Policy-makers, research funders, and practitioners acknowledge the need for theories about the uptake of scientific evidence into policy and programs to reduce population-wide risk factors for the major avoidable chronic non-communicable diseases. Models of evidence-informed practice in public health settings have not been developed through systematic scientific inquiry. This study explores and develops a realistic account of evidence-informed tobacco control practice in Ontario public health agencies. In-depth, intensive, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with twelve local public health agency senior executives and other key tobacco control staff in three diverse public health agencies in Ontario, Canada. Interviews explored aspects of tobacco control related decision-making and practice, as well as supports from regional, provincial, and national levels that might enhance tobacco control practice. Interview data were supplemented by field notes and other documentation provided by interviewees, as well as unobtrusive sources. A grounded theory approach to the analysis of textual data identified six major and many subcategories and dimensions implicated in evidence-informed tobacco control practice in local public health agencies. The major category structure includes: information and evidence, interpretation and decision-making, organizational aspects, organizational environment, practice integration, and time. An overall model and five sub-models were developed describing the relations among core category and sub-category factors. Propositions were developed a priori based on an extensive review of the literature. Potentially relevant social theories and concepts were also identified based on a selective review of the literature, including critical realist and other perspectives pertaining to agency-structure issues. Theories and propositions were reviewed, which resulted in a minor modification to the subcategory structure of one branch. Public health agency tobacco control case descriptions were developed based on a final category structure, including six branches, 27 sub-branches, and 98 twigs, and verified (subject to some adjustments) through a member check. Working knowledge is seen to be complex and socially constructed, incorporating aspects of social cognitive and planned behavior theories and Aristotelian intellectual virtues. Realist social theory offers insights into potential change processes. Contributions of the study of theory, practice and methods are discussed, as are strengths and limitations, and areas of needed future research.

While meanings of leisure have been widely studied from Western perspectives, to date, few researchers have explored the meanings of leisure in non-Western cultural contexts. However, in an era of globalization, it is particularly significant to explore leisure experiences of people from non-Western cultures. This study is then designed to investigate the role leisure plays in a Chinese culture context. Specifically, Chinese university students’ leisure experience and the values they ascribe to leisure in relation to their lives as a whole is examined. Their ideology of work and its impact on leisure participation is addressed in particular. In a Chinese university, criterion sampling method was first applied to recruit Chinese students who could provide information-rich stories about their leisure participation. Snowball sampling method was also used to find more information-rich cases for this exploratory study. 11 participants were engaged in this study. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted to discover leisure experience of these students. Data analysis was guided by a constructivist grounded theory approach to understand the participants’ perceptions and meanings of their leisure experience. The data analysis resulted in three major themes. The first theme “Valuations of Work” addressed that the students placed high valuation on work and their life was ruled by work. The second theme “Two Spheres of Leisure” illustrated the students’ ideology of leisure and its impact on their leisure experience. The last theme “Causes for the Subordinate Role of Leisure”revealed two underlying causes that shaped the subservient role of leisure in the students’ daily lives. The emerged themes reflected that the students’ lives were centered around work; and they gave little consideration to their leisure participation. Holding such work-leisure ideology, the students’ leisure participation cannot always contribute to their well being. Therefore, this study advocates the implementation of leisure education in China, which may facilitate the Chinese people to build a balanced and healthy life style.

Although researchers have begun to show critical interest in men as gendered beings, there has been little in-depth theoretical analysis or scholarly development in the area. Most writing has focused only on defining the problems of men's destructiveness and emotional illiteracy. Virtually no attempts have been made to develop theoretical models capable of cultivating alternative, more psychologically and socially adaptive patterns of male behaviour, identity formation, development and social role acquisition. A small purposively drawn sample of eight profeminist men (nominated by prominent self-declared feminists in the community), along with one men's rights activist, were asked to recount their personal experiences involving gender issues during unstructured interviews. Intensive qualitative analysis, drawing on phenomenological, reflexive postmodern/constructionist and postpositivist/grounded theory techniques, was used to interpret and organize the data into groups of related constructs, which were refined, organized and re-organized according to the emerging schematic model. This model illustrates the complex developmental process of personal profeminist change and social transformation experienced by the nine men interviewed. Their life experiences are presented in separate chapters along with highlighted/annotated variations of the developmental model derived from the interpretive analysis. Analysis revealed that participants were either raised in traditional, patriarchal families or in less traditional, less clearly defined, androgynous family environments. Although both groups of men experienced aspects of gender role strain or incongruence, men raised in patriarchal environments seemed to experience greater strain and more difficulty working through conflicts arising from recent challenges to their masculinity. From an early age, the androgynous men appeared to successfully integrate conflict and shame within the context of rich relationships established under both patriarchal and feminist influences. Only recently challenged by feminism, the men raised exclusively in patriarchy seemed stuck in a somewhat more confusing, vulnerable space between patriarchy and feminism. Several of the more androgynous men acknowledged this gap, and worked to bridge it in their communities by forming alliances and creating synergy through a process of conflict engagement and conflict resolution. As suggested by the men's experiences and the resulting model, integrating gender-related conflict in the contest of a firm, yet compassionate and synergistic community was key to congruent profeminist experience. The strengths, limitations and implications of the model developed herein are discussed in relation to current theory on masculinity, male development and men's role infeminism. Although the model was developed on the basis of intensive analysis of only a small sample of men, it is consistent with current theory and promises to inform psychotherapeutic technique in counselling men.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the researcher experiences its role in real life in relation to the field of education and adult learning. The context of the study is the academic department of education and adult learning in Swedish institutions. This is a qualitative study, inspired by Grounded Theory. Data consist of interviews, texts from policy documents and reports. Both the aspects gender and context have been taken into consideration. The main category, status and career, is discussed in relation to concepts like quantity, competition, strategy, power, policy, independence and the surrounding world. Status depends on quantity and also other arenas outside the academia. Competition is crucial. Status and power are tied together. They are connected to relational structures and strategies. The socialization process is part of the context. Independence is related to funding of projects and the quality of evaluation research. Relevant context outside the academia is referred to as practitioners. Gender is relevant in all aspects mentioned above. Unequal distribution of power is one example. / Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att synliggöra forskarens upplevelse av sin roll och sin verklighet i relation till fältet vuxnas lärande. Vi har genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer, läst ett stort antal policydokument och rapporter inom området vuxnas lärande. Ur det insamlade materialet, har koder och minnesanteckningar genererats som senare sorterats med grundad teori som stöd. Aspekterna kön och kontext beaktas. För vår egen förståelse summerar vi våra reflektioner i anslutning till data. Begrepp som kvantitet - konkurrens- strategi- makt och policy framkom ur databearbetningen och bildade vad vi benämner kärnkategori. Vår data behandlar forskarnas syn på begreppen. Här finns reflektioner kring konkurrens mellan discipliner/fält avseende till exempel finansiering. Det råder delade meningar om huruvida forskarna styr utvecklingen inom vuxnas lärande eller om det är politiska tankar som är upphovet. Kommunikativa strategier ur ett könsperspektiv beskrivs på två sätt. Våra intervjupersoner har direkt eller indirekt markerat sin position i förhållande till fält. Makt finns med som teoretiskt begrepp. Här betonas dess relationella karaktär. Forskarrollen inom detta fält är komplex.

The integration of divergent cultures is crucial in maintaining the performance of a merged organization. Prior studies on IT culture in IS departments are mainly on corporate culture and lack of in-depth study. Recently, a practical survey shows that post-merger IT integration is always treated as a technology transformation perspective. To support business strategy, IT architecture, processes and skills should be effectively redesigned after the merger. However, conflicts may emerge within the merged departments due to different cultures and incompatible IT configurations. This dissertation proposed a novel analysis framework based on IT culture conflict perspective and strategic alignment model. We selected three financial holding companies in Taiwan as post-merger cases. They conducted IT integration projects while facing conflicts due to differences in IT culture related to organizational size, IT integration strategies, and characteristics with respect to government-owned versus private banks. Through multiple case study with data analysis based on grounded theory, we have identified three types of IT culture conflict that occurred in IT integration, examined their major effects on IT integration, and discussed how to resolve IT culture conflicts in post-merger IT integration. Propositions are derived to conclude the findings from these cases, which can be validated through empirical studies in future studies.

The Local Education Development Fund was established by the Kaohsiung City Government according to the Compilation and Administration of Education Expenditures Act in 2003 and was operated as affiliated unit budget. Affiliated unit budget, which has the autonomy of distribution and flexibility of the execution, tallying with school-based management which are influenced by the educational reform trend, therefore was generally approved by educational administrators. However, according to the research¡¦s analysis, there was no significance on the encouragement of raising funds and there was difference between deposition of the accumulated surplus into the normal cost and the general financial concept. What kind of system on earth is the implementation of Kaohsiung Local Education Development Fund at the school managers, the principals¡¦ points of view? Furthermore, are their opinions changing with time? Has the affiliated unit budget exerted any influence on school management¡HHow can the merits of the affiliated unit budget be used to coping with the shortening of educational budgets after the combining of Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County and to exalt the spirit of school-based management and to promote civils¡¦ education. These are issues worth those people¡¦s discussion who care about civils¡¦ education and these are also the concerns of the research. The research adopted nature research and grounded theory to interview seven principals in primary schools and junior high schools in Kaohsiung City. The research explored interviewees¡¦ cognitions and opinions on Local Education Development Fund and their strategies and measures based on their experiences, and inquired the influence of Local Education Development Fund (which is based on affiliated unit budget), on school managements by means of Atlas.ti techniques. According to the research¡¦ analysis, though Kaohsiung Local Education Development Fund possesses the meaning of school-based budgeting. The practice can help the municipal avoid invest excessive capital in schools which has surplus of budget with the aid of controlling the cumulation on surplus budgets. Furthermore, in the interaction of administrative departments, there are strategic changes in financial execution which are less related to the types of budgeting, but more related to School Budget Evaluation implemented by the Educational Bureau. Besides, the budgeting has little effect on encouragements to increasing income and decreasing expenditure but enlarges gaps among schools and causes disadvantages to remote small schools. To sum up, the distribution of educational budget is more important than budgeting.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has set up a mark in the construction industry over a decade. In order to gain benefit of BIM in estimating the project cost at the early stage of construction with the limited data available, a new concept of MacroBIM has been introduced in the industry. However, limited amount of research has been implemented to determine how MacroBIM has been accepted in the construction industry. Most research was focused on the accuracy of the conceptual estimation. This research attempted to determine the effectiveness of MacroBIM process applied at early stages of construction for conceptual cost estimation. Experts from the discipline of architecture, contractor and owners were interviewed and their professional opinions on MacroBIM were analyzed using grounded theory. The results show that, compared to the traditional conceptual estimating process, MacroBIM is an effective method for 1) saving labor hours, 2) conveying assumptions with the help of its visualization capabilities, 3) enhancing the collaboration among the project participants, and 4) evaluating multiple design scenarios. However, fear of using MacroBIM and trust in its outcome existed among some contractors, architects, and owners because this technology has not matured yet. Moreover, the need of interoperability between the MacroBIM tools and MicroBIM tools, such as Revit, has also surfaced in the study.

This is a case study of Taiwan¡¦s bicycle industry. With the view of international standards we tried to explore the integration of the new product development process in Taiwan¡¦s bicycle industry. We have found that Taiwan¡¦s assemblers and components suppliers are parallel connected to interact with foreign buyers simultaneously. And all the R&D services to which every member offered are finally integrated under the instructions of the foreign buyers. We describe such a cooperation mode as ¡¥Parallel Connecting New Product Development Process¡¦. We argue that this new kind of cooperation mode is better than the traditional sequential staging model that is represented as ¡¥vertical connecting¡¦ cooperation mode in innovation flexibility and speed because of the communication efficiency and convenience to the OEM buyers. In this thesis we will describe the new product development interactions among the foreign buyers, components suppliers and the assemblers. And we will also discuss the competitive advantages and the causes of such a new cooperation mode. With this kind of cooperation mode we also discuss the R&D management implications for the small and medium sized enterprises in Taiwan. We argue that this new kind of cooperation mode can bring a new management implication to the small and medium sized enterprises in Taiwan, which is different from the main argument in the literature of strategic flexibility.

This study explores resolution mechanisms for all types of medical malpractice cases with a special focus on the patients and their families¡¦ subjective experiences in such disputes, as well as the relevant factors that influence the process of decision-making and the relevant results. The previous studies on patients¡¦ actions to medical disputes in the literature assumed that patients and their families took certain actions due to monetary reasons or discriminated status under a restricted medical system. Most studies simply state the variables that led the patients and their families to certain resolution mechanism. Nevertheless, not many researchers have explored the micro experiences of meaning construction during the process to resolve malpractice cases. Neither did they study how the patients interpret the cultural and structural variables, which might result in different dispute resolution mechanism being used. Therefore, this study attempts to develop a tentative approach to integrate macro and micro analyses and take the advantage of the procedure of grounded theory to explore the dynamic process in the resolution of disputes over medical malpractice. In-depth interviews were applied in the study involving 16 patients and their family members, 13 third party groups and two physicians for a total of 31 people. Among the 16 patients and their family members, there were 14 cases of medical treatment dispute. It was found that the core concept of ¡§admitting a mistake was made¡¨ is the main goal of patients and their family members when dealing with the dispute. If the injury is not critical, normally the physician will admit his/her mistake in the beginning of the dispute. If the injury is critical, since the patients and their family members not having professional knowledge regarding medical injury and their social economical status as well as lower mobilization capabilities than physicians, they do not get an apology or the truth regarding the medical injury. They only receive compensation at most. There are two key causes of providing compensation: (a) crisscrossed interpersonal connection between patient, physician and the third party, such as a civil representative, who plays the role of coordinator; (b) after litigation, usually the court prosecutor or the judge will mediate between the patient and physician, so that compensation can be made. No direct judgment is made. Yet the patients and their family members are not satisfied because they do not receive a response from the involved physician regarding their request about ¡§admitting mistake was made¡¨ which is terminated since their is no money for further litigation, pressure from the civil representative or other objections of the family members. Furthermore, the interview of the third party and the involved physician show that public hospitals are more afraid of irrational acts from patients and their family members or the intervention of the civil representative when dealing with medical disputes. Even if there is no medical negligence, they still submit to the requests of the patients and their family members.

The study aims to analyze the causes and treatments of spousal violence in Taiwan, to explore how Taiwanese people, abused women, and anti-spousal violence workers consider the causes of spousal violence and how they cope with it. Approaches are taken from the viewpoints of social system theory, resource theory and social control theory, and discourse analysis is made on quantitative and qualitative bases. The purpose is to manifest the causes of spousal violence, different tackling methods adopted by abused women from different family and cultural backgrounds, as well as the discrepancies of the third role played by anti-spousal violence workers. The study combines both macro- and micro-level approaches, integrating empirical research and grounded theory research as the methodology to account for the effects of resource variables and social bond variables on spousal violence in Taiwan, and also to probe into the dynamic process and coping modes from the angles of victims and the third role. The source of this study is ¡§Taiwan Social Change Survey¡¨Data , which was conducted by Institute of Sociology Academia Sinica in 2001. Quantitative analysis is based on the data collected, while qualitative analysis is made with in-depth interviews with 10 abused women and 18 anti-spousal violence workers. According to the empirical research of ¡§Taiwan Social Change Survey¡¨Data¡]2001¡^ , when samples of wives and husbands are analyzed respectively, traditional substantive resources are found to have significant differences to the understanding of spousal conflict treatments. As to non-substantive resources, the lower the level of domestic life satisfaction, the more probable marital violence will happen. On the husband side of social control model, it is discovered that the rarer the husband deals with his neighbors, the more likely he will commit violence. Furthermore, applying theories to the interviews with abused women, we found that in the original family, structural factors such as ethnic background, history of spousal violence; interactive factors such as ill communication, discrepancy in money values and attitudes towards child raising; individual factors such as the husband with patriarchal ideology, are all contributive to spousal violence. Thus, it is shown that both substantive resources (i.e. money and wealth) and non-substantive resources (i.e. level of marriage satisfaction and gender role attitude) are significantly correlated related to conjugal power. Then, inspecting the impact cultural context has on spousal violence, the study divides the abused victims¡¦ reaction modes into patriarchism, ritualism, equalitarianism, and idealism, based on family values and resources on father/son axis and husband/wife axis. The results indicate that as one possesses more resources and stronger connections with the society, one receives greater conjugal power, and is more likely to suggest or demand a more equal authoritative structure in marriage. On top of that, the interviews with anti-spousal violence workers show that the third role offers different treatments depending on to what degree and on what aspect it intervenes in spousal conflicts. Only by integrating educational, social, police, judicial, and medical units can we provide women in Taiwan with an effective anti-spousal violence strategy.