The purpose of this study is to highlight the maritime students' views on and visions for their future career. The results will be used by maritime academies, ship owners and unions to develop their activities in the desired direction and work together for a well-functioning labour market in shipping in the future. To determine the students’ views and visions, interviews were conducted with graduating students at the maritime academies in Sweden. The results show that the reduced Swedish merchant fleet worries students, but that the majority is positive about finding a job after graduation. The students intend to work at sea for at least 8 - 10 years and the salary is not considered to be the most important factor when selecting a workplace, many other factors affect. Today the offshore, tank and Ro-Ro/Ro-Pax market are the most attractive segments and the students feel themselves qualified for the job, but they still believe there are parts of the education that should be developed. Based on the results, recommendations are presented to the maritime academies, ship owners and unions to develop their respective business. Recommendations to officers are also presented.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how female probation officers construct the concept of women who commit crime. This have been done by examining how the probation officers describe the phenomenon from their own point of view, how they perceive society's view of the phenomenon, how they describe the women's self-images and how their own perceptions affect the treatment of these women. To fulfill this aim the study is based on qualitative interviews with five female probation officers. We analyzed their statements by using Gender theory, Goffmans stigma term and Beckers deviant term. The result of this study shows that women who commit crime are described more as victims than offenders and that they are constructed as deviant in two ways; both in relation to the law but also in relation to their gender. The female probation officers construct the women as carriers of feelings of guilt and shame and that they have issues with their own identities. It also shows that the female probation officers believe in treating male and female clients the same way, although the result of this study shows that they probably don’t.

The majority of mentoring research has explored mentoring from the vantage point of protégé perceptions, reactions, experiences, and development (Wanberg et al. 2003; Kram, 1988). Participants in mentoring studies have commonly been employees, college students, or mid-level managers. Little is known regarding the impact of mentoring roles in relation to top executives who are, over the span of their careers, likely to participate in developmental relationships as both mentor and protégé. In fact, accessing people who are active CEOs has been extremely problematic for a majority of interested researchers (Thomas, 1995). Limited research on mentoring and especially that on CEOs is used to inform the current Human Resource Development (HRD) scholarship and practice. The current study will inform HRD and provide insight into how mentoring relationships can be used to develop individuals in organizations. Key findings from this study were reported from a qualitative study (Moustakas, 1994) involving twelve CEOs of large for-profit US corporations who detailed their experiences as both mentors and protégés. Emerging themes from the larger study overlap, in part, with key mentoring functions as identified by Kram (1988). In addition to reinforcing and informing the work of Kram (1988), key CEOs provided insight regarding their experiences in long-term (several years or more) mentoring relationships. The combined themes resulted in a framework demonstrating the development of mentoring relationships. In addition to a general discussion of a mentoring framework, I focused the study primarily on CEO perceptions regarding the impact of their mentoring related experiences on 1) how their mentors have impacted their development; 2) how they mentor others; and 3) the relational elements in mentoring relationships. Because a rarely assessed population was studied, scholars and practitioners in HRD will gain a unique understanding and greater insight into how mentoring relationships develop professionals, particularly CEOs.

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in contemporary enterprises should not only possess technology specialties, but also cultivate themselves with an in-depth understanding of business and technology management skills/knowledge in order to effectively improve their role performance, enhance sustainable competitive advantages and achieve business strategic goals. Based upon activity competency model and prior theoretical works, this study presents a conceptual model to investigate the capability of business technology management (BTM) required by CIOs and the impacts of that capability on the performance of their roles. Our strategy for identifying CIOs¡¦ critical roles and activities, and the skills/knowledge required by CIOs is anchored within a comprehensive framework of business technology management (BTM) practices. A scale to measure CIOs¡¦ role performance and BTM capability was first developed and validated. Nine hundred and sixty eight high-tech companies of Taiwan and China which have a formal MIS department and global logistic firms were randomly selected from the databases of China Credit Information Service Ltd. and Strait Exchange Foundation as representative samples in this study. The partial least squares method was used to empirically test the conceptual model and hypotheses through the large-scale survey data collected. The empirical results support the proposed hierarchy of BTM capability and confirm that both business technology and business management competencies have positive significant influences on BTM activity effectiveness and BTM capability also significantly impacts CIOs¡¦ role performance. The findings of this study are of particular value to those concerned with BTM capability training and competency development for CIOs. Executive management can take advantage of such BTM capability profiles to assist in making succession-planning decisions and implementing guidelines by evaluating the competency levels and development needs of their IS professionals.

<p>This thesis aims at describing the CIO role from the perspective of two interviews and the literature on the subject. Our research questions mainly focus on the actual work of a CIO and are answered by providing a framework on how to view the CIO and the influence of the CIO. Influence meaning both on business and IT strategy. We have answered what the CIO role implies and how it is used in different organizations. To do this we have scanned current literature and also conducted two interviews with CIO’s from completely different organizations and resources. A framework for understanding how the IT strategy and business strategy is linked with the CIO as a resource has been created and our interview findings are presented in this framework. We have also found that the CIO with little involvement in overall business strategy decisions has less influence on the IT strategy. This is ex-plained by the nature of the organization and the view of IT.</p><p>A CIO’s primary function could be to strategically align IT with business or to make sure that the IT systems runs flawless. These can be viewed as counterpoints but since the role today is changing from being operative to working more with strategic questions it is not a strange finding. The influence a CIO has in business strategy questions ranges from none to a lot, based on how the CIO role is defined by the organization. This is also well in line with the view of IT. When viewing IT as something that has the possibility to gain competitive advantage, IT gain more credibility, hence the CIO gains more influence on business strategy decisions. We also found that the CIO not only has the overall responsibility of IT in the organization, but also that s/he is supposed to work with questions of concern to the business. This forces the CIO to have an understanding of the end-customer, which in itself creates a better understanding for the business strategy. The CIO should work with questions that not only meet the current demand of the organization they support, but also future needs and potential opportunities where IT can be of specific interest.</p>

<p>The purpose of this study was to understand what the professionals experiences are of stressed youth. We did a qualitative study with interviewing three school nurses, one welfare officer and two recreation leaders. Research is saying that stress is increasing among the youth and that girls are more stressed than boys. It also says that medium is a big consequent for that (ex. Brun M. Sundblad, 2006). In our study we found out that the professionals thought the same thing and they meant that Internet and mobile telephones was the biggest problem for being stressed. We analysed the results with the help of Giddens (2007), Frank (2009) and Marmot (2006) theories. Giddens (2007) is saying that our society is changing and that we are becoming more self-centred individuals. He also says that our society is moving very fast and that the communications and information is spreading fast all over our world. Frank (2009) means that people are always comparing them self’s with people around them. It is the rich groups that are increasing the consumption in our society, not medium. Marmot (2006) is saying that people’s health has a big deal to do with if you are living among the same kind of people, with the same amount of  material welfare or not. If you have a lot of money and lives on a street with the same kind of people, you’re health will be better, then if it would be big differences among you. These aspects was something that we found out during our study, which the professionals did not mention, they blamed the medium for allot of the stress.</p>

Faculty development is a means by which institutions can assist faculty in addressing the challenges they face each day in the classroom. Certainly the importance of faculty development is never more evident than within community colleges where access is provided to all students through an open-door admission policy which often produces a more diverse student body creating numerous institutional challenges. Overtime, on many campuses, faculty development practices have come to play a prominent role in attending to these challenges. This study: (a) examined faculty development practices offered in the last three years by Floridas 22 public community colleges and determined if the total number of different practices offered as well as the different types of practices were related to institutional size as measured by the number of full-time faculty (b) assessed and compared the relative perceived value of these practices as viewed by full-time faculty, faculty development practitioners, and academic administrators in these institutions, and (c) assessed and compared the relative perceived value of faculty development practices as viewed by full-time faculty within six different discipline areas. An original web-based questionnaire was used to gather data from the chief academic officers, faculty development practitioners, and full-time faculty at Floridas 22 public community colleges. Chief Academic Officers of 18 of the institutions reported that all 42 faculty development practices included in the survey were offered by at least one institution in the last three years. Results also revealed clearly that on all campuses, many full-time faculty were unaware that these practices were offered. No significant relationship was found between the total number of practices offered and the number of full-time faculty employed by institution. A relationship was noted between institutional size and the cluster of faculty development practices labeled general teaching enhancement practices. The mean perceived value by each respondent group on 42 faculty development practices reported three of six clusters revealed significant differences between fulltime faculty and chief academic officers. The perceived value ratings of faculty across six different discipline groups were observed for each of the six clusters of faculty development practices. Implications for future research were identified.

June 22, 1918, Alonzo Sergent fell asleep while conducting a train that plowed into another train killing 86 passengers and injuring another 187. 17 days later, July 9, 1918, two passenger trains collided head on in what became known as The Great Train Wreck of 1918, killing 101 people and injuring 171 people. The investigations and analysis of failure in both accidents can be attributed to a single person. During this month, the single person failed to operate the company’s train properly, which lead to a colossal disaster which affected numerous lives, loss of business revenue, loss of credibility, and had a huge social impact. Similar to an analysis of a colossal train wreck, this report focuses on the complexities behind colossal business failures, analyzes the reasons for failure and the role of the CEO, and proposes recommendations that can be used to guard future businesses against colossal failure. / text

Traditionally, research investigating marketing's role and influence within the firm has focused on the marketing department and its ability to affect future firm strategies. Consequently, little is known about the antecedents of a Chief Marketing Officer's (CMO) role or influence. Yet the position of CMO is quite unique. Unlike other executive officers (e.g., CFOs), no reliable external validation or accreditation is generally recognized, required, or mandated. Similarly, firms are increasingly calling for their CMOs to justify their own existence, and many are even considering abandonment of the position entirely.The goal of this investigation is to understand how CMOs can generate influence within their respective firms given a lack of reliable external credentials. However, the current business press seems to suggest that there currently exists a great bias towards marketing in general and CMOs in particular. As a result, the current investigation uses a competing models approach to study CMO influence. Drawing upon the literature pertaining to competition, the author suggests that individuals, like firms, can generate their own competitive advantage by possessing unique bundles of resources (e.g., information). This is the common element in both models. As the uniqueness of the information provided by the CMO increases, other executive officers within the firm are more likely to confer expertise power to the CMO, which in turn leads to greater influence. The two models diverge as organizational legitimacy is introduced. In one model, the Socially Contingent model, the CMO can only garner expertise power to the extent that s/he possesses organizational legitimacy. In such a case, CMOs that lack organizational legitimacy will be unable to realize any gains in expertise power regardless of the uniqueness of their informational resources (i.e., organizational legitimacy moderates the relationship between the uniqueness of the information provided and expertise power). In the second model, the Merit-Based model, organizational legitimacy mediates the relationship between a CMO's expertise power and his/her influence. As a CMO's perceived expertise increases, other executive officers are more likely to support the CMO's initiatives, which in turn lead to greater influence during strategy design and implementation.

Postmodernusis XXI amžius yra lydimas visuomenės transformacijų, apimančių naujas socialines, ekonomines, politines ir kt. konfliktines situacijas ir grėsmes, besikėsinančias į kiekvienos valstybės (visuomenės, atskiro individo) saugumą ir stabilumą. Nacionalinio saugumo objektai bei subjektai yra tarpusavyje susiję, o jų pažeidžiamumas stabdo darnią ir visapusišką šalies raidą. Todėl nacionalinio saugumo klausimai ir problemos turi būti traktuojamos ir sprendžiamos holistiškai. Šalies ginkluotosios pajėgos, kurių branduolį sudaro Lietuvos kariuomenė, yra integrali visuomenės dalis, atspindinti visai visuomenei būdingas nuostatas ir vertybes. Profesionalių, visapusiškai išsilavinusių, motyvuotų, turinčių tvirtas pilietines ir patriotines nuostatas karininkų ugdymas yra efektyvus bei veiksmingas nacionalinio saugumo užtikrinimo būdas, nes kovos dėl ekonominių, politinių, teritorinių ir kitų įtakos sferų buvo, yra ir bus nuolatiniai kiekvienos visuomenės palydovai. Nauji postmodernios visuomenės bruožai: nuolatinės transformacijos, globalizacija, informacinių technologijų sklaida ir modernizacija, viršnacionalinių struktūrų įsitvirtinimas formuoja naujus tiek visuomeninio, tiek karinio ugdymo tikslus, formas ir funkcijas, sąlygoja naujus reikalavimus šiuolaikiniam kariui, pvz., tokius kaip identifikacija ne su tautos, valstybės, bet žmonijos gynėjo vaidmeniu. Todėl karininkų ugdymas Lietuvos karo akademijoje yra kompleksinis ir sisteminis procesas – karinių, universitetinių... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Postmodern XXI century is conducted by social transformations, involved new social, economical, political and etc. Conflict situations and threats, invading each state (society‘s, separate person) safeness and stability. Objects of national security are interdependent, and their vulnerability brakes harmoniously and versatile national development. Therefore questions and problems about national safeness must be treated and solved holistically. State’s armament, which nucleus is Lithuanian armed forces, is integral unit of society, reflective whole community typical attitudes and valuables. The education of professional, comprehensively educated, motivated, having strict public and patriotic attitudes. Postmodern century involves permanent transformations, globalization, modernization, transnationalisation, new social and military education tasks, shapes and functions and determines new requirements for modern soldier. This new educational tasks have changed the identity of soldier, i.e. his role and identification with the defender of the people became more obvious. Therefore education of officers in Military Academy of Lithuania is complex and systematic process – military, academical studies and commander – leader training adjustment to train professional, social and human value and expertise. The testing of cadets’ consciousness has been provided in General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. The tasks of this testing were to determine the cadets’... [to full text]