The present study explored advance year Master of Social Work (MSW) candidates and graduated social workers perceived preparedness to serve individuals with developmental disabilities (DD). There has been minimal of studies that have explored perceived preparedness in serving individuals with DD, more specifically in the field of social work. Due to the lack of research on the topic and the recent growth of the DD population, the present research was an exploratory project that utilized qualitative techniques. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews that analyzed advance year Master of Social Work candidates and graduated social workers perceived preparedness serving individuals who are developmentally disabled. The findings of this study suggested that Master of Social Work candidates and graduated social workers are not prepared to serve the DD population. Based on the qualitative analyses, four themes emerged about social workers serving the DD population. The implications of this study include the need for reevaluation of the Council on Social Work Education accreditation standards and ethical standards put forth by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).

This thesis aims to critically evaluate global intellectual property instruments with detailed analysis of the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Aspects of Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement) provisions in order to investigate the enforcement issues, confronted by the Developing Countries due to fragile legal infrastructure. These intellectual property laws are evolutionary and designed to protect and honour human intellectual creations since BC 400 which recognized them distinct from divine inspirations. Italian Renaissance witnessed the systematic recognition of human skill, craft, innovation and invention. Venetian Government institutionalized it by awarding patents and copyrights to skilled workers and publishers. Its primary purpose was to protect the trade and secondary was to foster intellectual creativity through reward and recognition. These rewards and recognitions, known as Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), developed with each new invention and creation. Industrial Revolution accelerated it and developed nations entered into international conventions to protect their nationals and their interests across the borders. In 1995, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement) accommodated all the previous (IPRs) instruments and its enforcement linked with global trade. It was a dilemma for developing nations who were desirous to participate in global trading system for their economic development but could not administer (IPRs) regimes on their land due to fragile and static infrastructure. All assistance from developed countries during the transitional period could not address the problems due to alien prescriptions, applied to counter problems in the developed World. Developing Nations need innovative, flexible and indigenous approach to administer the TRIPS Agreement. A case study of Pakistan judicial environment to address the TRIPS enforcement issue has been conducted. The methodological approach of this thesis is the interpretive paradigm of the qualitative research tradition. This interpretive paradigm or framework is applied through the two methodologies of hermeneutics and case study.

This study makes an important academic contribution by adding a new dimension to the existing scholarly literature on the acculturative processes of immigrants through its findings from an investigation into ethnic minority migrant Chinese Chinese’s acculturation experiences in relation to workplace interpersonal conflict in New Zealand. The literature reviewed illustrates the complexities of the acculturation process for immigrants and is of prime importance and relevance to this study. The literature provides an informed academic foundation that aligns with the subject matter under study. The focus of this study is on the acculturation process experienced by ethnic minority migrant Chinese in New Zealand as they strive to adapt to various aspects of their new surroundings. The study inquires into whether the length of acculturation has an influence on ethnic minority migrant Chinese’s handling of workplace interpersonal conflict in the New Zealand. The researcher’s interest in conducting this study arises from her own personal acculturation and workplace interpersonal conflict experiences as an ethnic minority migrant Chinese. A phenomenological interpretive research methodology was adopted for this study. One-on-one indepth interviews of 25 ethnic minority migrant Chinese from China (Mainland), Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam provided primary data on the individual migrant’s experience and perspective on acculturation and workplace interpersonal conflict in New Zealand. The findings from the 25 ethnic minority migrant Chinese interviewed reveal the complexities and difficulties in the acculturation process, as they attempt to adapt to various aspects of their new environment. The adaptive strategies used almost certainly mean that the immigrants will have to make changes in their thinking, attitude, speech, and social conduct. There is a particular emphasis on the study of intercultural dynamics at play in the face of workplace interpersonal conflict between immigrants and members of the host society. The acculturation process is made more difficult for migrants who have negative workplace encounters in their intercultural interactions resulting in misunderstandings and conflict. The findings also reveal the migrants’ response mechanisms, particularly in learning to be more assertive. This study found that the cultural orientations of the ethnic migrant Chinese are such that for many, this concept (assertiveness) has to be learned since it runs counter to their educational, cultural tradition, and familial upbringing. The principles of Confucianism are deeply rooted, such as respect for authority and an emphasis on ‘giving-face’ to others and preserving social harmony. From this study’s findings, there is empirical evidence that Confucian principles are deeply entrenched in the ethnic minority migrant Chinese’ psyche irrespective of which country of origin they come from. In addition, the findings show that the acculturation experiences are unique to the individual migrant, depending on the person’s previous exposure to a foreign environment, language proficiency and personality. This study shows that the acculturation process experienced by these migrants was a period of personal growth and development, acquiring self-confidence, self-rationalisation, changes, and adjustments. Also, the findings reveal that while the length of residence in the host country is a significant factor for these migrants, other factors are significant as well, such as acquiring a certain level of language proficiency and increasing self-confidence.

The ability to implement strategies successfully is important to any organisation. Despite the importance of the implementation process within strategic management, this is an area of study often overshadowed by a focus on the strategy formulation process. This thesis concentrates on the strategy implementation process, investigating barriers to strategy implementation. A research framework called the Organisational Minefield was developed to represent the importance of the implementation process to organisations. In contrary to most studies available in strategic management, this research included participants from all levels of the organisation.To identify barriers to strategy implementation, a case study of Air New Zealand was conducted. This involved focussed interviews with 28 participants from the Network and Revenue Management Department of Air New Zealand. Other sources of data such as research articles and secondary company data sources were also used.The findings revealed that: participants from different levels of the organisation have unique perceptions of the implementation process; implementation variables could become roadblocks that undermine the implementation process; these barriers can be overcome if managers are perceptive to the organisation's current situation; and the Organisational Minefield framework presented verified the significance of the role of barriers in the implementation process. The findings add two additional barriers to implementation, namely leadership and power. It was also discovered that the participants acknowledged that these two barriers will impede or enhance the success of Air New Zealand. This was backed by the level of commitment and loyalty shown by the participants, which brought Air New Zealand one step closer to unravelling the mysteries of the implementation process.

This thesis is an examination of the prominent discourse which claims young people are apathetic and disengaged from politics. It is argued that this discourse is based upon two faulty conceptual assumptions, firstly, that youth is a period of linear transition to adulthood, and secondly, that the discourse unreflexively applies an unproblematised notion of politics which has its origin in the eighteenth century Scottish Enlightenment. The research used in-depth qualitative interviews to explore the ways in which young people operating across the political spectrum understand and practice politics. These qualitative findings add to existing studies of young people and politics, which are predominantly quantitative in approach. The findings suggest that the Scottish Enlightenment’s narrow, regulatory, liberal model of politics is the hegemonic model of politics for participants. However, this hegemony is challenged by participants’ own ‘political’ practices, the collapse of liberalism’s public/private divide under conditions of late modernity, and an interconnected sense of self. Moreover, contrary to the discourse of apathetic and disengaged youth, that there are a number of ways of understanding and practicing politics, particularly in light of social processes – such as individualisation, new social movements, and consumerism – driving recent social change.

Doctor of Philosophy / This study addresses the situation of adults who become deafblind. To date, their everday lives have received little attention in the research literature. Of the few studies conducted many involve surveys, the findings of which present the characteristics of people who are deafblind such as their rates of employment, need for support, or use of equipment. There are also a small number of qualitative studies that have explored the effects of having dual sensory impairment, and particularly in relation to communication and psycho-social wellbeing. Important as these research efforts have been, there is little empirical information available about the everyday lives of people who become deafblind and their concerns, nor any systematic attempt to theorise their experiences. There are however many personal anecdotes typically presented at conferences or through community publications and newsletters. This project aimed to redress the gap in the literature by developing a theoretical framework to explain the everyday experiences of adult who become deafblind. In doing so, it built upon the research and anecdotal literature with an overall purpose of presenting, through rigorous research, the experiences of adults who become deafblind and to do so within the broader discourse on disability and disablism. The study was informed by the social relational understanding of disability developed within the Nordic countries. Grounded theory was the method of choice to examine the lives of adults who become deafblind from their own perspective.Participant observation was employed through direct engagement in shared experiences with adults who have become deafblind both at a social group and via an e-mail list group. Mulitple in-depth interviews were undertaken both face to face and by e-mail with a smaller group of eight participants.The core finding from this study is that people who become deafblind are rendered interactionally powerless in a society predicated on seeing and hearing. The powerlessness that they experience comes from having this dual impairment in a world in which being able to see and hear are expected both in the physical and social environment. The inability of people who become deafblind to 'know and be' in the world in the same way as others results in them feeling, and experienceing, interactional powerlessness. In response, people who become deafblind actively engage in trying to minimise or remove their powerlessness. They do so by working to negotiate a place in this hostile world. They adopt four interrelated strategies, namely, doing things differently, managing support relationships, survivings others' perceptions and presenting sides of self.This study, with its central tenet that interactional powerlessness drives ongoing attempts to negotiate a place makes a theoretical contribution to understanding the experience of becoming deafblind. The findings support the concept of disbaility as social relational. Disability is not the same as the sensory impairment, rather it is expressed in the organisation of personal relations in society which render some more powerful than others and in this case, some less powerful due to their inability to use the natural means of communication of hearing and sight. Moreover, the study findings propose that professionals working with people with this dual sensory impairment must endeavour to reduce their part in the hostile world by providing information about options and support available; recognising the complexity of these adults support requirements; and considering the link between psycho-emotional issues and disablism. Further research is needed to understand empirically and theoretically the relative contribution of personal relationships vis a vis organisational or structural relationships in disabling people who become deafblind.

This thesis examines contemporary human resource management (HRM) in the hotel industry in Taiwan. The hotel industry and the effective management of its human resources are of great economic significance for Taiwan, given the government's plans for doubling the number of international arrivals between 2002 and 2008 (Tourism Bureau 2005b). Yet previous research on this topic is scarce, consisting of only four studies, three of them unpublished Master's theses. Access to two of the studies is limited and all four studies have adopted a 'single issue' perspective in their investigation. This study has attempted a broader perspective, inviting exploration in an open-ended way of a range of contemporary issues and concerns. It also offers a literature review intended as a significant contribution in its own right, in its attempt to locate research helpful to the Taiwanese hotel industry. The specific aims of this study were to explore the way managers in the hotel industry are thinking about what they identify as concerns, the HRM issues and practices they perceive as important in employee management, and the future plans they have for HRM. The data were gathered from the manager which each hotel identified as being best placed to discuss these issues. Findings from this study are presented with interpretation and commentary offered to compare the themes raised in this study with those identified in the literature. Given the high proportion of quantitative studies in hospitality industry research across the world (Lucas and Deery 2004), a qualitative method is utilised in this research and in-depth interviews were chosen as the main vehicle for data collection. The characteristics of such qualitative research are exploratory and descriptive, creating a data set that is not possible to obtain through written questionnaires and surveys. Twenty-eight hotels were approached and fourteen hotels participated in this research, representing a 50 per cent response rate. The results suggest that most participating hotels are focused on dealing with the day-to-day operational challenges of shortages of appropriately skilled staff, seasonal variations in workforce demand and employee turnover. While they perceive these issues as significant and challenging, they were mostly inclined to view these as 'facts of life' in the industry, and were relatively limited in their thinking about more fundamental and strategic solutions for dealing with them. However, some hotels are developing more innovative approaches to effectively engaging with these challenges, such as participating in joint-training programs with other hotels; developing long-term relationships with internship students; increasing employee empowerment and using the Balanced Scorecard (Nair 2004; Niven 2006) in performance management. This study explores some ways in which these practical initiatives could be taken further. It also takes up a key theme which emerged from the interviews, namely the vital importance of developing sound customer service cultures and practices. Some practical ideas are explored to assist in this respect. On the bases of these findings, this study also concludes that human resource managers have a valuable role to play in the executive management teams of hotels. This role needs to be further developed and encouraged. The current and emerging challenges facing the industry demand an approach to HRM which is far more strategic than the traditional focus of personnel administration; instead, HRM has a key role to play in creating and sustaining competitive advantage in organisations.

hesis (M.Sc. (Nutrition))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-243).

Traditional psychotherapy with transgender clients has focused on helping gender dysphoric individuals assume an "opposite" gender role. However, recently, there have been calls for trans-positive therapy focusing on the exploration and affirmation of alternative gender identifications. The majority of the research on transgender identity has been conducted with male-to-female (MTF) identified, or transfeminine, individuals. Comparatively little attention has been given to the experience of female-to-male (FTM) identified, or transmasculine, individuals. The primary goal of this study was to explore constructs and identify underlying themes that transmasculine people use in constructing their gender identities in order to develop a structural model of transmasculine identity. Broadly speaking, results showed that transmasculine identity may be conceptualized on a continuum from an essentialist binary perspective to a constructivist non-binary perspective. This is reflected in the language the individual uses to self-identify - including identity labels, proper names and pronouns. Individuals define, experience, and embody transmasculine identities differently depending on a number of inter-related constructs including: (1) current stage of identity development and past transmasculine identity development events, (2) conceptions of masculinity and femininity, (3) context, and (4) sexuality. Further, if one of these constructs shifts it usually influences the others. Implications for theory, practice, and future research directions are discussed.