Published Article / The paper reports on the findings of a study that investigated the impact of leadership and management on the construction of professional identity of teacher trainees. The writer argues that the overall leadership and management of the host schools, where student teachers do experiential training (teaching practice), has an impact on the construction of their professional identity. The host schools provide different learning experiences (environment) which may either enhance or hinder the development of a positive professional identity. A questionnaire comprising of open-ended questions was administered to 40 teacher trainees at the School of Teacher Education, Central University of Technology, Free State. The students had just return from a six-month period of experiential training. The aim of the questionnaire was to examine their views on their experiences and expectations of the teaching practice, and whether or not the leadership and management of the school has had an impact on the construction of their professional identity. The findings revealed that a supportive and enabling environment within the host school provided a good learning experience and consequently enhanced the development of a positive professional identity whereas a non-welcoming and threatening environment had the opposite effect. Suggestions and recommendations for providing a supportive and enabling environment for all students are made.

In the professional services industry, it is no secret that people are the greatest assets. The investment in human capital is the core of the business, the dividends of which can never be under-estimated. The continued success of the professional services firm therefore lies in being able to retain that investment within the organisation. The current high rate of turnover within the firm, and in the professional services industry, is indeed a big challenge for management. One that necessitates a review into a variety of ways of keeping the talent within the firm. This research study was commissioned to look into one of the proposed initiatives for retaining employees; that of wealth creation. The aim was to source the views of employees on wealth creation as a way of increasing the rate of retention or otherwise as well as identify the preferred structure of such a scheme. The results of the research showed that employees deem financial remuneration to be highly important and would stay with the firm longer if provided with a wealth initiative. There was preference for a short to medium term scheme rather than a long term one, with some particular suggested schemes coming out as preferred favourites than others. Respondents also went further to highlight other factors that were contributing to loss of talent within the firm. The responses from the survey have been comprehensively analysed and recommendations made on the implementation of the wealth creation scheme. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

Ethics is a topic of great importance for professional school psychologists. The National Association of School Psychologists’ (NASP) Principles for Professional Ethics is a document that originated in 1974 and was most recently revised in 2010. The function of this document is to guide school psychologists’ conduct in their professional careers. This study examines the content of school psychology journals, the NASP school psychology newspaper, and NASP convention abstracts from the last 16 years to evaluate the ethical topics being discussed within the school psychology community. A search of the publications related to ethics provides answers to several questions while highlighting the contemporary concerns and interests of school psychologists. The findings of this study include the representation of ethical issues in four domains to varying degrees. The greatest topics of interest and concern for school psychologists were found to be related to assessments and interventions while issues related to professional behaviors seem underrepresented in the literature.

Our aim with this essay is to examine the challenges that recreation teachers faces at their workplaces. We especially focus which cause difficulties for the implementation of recreation teacher’s assignments. We hope to highlight the difficulties and factors which act as a barrier to recreation teachers. The questions that we are trying to answer are: what perceptions in their daily work recreation teachers shave of their mission? What challenges do recreation teachers experience in the implementation of their mission? What solutions and aids do recreation teachers use to meet these challenges? We will use a qualitative method in our essay. Data collection includes interviews with four recreation teachers in three different schools. The empirical material will be analyzed and interpreted from a socio- cultural perspective and by means of other research in this area. The result shows that recreation teachers are experiencing challenges but are trying to carry out their mission through a variety of methods in order to provide children with basic care.

Presentation. Critical Librarianship & Pedagogy Symposium, February 25-26, 2016, The University of Arizona. / While critical practice involves challenging systems and structures, many librarians function in the “messy middle” - making choices in everyday practice which may both support and challenge privileged academic structures. This workshop will take participants through a series of questions based on privilege as a lens for reflection on our choices, limitations, and opportunities as librarians within academic systems. The aim of the workshop is to help identify points of friction or frustration in our practice, areas for closer examination or opportunities for change, and to provide a more intentional understanding of our values and how they relate to practice.

This study explored newly qualified Clinical Psychologists’ (CPs) experiences of personal professional development (PPD) during doctoral training. In particular there was a focus on their experiences of their personal and professional identities. Within literature relevant to PPD in Clinical Psychology training, personal and professional development were largely conceptualised as separate processes. Yet models of reflective practice would suggest that an awareness of the personal self is necessary for effective clinical work. The research questions were ‘How do newly qualified CPs experience their personal and professional identities during doctoral training? and ‘How do they experience the boundary between their personal and professional development?’. To respond to these questions seven newly qualified CPs were interviewed regarding their experiences of their personal and professional identities during training. A qualitative research design was employed and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the data. Three superordinate themes were identified within the data: Developing self-acceptance; Enhancing awareness of self and others; Taking risks and managing uncertainty. Within these results there was a strong message of an inextricable link between personal and professional identities. It seemed that participants started from a position of being themselves, and during training negotiated the dilemmas of learning a professional role. In order to do this they would often look to others for how to negotiate this process. Yet this process could create challenges, as bringing one’s personal self into the professional arena was not always seen as acceptable. If participants were able to show personal aspects of themselves this could make them feel vulnerable and, therefore, these processes held an element of uncertainty. Where participants were able to show their personal selves and felt validated, this allowed for developing self-acceptance. The implications for clinical training and the clients with whom CPs work are discussed.

This thesis examines the rationale for legal professional privilege (LPP) in relation to corporations, and seeks to identify the optimal scope of a corporate privilege at the beginning of the 21st century. It argues that there is a growing gap between the jurisprudence on LPP and the modern realities of corporate life. Too often courts explain the rationale for the privilege by reference to the needs and behaviour of individuals, and use questionable analogies to justify its extension to corporations. Accordingly, insufficient account is taken of the legal, economic and social realities in which corporations operate. This has resulted in a privilege rule that rests on questionable foundations and is uncertain in scope. Even when the privilege rules are clear, its scope is often out of alignment with its rationale. This is unacceptable because the cost of a corporate privilege is substantial. The thesis argues that while corporations are entitled to a right to prepare for litigation in private as part of the right to fair trial, the case for a corporate advice privilege unconnected with litigation is weak. Large private and public companies already have sufficient incentives to consult lawyers in order to obtain legal advice. Corporate governance rules effectively require directors to get advice on important legal matters affecting the company. Directors of small private corporations, and individual employees of companies, may still need some additional incentive to take advice or talk candidly to corporate counsel in the form of a privilege. The thesis looks at ways of structuring the privilege to protect these groups. Above all, the thesis argues that rules on corporate advice privilege should be formulated in such a way that it helps rather than hinders the goal of increasing corporate compliance.

This study aims to evaluate a Scandinavian approach to outdoor learning, which is used in the UK. The approach, known as ‘Forest School’ involves children and young people spending regular time in natural woodland working on practical projects. Forest School promotes a child-led ethos, so children are encouraged to choose their own activities (Forest School Association, 2013). A Realist Synthesis (Pawson, 2006) was undertaken to develop an understanding of how Forest School works, according to existing research. Features of the context, change mechanisms and outcomes were abstracted to form a set of hypotheses. In line with a Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 1997), these hypotheses were tested through a case study of Forest School involving 14-16 year old pupils with special educational needs (SEN). Drawing on interview, observation, questionnaire and documentary evidence, the initial programme specification was refined through thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to create programme specification 2. Participants checked this in a Realist Interview (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) and a final programme specification was produced. The final programme specification presents findings through context + mechanism = outcome configurations. The study extends existing research by finding that Forest School can support confidence, social skills, language and communication, motivation and concentration, physical skills, knowledge and understanding of the world and emotional well-being and behaviour in young people aged 14-16 with SEN. The study further indicates that Forest School works differently for different pupils, depending on their individual characteristics. Strategies for best practice were illuminated which may be useful to other Forest School practitioners, such as a high level of adult practical skills. The evaluation has implications for professionals working with young people as it highlights how Forest School can promote positive outcomes for some young people aged 14-16 with SEN.

Background: The professional development of midwifery in China has been challenged by its marginalised professional status and the medical dominance within midwifery practice in the contemporary maternity care system. There has been growing confusion about, ‘Who the midwife is and what does the midwife do?’ within and outside the profession. The sense of identity crisis for the profession has become particularly salient when Chinese midwifery becomes a sub-branch of the nursing profession during the contemporary period. If, however, we consider the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Mission Statement (2008: 32) that midwives are the ‘most appropriate professionals for childbearing women in keeping childbirth normal’, then the focus on a greater understanding of midwives is needed. It is the aim of this research to facilitate this understanding by exploring how hospital-based Chinese midwives construct their professional identity in the contemporary maternity care system and the factors that significantly influence the process. Design and Method: A Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) study was conducted to achieve the research aim. A sample of 15 midwives and 5 women participants was recruited between October 2010 and May 2011 from a capital city in one province of China. The accounts from the participants in the form of in-depth individual interviews were digitally recorded and three work journals from midwife participants were also included to facilitate the exploration of the study subject. NVivo 8 was used to assist with data management for the analysis. Findings: Six principle categories were identified: ‘institutional position’; ‘organisational management’; ‘professional discourse’; ‘compromising strategies’; ‘engaging strategies’; and ‘hybrid identity’. The integration of the principle categories has developed the theoretical model ‘navigating the self in maternity care’, which suggests that professional identity construction in midwives is a dynamic process, involving a constant structural and attitudinal interplay between the external (‘obstetric nurse’) and internal (‘professional midwife’) definitions of the midwife. The model indicates that the midwives’ professional identity construction was contextualised in their ‘institutional position’ in the contemporary maternity care system. In everyday practice, midwives experienced identity dissonance in relation to two competing identities: the ‘obstetric nurse’, bound up to the ‘organisational management’ in hospital settings; and the ‘professional midwife’, associated with the ‘professional discourse’ in the midwifery profession. Two types of strategies were identified to reduce the identity dissonance – ‘compromising strategies’ and ‘engaging strategies’ – which resulted in a ‘hybrid identity’, as the construction of professional identity in individual midwives is navigating along an identity continuum with ‘obstetric nurse’ and ‘professional midwife’ at opposing ends. This thesis has expanded on the current theoretical knowledge of identity work by elaborating on the discursive practices professionals employ to legitimate their professional identity and the various strategies individuals use to negotiate their identities at work. It has also extended attention to the influence of institutional forces on professional identity construction. With specific regard to Chinese midwifery, this emerging theoretical model provides a number of possible implications for midwifery practice, education and policy which would facilitate the exploration of effective operational processes for midwives in China to develop professionally.

The study takes servant-leadership and attempts to find if there is an equivalent concept in management. Leadership and management have been extensively compared and contrasted in research and theory and while there are divergent views of exactly what each entails, others hold the view that they might be equal and complementary. The research design follows a positivist philosophy. An instrument that measures distinct leader, manager and professional role preferences is used to check the discrete operation of three contexts among a sample of members of the accountancy profession. The instrument is derived from contextualising pre-developed and pre-tested servant-leadership measuring instruments. Items from the role preference map instrument are added together with demographic details to come up with a meta-instrument adapted for the study. After validating it through pilot-testing, the instrument is applied in real-world research. The research was conducted among a sample of professional accountants working in 28 countries across four continents in organisations with over 82,000 employees. Statistical analysis, employing; analysis of variance, correlations, frequencies, significances, means, variances and tests of scale reliability was performed on both the data and the instruments. The research found clear and reliable servant-leadership-type behaviours exhibited across the three discreet roles and contexts of leader, manager and professional. Some professional accountancy courses are delivered across many countries in the world. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is one such professional accountancy body that offers qualifications on a global scale. However, as accountants originate from, and practice in diverse cultures and economies around the world they are trained by institutes like ACCA from a common syllabus that has elements of management as a subject. Servant-leadership is a type of leadership that is theorised to be humanistic and spiritual rather than rational and mechanistic. Management practice on the other hand needs rationality and contains some mechanistic elements in typical management functions like coordinating and controlling. The implication is whether servant-leadership attributes can be exhibited if professional accountants contextualise themselves as leaders, managers or professionals. The study focuses on the profession of accountants and tests the operation of servant-leadership behaviours from the manager, leader and professional contexts using pre-tested servant-leadership scales and applying them in specific leader and manager contexts. This approach is new in its treatment of servant-leadership in this fashion. A further original approach is the use of the accountancy profession. This treatment of instruments from other fields like psychology and sociology is new.