This thesis examines leaders‘ behaviours differential effects on the work/home balance of their followers through a leader/follower fit perspective. The study explores perceived effects of leader‘s actions on followers‘ work/home balance in a Lebanese context. At the individual/dyad level, this research attempts to integrate these two areas of study. It aims to better understand, Lebanese employees‘ perspectives on the Lebanese leaders‘ practice of leadership in the banking industry and the perceived effect of this practice on the followers‘ work and home boundary management. Based on the adoption of a qualitative exploratory approach, the author conducts thirty semi-structured interviews with five leaders and twenty-five followers in different regions and divisions of the XYZ bank. The dissertation makes several theoretical and empirical contributions. First, boundary theory is empirically extended through the identification of one of the antecedents, i.e., polychronicity, of an individual‘s work/home segmentation/integration preference. Second, boundary theory is developed through the exploration of the Lebanese leaders‘ actions‘ impact on the followers‘ management of their work/home boundaries. Third, the literature on fit between the leader and the follower along different dimensions of interest to them is extended and developed. Fourth, the literature on the Middle East and in Lebanon on specific is enhanced. The implications of the Lebanese context, subject of this study, on the leadership and work/home literature are meaningful. In addition to these contributions, this study helps to surface ―actionable knowledge‖ on how to facilitate an employee‘s struggle to reach a harmony between his work and home life. This search for balance is increasingly sought nowadays as a result of the increase in work-related pressures especially for dual-earners.

Current literature regarding quality health services frequently identifies interprofessional collaboration (IPC) as essential to patient-centred care, sustainable health systems, and a productive workforce. The IPC literature tends to focus on interprofessionalism and collaboration and pays little attention to the concept of practice, which is thought to be a represented world of objects and processes that have pre-given characteristics practitioners can know cognitively and apply or manage correctly. Many strategies intended to support IPC simplify and codify the complex, contested, and unpredictable day-to-day interactions among interdependent agents that I argue constitute the practices of a community. These strategies are based in systems thinking, which understand the system as distinct from experience and subject to rational, linear logic. In this thinking, a leader can step outside of the system to develop an ideal plan, which is then implemented to unfold the predetermined ideal future. However, changes in health services and healthcare practices are often difficult to enact and sustain.This thesis problematises the concept of ‘practice’, and claims practices as thoroughly social and emergent phenomenon constituted by interdependent and iterative processes of representation (policies and practice guidelines), signification (sense making through negotiation and reflective and reflexive practices), and improvisation (acting into the circumstances that present at the point and in the moments of care). I argue that local and population-wide patterns are negotiated and iteratively co-expressed through relations of power, values, and identity. Moreover, practice (including the practice of leadership or consulting) is inherently concerned with ethics, which I also formulate as both normative and social/relational in nature. I argue that theory and practice are not separate but paradoxical phenomena that remain in generative tension, which in healthcare is often felt as tension between what we should do (best practice) and what we actually do (best possible practice in the contingent circumstances we find ourselves in). I articulate the implications this has for how knowledge and knowing are understood, how organisations change, and how the role of an internal practice consultant is understood. An important implication is that practice-based evidence and evidence-based practice are iterative and coexpressed(not sequential), and while practice is primordial, it is not privileged over theory.I propose that a practice consultant could usefully become a temporary participant in the practices of a particular community. Through a position of ‘involved detachment’, a consultant can more easily notice and articulate the practices of a community that for participants are most often implicit and taken for granted. Reflective and reflexive consideration of what is taken for granted may change conversations and thus be transformative.

This study used Activity Theory (AT) as a lens to explore how administrative and academic activity systems worked in a university, in schools and in the university-school partnership to support Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Saudi Arabia. It examined the perspectives of partnership coordinators, university tutors, head teachers, cooperating teachers and student teachers involved in the ITE partnership programme at Umm Alqura University. The study was conducted under the umbrella of the interpretive paradigm. Case study was used as the methodology of the study. The study employed multiple methods of data collection: questionnaire, interviews and documentary evidence. Maximum variation sampling was used to select the participants to take part in the current study. The total number of the whole sample with all sub-groups was 187. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with volunteer interviewees. The study yielded various findings. Participants’ expectations were influenced by their history and background. In addition, student teachers were supported in learning about teaching in the university, school and through the partnership between school and university. However, different kinds of challenges were identified. These included: extreme centralisation in running the partnership activity system, lack of awareness of the importance of the partnership and of the need to address contradictory points of view about teaching and learning to teach in a constructive way. These challenges were symptoms of unresolved contradictions inherent in the partnership activity system. Despite these contradictions, many opportunities for professional development were highlighted by all partners. Using AT as an analytical tool, several implications for all partners were identified. The study concluded with the idea that for effective teacher education, not only is it important to understand the interaction between university and school but also how, within each, administrative and academic activity sub-systems operate and interact. This is because clear understanding of all aspects of the academic and administrative elements of the partnership, and of their relationship, is essential for a successful teacher education.

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.

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.

The aim of this research is to explore the question of how farmers learn, in constructing knowledge both in and for practice. It seeks to identify how they gain new ideas, make changes, develop to a level of expertise and who and what contribute to this process. The rapidity of change in a high tech environment, combined with globalisation, the new economy and the knowledge age, means that farmers are living their lives in 'fast forward' mode. There is so much new technology, research and development available that the ability to identify information relevant to a particular farming practice and to process it to knowledge is an increasing challenge. Six central South Island (N.Z.) farmers were selected purposively as case studies. The range of case profiles provides for comparison and contrast of the relative importance of formal qualifications, differences between sheep/beef farmers and dairy farmers, levels of expertise, age and experiences. The self-rating of the farmers enables a comparison of lower and higher performers, identifying characteristics which enable insight into why some farmers consistently lead new practice and why others are reluctant followers. The research is qualitative in design and approached from a constructlVIst and interpretive paradigm. Socially and experientially based, it seeks to understand the experiences of the subjects through in-depth interviews and observations. This study identifies farmers as social learners although working independently, in relative geographical isolation and often, social isolation. It concludes that these farmers learn through participation in the practice of farming. This practice includes a constellation of cOmInunities of practice, which may be resource-rich or resource-poor, depending on the range and depth of the farmer's involvement. Through full and committed participation in these practice communities and associate constellations, the practitioner's identity evolves, encouraging new practices, ideas and innovation. This study emphasises that expertise is not a permanent state but requires evolving identity, knowledge and dispositional ability; for maintenance and growth within a culture of practice. Emergent grounded theory suggests that dispositional knowledge underpins construction and use of all knowledge; that construction and use of high-order propositional and procedural knowledge requires higher-order dispositional knowledge and that mastery is developed through evolving identity, dispositions, leadership and learning, socioculturally constructed through resource-rich constellations of communities of practice.

Nurse education is continually adapting to meet the requirements of employers to develop increasingly autonomous practitioners who can provide evidence-based, high quality care. The work-based project examines the support available to mentors, known as practice teachers, in their role as assessors of nursing students in higher level practice. A qualitative study: the project employs a grounded theory approach to the analysis of data elicited from practice teachers and academics. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups alongside regular reviews of the literature are utilised to elicit data, and via an inductive process, categories emerging from the analysis are constructed to present new insights and understanding of the subject under scrutiny. Whilst it is clear that a degree of support is available to practice teachers in response to a rudimentary understanding of their role in higher level practice, it is also clear that this support is limited by a number of factors. The product of practice assessment for the employer is a newly-qualified practitioner who is able to carry out a role based on a specified set of competencies. For the educator, whether within the higher education institution or in practice, the process of education is ongoing; producing a practitioner with the capability to utilise higher level practice in ever-changing contexts and situations. Support for the practice teacher can only be enhanced if recognition of the role is promoted. This requires a shared understanding of the importance of developing both competence and capability for higher level practice. Only then will the vital contribution made by the practice teacher in the student’s development be understood by those supporting them. Converging rather than competing philosophies of training for competence and educating for capability are necessary to maintain the status and commitment of the practice teacher and consequently the rigour required of assessment in practice.

This thesis confronts Penelope Maddy's Second Philosophical study of set theory with a philosophical analysis of a part of contemporary set-theoretic practice in order to argue for three features we should demand of our philosophical programmes to study mathematics. In chapter 1, I argue that the identification of such features is a pressing philosophical issue. Chapter 2 presents those parts of the discursive reality the set theorists are currently in which are relevant to my philosophical investigation of set-theoretic practice. In chapter 3, I present Maddy's Second Philosophical programme and her analysis of set-theoretic practice. In chapters 4 and 5, I philosophically investigate contemporary set-theoretic practice. I show that some set theorists are having a debate about the metaphysical status of their discipline{ the pluralism/non-pluralism debate{ and argue that the metaphysical views of some set theorists stand in a reciprocal relationship with the way they practice set theory. As I will show in chapter 6, these two stories are disharmonious with Maddy's Second Philosophical account of set theory. I will use this disharmony to argue for three features that our philosophical programmes to study mathematics should have: they should provide an anthropology of mathematical goals; they should account for the fact that mathematical practices can be metaphysically laden; they should provide us with the means to study contemporary mathematical practices.

In this paper we present C. S. Peirce's take on the difference between science and practice in order to identify the role practice plays in his view of the universe. This take is based on a number of notions about the general nature of signs, inquiries, inferences and arguments, which we discuss. We then survey Peirce's classification of science, show the factors it is based on and examine the mutual relations of the various fields of scientific study. This lets us finally posit practice in the realm of qualities and reactions and show the limits of scientific inquiry into certain matters. We illustrate our findings on a number of examples.

During the second half of the 20th century there has been both a burgeoning intellectual interest in business and management as a topic and an exponential growth in the formal study of business and management as an academic subject. Indeed by the end of the century it was estimated that worldwide there were 8,000 business schools and more than 13 million students of business and management. In addition, it was estimated that worldwide annual expenditure on university level business and management education had reached US $15 billion (The Global Foundation for Management Education, 2008). However, despite this there is a lack of clarity regarding both the scale and the nature of the influence that academic scholarship exerts over managers. Accordingly this research study has sought to investigate the appropriation of ideas, theories, concepts and models by management practitioners. The thesis has reviewed and evaluated the two most obvious, most established and most influential potential explanations. These were diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1962) and fashion theory (Abrahamson, 1991 & 1996; Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999). It has been concluded that whilst both these potential explanations provided important insights, neither was able to provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation for this research study. Accordingly, a much broader range of pertinent scholarship was reviewed and evaluated. This included, but is not limited to, the scholarship that is associated with learning by adults (Dewey, 1933; Bartlett, 1967; Schank & Abelson, 1976; Mezirow, 1977). Although this additional scholarship provided a further range of potential explanations, the extent to which any of these would be found within the particular setting of management practitioners remained unclear. In addition, the literature review highlighted a number of unresolved debates regarding issues such as (i) whether management was a science or an applied science; (ii) whether it was a craft or a profession; (iii) whether in reality there were fashionable trends in management practice or whether in fact such practices were remarkably stable; and (iv) whether management theoreticians, gurus and consultants actually exerted significant influence over management practitioners. The literature review also highlighted methodological concerns relating to the use of citation analysis as a proxy for primary information regarding managerial practice. Hence, this research is situated in a gap which is delineated by the unresolved issues that are associated with both diffusion theory and fashion theory; the applicability of the broader range of scholarship to a management setting; the unresolved debates within this field of interest and the need to obtain primary information relating to management practice, rather than being dependant upon citation analysis. The research study has utilised qualitative data and inductive reasoning to examine these matters and the overarching research philosophy has been that of realism (Ritchie & Lewis, 2003). Ultimately, 39 semi-structured, recorded interviews were undertaken using the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954). Collectively these interviews lasted for 35 hours and obtained information relating to 160 critical incidents. The verbatim transcripts of the interviews totalled 350,000 words. A case study analysis of this data was undertaken to examine the decision making of the interviewees in relation to some of their most challenging managerial situations. This analysis concluded that for the ‘generality’ of these interviewees; theory played little, or no, overt part in their decision making. The data was also subjected to a content analysis using a bespoke compendium of 450 ‘terms’ that represented the development of theorising about management over the whole of the 20th century. This analysis concluded that the influence of the 20th century’s management theoreticians over these interviewees was weak. Finally, the possibility that any such influence might be a covert, rather than an overt; phenomenon was examined using both the insights of intertextuality (Allen, 2000; Bazerman, 2004) and the framework analysis technique (Ritchie, Spencer & O’Connor, 2003). This analysis demonstrated that the discourse, dialogue and language of these interviewees could be indexed to four domains; (i) the theoretical; (ii) the conceptual; (iii) the tactical; and (iv) the practical. The intertextual indexing outcomes were corroborated both by substantial extracts from the verbatim interview transcripts and by three unrelated strands of scholarship. These were (i) adaptive memory systems (Schacter, 2001); (ii) the realities of management (Carlson, 1954; Stewart, 1983; Mintzberg, 1989) and (iii) the role of concepts and conceptual thinking in nursing (McFarlane, 1977; Gordon, 1998; Orem, 2001). On this basis it has been concluded that management can be characterised as a conceptual discipline; that in its essential nature management is at least as conceptual as it is either theoretical or practical; and that managers appropriate concepts and ideas, rather than theories and models per se.