Curriculum for Excellence (CfE, 2004), Scotland's most recent curricular reform, adopted in 2010, positions teachers as key stakeholders in the change process where they are not merely regarded as technicians delivering prescribed curricula but rather as designers and co-producers of school-based curriculum. This critical review considers the ways in which teachers engage with and enact this reform using the lens of teacher agency, to provide insight into how teachers relate to policy (Tao & Gao, 2017). Teacher agency has been defined as the ability to act (Bandura, 2001), to critically shape a response to a problem (Biesta & Tedder, 2006), and reflect on the impact of one's actions (Rogers & Wetzel, 2013). This critical review contributes to understanding of the factors that enable or constrain teachers to exercise agency as they enact new policy. Research in teacher agency is important because teachers may use their agency to support new policy, develop a critical stance or oppose educational change altogether (Sannino, 2010). CfE significantly altered the nature and purpose of Physical Education (PE) by relocating PE and dance to the newly created educational domain of 'Health and Wellbeing', but also offering dance as a unique subject within the Expressive Arts domain. The focus on PE is particularly salient, since PE teachers were not only managing the complexities of enacting whole school reform, but at the same time reconstructing the nature of their subject between the two educational domains. Given the complexities of enacting new policy in PE, this critical review examines the tensions, issues and challenges that PE teachers face when exercising agency to enact new curricular policy in their school setting. This critical review draws from three studies presented in six peer-reviewed international publications, analysing 525 Questionnaires and 50 interviews, that trace the policy formation process using Bowe, Ball and Gold's (1992) cycle of policy creation and enactment in practice. The six papers do not follow a linear path but can be read as a set of three interrelated research studies, conducted in 'real time', examining policy processes in practice. The first study investigated the creation of the CfE policy text by interviewing key policy constructors selected by the Scottish Government to create a vision for PE within Health and Wellbeing. The second study surveyed PE teachers in Scottish secondary schools and examined CfE at the implementation stage of the policy process, comparing policy intentions to teachers' translation of the policy text during the early years of policy enactment. The third study analysed PE teachers' perceptions, experiences and provision of dance in the curriculum using a ten-year longitudinal study to explore teacher agency from student through to experienced teacher. The studies identified the practical manifestations of the theoretically complex concept of collective context-bound agency that is exercised through policy enactment in the relational context of schools. The research established that policy enactment and agency were interconnected when actors were able to respond to tasks that involved them in a socially embedded process. Agency was exercised when teachers reflexively deliberated on the meaning of policy for their practice and negotiated the cultural, social and material contextual environment required to support reform. Teacher agency was enhanced by the collective experience in that, as a group, the PE teachers possessed emergent properties not possessed by individuals but by the power of the relationship that bound them together. The findings are relevant and timely in seeking to explore the information that sits beneath the surface of curriculum change by developing an understanding of the ways to support teachers' current and future practice.

Grit, the concept consisting of perseverance and passion towards a desired long-term goal, has been spotlighted as a key psychological resource that is predictive of positive life outcomes including academic achievement, professional success and subjective well-being. Despite its popularity within and outside of academia, much more needs to be researched before we can understand its properties and sociological utility. This dissertation explores the potential location of grit within various sociological discourses, including literature on agency, stratification, and perceived meritocracy. In addition, I explore the relationship between social status, subjective agency, the social valuation of grit, and grit cross-culturally to place grit within proper cultural and structural contexts. In Chapter 2, I propose the psychological notion of grit as a potentially useful variable in sociological analysis and explore its potential for contributing to addressing sociological concerns including human agency and stratification. Grit could work as a “behavioral engine” transforming subjective beliefs about agency (e.g., sense of control) to agentic practices that potentially produce better life outcomes. In Chapter 3, using new cross-cultural data collected from South Korea and the United States, I test the current measure of grit, the Grit-S scale, that is developed and predominantly tested in the United States, in two different countries, South Korea and the United States. I find in both countries grit is better understood as the concept consisting of two separate dimensions, perseverance and passion, rather than a global concept. In addition, I find the perseverance facet of grit, but not the passion facet, shows the distinctive utility in explaining subjective well-being beyond subjective agency (i.e., sense of control) in both countries. In Chapter 4, I analyze novel cross-cultural data collected from four nations (France, South Korea, Turkey and the United States) and find an indirect linkage between a person’s socioeconomic status and the level of grit through positive associations with the sense of control. That is, people with a higher socioeconomic status tend to hold stronger beliefs about one’s agency, and those who are strong believers in one’s control over life outcomes, in turn, are more likely to develop grit in these four countries. In Chapter 5, using the same cross-cultural data used in Chapter 3, I investigate the social valuation of grit and whether and how the valuation of grit is associated with individual development of grit in South Korea and the United States. In both countries, grit is valued as a desirable virtue that leads to success in life. However, there is within-society variance: people from lower social statuses tend to value grit as a virtue that leads to success more than those from higher statuses in both country samples. In addition, I find people with a higher sense of control are more likely to value grit as a virtue, and valuing grit is positively associated with the individual development of perseverance in both countries.

The diploma thesis deals with theoretical implications and design recommendations for a reduction of asymmetric information in order processing. In reference to a logistical aspect the order processing process is detailed analysed, in order to detect theoretical implications for an application to the order processing process within the principalagent- theory. In context with the functional organisation, argumentations for an existence of asymmetric information have been shown. On closer examination of specific areas such as, mental designs, routines of organisational members, the relevancy of the dimension time and the importance of IT, asymmetric information has been identified, which can cause different costs and operational reactivity. Design recommendations for situational reduction of asymmetric information within order processing have been developed. It has resulted, that on a theoretical level it is possible to minimize asymmetric informations and disadvantages through a process-like logistic concept, through the implementation of organisational learning and through alternative organisational concepts. In reference to the IT one exemplary design concept has been introduced in order to reduce asymmetric information and operational reactivity. (author's abstract) / Series: Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Transportwirtschaft und Logistik - Logistik

This dissertation examines the relation of Kant’s theory of free will to that of K.L. Reinhold. I argue that Reinhold’s theory addresses several problems raised in the reception of Kant’s practical philosophy, particularly the problem of accounting for free immoral acts. Focusing on Reinhold’s account of free will as a condition for the conceivability of the moral law shows that the historical focus on Reinhold’s break from Kant’s own account and his alleged reliance on facts of consciousness obscures Reinhold’s decidedly ‘Kantian’ argument. This approach provides a new foundation for free will and demonstrates the significance of Reinhold’s practical philosophy as an attempted corrective to Kant. Chapter 1 examines the influence of Rehberg, Ulrich, and Schmid on Kant’s and Reinhold’s respective theories of free will. Chapter 2 investigates the epistemic foundation of Reinhold’s theory of free will and, contrary to the dominant view in scholarship, argues that his account is not based merely on facts of consciousness. Chapter 3 illuminates a tension between the phenomenology of moral agency and Kant’s account of free agency. It is argued that while Kant talks about overcoming inclinations and adopting maxims by virtue of their lawful form, which would seemingly have to take place at the phenomenal level and be available to consciousness, Kant’s account of free agency is restricted to the noumenal, which precludes availability to consciousness. Reinhold’s theory of free will avoids this tension by positing consciousness of possible courses of action as a necessary condition for self-determination to one such action. Chapter 4 discusses the relation of Reinhold’s theory of free will to Kant’s Religion, a text that Reinhold uses as a basis for his charge that Kant’s theory is either “unintelligible” or “untenable.” I argue that although Reinhold fundamentally misunderstands Kant’s doctrine of supreme maxim adoption, Reinhold is correct in his assertion that Kant is committed to the thesis that the free spontaneity of the power of choice is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Chapter 5 explicates the Kant-Reinhold Controversy to argue that given Kant’s own commitment to the conditions for moral responsibility, Reinhold was ultimately correct that free will ought to be defined as choosing for or against the moral law.

The study explores the motivations and experiences of young single women migrating to work in the garment and footwear industries in Vietnam and the impact of migration on their lives and future prospects. The key issues investigated were the impact on the young women's working lives, their material and emotional well-being, agency and empowerment and personal life trajectories. Based on a questionnaire survey and interviews with young women factory workers in Hanoi, the research found that young women are motivated by the desire for a stable income and the lack of alternative employment options in rural areas, which are constrained by gendered patterns of vocational training and labour market opportunities. Migration into factory work brings young women increased incomes and opportunities for empowerment through a broadening of their horizons. As a result of migration young women gain confidence and increased capacity to achieve their personal life goals, and as such, are empowered by the experience. Their marriage opportunities, however, are limited by factory employment and this places young women at odds with the expectations of their families and rural tradition. How women negotiate this divergence from traditional work and marriage expectations in Vietnam has mixed implications for young women's well-being and empowerment, and calls for a reconsideration of the nature of women's empowerment as represented in gender and development discourse.

The interaction between optimal contractual design and macroeconomic aspects of economic systems is a sensitive issue for contemporary economics, in particular within the framework of the incentive theory. Information problems are crucial for incentives. Typically, in the credit markets lender-borrower interactions are affected by incentive problems and financial intermediation can be helpful. This work deals with financial markets, contracts and asymmetric information, with particular attention on how incentives and competition model the structure of the credit markets when the entrepreneur can simultaneously contract with more than one lender. In these cases we examine the implications of strategic competition on contracts among loans suppliers. Dealing with economies affected by information incompleteness or imperfection, competition on contracts delivers externalities among the players in the credit markets that can be responsible for inefficient outcomes. The issue of whether there could be any welfare-enhancing role of policy intervention, to improve on market outcomes is also analyzed.

Thesis (M.A. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Agency theory, proposed by previous studies such as Guidry, Leone, and Rock (1999) and Arya and Huey-Lian (2004), suggests that bonus and other accounting-metric-based compensation can motivate managers to perform well in the short horizon while equity-based compensation, such as restricted shares and stock options, can serve the purpose of aligning the long run interests of shareholders and managers. The empirical evidence, for example Jensen and Murphy (1990), Kaplan (1994), Hall and Liebman (1998), Murphy (1999), Zhou (2000), and Chowdhury and Wang (2009), confirms that incentive compensation is popular in many countries. However, recent studies suggest that the relation between performance and incentive compensation is weak. Shaw and Zhang (2010) find that CEO bonus compensation is less sensitive to poor earnings performance than it is to good earnings performance. Fahlenbrach and Stulz (2011) study the relation between bank performance during the 2008 bank crisis and the bonus and equity-based compensation of bank CEOs. They find that banks with CEOs whose incentives were better aligned with the interests of shareholders performed worse than other banks. This study examines whether ownership structure can explain the differences among compensation structures of chief executive officers (CEOs). In particular, we examine the compensation structure of three distinct groups: family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely-held firms. We distinguish these three kinds of firms to represent different levels of market imperfection. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership. The most significant weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of monitoring for small shareholders. In contrast, a holder of a large block of shares will have the same monitoring costs but the benefits to this shareholder from monitoring management and reducing agency costs would be substantial and larger than the costs of monitoring. Thus the presence of a large shareholder will reduce the agency costs. In addition, large shareholders may be willing to spend time and effort continuously to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects. This behaviour will reduce the problems that arise from information asymmetry and will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the control shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the viewpoint of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group. First, institutions are more flexible in moving their ownership from one firm to another depending on performance. If the costs of monitoring are high in comparison to the costs of rebalancing portfolios, institutions will choose to rebalance instead of monitoring. In contrast, a family that controls a firm does not have this flexibility. Second, family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. However, the level of monitoring by a family may not necessarily translate into a reduction of agency costs for minority shareholders. Indeed, previous studies suggest that significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Chourou (2010) suggests that excessive compensation of chief executive officers at some family owned Canadian corporations may be viewed as expropriation of minority rights. Overall, the main objective of this study is to examine whether block-holder monitoring is a substitute to the incentive components of compensation. We propose that as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of monitoring may or may not increase. However, as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of monitoring will increase but this monitoring may not necessarily reduce agency costs. The results show that the institution-controlled firms pay significantly less bonus compensation per dollar of assets than widely-held firms but the differences in equity based compensation are not significant. In addition, the family-controlled corporations offer the lowest performance-based compensation, bonus per dollar of assets, in comparison to the institution-controlled and the widely-held groups. These results indicate that the family-controlled Canadian corporations rely more on monitoring managers than paying them incentive payments in the form of bonus payments. In addition, our results indicate that the institutions which control corporations may be monitoring the managers of these corporations but this monitoring does not significantly reduce the need for the long-term incentive components of compensation. This result suggests that institutions may monitor the short-term performance effectively but they may prefer rebalancing their portfolio rather than monitoring long term performance.

There is a crisis in mathematics education (National Research Council, 1989). This crisis has caused stakeholders to question the purpose of mathematics education. Teaching mathematics for social justice is a pedagogy that uses mathematics as a tool to expose students to issues concerning power, resource inequities, and disparate opportunities between different social groups to illicit social and political action (Gutstein, 2006). This study uses action research to explore the effects of incorporating social justice issues in mathematics with affluent, middle school students. Findings indicate that integrating social justice issues into mathematics affected some students’ cognitive and affective domains and in some cases led to empowerment and action. The study also found that students’ perception of responsibility, their age and personal connections along with the amount of teacher direction may have affected students’ development of social agency. These findings help to inform teachers’ practices and contribute to literature on critical mathematics.

There is a crisis in mathematics education (National Research Council, 1989). This crisis has caused stakeholders to question the purpose of mathematics education. Teaching mathematics for social justice is a pedagogy that uses mathematics as a tool to expose students to issues concerning power, resource inequities, and disparate opportunities between different social groups to illicit social and political action (Gutstein, 2006). This study uses action research to explore the effects of incorporating social justice issues in mathematics with affluent, middle school students. Findings indicate that integrating social justice issues into mathematics affected some students’ cognitive and affective domains and in some cases led to empowerment and action. The study also found that students’ perception of responsibility, their age and personal connections along with the amount of teacher direction may have affected students’ development of social agency. These findings help to inform teachers’ practices and contribute to literature on critical mathematics.