This research explored the reproductive needs of people of low socio-economic standing living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and attending public health facilities in South Africa. A qualitative research design based on the theoretical framework of critical realism using grounded theory was employed in revealing the dominant unobserved underlying mechanisms, powers and structures that influence their reproductive decision-making. HIV-positive men, HIV positive pregnant women and HIV positive non-pregnant women were recruited by HIV counsellors from the Ante-Natal Clinic and the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Clinic at the Kalafong Hospital. Individual interviews were used to explore participants’ reproductive needs. Focus group discussions were employed to holistically explore the HIV counsellors’ attitudes and perceptions regarding their clients’ reproductive needs and future family planning. Parenthood was an important factor to all participants in establishing their gender identities. Different cultural norms existed for men and women realising their reproductive needs. Society expects of women to be mothers, yet at the same time negatively judges HIV-positive women who choose to become pregnant or refuse to abort an existing pregnancy. Consequently, most women choose not to disclose their status and continue to live as if they are not HIV-positive. Having children is so important to these reproductive-aged PLWHA that they will risk their own health, the health of their partners and their babies. Emancipatory transformation of current HIV counselling services is needed and can be established by improving counsellor knowledge through training as well as giving PLWHA access to accredited HIV risk reducing services. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lk2014 / Psychology / PhD / unrestricted

<p>The purpose of this study is to explore intersectionality of Religion/Spirituality and immigration in the experience of Romanian evangelicals in Canada from a Critical Realist perspective. In the first two chapters I provide background information outlining the interconnection between spirituality/religion, social work and immigration and examine the existing body of knowledge of present literature on ways of utilizing relevant concepts, methods, emerging themes and I address some of the implications and critiques pertaining to the literature perused. In the following two chapters I present the theoretical framework of Critical Realism, the methodological approach utilized -Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, and the dual gathering methods employed, semi-structured interviews and poetic inquiry. In the main part of the theses I review the findings and discuss them from a theoretical and practical perspective, concluding with a number of recommendations and observations which, if implemented, would in my opinion effect a more spiritually sensitive practice in working with specific ethno-religious groups.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Halfway into its third decade, the debate surrounding the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis has stalled with political economists and socio-ecologists ascendant and modernization theorists scrambling to give their apparently moribund perspective new life. But beyond the rise and fall of the EKC, there remains a second-order question and decades of data: how do the theoretical perspectives of these contenders shape what their protagonists do and don't see? How have they mistaken episodes of "talking past each other" for genuine dialogue? Which perspective has had the biggest impact on the other’s way of thinking? A qualitative and quantitative analysis compares the top-ranking journals in economics with interdisciplinary journals of environmental economics revealing a categorical divergence in the types of critical thought deployed in the EKC debate over an almost 15 year period. The few articles appearing in the top ranking economic journals systematically fail to grasp the fundamentals of ecology which is evident in both their measurements and conclusions. I offer an abridged discussion of the critiques socio-ecology presents contemporary economics as what, in Kuhnian terminology, may well be described as a discipline in the crisis moment of a paradigm shift in no particular direction. I then conclude by siding with Habermas and Adorno against Popper's ideologically impoverished “falsifactionism”: progress in science depends as much on a theory of ideological critique as it does on the acquisition of technical knowledge. My intent has been to argue that ideological critique is empirically possible as the history of thought.

Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology

This study presents a critical investigation into the teaching of computer ethics. A qualitative pluralistic approach (a mixture of qualitative approaches) was used to investigate case studies of teaching computer ethics to university-level students from Bahrain. The main issue was that ethics to Arabs and Muslims is a matter of religion than a matter of philosophy whereas the dominant perception in the academic literature which discussed computer ethics teaching is that computer ethics is a form of practical philosophy and hence separate from religion. In order to shed light on this, the study investigated computer ethic’s perceptions and teaching practices which were occurring in universities in Bahrain. The study found that the issue was not a matter of perception but rather a matter of confusion and a misconception. Computer ethics was being confused with morality, religion, basic computer skills to name just a few. And such confusion was causing computer ethics to gradually disappear from the curriculum and become substituted with concepts which were not necessarily capable of building students’ ethical thinking. The study recommends that computer ethics teachers and policy makers from Bahrain distinguish computer ethics from religion, morality and from any other concept and identify it as an independent field of study, also teachers need to involve their students in social and ethical analysis of various kinds so that students understand that ethics is not a set of rules on what is forbidden and allowed aimed at providing straightforward answers to a given problem but rather ethics is a ‘cognitive tool’; a mechanism through which different competing ethical theories and standards are used to reflect on a given problem.

This research aims to fill an important gap in focusing on why individuals are able to take part in and/or support activities that have effects on economic, environmental, and social dimensions that are not consistent with their sense of right and wrong. The research focuses on the relationship between supply chain management and moral disengagement, and how this relation affects social responsibility. After observing individuals avoiding responsibility for misconduct an explanatory concept, moral decoupling, was proposed. Moral decoupling considers moral responsibility a flow in the supply chain. Moral decoupling occurs when the flow is restricted. If moral decoupling occurs at an identifiable point it is called a moral decoupling point. The concept was developed by identifying and linking specific supply chain activities and structures with moral disengagement, a theory that explains the deactivation of self regulation. Moral decoupling was able to suggest how to reduce moral disengagement and improve social responsibility. To validate the suggestions a literature review on social responsibility was conducted and identified sixteen elements of social responsibility in supply chain management. The suggestions based on moral disengagement were compared with elements of social responsibility and a large overlap was found. Lastly, suggestions on how to reduce moral disengagement and map moral responsibility in a supply network are proposed, links between elements of social responsibility are presented, and moral coupling is added as a complementary term to moral decoupling. A model explaining the relationship between ethical guidelines, moral responsibility, moral decoupling, and social responsibility is proposed. In relation to current theoretical knowledge the thesis has contributed to the field of socially responsible supply chain management with an application of a new theoretical lens that gives one explanation as to why identifed elements of social responsibility are important. The understanding of social responsibility has reached an increased explanatory depth following the identification of moral disengagement as a generative mechanism, subject to conditions in supply chain management. The research has also applied moral disengagement in a context not identified in earlier research, and shows some of the complexity of applying it to a real-world global context. The elements of social responsibility and moral (de)coupling help practitioners identify what they should focus on to increase social responsibility and also offer an explanation for `why?'. The findings can be used to construct supply chains that are less prone to misconduct and to identify where in the chain it is important to be aware of immoral behavior. The value and originality of this research is centered on the application of a new theoretical lens for socially responsible supply chain management. It is the only identified research in the area which identifies mechanisms on a generative level that explains human behavior and conditions to which those mechanisms are subject. This is also in itself a novel application of moral disengagement in a new research context. / <p>Doctoral thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Textile Management at the University of Borås to be publicly defended on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, at 1:00 p.m.,in room M404, University of Bor as, Allégatan 1, Borås</p>

This research seeks to connect the philosophical focus of the agency-structure debate with the practice of management through a comparative study of organisational decision-making in situations involving stakeholder consultation. Set in the context of decision-making following an airport master plan consultation, the study considers how the stakeholder framework can be integrated within institutional theory using institutional logics as a theoretical link between these two literatures. This thesis, which adopts a critical realist perspective, takes a comparative case approach of four airports, each owned in different ways. Interviews with airport managers are supplemented by discussions with stakeholders and industry experts. Two sets of a priori themes were identified from the literature. The first focuses on the institutional logics prevailing in the field and their influence on managers as they make decisions. The second considers four decision-making strategies managers might employ in this situation. Findings centre on the causal powers acting upon airport managers as they make their decisions. Whilst normative isomorphic pressure enables stakeholder consultation, the coercive pressure on the decision-making process deriving from English planning law, the adversarial and oscillating nature of Central Government policy, and a mimetic response to the nature of local authority development plans constrain the actions of airport managers. Indeed, the current bureaucratic form of capitalism limits stakeholder contribution to final master plans. This research makes four main contributions: Firstly, reflecting upon the agency-structure debate from a critical realist perspective has facilitated development of a model integrating the stakeholder framework within institutional theory. Secondly, it improves our understanding of how stakeholder contribution is managed in master planning. Thirdly, the study adds to the growing body of work that employs a critical realist perspective. Lastly, since reconciling conflicting stakeholder opinions may well be of vital importance to the future of the UK’s airport infrastructure, this work has practical significance for airport managers, government policy-makers and stakeholders as they strive to formulate worthwhile airport consultations.

[pt] Diferente do modo como costuma ser reduzida por parte da crítica especializada, o estudo pretende mostrar que a obra de António Alves Redol tem a marca da mudança, da variedade e da diversidade. Observar-se-á que a homogeneidade que se costuma impor nas análises sobre a obra do autor não se justifica nem da perspectiva da profundidade do conteúdo narrativo, nem da perspectiva da superfície das formas de expressão. Em relação a esta última, parece haver um cuidado estético especial no que tange à concisão, à precisão e ao impacto dimensionados na simplicidade narrativa dos documentários humanos explorados por Alves Redol. Nesse sentido, a obra de Redol representa a heterogeneidade de formas, conteúdos, narrativas e conceitos do neo-realismo, simbolizando, no seu microcosmo, a história e os processos de todo o movimento. Ao eleger a palavra-pele para conceituar o modo de escrever de António Alves Redol, mostrando em que medida a sua narrativa incide ao mesmo tempo nas dimensões política e estética, a tese também procura refletir sobre como tal ideia de palavra-ação poderia auxiliar numa melhor compreensão da escrita neo-realista em Portugal. / [en] This study aims to highlight variety, diversity and change as important qualities that can be noticed in the books of the Portuguese writer António Alves Redol. Whereas the critics tend to analyze his work under the characteristic of homogeneity, this thesis discusses the contradictions of this point of view by focusing on the deep of the narrative content and the surface of the narrative form. In what concerns the surface of the narrative, one of the objectives of this research is to analyze the aesthetic specificities of the writing expression of Alves Redol and the impact of his narrative simplicity. Hence, this thesis aims to discuss the concept of the word-skin, which will be used to define his writing. The idea of the word-skin contains the politic and aesthetic aspects of literary narrative as well as it discusses how word can be associated to action. Therefore the work of Alves Redol represents the heterogeneity of the Neorealism, an essential characteristic of this artistic expression in Portugal, and also symbolizes, in its micro cosmos, the entire history of the movement. Finally, this study develops the relations between a different approach to the analysis of the work of Alves Redol and the enlargement in the comprehension of the Portuguese Neorealism.

In Scotland, current policy aims to produce work ready young people with relevant enterprise and employment skills. However, many are caught in a repetitive cycle of short term work placements with large numbers of young people still not at work or in education. Accordingly, this study was concerned with social capital in respect of young people’s outcomes from engaging with a youth work project, that was designed to encourage enterprise and employability skills. Using qualitative data drawn from a single site case study, this research develops an understanding of the extent to which different forms of social capital influenced young people’s outcomes. The thesis sets out a theoretical position that draws from Archer’s understanding of critical realism and social capital theory based on the works of Putnam, Coleman and Bourdieu. This approach suggests that the complex interactions between social structures, identities, material resources and cultural forms, enable or inhibit the emergence of social capital practices. An action research approach was applied and empirical work was based on observations and reflections of young people participating in an enterprise challenge. Data were collected via questionnaires, professional discussions and the observations and analysis of relevant documents. Overall findings illustrate the emergence of bonding, bridging and linking social capital in addition to identity, economic and cultural capital developments. However, changes within social structure were the hardest to detect. Whilst there are indicators of young people’s improved outcomes, findings suggest that conditioned socio-cultural stereotypes in respect of gender and class may be limiting opportunities. Shared reflexive practices and linking social capital may however provide opportunities to disrupt, and create new pathways, but should be treated with caution. Youth workers can develop and extend the reach of young people’s social capital practices and the thesis concludes by presenting a set of general recommendations that might serve to facilitate change.

The questions for this study are: 1. What are networks? 2. How do networks work? These questions are answered by means of two different investigations. The first is chiefly theoretical and the second is primarily empirical. The theoretical investigation begins with an examination of four different concepts of networks used in social research: network as a perspective, network as a phenomenon, network as a research method and network as a method for development. The concept is then further investigated on three levels. On the first level, the parts of a network and the relationships between these parts are analysed. The second level focuses on the emergent properties of a network. The emergent properties refer to those irreducible features that make it a network, and that at the same time mark the difference between networks and other types of social entities (organizations, rituals etc.). Two such properties form the starting point for the examination, namely value-adding and diffusion. The third level of analysis places the network in relation to space and organization. This three level analysis is used throughout the thesis. In the empirical section, four cases of entrepreneurial networks are examined. The aim of the case studies is to identify the network and to study how the network works. What in the example is the network? How does the network work in the actual case? What does the network do? What properties can be assigned to the network and the way it works? Or, more comprehensively, from the examination of four cases of networks, what conclusions can be drawn about what networks are and how they function? From the case studies I have concluded that personal ties are fundamental to a network, and that the chains of production are a type of tie that may, but does not have to, occur when the network is activated in an entrepreneurial context. For the entrepreneurs and their enterprises, the social exchange has no value in itself, but if it can add value, for example as a lubricant in coordinating production chains, it fulfils an important purpose. I have also concluded that what makes an entrepreneurial network a network is not the coordination of production chains, but the personal relationships that manage these chains. Thus it is not the coordination itself, but the way of coordinating that is of importance. Networks can be found in structures of many different types of ties, but for the emergent properties to emerge there has to be a structure of personal ties at the core. I have assumed that a network is not a method or a perspective, but a social entity with certain properties. The investigation has provided support for this assumption. There is extensive research on SME networks, industrial districts and value-adding chains that shows that networks in production contexts form social constellations with their own distinctive features and ways of working. The relationship between networks and space is temporary, but not essential. Networks can be bound to places, but they do not have to be. An important structural difference between organizations and networks is that networks are formed of separate units that cooperate, while organizations form a single unit that may, but does not have to be characterized by cooperation. The most important conclusion from the comparison of organizations and networks is that these concepts together provide a better explanation of the case studies than either of the concepts alone. To understand and explain the complex social interplay that occurs in the case studies, it is a great advantage to use networks and organizations as concepts for different social entities with different properties and different ways of working.