This study explores what motivates engineers in their early-mid career to change careers. It first establishes the definition of a career change from the perspective of those who have changed careers, and then examines what drives, influences and facilitates a career change, as well as how a career change is enacted physically and emotionally. This has been looked at through the contemporary lens of the ‘intelligent career framework’. This research adopted a qualitative, abductive approach following an initial inductive small-scale exploratory study. The fieldwork consisted of a pilot and main study using semi-structured interviews. For the main study, 22 interviews were conducted within one organisation in order to elicit the subjective experiences of engineers who had undertaken a career change. The findings show how the driving factors relate predominantly to knowing-why and knowing-where. The influencing and facilitating factors vary by individual, and relate to knowing-what, knowing-how knowing-when and knowing-whom. Six clusters of interacting factors were observed with knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-when at the core. Whilst the process of career change was complex and long, differing pathways through which individuals changed careers were evident, as well as emotions that needed to be managed. This study contributes to knowledge in the area of contemporary career theory by exploring career change through a new lens: the intelligent career framework. It demonstrates how individuals use their ‘career capital’ to effect a career change and the ways in which the six knowings interact to bring about a career change. It extends the understanding of the process of career change and discovers some of the organisational factors that influence or facilitate individuals making a career change. All of these contributions address identifiable gaps in the literature.

<p>This paper studies the impact of market orientation strategy on brand awareness. Zara, a Spanish leading fashion retailer and an example of a brand using this strategy, is compared to three other multinational brands operating in Stockholm, Sweden, namely Topshop, Mango and United Colours of Benetton. The latter brands are known to use advertising to create brand awareness.</p><p>Fashion magazine attention was used as a measure of brand awareness. Data on the brand awareness was gathered by browsing three leading Swedish fashion magazines – Elle, Glamour and Damernas Värld – and the fashion section of the biggest Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet.</p><p>It was found that market orientation can compete with advertising as a marketing strategy to create brand awareness, but only in part of the market segment. This was concluded from the fact that Zara was featured in some of the magazines, but not all of them.</p>

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Marked differences have been found in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns, contingent upon their sexual orientation; opposite- and same-gender attracted men demonstrate greatest genital and self-reported arousal to their preferred stimulus type, whereas other-gender attracted women do not, and findings of same-gender attracted women have been mixed (e.g., Chivers, Seto & Blanchard, 2007; Chivers, Bouchard, Timmers, & Haberl, 2012). Given the complex nature of sexual stimuli that are used in research paradigms involving category-specificity of sexual arousal, however, it is often unclear to what extent contextual cues (cues other than the sexual actor’s sex characteristics; body movement, level of sexual activity, etc.) influence participants’ sexual response patterns. As such, the current study attempted to parse contextual cues from sexual stimuli and examined genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported responses of same- and other-gender attracted men and women to prepotent sexual features (stimuli believed to elicit automatic sexual arousal: erect penises and vasoengorged vulvas), nonprepotent sexual features (flaccid penises and pubic triangles) and neutral stimuli (clothed men and women). All samples were found to exhibit a category-specific pattern of genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported sexual arousal. Similarly, genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported arousal was generally found to be greatest to “prepotent” sexual conditions. Limitations and implications are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-30 11:37:10.216

This cross-cultural study investigates the structural and cultural differences and similarities evident in 13 Mandarin (TM) and 17 English language narratives (TEFL) produced by Taiwanese university EFL students and 17 narratives (BE) produced by British university students. This study also explores how the Taiwanese L2 learners’ identities might affect their use of L2 discourse norms within their narratives. The findings show that within the three sets of narratives, past experiences, in general, are recounted in chronological order and the organisation of narratives follows the sequential order defined by Labov (1972). In terms of orientation, there is some cultural variance. The TM and TEFL narratives underscore the importance of family values in Taiwanese society and underline the role of teachers in these students’ worlds. However, the data shows some variance with Labov’s (1972) results in terms of the relationship between complicating action, resolution and evaluation. In terms of external evaluation, the British narrators use much more evaluation in directly addressing their listeners. In terms of internal evaluation, there is significant variance within the three sets of narratives i.e. stress usage, adverb usage, and repetition. The findings suggest that there is no major difference in tellership and tellability in the three sets of narratives. In terms of learner identity, although some Taiwanese EFL students demonstrate high levels of integrative motivation, they have difficulty using L2 discourse norms in their narratives. This is evidenced by their anxiety in relation to their locus of control. It is also manifest that their learner identities have changed over a period of time and were constructed in various sites of struggle, and by relations of power, in which they assumed different subject positions.

Consistent with the well-documented relation between political orientation and psychological traits, hedge funds' political orientations are related to their portfolio decisions. Relative to politically conservative hedge funds, politically liberal hedge funds exhibit a preference for smaller stocks, less mature companies, volatile stocks, unprofitable companies, non-dividend paying companies, and lottery-type securities. Politically liberal hedge funds are also more likely to enter new positions or fully exit existing positions, and make larger adjustments to their U.S. equity market exposure. Our results suggest that psychological characteristics can influence the portfolio decisions of even those at the very top of the financial sophistication ladder.

Existing literature on consumer behavior has argued that an individual’s regulatory orientation interacts with message framing. If there is a match between regulatory orientation (promotion versus prevention) and message framing, this results in positive attitudes toward a given advertisement. Conversely, if there is a mismatch, the effect is opposite, i.e., attitudes toward that advertisement are less positive and less favorable. This research extends the term of compatibility by examining how regulatory focus moderates the impact of two aspects of message framing (attribute framing and risky choice framing) on customer perceptions. It also examines whether regulatory fit is created when there are interactions between individuals’ regulatory orientation and message framing and how the fit changes customer perceptions about a message. Specifically, this dissertation provides answers to the following questions: (1) does regulatory fit take place when regulatory focus is compatible with two aspects of message framing (attribute and risky choice)?; (2) does regulatory fit take place when one aspect of message framing (attribute) is compatible with the other (risky choice)?; and (3) how do customer perceptions change if customers experience regulatory fit? The results show that the effects of utilitarian attributes and national brands are dominating and that both promotion- and prevention-oriented customers have higher perceptions of these attributes and brands. The findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, this study should enhance our understanding of regulatory focus theory. Practically, the results should provide marketers with more insights into the correlation between message framing and regulatory orientation and the effect of fit on message persuasion, enabling them to develop more effective marketing strategies.

Due to teacher shortages, school districts have offered incentives and alternative licensure programs. Recently, however, school districts have shifted the focus from recruitment to one of teacher retention which places an emphasis upon beginning teacher induction programs. These programs help teachers improve in their craft of teaching, help teachers remain satisfied with their jobs, help teachers enculturate into the districts in which they work, and help to improve student achievement. This quantitative study examined fifth year teachers’ perceptions of their induction programs in terms of teacher retention. The 280 eligible teachers from three different school districts were asked to participate by completing an electronic survey, which asked questions regarding their experiences and perceptions of their induction program, and by participating in a focus group session. No statistical significance was shown between the different components of the induction program and teacher retention. However, by examining the means of responses given and the frequencies, reviewers may be able to glean information, indicating which components were more positively perceived by teachers. Findings suggest that learning styles, attitudes, and professional growth needs have more of an impact upon teacher perception of the value of the different components. In order to retain good teachers in the classroom, staff developers need to offer a wide range of professional growth opportunities. For the staff developer, designing an induction program which meets the needs and learning styles of all beginning teachers becomes problematic.