Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Jan. 15, 2009). PDF text: iii, 252 p. ; 916 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3323494. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

This thesis explores sociologists' routine research activities, including observation, participant observation, interviewing, and transcription. It suggests that the constitutive activities of sociological research methods - writing field-notes, doing looking and categorising, and the endogenous structure of members' ordinary language transactions are suffused with culturally methodic, i.e. ordinary language activities. "Membership categories" are the ordinary organising practices of description that society-members - including sociologists - routinely use in assembling sense of settings. This thesis addresses the procedural bases of activities which are constituent features of the research: disguising identities of informants, reviewing literature, writing-up research outcomes, and compiling bibliographies. These activities are themselves loci of practical reasoning. Whilst these activities are assemblages of members' cultural methods, they have not been recognised as "research practices" by methodologically ironic sociology. The thesis presents a series of studies in Membership Categorisation Analysis. Using both sequential and membership categorisational aspects of Conversation Analysis, as well as textual analysis of published research, this thesis examines how members' cultural practices coincide with research practices. Data are derived from a period of participant observation in an organisation, video-recordings of the organisation's work; and interviews following the 1996 bombing in Manchester. A major, cumulative theme within this thesis is confidentiality - within an organisation, within a research project and within sociology itself. Features of confidentiality are explored through ethnographic observation, textual analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis. Membership Categorisation Analysis brings seen-but-unnoticed features of confidentiality into relief. Central to the thesis are the works of Edward Rose, particularly his ethnographic inquiries of Skid Row, and Harvey Sacks, on the cultural logic shared by society-members. Rose and Sacks explicate the visibility and recognition of members' activities to other members, and research activities as linguistic activities.

The individual of today incessantly insists on more protection of his/her personal privacy than a few years ago. During the last few years, rapid technological advances, especially in the field of information technology, directed most attention and energy to the privacy protection of the Internet user. Research was done and is still being done covering a vast area to protect the privacy of transactions performed on the Internet. However, it was established that almost no research has been done on the protection of the privacy of personal data that are stored in tables of a relational database. Until now the individual had no say in the way his/her personal data might have been used, indicating who may access the data or who may not. The individual also had no way to indicate the level of sensitivity with regard to the use of his/her personal data or exactly what he/she consented to. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to develop a model to protect the personal privacy of the individual in relational databases in such a way that the individual will be able to specify how sensitive he/she regards the privacy of his/her data. This aim culminated in the development of the Hierarchical Privacy-Sensitive Filtering (HPSF) model. A secondary aim was to test the model by implementing the model into query languages and as such to determine the potential of query languages to support the implementation of the HPSF model. Oracle SQL served as an example for text or command-based query languages, while Oracle SQL*Forms served as an example of a graphical user interface. Eventually, the study showed that SQL could support implementation of the model only partially, but that SQL*Forms was able to support implementation of the model completely. An overview of the research approach employed to realise the objectives of the study: At first, the concepts of privacy were studied to narrow down the field of study to personal privacy and the definition thereof. Problems that relate to the violation or abuse of the individual’s personal privacy were researched. Secondly, the right to privacy was researched on a national and international level. Based on the guidelines set by organisations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Council of Europe (COE), requirements were determined to protect the personal privacy of the individual. Thirdly, existing privacy protection mechanisms like privacy administration, self-regulation, and automated regulation were studied to see what mechanisms are currently available and how they function in the protection of privacy. Probably the most sensitive data about an individual is his/her medical data. Therefore, to conclude the literature study, the privacy of electronic medical records and the mechanisms proposed to protect the personal privacy of patients were investigated. The protection of the personal privacy of patients seemed to serve as the best example to use in the development of a privacy model. Eventually, the Hierarchical Privacy-Sensitive Filtering model was developed and introduced, and the potential of Oracle SQL and Oracle SQL*Forms to implement the model was investigated. The conclusion at the end of the dissertation summarises the study and suggests further research topics. / Prof. M.S. Olivier

No description available.

This study attempted to clarify to what degree assurances of confidentiality and interviewer behavior protective of confidentiality impacted an interviewee’s trust of an interviewer and subsequent willingness to self-disclose. Ninety-six undergraduates were asked interview questions. Male and female subjects were divided into four conditions: confidentiality statement/protective behavior, confidentiality statement/nonprotective behavior, neutral statement/protective behavior, and neutral statement/nonprotective behavior. The Intended Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and Counselor Rating Form were used to measure self-disclosure and trustworthiness levels. Results did not support the main hypothesis that protective behavior would have a more significant impact on self-disclosure and trustworthiness than verbal assurances of confidentiality. However, assurances of confidentiality did lead to significantly higher trust levels. Responses to a post-questionnaire revealed over reporting of confidentiality instructions. Implications for therapy and future research are discussed.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität St. Gallen, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. xxxiii-l).

Zugl.: Kiel, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008. / Literaturverz.

Ethical codes and laws provide counselors with guidance for how to approach confidentiality, but there is a gap in the literature surrounding counselors' process of decision-making when managing confidentiality with adolescent clients. This study explored the decision-making process of master therapists concerning adolescent clients. I conducted semi-structured interviews with peer identified master therapist (N=10), all of whom were licensed professional counselors with 15 or more years of counseling experience and whose case load contained 25% or more adolescent clients. Participants included seven females and three males; nine participants identified as Caucasian, and one participant identified as Hispanic. Participants ages ranged from 39-61. I analyzed the data, along with two research partner, according to Grounded Theory (GT) methodology. Through constant comparative analysis, a grounded theory emerged from the data in which participants converged understanding of client safety, relationships, clinical intuition in a process of integrated experience and consultation. With the exception of mandated reported and mortal danger, ethical guidelines and laws did not seem to factor into participants' decision making. Implications for counseling practice, preparation, and research are provided.

This study’s primary objectives are to establish the dimensions, strategies, and tactics used by auditors in the negotiation of sensitive disclosure issues with clients. These issues are typically addressed at the end of the audit and are the primary concern of the audit partner and senior manager. This study uses the tactics established in the negotiation research to test if auditors use the same groups of tactics, and whether these tactics are related by some underlying dimensions, and their relevant strategies. Multidimensional scaling found that there are four dimensions to the tactics that auditors use. During negotiations with their clients, auditors employ tactics representing the underlying dimensions which can be interpreted as “Concern for Self”, “Concern for Client”, “Concern for Others”, and “Concern for Accounting Principles”. Results of cluster analysis established four primary classifications to the 38 auditor tactics. These are “Facilitating”, “Contextual”, “Forcing/asserting”, and “Appeal to authority”. Within these four classifications, twelve sub-categories were observed. These findings reinforce the complexities inherent in the resolution of an audit conflict, and suggest that auditors group together certain tactics for use as called for in the circumstances with which they are dealing. This research contributes to theory within the fields of auditing and general negotiation because it has established that the two-dimensional model of concern that has formed the basis of much behavioural research is insufficient to describe an auditor’s responsibilities. There are four dimensions of concern. While some researchers have proposed a three-dimensional model of negotiation for auditors, the fourth dimension identified in this study is a contribution. This research expands current knowledge fundamental to the audit discipline by establishing the negotiation tactics used by auditors and their underlying multidimensionality, and thus has extended the knowledge of audit conflict management beyond that of strategy-level. Accordingly,this research is beneficial to practicing auditors and for the education of auditors.

People are increasingly concerned about online privacy and how computers collect, process, share, and store their personal information. Such concerns are understandable given the growing number of privacy invasions and the pervasiveness of information capture and sharing between IT systems. This situation has led to an increasingly regulated environment, limiting what systems may do, and what safeguards they must offer users. Privacy is an especially important concern in the fields of computer supported collaborative work (CSCW), Ubiquitous Computing, and e-commerce, where the nature of the applications often requires some information collection and sharing. In order to minimize risks to users it is essential to identify privacy problems early in the design process. Several methods and frameworks for accomplishing this have been proposed in the last decades. These frameworks, though based on hard-earned experience and great insight, have not seen widespread adoption despite the high level of interest in this topic. Part of the reason for this is likely the lack of evaluation and study of these frameworks. In our research we examine the key design and analysis frameworks and their elements, and compare these to the kinds of problems users face and are concerned with in terms of privacy. Based on this analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing design frameworks we derive a new design framework; STRAP (STRuctured Analysis of Privacy). In STRAP we combine light-weight goal-oriented analysis with heuristics to provide a simple yet effective design framework. We validate our analysis by demonstrating in a series of design experiments that STRAP is more efficient and effective than any one of the existing design frameworks, and provide quantitative and qualitative evidence of the value of using such frameworks as part of the design process.