This qualitative, phenomenological study focuses on the social construction of bereavement support in voluntary organisations. Three organisations were selected for the research project. These were an adult hospice, a local branch of Cruse, and PEAL (Parents Experiencing Adult Loss); an organisation unique to the locale at the time that the research for this study was conducted. Grounded theory research methodology was used to identify how these organisations construct their services. A key feature of this is their use of volunteers as bereavement supporters. The prime objective of the study was identification of the social construction of these three agencies. In particular the intention was to reveal features contributing to the shaping of their service provision. To this end the research design was developed with the aim of allowing respondents scope for self-expression. Twenty, one-to-one, face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted and audio-taped with self-selected respondents from the three agencies. The core category to emerge from the data was „boundaries‟ which was further divisible into commonly held properties classifiable as personal, professional, organisational and societal. Each of these were sub dividable, forming what might be referred to as a family tree. Underpinning this framework of boundaries is a common psychological approach to service provision which draws on the Freudian tradition in counselling. A further feature in their commonality is that of the profile of the volunteer workforce which is drawn largely from a mono-cultural, middle class sector of the community. The central contention of the thesis is that in this instance, boundaries have become a significant influence on the shaping of service provision. It is argued that an overriding individualist perspective can serve to ensure that traditional boundaries are established and maintained, making a more diverse approach to service provision difficult to attain. Key words: boundaries (personal, professional, organisational, societal); social construction; bereavement support; grounded theory; individualism; power; culture; volunteer motivation.

In regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR), this thesis has moved beyond the stakeholder theory of the firm and adopted the evolutionary theory of the firm, together with recognising the link between corporate governance and CSR. This thesis has considered the historical development of the essential principles of corporate governance (embraced within the concept of CSR) of a Multinational Corporation (MNC), namely British Petroleum (BP), and assessed the transfer of these evolved principles for promoting development in Africa. To effectively apply evolutionary theory, one must also recognise that firms are part of a co-evolutionary process. Recent academic contributions by co-evolutionary theorists have paid attention to MNCs as change agents at the sector level. However, this thesis has taken this further and considered BP attempting to engage in institutional co-evolution where a MNC acts as a change agent to the wider institutional regime to promote development. Cantwell et al (2010) suggested that MNCs can have a significant influence upon the institutional regime, and presented a framework for firm-level adaptation by MNCs influencing the wider institutional environment in the host countries where they operate. They developed a co-evolutionary framework linking historical changes in the character of MNC activities to changes in the institutional environment, focusing upon the scope for firm-level creativity and institutional entrepreneurship leading to successful institutional co-evolution. Therefore, this thesis has followed on from this and investigated whether BP can be an agent for change in Africa, using the example of Angola to highlight the process. A comparison was made with the new entrants into the market, China, to judge whether this influences BP’s ability to engage in institutional co-evolution. In addition, a comparative study of mining giant Anglo American was engaged in to highlight the appropriateness of BP’s CSR principles to the African setting. The thesis found that BP cannot successfully engage in institutional co-evolution because of an ineffective transparency initiative, whilst Chinese involvement has further diminished the ability to ii transfer sound corporate governance and CSR principles, particularly because Chinese resource-seeking investment comes with ‘no conditions attached’ concerning governance in host countries. In addition, the competitive nature of securing licences to operate forces oil MNCs to use their CSR packages strategically, and furthermore, the social consequences of environmental degradation due to oil sector operations means that local communities cannot sustain their livelihoods, which is a lesson that has not been learnt from historical evolution.

This thesis explores the football fan rivalry between the fans of Aston Villa and Birmingham City. Football fan rivalries are unique and complex, with each one being underpinned by various social, historical and/or cultural factors. Therefore, each rivalry should be studied in-depth in order to understand the underlying factors that shape oppositions and social identities. This rivalry has previously received no academic attention, despite these two being the main clubs in Birmingham, England’s second largest city, with a long history of intra-city rivalry since the first fixture between the two in 1879. The constructivist approach adopted perceived people’s knowledge, opinions, interpretations and experiences as meaningful properties of social reality and, thus, this study aimed to gather data from those who actually experience the rivalry – the fans. An ethnographic study was undertaken in order to elicit rich, qualitative data and to gain a deep and reality congruent insight into the complex factors that underpin the rivalry. Participant observation was conducted at matches involving Aston Villa and Birmingham City. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fans of the two clubs, with data being subjected to coding and a thematic analysis. Informed by a cultural studies framework that focused on the centrality of power, the analysis identified three central themes underpinning the rivalry. The first theme was the constant struggle between the fan groups over territory. Fans placed great value on being perceived to control certain areas, or even the whole city, in order to gain power (territorial capital) and become the dominant identity. This is particularly significant as a detailed exploration of territory has previously been absent from football rivalry literature. Secondly, tensions were based on the historical footballing success of Aston Villa, and on Birmingham City’s relative lack of success. Villa fans were perceived as the dominant group as the success of the team afforded them high levels of (sub)cultural capital. Thirdly, the contestation over power was informed by the perceived socio-economic status of each fan group, with Villa fans being perceived as more middle-class and Blues fans more working-class. These complex factors are continually contested and under negotiation, with the passion and intensity of the rivalry enduring as both fan groups battle for dominance. In addition to exploring this particular rivalry for the first time, this study has contributed to the limited but growing literature on rivalries, providing a clear methodological and theoretical framework for future research in this area, which was previously lacking.

A phenomenological approach was adopted to examine police officers’ experiences of U.K. critical incidents. In the U.K. police service, critical incidents (CI) are incidents with a significant impact on the confidence victims, families, and the public have in the police. Data were e-focus groups for: i) operational debriefs (n = 9) and ii) reviews of service delivery (n = 9). With professional participants throughout (N = 250), the project had considerable ecological validity. Experiences of three types of incident, Serious Crime (SC) (n = 6), Counter-terrorist (CT) (n = 6), and Non-criminal (NC) (n = 6) were examined. Three qualitative methods - thematic analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, and narrative analysis - provided triangulation of method. Different incident types and police forces provided data triangulation. Results showed that the most common themes revolved around relationships with partners and communities; staff welfare concerns were also highlighted. Common experiences obtained across incident types: exclusion and pressure of incident were negative experiences; professional image and serving victims and families were positive experiences. Differences specific to incident type also emerged: humour was unique to CT experiences and functioned to divert from trauma and reinforce social bonds; taking control was a feature of serious crime incidents; uncertainty was unique to NC incidents. Models of the impact on staff welfare and uncertainty are presented. A social identity model of transforming experiences is also presented. Narrative exemplars are presented: SC incidents had a Media monster narrative; CT incidents had a CONTEST quest narrative; NC incidents had a Cheshire cat narrative. Extant literature is discussed throughout. Findings are discussed in relation to social identity theory.

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the ramifications of the recent financial crisis on the retail banking providers’ cognitive and affective trust dimensions. In addition, the study aimed to consider the impact of different functional quality measures, e.g., complaint handling, customer engagement, staff engagement, branch presence and financial literacy on the reinstatement of customer trust. In doing so, this study offers and discusses empirical findings via a mixed methods approach where supporting data has been obtained from two focus group interactions, questionnaires completed by 508 banking customers and 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with banking officials in the UK.

Self-understanding is a fundamental aspect of psychological functioning. This study aimed to explore self-understanding in adolescents with autism spectrum conditions (ASC), adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and adolescents with Williams syndrome (WS). The Self-understanding Interview was used to examine the verbal concepts and opinions of self of 45 adolescents (15 ASC, 15 DS and 15 WS). Adolescents with ASC generated significantly fewer social statements compared with adolescents with WS. There was a close comparability between adolescents with ASC, DS and WS on the number of self-as-object self-statements indicating similarities in the overall development of self-concept. The development of social self-understanding and its implications were discussed. The need for individually tailored interventions enhancing social skills promoting positive self-concept is highlighted.

Tourism is perceived as one of the world’s fastest growing service sectors and a major source of economic development and environmental and cultural conservation for many, if not all, developing countries. Within the context of sustainable development, community tourism is increasingly seen as an effective tool for engaging destination communities in the tourism development in the advanced countries, but it has failed to deliver in many Least Developed Countries (LDCs), such as Zanzibar. The concept has been developed and refined in the search for sustainable approaches to tourism development. However, its applicability to Zanzibar in particular seems not to have been considered in detail; the issue of whether community tourism can be effectively applied in Zanzibar remains uncertain. Consequently, there is a call for more research to determine the capitals that destination communities should acquire to implement community tourism. Hence, the objectives of this thesis are: (1) to conceptualize the theory of capitals as related to community tourism; (ii) to develop a conceptual capital assets model for community tourism; and (iii) to examine the general views of local communities toward the [proposed] capital asset model and to found out the appropriateness of the model for actualizing community tourism in Zanzibar. Methods used for data collection of this research were document study, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and household survey (triangulation approach). While the first three methods (qualitative methods) were used for construction of the model, the household survey technique (quantitative method) was used to explore the appropriateness of a model in the context of Zanzibar. The research population includes government officials, private tourism organisations and local people who were involved in the research in different settings. The critical destination capitals according to the findings are informal social networks (informal social capital), political capital and human capital; the three destination capitals lead to the generation of innovation capital which serves as the lifeblood for sustainable community tourism development. Moreover, limited access to physical, financial, and human capital are key concerns that need to be addressed, especially in rural areas of Zanzibar, as this was found to be a significant constraint to the implementation of community tourism. The research findings directly contest the extant body of literature reviewed in this thesis and have major implications for tourism development policies, signalling the need for adjustments at social, political and institutional levels. Following the household survey analysis, the central conclusion is that the developed conceptual model is a useful blueprint for sustainable community tourism development in Zanzibar; though further research opportunities are identified, especially is relation to the generalization of the conceptual model. The contribution of this research is to knowledge about the crucial destination community’s capital assets and their significance to community tourism development in Zanzibar. This understanding may bridge the gap between theories of community tourism and practice and may be adapted and applied in many developing countries, including broader perspectives of encouraging destination communities to take an active role in the tourism industry as developers rather than as wage earners.

This thesis focuses on Teaching Assistants (TAs) as members of the school workforce ‘remodelled’ and ‘modernised’ through the policies such as the ‘National Agreement’ (DfES, 2003c; ATL et al., 2003). Findings suggest that: - schools are not monolithic institutions; there is variety and inconsistency between local practices and relations, including within individual schools - TAs and teachers instrumentalise pupils to labour to produce the ‘measurable’ outcomes of schools; the three parties operate in asymmetric power relations - ‘place’ within schools reinforces asymmetric power relations between TAs and teachers - the texts that circulate in schools reinforce and undermine the asymmetric power relations - TAs undertook an increasing number of traditional teacher tasks - drawing on various aspects of their work and policy, the TAs defined themselves as teachers, other than teachers and more than teachers, - drawing on the social and material resources circulating in their environments, the TAs ideologised their being and doing. Adopting a broadly relativist, post-structuralist, and constructivist paradigm, using qualitative methods based on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2001; Potter and Wetherell, 1987), this thesis uses the words of the TAs who participated in this project to explore their experiences of working in primary and secondary schools in England. The participants’ words come from their participation in focus groups, interviews and from written work they produced as students on a Foundation Degree programme. Ideas from Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 1997; 2005) were used to explore the location of the participants in relation to their workplaces, colleagues and pupils and to establish the categories for subsequent critical analysis of their discourses, broadly following Fairclough’s (2001) stages of ‘description, interpretation and explanation’. Ideas on meaning making (notably Bruner, 1990, 1991, in Bakhurst and Sypnowich 1995) and ideologisation (notably Eagleton, 1991; Billig et al., 1988; Billig, 1995; Abercrombie et al., 1980) support the critical analysis of their discourses to explore how the participants make sense of their situations.

Creating adoptive families for 'looked after children' requires the continuous recruitment of prospective adoptive parents. The British government's demand for an increase in the number of children adopted led to the extension of legalised constructs of who can become an adoptive parent. However, our understanding of prospective adopters' remains anchored to a pronatalist ideology that perpetuates a hegemonic view of motherhood and fatherhood. These socio-political dynamics interweave placing pressure on social workers, prospective adopters and children to replace the biological promise of perfect pronatalism with an idealised expectation of legally permanent familial solutions. In this thesis, I employed a social constructionist methodology to undertake two studies, the first of which thematically analysed discourses in the 2012-2013 National adoption week campaigns. The analysis found pronatalism rhetoric dominated the repertoires and notable by its absence was the non-construction of British, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) adoptive families. Other emotive discourses construct adoptive parents as 'selfless' with critical undertones for those who were too 'nervous' to take on the responsibility. The second study examined the lived experiences of 21 adults who self-identified as prospective adopters. Three emerging themes illuminated the complexity of adoption as a route to parenthood. Participants' experience of negotiating pronatalist dominant views of adoption influenced how they made sense of adoption as a choice and determined their sense of readiness. Contemplating adoption with their friends and families identified the complex socio-familial factors that influenced their motivations to adopt. Finally, their experiences led them to reconstitute their sense of self as they prepared for a future that may or may not include becoming an adoptive parent.

This qualitative research explores the lived experience of nineteen bisexual women from all across the UK who are in monogamous relationships or who are single but desire a future monogamous relationship. The research has three broad aims 1) To explore the lived experience of bisexual women who identify as monogamous. 2) To understand the ways in which women who identify as bisexual and monogamous maintain their identity. 3) To explore the ways in which bisexual women in 'same-gender' and 'different-gender' relationships construct their identity. The research was carried out in three phases with each stage using a different data collection technique. The first stage required participants to keep a written diary for a period of four consecutive weeks, detailing thoughts and events that were related to their sexual identity. In the second stage participants took part in a semi-structured telephone interview. The interview used participants’ diary entries as a starting point to explore the research questions. The final stage involved a subset of participants taking part in a photo-assisted telephone interview. Participants in this stage were supplied with disposable cameras and were asked to take up to twelve photographs of places, objects and people who were significant in relation to their sexuality. Five participants completed this stage and took part in a photo-assisted telephone interview where they discussed the photographs they had taken. The research as a whole and the approach to analysing data was underpinned by the hermeneutic phenomenology of Ricoeur. Two different but complementary approaches were taken in the analysis of the data. Firstly, Template Analysis (King, 2004) was used to analyse the data from diaries and telephone interviews. This approach provides an opportunity to explore the data as a whole and identify themes and sub-themes relevant to the research questions. In order to complement this cross-case approach the photo-assisted interviews were analysed using a within-case approach (Hermeneutic Phenomenological Analysis) developed specifically for this research. Some of the findings support existing research which demonstrated that some bisexuals do experience ‘invisibility’ and misappropriation in relation to their sexual identity (Monro, 2015; Hayfield, Clarke & Halliwell, 2014; Savin-Williams, 2005; Blackwood, 2000; Angelides, 2001). Other findings point to aspects of bisexual monogamous women’s experience that appear to have been neglected by researchers. In particular, the gender of a participant’s partner seems to present different challenges in relation to their sexual identity. Participants in different-gender relationships appear to utilise more strategies related to displaying their same-gender attractions and keeping their bisexuality alive than those in same-gender relationships. Participants in same-gender relationships choose feminine appearance markers that are more likely to signify a heterosexual identity in contrast to participants in different-gender relationships who choose ‘traditional’ lesbian appearance markers. Women in different-gender relationships articulated a sense of longing or reminiscence for relationships or sex with women. Women in same-gender relationships did not express the same sentiment for sex and relationships with men. Identifying a community which provided support for their bisexual identity was of particular importance to all participants. The LGBT+ community seemed to be important in the early stages of participants’ struggles with the development of their sexual identity. However, over time participants experienced various forms of hostility from the LGBT+ community and one of the ways they coped with this was to disengage from it and turn to smaller network of friends.