No description available.

MBA type programmes have grown apace in the U.K. since the 1960s. As demand for full-time MBA courses begins to level off, part-time executive masters courses are the fastest growing form of masters programme in business schools. The participants on such courses are in both worlds of academia and business and might be thought to bridge the gap between both these worlds, which are often said to be too far apart. The purpose of this thesis is to report the experience of part-time management education at masters level from the manager-learners' point of view. Longitudinal field research was carried out over a two year period with a group of part-time MBA students. While they were concerned to learn accountancy, marketing, finance, strategy, organisational behaviour, statistics and more, the researcher was concerned to learn how they socially constructed this learning experience. The perspectives of symbolic interactionism end ethnomethodology inform the analysis which examines member's interactional practices for managing to survive the course. Part I outlines the history of management education and development in the U.K. focussing upon the debate Over the MBA qualification. It also reviews some of the work in the fields of educational research, evaluation research and the sociology of education, which indicates the need for basic ethnographic research in the field of management education. Part II discusses the methodology and perspective of the field research including the researcher's autobiographical reasons for adopting the approach used. Part III contains the substantive chapters which describe and analyses the part-timers' experience of the programme. The first two chapters in this section broadly set the scene, aspects of which are examined in closer detail in subsequent chapters. Throughout, the perspectives of symbolic interactionism and athnomethodology are drawn upon for the purpose of enriching the insights into and analysis of the manager-learners' experience. Part IV concludes by discussing some of the methodological issues arising from the field research - from the practical to the perspectival - and some of the substantive issues concerning the members' social constitution of everyday life on the course. It is contended that educational research in the area of management education and' development has not been sufficiently concerned with understanding the experience and point of view of management-learners undergoing management education. The present thesis advocates ethnography as a suitable method for elucidating manager-learners' experience of, in this case, part-time masters level management education. See'

This project was concerned with the development of a work-based, Professional Doctorate in the Business School at Coventry University. The Business School at Coventry University has had a suite of part-time, Postgraduate, Work-based Learning courses leading to an M.A. in Management since 1998, and a critical mass of students has consequently built up for whom a Professional Doctorate would present an opportunity to progress their studies. A key part of this work has been a critique of the literature in this field to determine the key differences between the traditional PhD and the Professional Doctorate in order to highlight the major challenges and considerations for designers of Professional Doctorates. The research for this dissertation has also included conversations with key individuals at Coventry University, at other universities, employers, professional bodies, graduates and students. Wherever possible, opportunities have been taken to work collaboratively with others from both inside and outside Coventry University. The tensions around the requirement for Professional Doctorates to demonstrate equivalence to the PhD and yet also be different are discussed and this will show that Higher Education has not resolved these adding to the dissatisfaction and confusion surrounding doctorates per se. The project has also identified a number of other concerns affecting the provision of both the PhD and Professional Doctorates. The project contains proposals for a Professional Doctorate at Coventry University, to be delivered by the Centre for Higher Education Development rather than the Business School. It also puts forward the view that whether or not the University introduces a Professional Doctorate it will need to consider the revision of its PhD provision. Consideration of the details of a revision of the PhD does not however form part of this project.

Thesis (MBA.) --University of Limpopo, 2008 / Chemicals are found to be enormously dangerous on the health and safety criteria. In academic laboratories, chemical safety has always been a major concern. Safety risks are either not perceived at all, or perceived to be less dangerous than what they actually are. The climate of safety in any organization consists of employees’ attitudes towards, and perceptions of safety behaviour. In academic departments, safety is influenced by factors such as the organisational environment, management attitude and commitment, the nature of the job or task, and the personal attributes of the individual. This study is concerned with safety climate and chemical management practices in academic departments. More specifically, it investigates the safety perceptions, attitudes, and chemical management behaviours of university employees. It represents the empirical results of a questionnaire survey administered in a university department and direct observations of safe and unsafe chemical management behaviours, targeting employees who work with chemicals. Based upon the survey analysis results, this study demonstrates that employees in the academic departments under study have a good degree of risk awareness and a relatively high degree of safety consciousness. The results also reveal employees’ intentional unsafe chemical management behaviours. Further, it was found, empirically, that overall employees’ intentional unsafe behaviours seem to be best explained by employees’ perceptions of management attitude and commitment to safety, social and physical work environment, priority for safety, as well as their perception of the risk they are generally exposed to in their work environment. The study, thus, establishes that perceptions of management attitudes and actions have a direct effect on employees’ behaviour. There is a positive correlation between workers’ safety climate and chemical management safe behaviour in academic departments.