of setting up and managing a business requires an enterprising tendency, unlike other occupations. However, it could reflect the fact that business owner-managers are the most studied sample of enterprising people and that the test is drawn from this literature. However, further studies are required to clarify distinctions within occupational groups and to determine if business owner-managers are more enterprising than other occupational groups. It would be especially interesting to compare the enterprising tendency of business owner-managers with managers and enterprising people from other occupational groups.     

The use of therapeutic interventions to reduce crowding-related arousal: A preliminary investigation

Studies of mass transportation crowding have universally shown that such crowding is arousing and often anxiety producing. Attempts to intervene to reduce arousal and anxiety have met with mixed results. In this study four therapeutically based interventions were used to reduce the arousal evoked by a laboratory analogue of mass transportation crowding. Subjects in the intervention conditions showed significantly fewer increases in pulse rate during crowding. Two of the intervention conditions showed significant decreases in skin conductance level when compared to subjects in an uninstructed crowded condition. An intervention which increased feelings of control over the environment resulted in a more positive view of the environment but did not decrease physiological arousal any more than interventions which did not increase perceived control.The research reported in this paper was sponsored by grants from Rutgers University Research Council to Yakov M. Epstein and Robert A. Karlin.     

Development of a participatory monitoring and evaluation strategy

This paper describes the process of developing a participatory monitoring and evaluation strategy for a Kenyan youth-based NGO. The iterative nature of the study including the process of narrowing down indicators to measure and methods to monitor/evaluate these is well documented. A discussion on the extent to which the process achieved participation and was empowering for the participants reflects on existing power relationships and cultural context of Kenya and points to the need to create opportunities for youth where they engage with the broader community. Lessons that emerge out of the study focus on the importance of prioritizing monitoring and evaluation, the potential of youth to carry out effective monitoring and evaluation, and the need for researchers to engage respectfully with communities and participants.     

Nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation for artificially truncated absence data

In manpower planning it is cornmoniy tue case tnat employees withuraw from active service for a period of time before returning to take up post at a later date. Such periods of absence are frequently of major concern to employers who are anxious to ensure that employees return as soon as possible. The distribution of duration of such periods of absence are therefore of considerable interest as is the probability that such employees will ever return to active service. In this paper we derive a nonparametric estimator for such a lifetime distribution based on renewal data which are subject to various forms of incompleteness, namely right censoring, left and right truncation, and forward recurrence. Artificial truncation is used to ensure that the data are time homogeneous. A nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator for the lifetime.     

Lived experience of Iranian bisexual women: a thematic analysis

Abstract

Normative homo-sociality, physical sex-segregation and other oppressive gender politics in Iran raise questions about the development of bisexuality as an “identity” among Iranian women. This study examines the lived experience of Iranian bisexual women. Six self-identified bisexual women were recruited by two announcements in Iranian LGBTI community social media. After in-depth online interviews, data were coded and analyzed by inductive thematic analysis method. Seventeen themes in three broad patterns (identity, social structure and relationship) are found across and within the data. Themes such as biphobia, confusion and self-definition are in concordance with studies of the western bisexual population. Themes related to social structure are unique and reflect the particular socio-cultural condition of non-heterosexual women in Iran.     

The Role of Empowerment in Home Care Work

ABSTRACT

The home care industry experiences similar problems with the recruitment and retention of direct care workers (DCWs) as those faced by institutions, and it is important to identify strategies to help retain and grow this important workforce. The empowerment of DCWs has been shown to be an effective strategy for increasing job satisfaction and decreasing turnover in nursing homes but has not been studied in home care. Using Kanter’s organizational theory of empowerment, including structural empowerment (structure of opportunity, access to resources, access to information, and access to support) and psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination or autonomy, and impact) this study examined whether home care workers (HCWs) feel empowered in carrying out their jobs. An exploratory, qualitative study of 12 HCWs, recruited from two states in the United States, found high levels of both structural and psychological empowerment among research participants, as well as a number of disempowering aspects of their job. Findings suggest ways to support elements of the work that HCWs find empowering and decrease elements that contribute to job dissatisfaction and turnover.     

Contested attachments: rethinking adoptive kinship in the era of open adoption

Since its legal inception in 1926, adoption work has been centrally concerned with the matter of the adopted child's ‘first’ or prior life, whilst also focussed on achieving a new and secure substitute family for that child. Adoptive kinship has been formed through this dual and contradictory concern, a concern that has produced diverse policies and practices over the last 90 years. Drawing on Foucault's concept of technologies of the subject, this paper is an exploration of adoptive kinship within the new context of open adoption, a set of practices that more actively promotes the involvements of the adopted child's former family. These practices both promote a radical reworking of adoptive kinship, as well as confirming its more orthodox moorings. Drawing on an adoption archive study, the paper concludes with an analysis of letterbox contact to explore how far this form of open practice transforms adoptive kinship in the contemporary era.