A unique breed of nurses for the US market is emerging-the Physician-Nurses. They are foreign-educated physicians who have retrained as nurses. The purpose of this study was to generate a theory that can explain the development of their nursing identity. Specific aims were to discover barriers that participants perceived as problematic in their transition to nursing and catalysts that influenced how they addressed the central problematic issue they articulated. Grounded theory methodology guided by the philosophical foundations of symbolic interactionism was used. Twelve Physician-Nurses were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were imported to ATLAS.ti. Text data were analyzed by constant comparative method. Concept formation, development, modification and integration were accomplished through different levels of coding. Methods were employed to ensure trustworthiness of findings. Core categories were discovered and a central social psychological problem experiencing the burdens of a new beginning and a basic social psychological process combining the best of two worlds emerged. Further theorizing generated the substantive theory combining the best of two worlds and the beginnings of a formal theory. The substantive theory explained the three-dimensional central problem and the five-stage basic social psychological process. Dimensions of the central problem were (a) crossing cultures, (b) starting from zero, and (c) crossing professions. Stages of the basic process were (a) letting go of professional identity as physician, (b) experiencing growing pains, (c) seeing nursing as a saving grace, (d) gaining authority to practice as a nurse, and (e) engaging self to nursing and asserting "I am a nurse." The substantive theory is a springboard toward the development of a formal theory which may be able to further explicate the development of nursing identity in Physician-Nurses. This theory named, Theory of Transprofessionalism, was initially conceptualized as having five phases namely: (a) disengagement, (b) discouragement, (c) enlightenment, (d) encouragement, and (d) engagement. These stages correspond to the five stages of the substantive theory. The key concept nursing identity was operationalized by utilizing three statements published by the American Nurses Association that describe the professional registered nurse, the knowledge base for nursing practice, and the code of ethics for nurses.

Since the early 18th century, rational choice models have been applied extensively to criminological research, theory, and policy in an effort to understand crime and criminality. Over the past few decades, the rational choice perspective has attempted to integrate theoretical concepts, operational measures, and research findings from contemporary studies within the psychology, sociology and criminology disciplines, which have attempted to re-operationalize what was already conceptualized in the expected utility model (i.e., individuals choose to engage in criminal activity if the expected utility of crime exceeds that of all other behavioral options) by incorporating additional factors (e.g., a broader range of potential rewards, moral inhibition, emotional elements) into the measurement process. However, despite an effort to expand the expected utility function in the rational choice perspective, rational choice studies have most often been applied to street offenders. Using a sample of six books containing the lives and experiences of professional criminals, this study utilizes a qualitative meta-synthesis (in which grounded theory methods and thick description are employed for the identification and integration of key concepts from within the sample) to examine the effectiveness of the rational choice perspective in the explanation of professional crime, and assess the efficacy of these operational enhancements while providing conceptual clarity within the rational choice perspective.

Education is development. It helps to create choices and opportunities for people, reduce the twin burdens of poverty and diseases, and give a stronger voice in society. For nations it creates a dynamic workforce and well-informed citizens able to compete and cooperate globally - opening doors to economic and social prosperity.This study examines how a small group of students coped under conditions of adversity. It follows in the tradition of a wide body of qualitative work that has investigated ethnic minorities and their educational experiences. Much of the existing work, however, focuses on merely describing thematically and/or conceptually, what goes on. This study aims to construct an integrated conceptual understanding of how a minority group engaged in the coping process. More specifically, this study seeks to develop a substantive theory that can help explain and predict human behaviour. Grounded theory methodology was used in aid of the theory development process (Glasser and Strauss, 1967). Put simply, grounded theory is an inductive methodology that attempts to understand action from the perspective of social actors (Brooks, 1998).To uncover the coping process, the Turangitukua students and their Hapu (sub tribe) in New Zealand are used as the main data source. Two other student groups were used for comparative purposes. Data was obtained by a number of means; including interviewing, focus groups, hui (meetings), and documentary analysis. The collected data was summarised and analysed over a two- year period.This study contributes to three areas of research. First, it adds to the small but growing body of work relating to Turangitukua hapu (sub-tribe) in New Zealand. Second, it contributes to research in the area of Maori and non-Maori relationships, especially work that focuses on interaction. And finally, it adds to the formal theoretical literature on indigenous educational settings and its management.

Current New Zealand health policy encourages collaborative health promotion in all sectors of health service delivery. The integrated approach to the acute management of coronary heart disease in a coronary care unit, combining medical therapy and lifestyle change, supports clinical health promotion. The aim of this study was to use the grounded theory approach to discover the main concerns of nurses' promoting health in an acute coronary care setting and to explain the processes that nurses used to integrate health promotional activities into their practice. Seventeen registered nurses from three coronary care units within a large metropolitan city in New Zealand were interviewed. Data were constantly compared and analysed using Glaser's emergent approach to grounded theory.The main concern for nurses promoting health within coronary care was ritualistic practice. In this study, ritualistic practice concerns the medically-based protocols, routines, language and technology that drives nursing practice in coronary care. This concern was resolved via the socio-cultural process of attitudinal shifting that occurs over time involving three stages. The three conceptual categories, environmental pressures, practice reality and responsive action are the main components of the theory of attitudinal shifting. In environmental pressures nurses experience a tension between specialist medically-dominated nursing practice and the generalist nursing role of promoting health. In practice reality, nurses become aware that the individual needs of patients are not being met. This causes role conflict until the nurse observes colleagues who role model possibilities for practice, working with patients to promote health. Responsive action sees the nurse engaging in self-development, also focusing on the nurse-patient relationship, thereby enabling active patient involvement in individual health-promoting decisions.The findings from this research have implications for nursing practice and education. With the increasing specialisation in nursing practice, these findings may be of interest to nurses working in delegated medical roles where the reality of everyday practice precludes nurses from undertaking their essential nursing role. Health care facilities also need to ensure that there are opportunities for the personal and professional development of nursing staff. The place of health promotion within nursing undergraduate curricula needs to be examined, as many nurses found that they were ill prepared for undertaking health promotional activities.

Little is known about how employees in New Zealand companies view their organisation’s involvement in community-based initiatives that attempt to address areas of social needs. Understanding what people and organisations think from their frame of reference (Taylor & Bodgan, 1998) on ways of contributing to enhance community wellbeing is of high importance within a nation growing in diversity, and where everyone needs to fully participate in building a harmonious society (Ministry of Social Development, 2005; Swanson, 2002). Despite abundant extant research and many models already developed, frameworks in this area are fragmented. A case study approach has been adopted using one New Zealand Company to test a preliminary framework, Stakeholders and Organisational Enablers Relationship (SOER) Model, that analyses “the nature of relationships in terms of processes and outcomes for the business and its stakeholders” (Jones & Wicks, 1999, p. 207). From investigating the company’s community involvement from the employees’ perspective, results indicate that this particular company is engaging with the community, supporting and empowering employees to participate in the company’s community programme and thereby making a difference in the community by giving to the community. However, in general terms, solving recurring social, economic, political and psychological issues that influence social wellbeing requires cooperation between public, private, and voluntary sectors of the community (New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand Dept of Labour, & New Zealand Dept of Statistics, 2003; Roberts & King, 1989; Steane, 1999). While the results from the case company reported in this study demonstrate that community engagement is being taken seriously by exemplary private sector companies, generalisation of these findings would require further cross-sectional research across industries and organisations from all sectors: private, public and voluntary.

This is a qualitative, descriptive study of group processes in classes of adult language learners, viewed from the perspective of practising teachers. The study has an internal narrative which takes the reader through the process of the research, from the initial question raised by a casual classroom conversation to the discussion chapter which questions a number of assumptions underlying current English language teaching practices within western educational contexts. The study falls into two distinct phases. The first phase uses the constant comparative method of data collection and analysis to integrate the perceptions of 28 experienced language teachers into the following theory: teachers judge the quality of their classes in terms of the degree to which they function as cohesive groups. The second phase uses the social-psychological framework of class cohesion to explore the perceptions of eight language teachers concerning a range of everyday behaviours and events occurring within their classes. The data were gathered through classroom observations and extended weekly teacher interviews and were supplemented by information from student interviews.

The research investigates the role of Knowledge Management (KM) in supporting innovation and learning in the construction industry. The Construction industry is complex in nature and notoriously fragmented suffering high losses in productivity. Being a substantial part of the national economy, the construction industry greatly influences the country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Innovation has lately been regarded as the key to improve its productivity and to change traditional and fundamental thinking that has plagued the industry for a long time leading to new and more rational philosophies. The research demonstrates that KM may act as an enabler of such innovation by facilitating organisational learning. The research is carried out in two phases. In Phase 1, the research employs grounded theory methodology to develop and map out the current state of knowledge related activities being undertaken in two leading Australian construction organisations. This results in the development of a model, the main depiction of which is a segregation between three crucial components (people, process & technology) of an organisation required to successfully carry out the construction work. It also helps identify the gap between the organisation's internal and external knowledge sources that restricts the pull of knowledge from external knowledge sources. The culture of the organisation is considered to provide this resistance. An improvement in this state through KM is the main objective of the research which is realised in Phase 2. Soft System Methodology (SSM) is utilised as a KM tool to achieve this objective in this phase. As one of the systems approaches, it has the capacity to make sense of intricate systems like const ruction where a complex interaction between people, process and technology occurs all the time. A mission critical business process of pre-tendering of a leading Australian construction contractor organisation is selected to carry out the SSM investigation that resulted in four SSM case studies. This investigation helps explain how KM initiatives through SSM improve the integration of people, process and technology; increasing the capacity of the organisation to pull external knowledge and improve its own internal knowledge bank. All these improvements help an organisation to transform itself into a learning organisation that could continually innovate.

ABSTRACT Notions of quality of life dictate philosophies and policies for services for people with developmental disabilities. There is an abundance of research on quality of life, much of which has influenced the significant amount of study of quality of life for people with developmental disabilities. According to specialist developmental disability nurses, however, this research has little meaning for one group of people with developmental disabilities with whom they work - people with severe multiple impairments. Nevertheless, judgements and decisions about the lives of this group continue to be driven by the idea of quality of life. While the literature review found that researchers are urged to seek the perceptions of people regarding their own quality of life by asking them, some authors have noted the difficulty in pursuing such a method with people, such as people with severe multiple impairments, who are unable to communicate in the usual ways. Given, then, that it is difficult to directly determine the views of people with severe multiple impairments, this study sought the perceptions of nurses about the quality of life of the people with whom they work. In order to discover and conceptualise nurses' views, a symbolic interaction perspective was chosen to guide this study and data were analysed using the grounded theory approach. The study was conducted in two stages. Stage One consisted of semi-structured indepth interviews with expert nurses to explore their perceptions of quality of life for the people with whom they worked. A significant finding in these interviews was that perceptions of quality of life are mediated by interaction. Consequently, Stage Two involved a participant observation study in which the interactions of nurses and people with severe multiple impairments were examined. Specialist developmental disability nurses have a unique view of quality of life for people with severe multiple impairments. They refer to it as 'just little things', a phrase which masks complex nursing knowledge and skills, and which can be described by four interrelated categories which emerged from the data: humans being, supporting, becoming intimate, and situated belonging. As nurses become more intimate with individuals, they perceive that people with severe multiple impairments are humans being as they wish, and that quality resides in supporting their everyday lives in a context of situated belonging. This thesis represents a new conceptualisation of quality of life for people with severe multiple impairments, a conceptualisation which may have significance for other groups and, indeed, for the whole quality of life enterprise. This conceptualisation draws on knowledge not usually related to quality of life, that is, knowledge of the body, of the emotions, of identity and of humanness. Such findings demonstrate the power of an interpretive approach in explicating the meanings nurses have regarding quality of life. Further, these findings have implications for how the question of quality of life is approached, for how different ways of thinking about people impact on quality of life, and for the importance of the life in quality of life.

癌癌目前已成為我國十大死因之首，面對這樣一個趨勢該如何找出對患者最有幫助的作用力，宗教為本研究所欲探討之主題,希望藉由研究中了解宗教是以何種面向在影響病人，另外亦探討宗教和癌患者彼此間的互動關係。本研究以紮根理論法來研究宗教對癌患者的影響力為何,其中由訪談二十位癌症患者找出三對命題和驗證案例中歸結出宗教影響癌患者之理論。再就本研究未及之處作檢討以提出研究上的限制點，並且進一步針對後續研究可發展之方向提出一些建議。

This study was conducted to see what cognitive and social skills and strategies were employed by pairs of students as they used a computer adventure game. The games used in the study were "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" (Broderbund) and "Dinosaur Discovery" (Jacaranda) One male and one female pair of year five students were assigned to each game. Grounded Theory was selected as the methodology as it enabled categorization of the skills and strategies to emerge from the data without locking the researcher into previously identified categories. It was found in this study, and supported in other research, that what occurs between the students during a session with the computer depends on the nature of the task, the students involved, the type and amount of training provided and the classroom conditions under which the activity is conducted. The implications from the study are: that under most circumstances it is desireable for students to work in pairs with a computer to enable interaction to occur, students may require some training in the cognitive skills necessary for the software being used, training students to work cooperatively before placing them in groups is important; and integrating the computer into the classroom environment may encourage the use of other desired skills and strategies.