The main purpose of this study is to explore the role spirituality plays in the coping of traffic officers within the South African Traffic Services. A sample of ten traffic officers participated in the study, and data was obtained by means of open-ended questions during in-depth and semi-structured interviews. The literature review aimed to conceptualise spirituality, to conceptualise coping, and to theoretically explore the role of spirituality in the coping of traffic officers. Specific aims for the empirical study were: to gain a better understanding of how traffic officers experience the role of spirituality in coping with their role within the South African context; to provide a framework that can assist with creating an understanding of the role spirituality plays in coping as a traffic officer; and to formulate recommendations for possible future research that explores the role of spirituality in the coping of traffic officers within the discipline of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, more specifically in employee and organisational wellness, and career counselling. The research findings showed that traffic officers in the sample all utilised spirituality in the workplace to various extents, and that they exhibited adaptive coping abilities when doing so. They associated less spirituality or a lack of spirituality with weaker coping abilities. It was found that spirituality in the traffic officers is informed by a foundation of spirituality or religion, purpose to their work and life, their connection to their spiritual source, and the fruits of spirituality. Their coping ability was influenced by upbringing and background, by stressors from their work environment and by coping mechanisms. The role of spirituality in the coping of traffic officers culminated in their ability to interpret the meaning of spirituality, and then to implement spirituality in order to cope. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

An increasing number of reports indicate that managers are opposed to performance appraisal. It is important to understand why managers have favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards performance appraisal and it is necessary to investigate the causing factors of these attitudes. The aim of this research was therefore to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that influence managers’ attitudes towards performance appraisal. This study was conducted within the interpretive research paradigm and situated in a medium-sized organisation within the financial services industry. The sample was purposefully selected and the data were collected through in-depth interviews and naïve sketches. The data were analysed applying Tesch’s descriptive analysis method. The main findings indicated that managers who needed to conduct performance appraisals perceived and experienced performance appraisal as an uncomfortable and emotional process that might cause them to become defensive. Moreover, it was revealed that the managers experienced uncertainties about aspects of performance appraisal, such as the purpose of performance appraisal, what must be measured and frequency of performance appraisal. As a result of such uncertainties, managers might not always have the ability or readiness to conduct performance appraisals, especially when the performance appraisal contains negative performance feedback. Furthermore, the organisational context might put managers in an undesirable situation to distort performance ratings of employees in order to achieve organisational goals or the manager’s personal goals, which in turn influence the attitude of the manager. The findings of the study can assist organisations in influencing managers’ attitudes more positively and in enhancing the overall performance appraisal process. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The purpose of this study was to address the under-researched theme of achievement among students in a post 1992 university in the UK. The findings are based on a case study of a cohort of first year (FY) undergraduates in a science department in a post 1992 university. Three key research approaches were deployed within this case study, namely, grounded theory, phenomenography and survey research. These three distinctive approaches have been framed within a broad interpretivist perspective in which subjectivity is managed through researcher positionality and the triangulation of data where appropriate. The research findings demonstrate that the point of registration at higher education (HE) institutions does not constitute a successful student because such a constitution is a process of becoming, involving complex meaning-making processes over time. These processes are characterised by a movement from 'outsider and potential achiever' to 'insider and reflexive achiever'. Important phases within this movement are those of: attending; being engaged and solving self-identified difficulties. In the light of the evidence gathered and the review of the existing scholarship, a detailed exploration and theorisation of these phases is offered. The preoccupation with students who fail in some way has led to a lack of research into those who succeed. This research has sought to overcome this lack by exploring the active meaning-making processes that lead undergraduates to achieve. A dynamic is identified between students' reflexive management of their FY experience and aspirations to achieve and the institutional context. This dynamic is also held to undermine the notion of students as customers awaiting satisfaction, suggesting instead that students be regarded as reflexive actors in the shaping of undergraduate achievement. This study presents a novel alternative to the prevalent deficit model in the relevant research which tends to treat students as passive bearers of diverse levels of readiness for undergraduate study. It also offers an alternative to the prevailing research on why students fail to progress or stay at university.

儘管有些人認為冷戰的結束代表著「歷史的終結」，但中共領導人們卻不這麼認為。他們認為冷戰的結束把我們從「兩極對抗」的世界帶入「多極化世界」。 進一步研究中共冷戰後的公開文件，我們可以發現「多極化世界」的提法無所不在。一方面，「多極化世界」不斷出現在重要的對內與對外文件，以致於我們有理由相信「多極化世界」的概念對冷戰後的中共具有相當的重要性。另一方面，「多極化世界」的概念具有相當強的延續性，從鄧小平晚期到習近平的公開記錄中，我們都可以發現它的蹤跡。 因此，「多極化世界」的特殊性成為本研究的研究動機，而這個概念本身則成為本研究的研究目的。本研究欲探究的問題有兩個：第一，「多極化世界」的本質是什麼？第二，以「多極化世界」這個概念為主軸的中共，在經歷國力快速增長後，是否會符合「國強必霸」的命題？ 為了探究這樣的課題，本研究採取詮釋學理論途徑做為研究途徑。在此研究途徑下，本研究將以大量文獻作為根基，並以中共領導人的談話記錄或演講記錄為對象，進行詮釋分析。希望透過這樣的努力，能更深入的理解「多極化世界」這個概念背後的意涵。 / Although some might consider the end of the Cold War as the end of history, however, leaders of PRC do not think so. They think the end of the Cold War brought us from a bipolarity world to a world with Multi-polarity tendency. When we study public documents of PRC after the Cold War，we can find the keyword “World with Multi-polarity Tendency” everywhere. On one hand, we can find the keyword “World with Multi-polarity Tendency” in many important public documents, whether its audience is PRC’s people or other countries in the world, which makes us have good reasons to believe the significance of the key words “World with Multi-polarity Tendency”. On the other hand, the concept of “World with Multi-polarity Tendency” has great continuity. We can find it from Deng, Siao-Ping to Si, Jin-Ping. Because of the reasons above, to understand the concept of “World with Multi-polarity Tendency” is the motivation of this study. And the concept of “World with Multi-polarity Tendency” itself is the target of this study. We get two main questions in this study：First, what is the nature of “World with Multi-polarity Tendency”？ Second, if PRC really take this concept as its main idea, will PRC become a hegemony power after it become strong？ This study chooses interpretive research as its approach, and taking PRC leaders’ public documents as targets to analyze the concept of “World with Multi-polarity Tendency”. Hoping through these works, we can have a deeper understand about it.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Abstract EXPLORING SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS COMMUNITY OUTPATIENT COUNSELORS’ EXPERIENCES TREATING CLIENTS WITH CO-OCCURRING MEDICAL CONDITIONS. AN INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Lauretta Anne Cathers, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013 Major Director: Amy Armstrong, PhD, Chair, Rehabilitation Counseling The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study presents the findings from a qualitative study examining substance use disorders (SUD) community outpatient treatment counselors’ experiences treating clients with co-occurring medical conditions. Interviews from five SUD community outpatient treatment counselors resulted in four emerging super-ordinate themes. The findings illustrate the relationships between SUDs, medical conditions and other predisposing, enabling and need factors. In order to assist clients in focusing on therapy, counselors work to identify resources to treat the basic needs of the clients, including medical care. Challenges included limited resources, complex system processes, and client fear and apathy. In addition, various unique challenges related to medical conditions treated by potentially habit forming medications and traumatic brain injury were identified. Counselors discussed how their roles and responsibilities have expanded to include case management and additional responsibility for the overall well-being of the clients they serve. They encouraged SUD educators to include more education on counselor self-care, trauma, pain conditions and the assessment process. Implications from the study highlight the need for integrated behavioral and physical health care.

Since the early 1990s, religion and matters of faith and spirituality have become a focal point in numerous arenas beyond the individual and traditionally sacred. With President George W. Bush's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives of 2001, the Charitable Choice provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act that preceded it in 1996, and the myriad of legal challenges that followed, matters of religion have become paramount in political discourse regarding social welfare. The viability of faith-based social service provision and the organizations providing the direct services have been the focus of speculation, debate, and a growing amount of research. Few studies, however, have explored the role of faith-based advocacy or lobbying organizations in shifting the social welfare climate, in proposing or opposing policy changes in the social welfare system, or in defining social welfare. Little is empirically known about the organizational dynamics of religious advocacy groups whose attempts at structural influence are, in part, affected by theological positions and religiously-informed values.Considering the dearth of research on such organizations, particularly those that operate on the state level, this study explored faith-based advocacy organizations that seek to influence social policy in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Within an interpretive paradigmatic and theoretical framework that allowed for the exploration of meaning associated with advocacy activities, the inquiry asked the following questions, How do faith-based organizations engage in legislative advocacy in the Commonwealth of Virginia? What meaning do the organizations assign to their advocacy activities? The inquiry's findings, congruent with interpretive research assumptions, are tentative in nature and suggest that while the focal organizations' advocacy activities appear similar to other interest groups, their religious mandates for action distinguish them from their secular counterparts. Interpretations of these mandates significantly influence the organizations' decision-making, their representation of multiple constituencies, and their definitions of success. Unlike previous studies that suggest these organizations distance themselves from insider politics, the religious advocates in the study suggest that fidelity to their mandate means actively participating in the political process while retaining their unique voice as representatives of God and religious traditions.

The study deals with the problem of applicability of two anthropological theories, structural functionalism and interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. By applicability is meant what concrete difference using of one or the other theory brings about in ethnography. Each of the theories is at first thoroughly examined with emphasis on its possible aims, assumptions, and consequences for an ethnographer. Then each theory is put to test in examination of one particular ethnography associated with the theory. Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer serves as an instance of structural functionalism. Clifford Geertz's Negara as an example of interpretative analysis. Structural functionalism is shown to provide an ethnographer with a much more definite guidance which contributes to better possibilities of verification and comparability of the results than interpretive anthropology. Apart from the main subject, the study is concerned with more general questions, especially related to non-existence of a paradigm in anthropology and some of its causes.

Agile project management emphasizes flexibility and adapting to change. Embracing change often means that specified requirements get changed, removed or replaced under the course of a software project. Another consequence of the nature of agile projects is that everything that does not directly contribute to the working software gets dropped from the product lifecycle. Traceability – the ability to trace requirements back to their origins and forward to design artifacts, code, and testcases – is one such thing that may be overlooked. At the same time, traceability may be crucial to making sure that the delivered product meets the product goals. This thesis investigates the concept of decision traceability – the ability to trace decisions that relate to the evolution of a software product, as well as the fulfillment of product goals. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the importance of decision traceability in relation to product goals and changing requirements in agile software projects. For this purpose, two research questions were developed. (1) What are the challenges of achieving decision traceability in agile projects? And (2) What are important aspects of achieving decision traceability in agile projects? An interpretive qualitative case study was conducted at an IT-consultancy firm. In the case study, two of the organization’s in-house projects were observed, and six informants were interviewed. In answer to the research questions, seven challenges and six important aspects of achieving decision traceability were identified. A conclusion that can be made from the findings is that other aspects than just well-defined processes– such as team engagement, value perception, and communication – may be essential to achieving decision traceability in agile software projects.

Proposant une approche méthodologique fondée sur la sémiologie des indices et la sémiotique narrative, notre travail doctoral sous convention CIFRE pour EDF R&D s’attache à comprendre le fonctionnement structural et narratif des représentations du changement climatique dans différentes sphères sociales en France. Partant du caractère scientifique de l’Objet de recherche, l’étude s’intéresse aux discours forgés par les climatologues, la presse de vulgarisation scientifique, trois titres de la presse quotidienne nationale et les discours profanes au travers d’entretiens collectifs, selon une temporalité commune, de novembre 2009 à mars 2010. La « Une » des quotidiens et des magazines de vulgarisation scientifique est alors considérée comme un marqueur social et historique fort, capable de construire les représentations relatives au changement climatique. Le corpus de presse d’information fonde les représentations tant du phénomène climatique que des événements médiatiques qui lui donnent une existence. Le recours à la sémiotique narrative permet une comparaison de corpus de natures différentes, afin de prendre la mesure de la circulation entre les différentes sphères sociales visitées. L’objectif étant une compréhension globale des représentations climatiques, permettant une réflexion sur les mythes dont nos sociétés se nourrissent pour se construire, et sur le possible ré-enchantement de ces mythes. / This doctoral research, conducted through a CIFRE agreement with EDF R&D, aims to understand the structural and narrative organization of climate change representations through four different social spheres in France. First considered as a scientific topic, climate change representations are analysed throughout climate scientists and profane discourses, but also throughout documents such as science popularization magazines and three French newspapers, which of the front pages are considered as a social and historical tracer, particularly during the period running from November 2009 to March 2010. Informative press corpus enables to construct representations of global warming and of the media events that participate to their media life. The use of narrative semiotic methodology allows a comparative study through the different corpuses, in order to spot out the hypothetical circulation of these representations. The eventual aim is a global understanding of climate representations, opening the way for a consideration of the different myths as a basement of our societies, willing to reinvent themselves through new social and cultural myths.