Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The adoption of information technology as an aid to organisational efficiency and effectiveness has a long history in business and public administration, but its application to the processes of teaching and learning in education has been relatively limited. At the dawn of the new millennium this began to change, as educational institutions around the world began to experiment with new ideas for the use of information technology. This happened at the same time that commercial organisations began to realise that they themselves could - because of the availability of IT based systems - invest in educational services focused on their own needs. It was against this background that this research project set out to study how South African higher education has incorporated new learning technologies in the delivery of programmes. The study began by exploring the emerging patterns of the use of e-learning in South African higher education. This was to establish a broad understanding of how e-learning was incorporated into the core business of universities. As the study progressed interviews with both teaching and support staff provided course descriptions which were used to expose the kind of considerations that were made in designing, developing and delivering those courses. The main purpose of the study was to answer the question: what pedagogical considerations are necessary for successful course design when using e-learning? By placing the course descriptions on a continuum developed as a part of the conceptual framework in the study it was possible to analyse the course design features that emerged. The framework and its differentiated learning designs (LD1/2/3) can be used for both design and evaluation of courses and can facilitate the use of technology in enhancing teaching and learning. / South Africa

My auto/ethnographical journey stems from my experience where, as an I-m-migrant, I feel like I live in the hy-phens negotiating between “a here, a there and an elsewhere” (Trinh, 2011), straddling cultures, homelands, I-dentities, and languages. This identity crisis has made me quest/ion how other i-m-migrant women, especially the Indo-Canadian women in Ottawa, navigate their hyphe-nated existence(s) with/in these liminal spaces which are both home and not-home. As both insider and outsider, I engaged in complicated conversations with Indo-Canadian women to hear about their live(d) experiences and to understand the process of my / our be/com/ing’ and be/long/ing in these hybrid spaces. The questions that guided me through this inquiry are: How do Indo-Canadian women re-produce and re-create this notion called home? What are some of influences of (im)migration on this notion of ho[me]? How do they navigate and per/form their hyphenated currere with/in these hybrid liminal spaces which are both home and not-home? What do these performances dis/close about the women’s understanding of their lives in the hyphens? Through a post-colonial, feminist perspective, and drawing from qualitative research methodologies such as “autoethnography” (Ellis, 2003), “bricolage” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Kincheloe, 2001), “narrative inquiry” (Clandinin, 2013), and “found poetry” (Butler-Kisber, 2010), I perform a “literary métissage” (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers & Leggo, 2009) of the live(d) narratives of women who, like me, are members of the Indo-Canadian diaspora. I juxtapose our conversations with artifacts, photographs, recipes, and literary pieces that depict our hyphe-nation(s). From an educational perspective, I hope that my “performance [auto]ethnography” (Alexander, 2000) of ho[me]stories of Indo-Canadian women will become a “living pedagogy” and have “the potential to become trans/formative curriculum inquiry” (Hasebe-Ludt, et al, 2009), which might help to de/construct the stereotypical image of the “universal Indian woman” (Sharma, 2009).

The current descriptions of bricolage largely present it as a behaviour in new businesses in richer contexts. Therefore, more diverse context-specific explanations are needed in order to deepen our understanding of bricolage. While Bricolage behaviour has been largely explained in new businesses, in extremely constrained environments, even established firms use bricolage to mobilise resources. This study set out to contribute to the understanding of bricolage by exploring it in an extremely constrained context. Using an interpretivist paradigm, empirical evidence from 8 case studies was collected through in-depth interviews and each is presented in a rich, ‘thick’ description. Through inductive coding, data-driven themes that highlight the nuances of bricolage when settings are extremely poor were derived. The study examines the idiosyncrasies of bricolage behaviour in small established firms, found in poor settings, it finds that, everything is a resource that can be bricolaged. It also finds that there is varied intensity with which underlying constructs of bricolage- making do, using resources at hand and recombining resources are manifested throughout the entrepreneurial process. In the starting phases, making do dominates, in the surviving phase, using resources at hand becomes more prominent, while in the growing phase, recombining resources is prioritised. This suggests that in poor contexts, bricolage manifests as a process that occurs throughout the life of the business. Additionally, the study highlights the sub-processes of bricolage,-scavenging, buttressing and refining. It explains how they interact by showing that scavenging precedes making do, buttressing precedes using resources at hand and refining precedes recombination of resources. Moreover different resources are used varyingly along the bricolage process. Furthermore, it integrates bricolage with two concepts of adaptive persistence and community embeddedness. Adaptive persistence is an active and dynamic experimentation to meet new challenges with the aim of finally solving them. It is exhibited as continuous adjustment to absorb emerging environmental shocks. On the other hand, community embeddedness highlights the firms’ close connection and interface with its local community on activities beyond its core role. In turn, the community becomes both an active advocate and a customer of the firm. These behaviours facilitate firm development. This work contributes to the understanding of bricolage behaviour by showing that the sub processes are more elaborate in poor settings and that established firms adopt these sub-processes varyingly as they develop. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / PhD / Unrestricted

The purpose of this research project is to qualitatively investigate the patterns of activity (modalities) in which entrepreneurs engage to create value for their customers. Proceeding from observations made by Claude Levi-Strauss (1962), who identified distinct modalities in which people of all cultures interact with the world around them, which are engineering, art, bricolage, and to a lesser degree craft, this research uses grounded theory to build a typology of entrepreneurial work and investigates the relationship between entrepreneurial categories, financial performance, longevity of the created ventures, and organizational form. Based on interviews and extensive field work observing 23 entrepreneurs, this study found evidence to support the presence of the four original modalities as well as a fifth -brokerage. The results of this study support a new theory of entrepreneurial work that offers: a) a new five-category typology of how entrepreneurs pattern their work, specifically based on their use of methods, tools, and resources to create value for their customers, and b) propositions suggesting relationships between each of the five modalities, entrepreneurial success, and organizational form. The new five-category typology consists of: 1) art, 2) craft, 3) engineering, 4) bricolage, and 5) brokerage. Among the five patterns of entrepreneurial activity, engineering and brokerage were found to have achieved the highest levels of financial success; however, none of the modalities appeared to be related to the longevity of the ventures. The category of engineering also seemed to be the most closely associated with organizational growth and formal hierarchical structures, while entrepreneurs who relied exclusively on bricolage experienced little growth and flat organizational structures. The implications from these observations are that patterns of activity are consequential for organizational growth and that financial success, while helpful and desirable, is not necessary for entrepreneurial ventures to survive for long periods of time.

Arbetet består av bilder och ritningar som utgör förslag till ett lärocenter på Slakthusområdet, en byggnad med studierum, matsal och aula m.m. åt elever från ett antal gymnasieskolor. Ingången till projektet var att välja ut befintliga arkitektoniska element i det gamla industriområdet och applicera dess kvaliteter på den tilltänkta arkitekturen. Ett val föll exempelvis på stadsdelens skarpa möten mellan fasad och gata, vilket gör det möjligt för människor, lastbilar och gaffeltruckar att röra sig obehindrat mellan husen. Campushuset gavs ett likadant gränssnitt och även en förlängning av markbeläggningen in i byggnaden, vilket vill markera gymnasieelevernas fria rörlighet mellan sina respektive skolor och Campushuset. Greppet - inspirerat av bricolagets metod - redovisas i tre skisser och tre diagram. Utöver det vilar gestaltningen av projektet på funktion och rumsupplevelse. Den sistnämnda tar hjälp av varierade rumsstorlekar såväl som riktade vyer och ljusinsläpp. Det slutgiltiga förslaget kan liknas vid en stor villa, karaktäriserad av stora fönsteröppningar, smala trappor, nischer och balkonger, vars bärande stomme i lättbetong och tegel utgör det rumsskapande elementet. / The work consists of images and drawings which represent a proposal for a learning center on Slakthusområdet. A building with study rooms, canteen, auditorium etc. for pupils from a number of senior high schools. The initial take on the project was to select existing architectonic elements in the industrial area and apply their qualities on the intended architecture. For example one choice fell on the sharp meetings between facades and streets in the neighbourhood, which allows people, trucks and forklifts to move unobstructed between the houses. The learning center was given a similar interface and also an extension of the paved surface into the building, which wants to mark the students free movement between their respective schools and the campus house. The take - inspired by the bricolage method - is presented in three sketches and three diagrams. Apart from that the formation of the project relies on functionality and spacial experience. The last mentioned is performed through varied room sizes as well as directed views and natural light. The final proposal kan be compared with a villa, characterized with large window openings, narrow stairs, niches and balconies, whose loadbearing structure in lightweight concrete and brick make up the space-creating element.

No description available.

yes / Individualisation theory misrepresents and romanticises the nature of agency as a primarily discursive and reflexive process where people freely create their personal lives in an open social world divorced from tradition. But empirically we find that people usually make decisions about their personal lives pragmatically, bounded by circumstances and in connection with other people, not only relationally but also institutionally. This pragmatism is often non-reflexive, habitual and routinised, even unconscious. Agents draw on existing traditions - styles of thinking, sanctioned social relationships, institutions, the presumptions of particular social groups and places, lived law and social norms - to ‘patch’ or ‘piece together' responses to changing situations. Often it is institutions that ‘do the thinking’. People try to both conserve social energy and seek social legitimation in this adaption process, a process which can lead to a ‘re-serving' of tradition even as institutional leakage transfers meanings from past to present, and vice versa. But this process of bricolage will always be socially contested and socially uneven. In this way bricolage describes how people actually link structure and agency through their actions, and can provide a framework for empirical research on doing family. / ESRC

Yes / Marital surname change is a striking example of the survival of tradition. A practice emerging from patriarchal history has become embedded in an age of de-traditionalisation and women’s emancipation. Is the tradition of women’s marital name change just some sort of inertia or drag, which will slowly disappear as modernity progresses, or does this tradition fulfil more contemporary roles? Are women and men just dupes to tradition, or alternatively do they use tradition to further their aims? We examine how different approaches - individualisation theory, new institutionalism and bricolage - might tackle these questions. This examination is set within a comparative analysis of marital surname change in Britain and Norway, using small qualitative samples. We find that while individualisation and new institutionalism offer partial explanations, bricolage offers a more adaptable viewpoint.

In this qualitative research project, I explore the daily lived experiences of five Caribbean students studying at a rural university in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I investigate the personal challenges encountered by young adult Caribbean students and focus on their perspectives and coping strategies as they negotiate the racial binary and sociocultural norms found in the United States. I present my research here in two manuscripts. In manuscript one, Transcultural Adaptations: Caribbean Students at U.S. Universities, framed both by my use of testimonio as method (Haig-Brown, 2003; Pérez Huber, 2009) and the composite lens formed by my use of bricolage (Kincheloe, 2001; Kincheloe, 2004; Kincheloe, McLaren, and Steinberg, 2012), I look at how all these factors influence their academic experiences and their perception and performance of the Self. In doing so, I highlight key aspects of the community experience and add to the conversation surrounding the adaptation of international students to U.S. universities. In manuscript two Interrogating Whiteness: The View from Outside, I delve more deeply into one aspect of their adaptation by interrogating one participant's perspectives on whiteness. I use critical autoethnography (Boylorn and Orb, 2014; Tilley-Lubbs, 2016), and the call-and-response tradition (Hebdige, 1987; Toussaint, 2009) common in Trinidad and Tobago and in the African diaspora to present my exploration of his perspectives. I present his perspectives using the third person voice, followed by an examination of my own ways of knowing, to highlight the questioning and internal conflict that emerged as a result of these conversations on whiteness. I share my epiphanic experience (Denzin, 2013; 2014) in the hopes of establishing discourse and resonance with my reader in this deconstruction of my way of understanding the world. / Ph. D.

No / This study questions the idea that appropriate mechanisms can be designed to ensure optimum resource use, beneficial collective action and hence to build social capital. I argue here that the school of ‘institutional crafting’ in natural resource management is based on concepts which are inadequately socially informed and which ill-reflect the complexity , diversity and ad hoc nature of institutional formation. Three aspects of institutional bricolage are illustrated here: the multiple identities of the bricoleurs; the frequency of cross-cultural borrowing and of multi-purpose institutions; and the prevalence of arrangements and norms which foster co-operation, respect and non-direct reciprocity over lifecourses. In elaborating the concept of bricolage, I raise questions about whether local institutions are amenable to design, the scope for negotiating the norms which underlie institutional arrangements and the extent to which different institutions may be emancipatory or exclusionary. I conclude that development interventions aimed at institution building should be based on a socially informed analysis of the content and effects of institutional arrangements, rather than on their form alone.