Profiling a New Generation of Female Small Business Owners in New Zealand: Networking,Mentoring and Growth

The contribution of female small business owners to economic development in Western developed countries such as New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, is generally under–researched and traditionally grounded in male norms. Increasingly policy–makers acknowledge that in countries like New Zealand where 85% of business employs five or less people, small business offers the greatest employment potential. Not enough is known, though, about the growth orientation and characteristics of female small business owners. This article reports findings from the largest empirical study of small business undertaken in New Zealand and provides inter–gender comparison between male and female small business owners and for intra–gender contrast between networked female small business owners and women who did not belong to a business network. The results showed that the networked women, who were in the main better educated and more affiliative by nature, were more expansionist than both other female small business owners and men. The networked women were also more likely to have a business mentor. The findings confound earlier research suggesting women are less growth–orientated and wish only to satisfy intrinsic needs from their businesses. The article concludes by discussing the need to acknowledge the heterogeneity of female small business and what this means for policy–makers when assessing their socio–economic potential.     

What Can an Evaluation of the AGESW Predissertation Fellows Program Tell Us about the Mentoring Needs of Doctoral Students?

ABSTRACT

Good mentoring is a key variable for determining success in completing a doctoral program. The Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) provides leadership in the areas of gerontological social work education, research, and policy. In 2010, AGESW began offering the Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program (PDFP) to enhance social work doctoral students’ professional development and skillset for academia. The purpose of this study was to examine student participants’ perceptions of the PDFP in its role to providing mentorship and training for an academic position that encompasses research, teaching and professional service. This qualitative study examined eight cohorts (2010–2018) of the AGESW PDFP (N = 85). Participants identified a number of aspects of professional development gained, gratitude for the training, an appreciation for candid advice received, and areas of professional development they felt they were lacking within their doctoral training. Implications for doctoral education, doctoral mentorship programs, and the AGESW pre-dissertation program are discussed. Further, programs such as AGESW pre-dissertation fellowship program can serve as a model for other doctoral training initiatives to prepare students to work in academia.     

Enhancing Information Literacy in an Interdisciplinary Collaboration

ABSTRACT

The study examined the impact of an interdisciplinary collaborative on the information literacy of its participants by using legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) as a conceptual framework. The objectives of this exploratory study were to document participants' qualitative gains in information technology knowledge and uses, and to analyze expert involvement in supporting learning by novices. Data were gathered by using a participation observation approach, interviews, and survey. Participants cited more frequently the non-technical aspects of information literacy as being more beneficial than gains in technical know-how. Varying degrees of expert involvement ranging from enabling to instructing were identified. The implications in terms of convening and managing communities of practice and the development of legitimate peripheral participation theory are discussed.     

Mentoring or Monitoring: Formulating a Balance in Systemic Supervision

Contemporary supervision practice has increasingly involved tasks previously associated with line management; this has been uncomfortable and unresolved for both supervisors and supervisees. Context, individual preference and circumstance can drive the relationship more into surveillance or more into support, and each will have important implications for practice. This article argues for a balance between monitoring and mentoring, both are crucial for effective supervision to occur. Supervisors need to know the boundaries of their delegated task, given that supervision can be the intervention of choice for any number of organizational difficulties. However they also need to integrate the leadership and critical appraisal tasks required, commencing supervision relationships with these components being transparent and clear, such that all participants can meet their obligations to practice competently, ethically and in the clients' interests. The systemic model provides an effective framework to conceptualise and intervene in relation to the various stakeholders, relationships, service systems and political context in which arrangements for supervision are negotiated.     

Mentoring for Educational Success: Advancing Foster Care Youth Incorporating the Core Competencies

A collaborative relationship among three organizations developed a mentoring project using social work students (mentors) and independent living program (ILP) foster youths (mentees). The goal was to increase the mentees' awareness of educational possibilities beyond high school graduation while analyzing the mentors' learning as defined by the Council on Social Work Education core competencies. This pilot project paired mentors with ILP youths in this experiential opportunity conducted on a university campus. The students, acting as positive role models applying social work skills, engaged in an effort to improve the mentees' educational outcome, which would ultimately lead to self-sufficiency.     

基于缄默知识理论的“导师制”教师职前教育

目前很多高校管理者们都将教师职前教育的重心落在了教师显性知识和公共理论知识的习得之上,而忽略了新任教师对个人实践探索中所形成的缄默知识和实践技能的传承、借鉴与梳理。提高新任教师缄默知识的含量、加速教师专业化成长的速度是培育创新型、研究型教师,应对新课程改革的重要途径。     

论指导关系影响组织公民行为的作用机制

采用追踪和配对问卷调查收集数据的方法,在理论与文献研究以及系统检验各变量信度与效度的基础上,研究了指导关系影响组织公民行为的内在机制及内部人身份感知和工作嵌入的作用。结果表明:(1)指导关系显著正向影响工作嵌入和内部人身份感知,工作嵌入在指导关系同内部人身份感知的关系中发挥完全中介作用;(2)指导关系显著影响内部人身份感知和组织公民行为,内部人身份感知部分中介指导关系对组织公民行为产生影响;(3)工作嵌入显著正向影响内部人身份感知和组织公民行为,工作嵌入通过内部人身份感知的完全中介作用而对组织公民行为产生影响;(4)结构方程模型整体检验结果表明,指导关系通过工作嵌入和内部人身份感知的双中介作用而对组织公民行为产生影响。     

‘He told me to calm down and all that’: a qualitative study of forms of social support in youth mentoring relationships

The worldwide growth in formal youth mentoring programmes over the past two decades is partly a response to the perception that young people facing adversity do not have access to supportive relationships with adults and positive role models in their communities to the degree they once had. Formal mentoring programmes facilitate the development of a friendship or ‘match’ between an older volunteer and a young person, with the objective of supporting the young persons’ personal and social development. Drawing on 66 semi‐structured interviews with young people, parents, mentors and caseworkers associated with nine youth mentoring matches in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme in Ireland, this paper analyses the forms of social support evident in the mentor–mentee relationships and highlights how the mentoring relationship was perceived to have impacted on the well‐being of the young people participating. The findings reflect the consensus in the mentoring literature that close, well‐established mentoring relationships have the potential to bring about meaningful change in the lives of young people.     

Critical feminist analysis of STEM mentoring programs: A meta-synthesis of the existing literature

We conducted a meta-synthesis review of existing literature on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) mentoring programs for women. Critical feminist theory (CFT) was used to understand how mentoring programs support retention and occupational advancement of women in traditionally male-dominated STEM fields. Four primary strands of CFT were explored: gender, oppression/patriarchy, social institutions, and systemic change. Traditional models of mentoring encompass varied approaches, including institutionally enforced programs, formal and informal programs, paired peer grouping, as well as face-to-face and online forums. However, low levels of retention and self-stated lack of professional satisfaction for women in STEM fields continue to plague those professions. This study reviews the literature on mentoring programs that have been implemented to support women in STEM, thus adding to the epistemology of mentoring women in STEM through feminist discourse.     

Mentoring,skill development,and career success of foreign expatriates

Previous literature on foreign assignments shows a high relevance of mentors for expatriates’ success. In this study we analyse the impact of different mentor-related factors on skill and career development. Drawing on social exchange theory, we develop five research hypotheses and test them using a sample of 59 US expatriates on assignments in Germany. Linear regression modelling reveals that organizational distance between the mentee and the mentor as well as the mentor’s involvement in career planning are positively related to skill development. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between skill development and career development. We derive important implications for the implementation of mentoring in multinational corporations. The study is of value for researchers and practitioners in the areas of human resource management and organization.