Identity and self are complex and fragmented concepts. There are various theories, but narrative is a useful framework for understanding and investigating them. Narrative theory and social constructionism, which have similar ontological foundations but differ somewhat in other ways, are combined in this thesis to investigate how adults with dyslexia construct their identities. A new concept, ‘storyworld’, is presented and used to demonstrate how the narrative construction of lived time shapes identity construction. The stories adults tell about their lived experience of disability allow a glimpse into the impact of disability on identity and selfhood. Dyslexia, as a specific disability characterised by difficulties with literacy, has the potential to be a moral issue with which sufferers have to contend in everyday life. This study presents findings from narrative life interviews with 14 adults who identify as dyslexic. First, the adults’ discursive constructions of dyslexia are presented. Decisions about disclosure and concealment are important and have impacts on lived-lives and future plans. They bring up identity issues such as change and difference. Change and difference vis-à-vis a label of dyslexia, perceptions of self, thoughts about people’s perceptions and new ways one can deal with difficulties related to dyslexia, were expressed through the participants’ narratives. The life narratives of two women are then presented as case studies, with specific reference to disclosure and their journeys from initial suspicions of dyslexia to current difficulties and identity struggles. The concept of ‘storyworld’ is used to shape the analyses, focusing on how the lived life is framed within the told story and how the participants narratively construct their lives. Finally, the narrative structures, plots and timelines of the participants’ stories are analysed. In terms of identity, the temporal complexity of the stories, exposed through a storyworld analysis, indicates the self-significance of the lived-events that are told.

This thesis contends that the NEET category obscures the significant impact of the accomplishments of those who operate in the informal creative economy. Grime music, a black Atlantic creative expression, is used as a lens through which to explore and analyse the nature of entrepreneurship within this sector. East London, a site of poverty, movement and migration is the geographical starting point for the project. Over a five-year period from 2007 – 2012, ethnographic field research was carried out in London and Ayia Napa, Cyprus. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants in the sector. In addition, participant observation was undertaken in various settings including pirate radio stations, nightclubs and music video shoots. The global reach of those who operate within the urban music sector is highly visible and this sector has a significant socio-economic impact. Practitioners utilise advances in technology as well as innovative business practice to create opportunities for self-employment on a local, national and international scale. Grime music and its related enterprise culture is a mechanism for social and economic mobility particularly for those from ethnically stigmatised communities. The findings disrupt existing strategies to deal with youth unemployment. Suggestions are made for a more differentiated approach to support the reduction of youth unemployment and the development of business start-up and self- employment. Finally, further research areas are identified including a more in depth study into the global economy for UK urban music and an exploration of the process and practice of business start-up.

Production and consumption of text, image and video content about both diabetes and common mental health disorders (CMHDs), by individuals and organisations, has become commonplace since the widespread adoption of social media. Despite the increasing importance of these online spaces for health-related discussion few studies have fully explored people’s experiences of drawing on social media content around either diabetes or CMHDs. The aim of this study was to explore the multiple ways young adults engage with health-related content online and develop an understanding of how social media are used for health information and communication. A further aim was to explore the areas of convergence and divergence between professional producers’ perspectives on online resources about diabetes and CMHDs and prospective users’ perspectives. To explore these issues, a qualitative study was developed. Forty young adults, aged between 18 and 30 years, and six professional producers took part in semi-structured interviews. The key findings of the study reflect the increasing prominence of health-related user-generated content online. While continued reliance on search-engines for locating relevant content was evident, some participants discussed accessing health-related content as part of their everyday social media activity. Further, participants’ perceptions and experiences of support from family, friends and formal health services appeared to relate to their online practices: those who described least supportive resources offline discussed engaging most actively in production and consumption of health-related user-generated content. Participants also discussed what limited their production of health-related content, suggesting that production of content related to diabetes or CMHDs could compromise their presentation of self online. Disjunctures were evident between the perspectives of producers and potential users, with producers prioritising dissemination of generic information and young adults emphasising the consumption of tailored content. The findings of the study suggest key opportunities for exploiting the potential of social media to engage with users but highlight potential barriers to some individuals’ engagement.

This study presents an innovative analysis of the policing of petty offending and the work the police in Cumbria: it problematizes conceptions of policing and its history. This study uses the neglected minutiae of police and court records to deconstruct the role of the police, discretionary policing by men on the beat, public expectations of the police, and the growth of police bureaucracy, which then calls into question the idea of a ‘golden age’ of policing. These are the issues that dominate the contemporary discourses on policing, though this study makes clear that assumptions are made today that are not supported by the history. The themes of this study are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago, for this work is interdisciplinary, situated in the social sciences, particularly criminology and history. This study examines the police’s role at a time of social, economic and bureaucratic change. It links the development of police expertise and professionalism with the process of state formation. The historiography and nature of Victorian policing are tested by this study of Cumbria, a remote and unique region which was culturally, economically and agriculturally quite atypical of Victorian England.

As many changes in society, such as increased geographic mobility and improved technological advances, have led to generations frequently becoming segregated from one another, the development of intergenerational shared sites (IGSS) presents a unique opportunity for exchange and interaction between the generations. This study ‘tells the story’ of the development of the UK’s first IGSS – a purpose-built intergenerational centre (the Centre).

The focus of this thesis is upon the Adoption Support Plan (ASP), one of the documents constructed for new adoptions of children in the UK. The Adoption and Children Act, 2002, made provision for support in adoption through the right to request an assessment of support. The recognition of support for adoption has emerged as the nature of adoption has changed with fewer children being relinquished at birth. Children adopted from social care are generally older and more likely to have experienced trauma and broken attachments. The ‘closed’ nature of the adoption of babies has become more ‘open’ with arrangements such as contact with birth families and access to birth records (Lowe, 1999). It is now understood that adoption is associated with life-long periods of adjustment which can require different levels of support. However little is known about how support is assessed and introduced for new adoptions. A documentary analysis method explored the ways in which the ASP operated within the wider adoption context. Qualitative interviews were also undertaken. The findings highlight that the ASP focused mainly on the matching arrangements concerning the child’s past and present needs, with little consideration of potential future support that might be required. Adopters were largely unaware of the existence and purpose of the ASP to support the adoptive family and their future. Two proposals are made to raise the status and visibility of the ASP during the arrangements for adoption. Firstly, the document should be redesigned and it should be ‘co-produced’ following the placement, allowing the Review to agree the negotiated support requirements. Secondly, a strategic interagency commitment to space for adoption support within mainstream family support services should be established, requiring a programme of information for the public and training for all providers regarding the normative aspects of adoption and the value of support.

This research responds to gaps in the literature about the evolution of physiotherapy practice and to uncertainties emerging from within physiotherapy about its professionalism and practice. It aimed to generate a theoretically informed understanding of the tensions present in contemporary physiotherapy practice by producing an embodied account of the process of becoming a practice profession. The research aim was achieved by a genealogical study of existing literature, documentary data from physiotherapy’s qualifying curricula and oral accounts of practice generated by depth interviews with physiotherapists who qualified during the 1940/60s. These data were subject to a Foucauldian discourse analysis and a phenomenological analysis to explore the events, discourses and actions shaping physiotherapy practice over time. Unlike existing historic accounts that trace the evolution of physiotherapy’s professional identity, this research prioritises the bodies doing physiotherapy over time so offers a fresh perspective on physiotherapy as a practice and as a profession. From a ‘doing’ perspective, professionalism ceases to be an acquisition that is externally bestowed and becomes a dynamic process of experiencing/producing autonomous problem-solving in practice. Physiotherapy’s professional practice can be traced back to the 1945 curriculum. It was enacted through the integration of physiotherapy movement/touch and by the discipline of movement, which generated autonomous problem-solving practices that cut across ward/disease boundaries established by medicine from the 1950s onwards. While still subject to medical supervision, physiotherapy’s movement/touch crossed the division of labour to develop capacity to produce diagnosis-inference-treatment once its technical autonomy was recognised in 1977. Once free of medicine, physiotherapy’s professional practices multiplied to provide moving/touching solutions for an increasing variety of movement disorders. My research complements the existing (disembodied) critical histories of physiotherapy as a profession and demonstrates the value of embodiment as a lens for tracing movement in physiotherapy’s professional identities and practices over time. It adds to sociological understanding of the organisation of healthcare occupations and practices by offering an account of a body that is a moving part of a division of labour organised around the dominant profession of medicine.

The 12 Step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA, 2001) is a set of principles that provides a way of life for those that follow it and is based upon a ‘spiritual awakening’ (AA, 2001 pp59-60). The thesis is the first to examine how managers who follow this spiritual programme apply it in their organisational role through general management competencies (New, 1996). This mixed method, phenomenology-led research is placed within a social constructionist setting. A comprehensive and wide ranging literature review was conducted. The data was generated using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1996), the Integrated Spiritual Intelligence Scale (Amram and Dyer, 2007) and Workplace Observation (Lucia and Lepsinger, 1999). The findings explain psychological antecedents, mechanisms and pathways that inform the sample of AA managers in their work role. The discussion identifies relationships with existing efficacious management styles and concepts. Areas of heuristic value for future research are identified. These areas include exploring the 12 Steps specifically as antecedents to emotional intelligence (Payne, 1985) and strengthening the statistical validity of instruments to measure humility and honesty in context of spirituality. Limitations of this research are also identified and discussed and important reservations about the concept and constructs of spiritual intelligence (Zohar, 1997) are raised. In conclusion, the 12 Step spiritual programme was found to be the primary influence in how the sample conduct their organisational management function. The research calls for human resource processes to re-consider how those who have adopted successful recovery techniques to overcome personal crises such as dependency issues are viewed and argues that they should be more highly valued by organisations as such experiences help develop management competencies.

This thesis aims to extend current understandings of the production of organisational space, with particular attention paid to its embodied characteristics. Empirically, this thesis explores the everyday lived experience and understanding of organisational space of employees and volunteers at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in England. Current empirical studies exploring the phenomenon of organisational space do so primarily from the perspective of space and the body, separating the body from space and viewing the body as being in space as opposed to of space. This perspective provides only a limited view of the lived experience of organisational space, for it does not consider that space and the body are intertwined, with the body shaping space and space shaping the body. To address this research gap, the thesis draws on the work of Lefebvre's (1974/1991; 1992/2004) theorisation of space. Data is collected through the methods of shadowing, photo-elicitation and hermeneutic conversations. Underpinning all of the stages of the data collection and interpretation is a Gadamerian approach to hermeneutics, which requires a joint interpretation of the data between myself and the research participants. The three main findings of the thesis extend existing conceptualisations of the lived experience of organisational space. The findings show that first, artefacts play a role in contesting the conceived spaces (Lefebvre, 1974/1991) of the organisation, producing spaces to dwell. A second key finding is the role that gestures play in understanding the lived experience while the third key finding highlights the role of the imaginary, in particular memory, death and nostalgia to spatial understandings. The latter are especially considered hitherto underexplored areas of the lived experience of organisational space. The final chapter of the thesis presents the overall conclusions, establishing how the conceptual contributions provide alternative ways of exploring and understanding the lived dimension of organisational space.

The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a conceptual framework that integrates internal (to the firm) conditions with external influences at two geographical proximity levels, local and non-local, with respect to four types of innovation performance: product innovation, process innovation, managerial/organisational innovation and marketing innovation. This is quantitatively evaluated in a sample of 186 coffee farmers from Latin America. Following the Resource-Based View of the Firm (RBV), the internal conditions include two firm capabilities: technological capabilities and marketing capabilities. The external influences incorporates the evaluation of horizontal and vertical linkages with purposes of innovation at the local level (cluster geographical context) and non-local level (extra-cluster geographical context). The tests are controlled by the variable country of origin, which is not much relevant in these evaluations, as well as the variable for size, which is mostly significant although with a negative impact. The results suggest that internal conditions seem to be the most relevant factors related to innovation performance in this sample, whilst extra-cluster linkages are the external conditions with the highest relative importance in the explored models. This last outcome suggests the predominance of global value chains and its dynamics in relation to the innovative results of companies located in primary industries from developing countries. This seem to be the case even in the case of highly clustered activities within a region, such as the agricultural coffee production in Latin America.