This thesis analyzes data from seven Swedish craft cider entrepreneurs to examine how they respond to challenges within the entrepreneurial contexts–institutional, business, social, and spatial–defined by Welter. Thematic analysis is used to identify the major challenges within each context and then Bourdieusian capital theory is employed to analyze how these artisan entrepreneurs use, convert, and combine capitals to overcome obstacles. Findings reveal that two major challenges are present within the various contexts–cider’s symbolic deficit in Sweden and the formation of a Swedish craft cider community and industry. In the face of these challenges Swedish craft cidermakers demonstrate creativity in using and converting non-economic capitals–social capital in particular.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att kartlägga anledningar till att anställda kommer till kontoret vid hybridarbete.  Metod: Fenomenet har studerats med en induktiv forskningsansats. Studiens resultat har utgått från den insamlade datan. I studien har en kvalitativ surveystudie med ostrukturerade intervjuer använts för insamling av data. Empirin har analyserats med en tematisk analys.  Slutsats: Studien resulterade i många olika anledningar till varför anställda väljer att komma till kontoret vid hybridarbete. Anledningarna har delats upp i kategorierna: socialt, organisationskultur, enkel kommunikation, arbetsmiljö samt skilja på hem och arbete. Kategorierna har alla kopplats till meningsskapande. Anställda strävar efter meningsskapande genom olika faktorer såsom interaktion, sammanhang och faciliteter. / Purpose: The purpose of the study is to map reasons why employees come to the office in hybrid work setups. Method: The phenomenon has been studied using an inductive research approach. The study's results are based on the collected data. A qualitative survey study with unstructured interviews was used for data collection. This has been analyzed through thematic analysis.  Conclusion: The study identified various reasons why employees choose to come to the office in a hybrid work setups. These reasons were categorized as: social, organizational culture, easy communication, work environment, and separating home and work. All categories were linked to sensemaking. Employees seek meaning through factors such as interaction, context, and facilities.

The exploratory study sought to elicit and document mathematics teachers‟ views on how they enacted the process of transition between contexts and mathematics. The study pursued to understand teachers‟ beliefs and knowledge of mathematics. A mixed methods sequential explanatory research design was employed where a quantitative phase was followed by the connecting phase and concluded through a qualitative phase involving three case studies. A purposive sample of 165 practicing teachers who had registered for a professional advancement developmental course at a university participated in the study by voluntarily completing a survey questionnaire. From this sample, three cases of individual teachers were pursued. The first two cases involved conducting in-depth interviews with the teacher who had rated sentences in the questionnaire differently while the last case involved the recording of an interview of one individual using field notes. The questionnaire sought teachers‟ biographical details (section A), their views on contexts and mathematics (section B) and their rating of sentences in a passage with regard to the mathematics embedded in the sentences (section C). Semi-structured interviews were conducted in the qualitative phase to elicit in-depth views of the teachers‟ regarding the research problem. All the instruments were tested for validity and reliability. Quantitative data gathered was analysed using frequencies, percentages, cross tabulations, bar charts and pie charts as well as the calculation of Pearson chi-square tests (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to collate teachers‟ views from which themes were drawn and related to make inferences. It was found that teachers‟ positive views about contexts and mathematics did not translate into them recognising mathematics in some mathematics potent contexts as captured in their ratings in section C of the questionnaire. Statistically significant associations were recorded to support this. The study also conceptualised a mathematical participation model (MP-model) as a tool to describe and analyse participation that involves the use of real world data in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The MP-model involves four components, viz. the community of practice (CoP), real world data, mathematics and a model in which members of the CoP tap into the real world data and mathematics to model their participation. The study recommends the MP-model as tool for description and enactment of full mathematical participation. / Mathematical Sciences / D.Litt.et. Phil. (Mathematics Education)

The studies included in this dissertation investigated the experiences of individual romantic partners as secret keepers and couples as collective secret keepers. Study 1 investigated the topics of secrets kept by individual romantic partners and public perception of secret keeping in the context of romantic relationships via qualitative content analysis. The analysis of secret topics resulted in the following themes: (1) secrets about the Redditors’ relationship, (2) secrets about the Redditor, and (3) a discussion of secrecy. The analysis of public perception resulted in the following themes: (1) normalization, (2) advice, (3) comfort, (4) personal reactions, and (5) a request for more information. Study 2 investigated the experiences of collective secret keepers. Inductive analysis was used in the analysis of participants’ (n = 522) responses to questions investigating: (1) the topics of collective secrets, (2) the reasons for keeping or disclosing the secret, and (3) the reasons for disagreeing over the disclosure of the secret. Further analyses revealed a relationship between secret topic and the overall relational impact of collective secret keeping (F(27, 385) = 1.64, p < .05, 2 = .10); some topics were found to be more distancing than others. A relationship between relationship satisfaction and disagreement between spouses over the disclosure (F(1, 310) = 5.83, p < .05, η2 = .02) was also found; disagreement on the disclosure of a secret was found to result in lower relationship satisfaction. Study 2 also investigated the relationship between collective secret functions and relational outcomes via multilevel modeling. A relationship between secret functions and the following relational outcomes were found when the collective secret was kept: relational impact (χ2= 14.18, df = 1, p < .001), relational closeness (χ2= 14.18, df = 1, p < .001), and relationship satisfaction (χ2= 17.60, df = 1, p < .001). A relationship between secret functions and the relational impact was also found when the collective secret was disclosed (χ2= 3.12, df = 1, p < .10).

This study is part of the AHRC funded project “A History of Television for Women in Britain, 1947-1989”. The research is based upon the data gathered from interviews carried out with thirty geographically and generationally dispersed women about their memories of watching television in Britain between 1947 and 1989. I have used generation and gender as analytical categories, and have paid particular attention to the role of memory work in this type of historical research. This thesis aims to build upon previous work which has investigated the connection between generation and interaction with popular culture, but which has not theorised those relationships (Press, 1991; Moseley, 2002). The shifts and, indeed, continuities in the lives of different generations of British women are considered to gain a sense of the importance of generation in the production of identity. Significant differences arose between generations in terms of reflexivity and around questions of quality, value and taste as generations intersected with feminist and neoliberal cultures at different life stages. What was particularly interesting, however, was that despite the dramatic social change wrought by this post-war period, the narratives of women of different generations were surprisingly similar in terms of their everyday lives. Their memories largely centred around domestic relationships, and the women’s role as mother was often central to these. Following my investigation of the significance of motherhood to women’s production of gendered identity I consider the moments which disrupted that pattern and where women are enabled to conceive of an identity outside their familial role. Talk around pop music programming and desire had generational significance in the production of individual identities, again pointing to the importance of generation as an analytical category.

According to self-expansion theory, there is an innate drive to gain new resources, identities, and perspectives, which causes people to seek and maintain interpersonal relationships. However, an individual’s relationship partners may come into conflict with each other. In the current research, 656 adults in established monogamous romantic relationships completed an online questionnaire about romantic partners asking them to give up a friendship. The researcher explored the prevalence of this friendship interference phenomenon and its relationship to sources of self-expansion. The amount of self-expansion provided by a friendship was manipulated through vignettes. Additional measures assessed the relationship between amount of self-expansion provided by the partner and gained independently as well as desire for self-expansion on willingness to give up the proposed friendship. Further measures assessed whether a current or previous partner had requested a friendship termination, partner’s reasoning given for the request, whether the participant acquiesced to the request, and the degree to which the request contributed to break-up. Results showed that about 1/3 of people had been asked by a romantic partner to terminate a friendship, with 73% asked acquiescing to a current partner’s request, and 34% acquiescing to a previous partner’s request. Contrary to what was predicted, no gender difference was found for rate of acquiescence to partner’s request for friendship termination. Sexual orientation, age, and desire for self-expansion significant predicted willingness to give up a friendship. Additionally, participants were mostly willing to give up the friendship when their partnership was highly self-expanding but the friendship was not, and willingness declined when the friendship was highly self-expanding, regardless of how self-expanding the partnership.

Can the HEXACO personality dimensions and facets be used to explain the principal-agent problem and the disposition effect? The proposed research is designed to address the relationship between personality dimensions and individuals’ propensity to engage in self-interested behavior (agency effect) and irrational investment decisions (disposition effect). This paper proposes a correlational study that will be one of the first to apply Ashton and Lee’s (2009) HEXACO framework of personality to examine the association between the six personality dimensions and measurements of the agency and disposition effect. The HEXACO model of personality dimension includes Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Total participants in both experiments will be 480 undergraduate college students. Participating students will complete the HEXACO-60 self-report inventory and take part in a stock simulation where measurements of interests are recorded. Higher scores along the Honesty-Humility and Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative relationship with the agency effect measurement, while Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion will have a weak to moderate positive association. Higher scores along the Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative association with the disposition effect measurement, while lower scores of Conscientiousness are expected to have a positive relationship.

Part 1 of this thesis comprises a biography which, for the first time, places Marion Angus within her historical, family and social context. A version of this was published as the introduction to my edited collection The Singin Lass: Selected Work of Marion Angus (Polygon, 2006). Assumptions made about the poet's activities and attitudes derive from critical reading of archival material: her published 'diaries', letters and prose, as well as her poetry. The appraisal of her work places it within literary contexts. The development of her linguistic awareness of the Scots language is traced and the extent of her commitment to it noted. I conclude that assessment of her work has frequently been affected by erroneous judgements about her lifestyle and that the poetry, which has greater depth than it sometimes is given credit for, illuminates her struggle rather than defines her character. Her strength and resilience, as well as her contribution to Scots literature, should be respected and admired. Part II comprises three extracts from Blackthorn, a novel based on aspects of the life and work of Marion Angus. My starting point was the marked contrast between her earlier prose and her later poetry. This, I believe, reflects an actual family crisis which is central to my narrative. The extracts presented here (dated 1900, 1930 and 1945-46) present a credible alternative to inaccurate assumptions which were made about her life. I explore two actual significant relationships in her life: with a sister who becomes wholly dependent on her, and with a younger friend who looks after her in her final year. In the absence of any firm evidence of lovers, I speculate on other relationships.

In response to the millennial job-hopping fad and increasingly low retention rates organizations are facing, it is more important than ever that the best-fit candidate is chosen for the position and the organization. There are two common ways fit is typically defined: person-organization (P-O) fit is the congruence between an employee and the characteristics of a company; person-job (P-J) fit is the match between an employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and the requirements of the job in the organization (Edwards, 1991; Kristof, 1996). A large pharmaceutical company developed a quality of new hire criterion measure as a function of both P-O fit and P-J fit; that measure is examined in the current study. Results were limited because there were only six quality of hire ratings for managers included in the data set. Furthermore, no significant differences were found in quality of hire ratings for individual contributors based on their division (i.e., human health, support function, scientist, manufacturing, or animal health). Because of limitations (e.g., small sample size) many ideas for future research are discussed.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits, an affective component of psychopathy, are associated with problematic outcomes in social relationships in adolescents. However, their association with problematic romantic relationships in young adults has not been the focus of research. In a community sample of 216 college students (167 females) between the ages of 18 to 50, the current study examined the association between CU traits and several important romantic relationship outcomes. Results indicated that CU traits showed positive associations with dominance and partner’s perceived submissiveness, but negative associations with relationship satisfaction, even after controlling for impulsivity and antisocial behavior. On the other hand, antisocial behavior showed unique positive associations with short-term mating, psychological aggression towards partner, and partner’s perceived CU traits, even after controlling for CU traits. Further, results indicated that CU traits, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior showed positive associations with physical aggression towards partner. However, once these variables were entered in a multiple regression model simultaneously, none of these associations remained significant, suggesting it is the shared variance across these three variables that accounts for physical aggression. Implications for research and treatment are discussed.