This deductive-hypothetico research addressed a literature void on the research problem: Impact of Shifts in Strategic Othodoxy on International Enterprise Performance. This study hypothesised: H11: Strategic orientation correlates with superior international performance; H12: Global strategy contributes to superior performance internationally; and, H13: Skills in strategy execution lead to superiior performance internationally. Three hundred and nine variables in three hypotheses were tested with data collected from a 'small,' but highly relevant sample. Ninety-two variables were positively correlated while 217 were negative. Due to the large number of variables for each hypothesis, no hypothesis was fully supported or rejected. Eleven models for superior international performance have been scientifically developed from data analyses. Models are designed to aid robust international franchising stategy development by strategists at varying continuum of international expertise. Significant serendipitous findings include: nullification of conventional wisdom that the larger the sample size, the higher the reliability the research findings; lateral instead of dedicated strategies can be more effective, in this instance, marketing strategy had no positive correlation with dependent marketing variables but correlated positively with financial variables; and, cost of Australian international franchising operations was determined. A cross sectional research in 2007 will degrade with passage of time. Environmental dynamics will affect its relevance. This study concerns Australian international franchisors, hence generalizability outside this dimension may not be appropriate. Contribution of this research to knowledge is significant: outcomes filled a literature void in relation to the research problem; findings of positively correlated variables help franchising strategists develop strategies that achieve superior performance, whereas negatively correlated variables help avoid costly mistakes; and, the research refuted previous postulations that fundamentals of western management were flawed. Culminating from this research, a window of opportunities has been created for further research in various areas such as varying types or research; methodologies; sectoral and geographical variations; and changes in research scope and width.

This deductive-hypothetico research addressed a literature void on the research problem: Impact of Shifts in Strategic Othodoxy on International Enterprise Performance. This study hypothesised: H11: Strategic orientation correlates with superior international performance; H12: Global strategy contributes to superior performance internationally; and, H13: Skills in strategy execution lead to superiior performance internationally. Three hundred and nine variables in three hypotheses were tested with data collected from a 'small,' but highly relevant sample. Ninety-two variables were positively correlated while 217 were negative. Due to the large number of variables for each hypothesis, no hypothesis was fully supported or rejected. Eleven models for superior international performance have been scientifically developed from data analyses. Models are designed to aid robust international franchising stategy development by strategists at varying continuum of international expertise. Significant serendipitous findings include: nullification of conventional wisdom that the larger the sample size, the higher the reliability the research findings; lateral instead of dedicated strategies can be more effective, in this instance, marketing strategy had no positive correlation with dependent marketing variables but correlated positively with financial variables; and, cost of Australian international franchising operations was determined. A cross sectional research in 2007 will degrade with passage of time. Environmental dynamics will affect its relevance. This study concerns Australian international franchisors, hence generalizability outside this dimension may not be appropriate. Contribution of this research to knowledge is significant: outcomes filled a literature void in relation to the research problem; findings of positively correlated variables help franchising strategists develop strategies that achieve superior performance, whereas negatively correlated variables help avoid costly mistakes; and, the research refuted previous postulations that fundamentals of western management were flawed. Culminating from this research, a window of opportunities has been created for further research in various areas such as varying types or research; methodologies; sectoral and geographical variations; and changes in research scope and width.

This essay examines gender norms and how gender is understood in Deborah Feldman’s novel Unorthodox released 2012. Any connections made by the author between gender and religion are explored and Feldman’s exiting process from the Hasidic community is analyzed. This is done using a close reading and a qualitative content analysis of the novel. West and Zimmerman’s theory Doing gender has been used to provide an understanding of gender and to analyze the results of the content analysis. The results show that the predominant gender norms for men portrayed in this novel were that men have a superior position and are expected to exercise their power over women. They are also expected to be intellectual scholars of Jewish scripture and law. The predominant gender norms for women were that they should be modest, quiet, unassuming and are expected to obey and serve their men. Feldman’s exiting process happens in stages, where she questioned her Hasidic community more over time, and broke more rules as time went on. Her faith in god was effected in this process.  It becomes clear that the norms and rules she is expected to follow are products of people’s interpretations of religion and not a result of the religion itself.

Medicine has been called a science, as well as an art or a craft, among other terms that express aspects of its practical nature. Medicine is not the abstract pursuit of knowledge. Medical researchers and clinical practitioners aim primarily to help people. As a first approximation then, given its practical focus on the person, the most important question in medicine is: what works? To answer that question, however, we need to understand how we know what works. What are the standards, methods and limits of medical knowledge? That is the central focus and subject of this inquiry: how we know what works in medicine. To explore medical knowledge and its limits, this thesis examines the common notion that laughter is the best medicine. Focusing on laughter provides a robust case study of how we know what works in medicine; it also, in part, reveals the thin, perhaps even non-existent, distinction in medicine between empirically-grounded knowledge and intuition. As there is no single academic discipline devoted to laughter in medicine, the first chapter situates and charts the course of this unusual project and explains why inquiry into laughter in medicine matters. In the following chapters, we encounter claims from distinguished sources that laughter and humor are the best medicine. These claims are examined from a variety of perspectives including not only the orthodox view of evidence-based medicine, but also from narrative, evolutionary and complexity views of medicine. The rarely explored serious negative side of laughter is also examined. No view provides a firm foundation for belief in laughter medicine. A general conclusion from this inquiry is that none of the approaches effectively tame the complexity of medical phenomena; indeed each starkly reveals a greater complexity than found at first glance. A narrower conclusion is that providing a basis for claims about laughter in medicine poses its own specific challenges. A third conclusion is that, as things stand, none of the existing approaches seems up to the task of determining whether something such as laughter is the best medicine.

Medicine has been called a science, as well as an art or a craft, among other terms that express aspects of its practical nature. Medicine is not the abstract pursuit of knowledge. Medical researchers and clinical practitioners aim primarily to help people. As a first approximation then, given its practical focus on the person, the most important question in medicine is: what works? To answer that question, however, we need to understand how we know what works. What are the standards, methods and limits of medical knowledge? That is the central focus and subject of this inquiry: how we know what works in medicine. To explore medical knowledge and its limits, this thesis examines the common notion that laughter is the best medicine. Focusing on laughter provides a robust case study of how we know what works in medicine; it also, in part, reveals the thin, perhaps even non-existent, distinction in medicine between empirically-grounded knowledge and intuition. As there is no single academic discipline devoted to laughter in medicine, the first chapter situates and charts the course of this unusual project and explains why inquiry into laughter in medicine matters. In the following chapters, we encounter claims from distinguished sources that laughter and humor are the best medicine. These claims are examined from a variety of perspectives including not only the orthodox view of evidence-based medicine, but also from narrative, evolutionary and complexity views of medicine. The rarely explored serious negative side of laughter is also examined. No view provides a firm foundation for belief in laughter medicine. A general conclusion from this inquiry is that none of the approaches effectively tame the complexity of medical phenomena; indeed each starkly reveals a greater complexity than found at first glance. A narrower conclusion is that providing a basis for claims about laughter in medicine poses its own specific challenges. A third conclusion is that, as things stand, none of the existing approaches seems up to the task of determining whether something such as laughter is the best medicine.

The aim of this project is to provide useful data from published dictionaries, corpora, and instructional materials, as well as sample lessons, to promote the teaching of Unorthodox Oral Expressions (UOEs) to learners of English as a second/foreign language. In the first chapter, the author reviews relevant literature, explains what UOEs are, and discusses the importance of incorporating UOEs in EFL or ESL classrooms. In the second chapter, a linguistic categorization of UOEs is given. In the third chapter, the results are given of an examination of 10 different dictionaries. The purpose of this examination was to find which of 56 target UOEs are included in each dictionary and what kind of definitions are given for them. The results show that many common UOEs are not included in most, or any, dictionaries. For the UOEs that are included in most dictionaries, the definitions do not always agree, and factors such as intonation are not taken into account. Moreover, the explanations on how the UOEs can be used are not complete. In the fourth chapter, three English language corpora are examined to discover which of the target 56 UOEs are the most frequently used. The results show some differences in UOE frequency between the corpora that include both spoken and written English text and the spoken English corpora. In the fifth chapter, the teaching of UOEs in ESL textbooks is analyzed. The results show that most of these books do not teach UOEs explicitly. In chapter six, experimental instructional units are provided. Results of piloting these lessons at Brigham Young University's English Language Center are discussed. In the last chapter, the author suggests possible future research involving UOEs.

To learn a language successfully, one needs to incorporate terms which are used commonly by native speakers but cannot be found in dictionaries. Words like uh-huh, oops, ouch, and brrr, are some examples of these terms. These expressions, commonly categorized under such linguistic labels as interjections (Ameka, 1992), alternants (Poyatos, 2002), and response cries (Goffman,1981), are what Dr. Lynn Henrichsen (1993) and Rebecca Oyer (1999) termed Unorthodox Oral Expressions (UOEs). These utterances are considered unorthodox because many of them are not formal or standard English words. Because of that, “we do not consider them part of the productive system of English,” so English dictionaries and textbooks rarely include these words (Luthy, 1983, p.19). Also, they are used mostly in informal speech rather than in formal written English. Hence, non-native English learners usually don’t have the opportunity to learn these informal utterances in English classes (Chittaladakorn, 2011; Oyer, 1999).Though unorthodox, these expressions are important for English language learners (ELL) to learn so that they will be able to carry out more natural and native-like conversations and understand what these utterances mean when native speakers use them. Because UOEs are so under-taught and there are so few teaching UOEs, there is a great need for a UOE dictionary that includes not only pronunciation and meaning, but also the syntactic features and semantic and pragmatic functions of these expressions. This project includes the creation of an online UOE dictionary to fill that need in English language acquisition.