After rigorous criticism on trait approach and with the emergence of behavioral approach in entrepreneurship during 1980s, the researchers started to introduce learning and cognitive theories in entrepreneurship to describe and explain the dynamic nature of entrepreneurship. Many researchers have described venture creation as a core and the single most important element of entrepreneurship. This thesis will discuss and present the role of entrepreneurial learning and heuristics in venture creation. Hence, the purpose of this research thesis is to study and analyze the role of entrepreneurial learning and heuristics in venture creation. To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, we followed qualitative research and conducted semi structured interviews with open ended questionnaires to collect empirical data. For this study, we have included only four interviews which were conducted on four different businesses based in Jönköping, Sweden, following convenience sampling. In the analysis, we used data analysis model of Walker, Cooke and McAllister (2008) and inductively generated three propositions, depicting the role and importance of entrepreneurial learning and heuristics in venture creation. Individuals adopt entrepreneurship in their careers with necessary skills, abilities, and knowledge, which are learned or gained through experiential learning and/or vicarious learning (i.e., learning by observing or modeling the actions of others). Learning by doing is considered the most important factor by entrepreneurs which helped them to overcome different business start up hurdles, to make various entrepreneurial decisions and to perform many entrepreneurial activities during venture creation. Similarly, individuals within their own situation use, learning by observing or modeling other people’s behaviour, actions and consequences of the actions. Entrepreneurs use learning by modeling the behaviour and actions of others as benchmarking strategy during venture creation. Entrepreneurs believe that without any learning they will not be able to start their own businesses. Heuristics as decisions making mechanism, particularly during venture creation, is used by entrepreneurs as simplifying strategy when sufficient information related to a specific market, certain industry and products are scarce. Additionally, entrepreneurs are passionate to grab profitable business opportunity, and due to time pressure and brief window of opportunity, they can’t go for gathering each and every information of the potential business or product. Hence, heuristics as decisions making mechanism is considered the best suitable approach to make many entrepreneurial decisions during venture creation.

Purposes/Aims: The purpose of this study was to determine the professional, workplace and personal factors that significantly relate to advanced practice nurses' (APNs) self-efficacy to treat intimate partner violence (IPV).Rationale/Conceptual Basis/Background: IPV affects one in three women in the U.S. and is the leading cause of maternal death during the prenatal and first year post-partum periods. Older women victims suffer earlier death from all causes. IPV is under diagnosed and undertreated based on large surveys of emergency departments and outpatient clinics. APNs are providing health care to large numbers of potential victims, thus they are important as diagnosticians and treating clinicians. Methods: A national quantitative survey of APNs was performed with the aim of obtaining APNs from diverse specialties, geographic areas, and demographics within the U.S. Participants completed an electronic survey using modifications of standardized questionnaires on professional factors of hours of previous IPV education, IPV knowledge, years in practice, current practices, role belief, and self-efficacy to treat IPV. A new scale was developed to test workplace factors of screening tools and protocols, institutional, and community supports. Personal factors of age, gender, past IPV experience, vicarious trauma (VT), resilience, and general self-efficacy were tested using previously validated tools. Results: A sample of 494 APNs was obtained. Respondents were demographically representative of U.S. practicing APN population. Findings from this study indicate that APNs' current self-reported practice behaviors regarding IPV, total hours of IPV education, age in years, role belief, resilience, absence of VT and IPV knowledge are the most significant contributors to APNs' self-efficacy to treat IPV. Implications: APNs with strong clinical experience with IPV, more hours of IPV education, older age, belief that it is their role to treat IPV, and greater IPV knowledge, reported the best self-efficacy to treat IPV. Educational institutions should provide more formal and ongoing education in IPV. VT in APNs who treat IPV should be further explored. Health care organizations should provide continuing IPV education and provide work environments that promote the treatment of IPV for APNs to effectively identify and engage in treatment those patients who may be victims.

Many survivors of sexual trauma describe the forensic rape exam as a second rape (Campbell et al., 1999; Parrot, 1991). Rape crisis medical advocates (RCMAs) assist survivors through this process, a time of particular vulnerability to retraumatization (Resnick, Acierno, Holmes, Kilpatrick, & Jager, 1999), by providing emotional support, education, and advocacy for comprehensive and respectful services. Campbell (2006) stated that the primary role of the RCMA is to reduce victim-blame, or the tendency to blame the victim of a crime for the crime or the circumstances leading up to it. The literature has consistently shown that survivors who worked with RCMAs received more medical and legal services and were less likely to feel revictimized (Campbell, 2006; Resnick et al., 1999; Wasco et al., 2004), but the impact of the work on RCMAs has not been sufficiently examined. Previous research has shown that many advocates experienced anger and fear in relation to the work (Wasco & Campbell, 2002), that RCMAs who witnessed more victim-blame reported less satisfaction with the work and lower levels of affective commitment to the job (Hellman & House, 2006), and that professional counselors who worked with trauma survivors reported higher levels of vicarious trauma than those who did not (Schauben & Frazier, 1995). Other researchers have shown that counselors who worked with trauma survivors reported higher traumatic stress than those who did not, and counselors who worked with victims of sexual trauma endorsed more disruptive beliefs about self, others, and the world (Bober & Regehr, 2005). However, the appropriateness of generalizing results observed among counselors to RCMAs is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine possible predictors of RCMAs’ experiences of vicarious trauma (VT) and vicarious post-traumatic growth (VPTG). Since a great deal of research examining the effects of trauma on care-providers focuses on individual-level contributing variables like personality style, coping skills, and history of victimization (Kelley, Schwerin, Farrar, & Lane, 2005; King, King, Fairbank, & Adams, 1998; Pearlman & Mac Ian, 1995), in this study I examined the predictive ability of several environmental/contextual/systemic variables on RCMAs ratings of VT and VPTG, including caseload, amount of formal individual and group supervision received, ratings of social community at work, meaning of the work, emotional demands of the work, and perceptions of witnessing VB by police and medical staff. One hundred and sixty-four RCMAs participated in this internet-based survey research. A series of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that higher ratings of VT were predicted by younger age, lower amounts of formal group supervision received, and lower ratings of the social community at work and the meaning of the work. Ratings of VPTG were significantly and positively predicted by amount of formal individual supervision received, and negatively predicted by age and educational achievement. Interpretations and recommendations are provided to assist rape crisis agencies in supporting RCMAs in their work.

The doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance rests on the fundamental scientific axiom, derived from the natural sciences, that knowledge is developed in accordance with the nature (kata physin) of the object as it is revealed in the course of scientific inquiry. As a theological realist, Torrance finds real and accurate knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. To know God through the incarnate Son, who is “of one nature with the Father” (homoousios to Patri), is to know God in strict accordance with God’s nature and hence in a theologically scientific way. Scientific theology will operate on a christological basis, for the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the “controlling centre” for the Christian doctrine of God. Torrance’s holistic theology investigates its object of inquiry within the nexus of “onto-relations,” or “being-constituting” interrelations, that disclose its identity. Because the fundamental aspects of reality are relational rather than atomistic, a scientific theological approach to the doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ requires that he be investigated within the nexuses of interrelations that disclose his identity as incarnate Saviour of the world. An examination of Torrance’s doctrine of mediation reveals three specific nexuses of “onto-relations” that disclose the identity of Jesus Christ. These are his interrelations with 1) historical Israel, 2) God, and 3) humanity. In the present thesis, the vast and scattered array of Torrance’s thought on the mediation of Jesus Christ is reduced to a minimal number of basic concepts, or “elemental forms,” that arise from the nexuses of interrelations that constitute the identity of the incarnate Son. These basic, constitutive concepts of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ are the Nicene homoousion and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union, as well as the doctrines of incarnational redemption and the “vicarious humanity” of Jesus Christ. These elemental forms provide a basic, organising framework to examine and explain the mediation of revelation and reconciliation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance. / Thesis (PhD (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

The doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance rests on the fundamental scientific axiom, derived from the natural sciences, that knowledge is developed in accordance with the nature (kata physin) of the object as it is revealed in the course of scientific inquiry. As a theological realist, Torrance finds real and accurate knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. To know God through the incarnate Son, who is “of one nature with the Father” (homoousios to Patri), is to know God in strict accordance with God’s nature and hence in a theologically scientific way. Scientific theology will operate on a christological basis, for the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the “controlling centre” for the Christian doctrine of God. Torrance’s holistic theology investigates its object of inquiry within the nexus of “onto-relations,” or “being-constituting” interrelations, that disclose its identity. Because the fundamental aspects of reality are relational rather than atomistic, a scientific theological approach to the doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ requires that he be investigated within the nexuses of interrelations that disclose his identity as incarnate Saviour of the world. An examination of Torrance’s doctrine of mediation reveals three specific nexuses of “onto-relations” that disclose the identity of Jesus Christ. These are his interrelations with 1) historical Israel, 2) God, and 3) humanity. In the present thesis, the vast and scattered array of Torrance’s thought on the mediation of Jesus Christ is reduced to a minimal number of basic concepts, or “elemental forms,” that arise from the nexuses of interrelations that constitute the identity of the incarnate Son. These basic, constitutive concepts of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ are the Nicene homoousion and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union, as well as the doctrines of incarnational redemption and the “vicarious humanity” of Jesus Christ. These elemental forms provide a basic, organising framework to examine and explain the mediation of revelation and reconciliation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance. / Thesis (PhD (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This study first tests the factors influencing the willingness to express opinions online. Guided by the spiral of silence theory, the research used a survey to test whether fear of isolation and opinion congruency work online. Second, the study explores how psychological constructs, including self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and proxy efficacy affect the willingness to express disagreement. A 2 × 2, verbal persuasion × vicarious experience, experiment was applied. Third, this study also conducted a content analysis to measure disagreement expressions in online newspapers and test how these expressions affect opinion quality and online discussion involvement. The survey study (N=321) showed that while fear of isolation online negatively predicts the willingness to express individual opinions, opinion climate congruency is not associated with the willingness. The online experiment demonstrated that mastery experience and verbal persuasion positively influence self-efficacy, but vicarious experience's effect was not confirmed. Self-efficacy plays the most salient role in predicting whether one selects to express disagreement online. The content analysis (N=1,288) of the discussion threads demonstrated that disagreement expression is widespread in the online newspaper forums analyzed, and such expression positively influences reasoned opinions and political discussion engagement.

[pt] Esta pesquisa é resultado de um encontro misto (Goffman, 1988), proporcionado por entrevistas de pesquisa realizadas por mim com mulheres envolvidas no contexto prisional, especificamente na condição de parentes/visitantes de homens presos. O encontro se deu nas periferias de um presídio do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, em novembro de 2015, com o propósito aplicado de reverter a invisibilidade social dessas mulheres, em sua maioria negras, pobres, mães e moradoras de zonas periféricas do estado. Ao narrarem a causalidade da prisão de seus pares, narrativas de experiência vicária (Norrick, 2013) emergem na interação, com o propósito interacional de inocentá-los e construí-los favoravelmente. É objetivo do trabalho investigar, à luz do campo de Análise de Narrativa (Bastos e Biar, 2015), informado pela Sociolinguística Interacional (Gumperz, 1982; Goffman, 1974), como se constituem tais narrativas de inocentação produzidas pelas entrevistadas, e que tipos de sistemas de coerência emergem dessas histórias. A análise dos dados indica que as entrevistadas animam discursos que desvinculam a agência de seus pares dos respectivos crimes, construindo-os positivamente, e, ao fazerem isso, reivindicam para si mesmas selves favoráveis que funcionam como explicação para estarem ali. Além disso, predominantemente, as participantes costuram relações de causalidade para a prisão de seus pares a partir de frágeis relações silogísticas amparadas no senso comum. / [en] This research is the result of a mixed contact (Goffman, 1988), made possible through research interviews conducted by me with women involved in the prison context, with particular focus on relatives/visitors of incarcerated men. The encounters took place in the outskirts of a prison in the state of Rio de Janeiro in November 2015, with the applied purpose of reversing the social invisibility of these women, who were mostly black, poor, mothers and residents of peripheral areas of the state. Through building external causalities for the imprisonment, the women clear their peers and portray them favorably, in narratives of vicarious experience (Norrick, 2013), which emerge from the interactions. Rooted in the field of Narrative Analysis (Bastos and Biar, 2015) and informed by Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982; Goffman, 1964), this work aims at investigating how these narratives of innocence are produced by the interviewees and what types of coherence systems emerge from the stories. The analysis of the data indicates that the women animate discourses which disassociate their peers from any agency in relation to their respective crimes, constructing them positively. In doing so, the women claim for themselves favorable selves that function as an explanation for being there as visitors. Furthermore, the participants predominantly set up causality relations to the imprisonment of their peers from fragile syllogistic relations supported by common sense.

Purpose: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acknowledged repeated or extreme indirect exposure to aversive details of traumatic event(s) in the course of professional duties, can lead to symptoms of PTSD. This has led to discussions around impact and prevalence of vicarious trauma in psychological therapists treating trauma clients. This study considers how therapists delivering trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) make sense of their experiences and protect themselves from any negative effects of the work. Furthermore, it considers if there is a distinction in therapist experience between the two modalities. Methodology/Method: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was conducted to explore how trauma-focused CBT and EMDR therapists engaged in trauma work, interpreted and made sense of their experiences; with a view to identifying any protective practice that informed clinical practice and helped ameliorate vicarious trauma. Recorded, semi-structured interviews were conducted with CBT and EMDR therapists (N=11). Before analysis, interviews were transcribed verbatim and sent to individual participants for validation of their authenticity. Data was analysed using descriptive, linguistic and conceptual comments to identify an initial seventy nine emergent themes. When refined, four master themes of ‘Nature of Trauma’, ‘Participant sense of self and managing the process of hearing trauma narrative’, ‘Participant experience of delivering the trauma models’ and ‘Protecting and sustaining the participant sense of self’ were identified to answer the research question and are discussed herein. Findings: This study forms part of the growing body of evidence towards understanding therapist vicarious traumatisation. It both supports and challenges findings of previous studies. It also introduces new concepts in relation to the vicarious trauma phenomenon. Whilst there are clear limitations associated with making generalisations from an IPA study, the findings from the study suggest EMDR may be a protective factor against the negative effects of hearing repeated trauma narrative. Furthermore, certain strategies such as time management, comprehensive trauma training and specific trauma supervision, may also reduce the negative effects of hearing trauma narrative. Finally, regardless of the difficulties faced, therapists enjoy their trauma work and feel a great sense of professional satisfaction. Implications/Recommendations: Indications from the findings of the study are that therapists working within primary care in particular, are becoming increasingly pressurised by cuts to funding within mental health services. Recommendations are that those components of trauma work which promote therapist wellbeing should be supported. In particular, realistic timeframes within which to work, good quality training and supervisors, ideally external to the workplace, who can provide trauma-specific supervision.

South African society has been a ected either directly or indirectly by some degree of trauma. Therefore the presence of a trauma unit within a hospital created the ideal opportunity for novice trauma counsellors to have practical experience. The present research is an exploratory study, designed in accordance with ethno- graphic principles in order to understand the psychological e ects of trauma on novice trauma counsellors. It focuses on themes that reverberate throughout the participants narratives. Vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue are two such e ects that were explored in this study. Research into compassion fatigue and vi- carious trauma span over several decades and researchers have moved from merely describing the symptoms of secondary traumatic stress to explaining it in terms of models that highlight the role of various factors that contribute vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue. This study concludes with recommendations to counter the e ects of experiencing secondary trauma. / (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))

Background. In Canadian baccalaureate nursing education, many schools pair their nursing students with a nurse preceptor to complete a consolidation placement in their final year of studies. The preceptor plays an important role in students’ learning and their success in the program. Although there are many factors that may influence preceptors’ ability to be successful in the role, the literature suggests that self-efficacy may affect their performance as a preceptors and may have an impact on students’ learning and their preceptorship experience. Self-efficacy is defined as a person’s confidence in their abilities to complete a task or goal. As such, preceptors with greater self-efficacy may be more effective in their role and may have a positive impact on students’ learning. Therefore, it is important to assess factors that influence preceptors’ self-efficacy as this knowledge could help inform and target the development of preceptor training programs, preceptor selection criteria and preceptor supports. Objectives. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the factors that affect the self-efficacy of preceptors. Five factors were investigated, including: (1) nursing experience, (2) preceptor experience, (3) vicarious preceptor experience, (4) preceptor training, and (5) the personality trait neuroticism. These variables are derived from Bandura’s (1986) theory of self-efficacy. Design. This study was conducted using a cross-sectional, non-experimental study design. Methods. A total of 95 nurse preceptors participated in the study by completing an online survey and were recruited using multiple strategies, including social media. The survey was comprised of demographic questions, a measure of the Big-Five personality traits, and a measure of clinical teaching self-efficacy. Correlation, independent t-tests and ANOVAs were done to analyze the data. Results. A statistically significant correlation was found between self-efficacy and two independent variables: nursing experience (r = 0.33, p < 0.01) and the personality trait of neuroticism (r = -0.21, p = .05). Additionally, self-efficacy was correlated with agreeableness (r = 0.22, p = .03) and age (r = 0.41, p < 0.01). A statistically significant difference in self-efficacy was found between diploma and bachelor degree nurses (mean difference = 0.37, p = .02), and bachelor degree and graduate degree nurses (mean difference = -0.45, p = .02). Conclusion. Three key results were found to influence the self-efficacy of nurse preceptors. This knowledge can be incorporated into preceptor training, preceptor support and the preceptor selection process.