Reforms to the national research and research training system by the Commonwealth Government of Australia sought to effectively connect research conducted in universities to Australia's national innovation system. Research training has a key role in ensuring an adequate supply of highly skilled people for the national innovation system. During their studies, research students produce and disseminate a massive amount of new knowledge. Prior to this study, there was no research that examined the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system despite the existence of policy initiatives aiming to enhance this contribution. Given Australia's below average (but improving) innovation performance compared to other OECD countries, the inclusion of Finland and the United States provided further insights into the key research question. This study examined three obvious ways that research training contributes to the national innovation systems in the three countries: the international mobility and migration of research students and graduates, knowledge production and distribution by research students, and the impact of research training as advanced human capital formation on economic growth. Findings have informed the concept of a research training culture of innovation that aims to enhance the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system. Key features include internationally competitive research and research training environments; research training programs that equip students with economically-relevant knowledge and the capabilities required by employers operating in knowledge-based economies; attractive research careers in different sectors; a national commitment to R&D as indicated by high levels of gross and business R&D expenditure; high private and social rates of return from research training; and the horizontal coordination of key organisations that create policy for, and/or invest in research training.

Variable plutôt ignorée au niveau de la littérature portant sur l’analyse du parti au gouvernement, les élites exécutives, leurs trajectoires politiques et leurs expériences de socialisation peuvent constituer une explication alternative pour l’articulation de l’activité des exécutifs. Par le biais d’une étude de cas, portant sur les élites politiques en Roumanie postcommuniste, la recherche procède à une interrogation concernant l’impact des acteurs individuels sur la formulation des politiques publiques et la coordination de l’activité gouvernementale. De la sorte, menée d’une manière constructiviste, la recherche suscite la délimitation d’une série de réponses à la question : Comment les trajectoires politiques des ministres et des secrétaires d’Etat influent-elles sur la prise de décision gouvernementale en Roumanie postcommuniste ? L’influence des élites gouvernementales est analysée sur deux grands axes de recherche : (1) une dimension qui vise les relations qui se forgent entre les acteurs au niveau organisationnel –institutionnel et (2) une dimension qui porte sur le contenu même des politiques entamées. D’une manière compréhensive, intégrant plusieurs approches centrées sur les élites, le cadre analytique imbrique les effets estimés au niveau du parti et les effets établis au niveau du fonctionnement des exécutifs. Les conclusions de la thèse soulignent l’importance du profil des acteurs gouvernementaux dans la coordination de l’activité des exécutifs durant la période 1989-2007. L’expérience politique des acteurs, tout comme leur position dans le parti sont des facteurs essentiels dans la définition des degrés d’autonomie décisionnelle et des marges de liberté dont les gouvernants disposent dans la création des politiques. L’étude met en exergue le fait que cette caractéristique décrivant l'existence d'un impact direct des acteurs individuels sur le caractère collégial, consensuel ou conflictuel de l’activité du cabinet, tout comme leur influence sur la réalisation du programme gouvernemental ne constituent pas une idiosyncrasie de la transition démocratique, mais un modèle de comportement consolidé dans le cas des exécutifs roumains.

In this thesis I have investigated the process of self-schematic transformation that has been argued that offenders undergo in order to desist from crime. In this thesis I have used narrative interviews with twelve desisting offenders consisting of five non-violent offenders and seven violent offenders. I have analysed these narratives using a social cognitive perspective in order to seek an understanding of the self-schemas of the offenders. The results show that the desistance is the result of a longer process and the turning point experienced by the participants were the high point of this process. Social influences were highly important for both groups. Both groups were low in agency, with the exception to their new selves and the desisting process; still, the violent offenders were somewhat higher than the non-violent offenders. In general both groups used outside sources to explain their past crimes and substance abuse, though the violent offenders did this in less extent. Further, the analysis showed that the self-schema of the desisting offenders could be divided into three parts; the former self, the true self, and the new self, or who they used to be, who they have always been, and who they are now. The degree to which the offenders expressed these different selves varied between the two groups.

Objective: To explore the decision making approaches used by nurses who chose to work in critical care and factors influencing the process of decision making. Design and methods Qualitative descriptive methods using semi-structured interviews with nurses who had chosen to work in critical care within the past year. Results Ten nurses weighed staying in their current positions with moving to critical care. Two nurses considered two or more specialty units. The nurses used rational-intuitive and satisficing decision making approaches in making their employment decision. Limited knowledge and unrealistic expectations of work life in critical care, pressure from others, and inadequate professional support made nurses’ employment decisions more difficult. Social support, personal values for growth and learning, and paid educational incentives within employment offers facilitated their employment decisions. Conclusions Several factors negatively influenced nurses’ decision making approaches to making an employment decision. Findings revealed the need for decision support interventions focused on making employment choices for nurses.

This study explores what UK managers aged 50 and over perceive as career progression at a time in life when opportunities for further promotion may have ceased. It examines motivational drivers and subjectively significant personal and organizational influences on career progression. It also investigates whether motivation for career progression is perceived to have changed over the career and the extent to which it may differ between male and female older managers. The research adopted a qualitative, inductive approach using a phenomenological methodology. Fieldwork comprised semi-structured interviews with 27 male and 13 female managers aged 50 and over from two large, UK financial services organizations. The findings show how motivation for career progression in managers aged over 50 is driven by individually diverse patterns of career drivers, personal and work-related influences, and attitudes towards career opportunities. These can be classified into a number of career progression orientations. The study contributes to knowledge in the area of subjective psychological career mobility in late career and the balance which individuals maintain between the organizational and personal aspects of their career. It demonstrates that motivational drivers of career progression are perceived to change over the career and that career progression is linked, on an individual basis, to past, current and future career mobility which may extend past the traditional retirement transition. It also reveals that, in general, older female managers may exhibit a greater drive for self-realisation through later life career renewal than their male counterparts.

Objective: To explore the decision making approaches used by nurses who chose to work in critical care and factors influencing the process of decision making. Design and methods Qualitative descriptive methods using semi-structured interviews with nurses who had chosen to work in critical care within the past year. Results Ten nurses weighed staying in their current positions with moving to critical care. Two nurses considered two or more specialty units. The nurses used rational-intuitive and satisficing decision making approaches in making their employment decision. Limited knowledge and unrealistic expectations of work life in critical care, pressure from others, and inadequate professional support made nurses’ employment decisions more difficult. Social support, personal values for growth and learning, and paid educational incentives within employment offers facilitated their employment decisions. Conclusions Several factors negatively influenced nurses’ decision making approaches to making an employment decision. Findings revealed the need for decision support interventions focused on making employment choices for nurses.

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Objective: To explore the decision making approaches used by nurses who chose to work in critical care and factors influencing the process of decision making. Design and methods Qualitative descriptive methods using semi-structured interviews with nurses who had chosen to work in critical care within the past year. Results Ten nurses weighed staying in their current positions with moving to critical care. Two nurses considered two or more specialty units. The nurses used rational-intuitive and satisficing decision making approaches in making their employment decision. Limited knowledge and unrealistic expectations of work life in critical care, pressure from others, and inadequate professional support made nurses’ employment decisions more difficult. Social support, personal values for growth and learning, and paid educational incentives within employment offers facilitated their employment decisions. Conclusions Several factors negatively influenced nurses’ decision making approaches to making an employment decision. Findings revealed the need for decision support interventions focused on making employment choices for nurses.

Rates of recorded crime have been falling in many countries in Western Europe, including Scotland, since the early 1990s. This marks the reversal of a trend of increasing levels of crime seen since the 1950s. Despite this important recent change, most analyses of the ‘crime drop’ have focused on recorded crime or victimisation rates aggregated to national or regional level. It is little known how patterns of offending or conviction have changed at the individual level. As a result it is not known how the crime drop is manifest in changing offending or conviction rates, or how patterns of criminal careers have changed over this period. The aim of this thesis is to explore trends in convictions across a number of criminal careers parameters – the age-crime curve, prevalence and frequency, polarisation and conviction pathways – over the course of the crime drop in Scotland. The results presented here are based on a secondary analysis of the Scottish Offenders Index, a census of convictions in Scottish courts, between 1989 and 2011. Analysis is conducted using a range of descriptive statistical techniques to examine change across age, sex and time. Change in the age-crime curve is analysed using data visualisation techniques and descriptive statistics. Standardisation and decomposition analysis is used to analyse the effects of prevalence, frequency and population change. Trends in conviction are also examined between groups identified statistically using Latent Class Analysis to assess the polarisation of convictions, and trends in the movement between these groups over time provides an indication of changing pathways of conviction. This thesis finds a sharp contrast between falling rates of conviction for young people, particularly young men, and increases in conviction rates for those between their mid-twenties and mid-forties, with distinct periods of change between 1989- 2000, 2000-2007 and 2007-2011. These trends are driven primarily by changes in the prevalence of conviction, and result in an increasingly even distribution of convictions over age. Analysis across latent classes shows some evidence of convictions becoming less polarised for younger men and women but increasingly polarised for older men and women. Similarities in trends analysed across latent classes between men and women of the same age suggest that the process driving these trends is broadly similar within age groups. Increases in conviction rates for those over 21 are explained by both greater onset of conviction and higher persistence in conviction, particularly between 1998 and 2004. The results of this thesis suggest that explanations of the crime drop must have a greater engagement with contrasting trends across age and sex to be able to properly explain falling conviction rates. These results also reinforce the need for criminal careers research to better understand the impact of recent changes social context on patterns of convictions over people’s lives. The distinct periods identified in these results suggest a potential effect of changes in operation of the justice system in Scotland leading to high rates of convictions in the early 2000s. However, the descriptive focus of this analysis and its reliance upon administrative data from a single country mean this thesis cannot claim to definitively explain these trends. As a result, replication of this research in another jurisdiction is encouraged to assess whether trends identified are particular to Scotland.

The professional identity of career practitioners in the UK has become increasingly challenged in recent decades due to the influence of government policy and the dominance of work-based qualifications. Privatisation, multi-professional working and workforce realignment have all contributed to a reshaping of the career guidance professional. This research examines the views of a group of practitioners all undertaking continuing professional development (CPD) in the form of a postgraduate award. The participants were all UK based practitioners working in a career related role; all were either currently on programme, had completed or stepped off with an interim award within a masters programme. The research explored practitioners’ views at a time of significant upheaval, of themselves as professionals, their professional identity and the extent to which postgraduate CPD contributed to this. The research utilised a case study approach employing document analysis, questionnaire, in-depth interviews and narrative biographies. These tools were specifically selected to enable sequential analysis of data allowing findings from each stage to be rigorously tested out by the next research tool. Applications from potential students were initially analysed helping to establish motivation for undertaking a programme of this type, an on-line survey explored practitioners views of themselves as professionals, motivation for postgraduate study and potential outcomes for themselves, their organisation and their profession. In-depth interviews and narrative biographies provided a voice allowing participants to explore their personal journey with their studies and how this engagement contributed to the establishment, maintenance or enhancement of their practitioner professional identity. Continuing professional development was classified as consisting of three types, operational, experiential and formal. Findings suggested participants predominantly valued formal CPD with operational being perceived as only meeting employer contractual compliance. Postgraduate level CPD contributed to professional identity through engagement with reflection, theory, policy and academic study. Ethics and client focus were central to the professional identity of the career practitioner. Postgraduate study was perceived to empower practitioners and to contribute to the professionalisation of the sector and give parity with other public sector professions. The research contributes to both the limited body of knowledge addressing professional identity within the career guidance context and discourse addressing professionalisation of new professions. It offers a shared professional perspective that can inform the evolving policy debate aiming to professionalise the career and allied workforces. The research offers a unique insight into a profession in transition and the voice of practitioners who have experienced successive waves of government policy, which has been often internalised as de-professionalisation.