This thesis is compiled of four short stories and is an excerpt from a story cycle that I’ve been working on for the last four years entitled Eyes That Seen Too Much. These stories follow the challenges faced by the Labossierre women. Although most fiction writing does address challenges and/or how characters face their particular challenges, this story cycle is slightly different due to the unconventional backgrounds of the characters. Katherine and her sister Raquel grew up as Prostitutes in Louisiana, where their mother, Bit (Lil’ Bit) was also a Prostitute. The sister’s daughters, Kennedy and Marie become Exotic Dancers in adulthood, and the reader witnesses some of the challenges that they face as children and the social constraints of being daughters of former prostitutes and exotic dancers.

The complex nature of health care and medical educational organizations, their different primary goals (clinical service versus education), different organizational structures and the necessity for ensuring efficient and harmonious relationships between these two types of organizations create a challenging environment in which to provide effective medical education leadership. The calls for reform in both medical education and health care have added to these challenges.<p> The purpose of the study was to develop a framework of leadership for medical education and contribute to the literature on leadership in medical education, based on an analysis of the perceptions of key health education leaders in Saskatchewan medical education organizations at the national level in Canada.<p> The main objectives were the identification of core competencies, challenges and strategies for effectiveness in medical education with a focus on unique aspects of about leadership in the medical education setting. Multiple methods of data collection (individual interviews and an event study with components of focus groups interviews and short surveys) with subjects of varied backgrounds and at different levels of leadership in medical education were entailed in this study.<p> The data were collected over a period of 13 months (January, 2009 - February, 2010). The perceptions of 32 medical education leaders, stratified into first- (11), middle- (6) and senior-level (15) leadership positions, based upon the hierarchical position and the scope of the job, were obtained and analyzed. Quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analyzed for themes through content analysis.<p> The findings provide useful information on leadership competencies, challenges and effectiveness strategies in medical education. Leadership competencies included five domains including personal and interpersonal characteristics, skills for effective leadership, skills as an efficient manager, skills in medical education delivery, skills as a teacher and skills as a researcher. All leaders considered personal and interpersonal characteristics to be at the core of leadership; while skills in medical education delivery, and skills as a medical education teacher and researcher were considered least important. The senior-level leaders spent most of their time in activities requiring leadership functions (e.g., strategic planning and creating alignment) followed by activities requiring managerial skills (e.g., operational management). This distinction in the rank ordering of leadership and managerial skills was not obvious for the first- and middle-level leaders; however, most did indicate that they spent more of their time in roles requiring more managerial skills than leadership skills. Among the key competencies, essential at all levels, were effective communication and building and managing relationships. For the most part, the leadership skills were acquired informally with only a few leaders having undergone formal leadership training.<p> The leaders faced three types of challenges: personal and interpersonal challenges including effective time management and personal limitations; organizational challenges including those around structures and processes, organizational communication, personal and organizational relationships, creating engagement and alignment, managing culture and resistance and limited resources; and inter-organizational challenges including competing agendas and interests of stakeholders.<p> The context (societal needs, multiple stakeholders and health care reform), content (medical education delivery and calls for reform) and culture (e.g. professionalism, apprenticeship model of medical education, and the hidden curriculum) of medical education and inherent dualities and conflict require situated leadership skills and strategies. The main leadership theories and approaches helpful in practicing contextual leadership included transactional, transformational, and servant leadership. However, other theoretical approaches, such as moral leadership and learner-centered leadership were also useful. Effective leadership was considered to include personal and interpersonal strategies, strategies for becoming an efficient manager and strategies for practicing inspiring and effective leadership. Personal and interpersonal strategies included looking after self, seeking advice, consciously developing fortitude, allotting time for priorities and thinking and personal development. Becoming an efficient manager involved diligent delegation, appropriate organizational communication and managing priorities. Practicing inspiring leadership involved developing the structure and processes to achieve vision, providing hope, developing mutually valued relationships which were considered key to engagement, alignment, leading change and managing resistance, moving from power to process, using appropriate leadership styles, developing the art of leading change and managing resistance, proactively influencing culture and accomplishing the vision.<p> In conclusion, medical education leadership was perceived as requiring both effective leadership and efficient management. The practice of inspiring and effective leadership, however, appeared to be more an art requiring an alchemy of strategies than a simple matter of application.

Russia is a rapidly growing market with enormous potential for international companies. In many industries competition is underdeveloped as Russian local companies are often unable to satisfy constantly growing demand of the market. On the other hand, international enterprises hesitate to enter the market due to its complexity and difficulties like e.g. bureaucracy and corruption. The aim of the present bachelor thesis is to define main challenges of the Russian market with the help of a modified PESTEL model which emphasizes political, economic, social, and legal aspects of the market. Having identified the main market challenges exporting, joint ventures and foreign direct investments as means of market entry are assessed in terms of coping with these challenges. As an outcome of the theoretical section, a model assessing the chosen entry modes is developed together with a list of challenges of the Russian market. The developed theoretical model is applied to a Swedish automotive industry through conduction of semi-structured interviews with key representatives of a number of Swedish enterprises operating in Russia. After the empirical analysis, the theoretical model is reviewed and the main challenges of the Russian market experienced by the interviewees are stated. Moreover, the most common entry modes within the Swedish automotive industry are identified. This thesis will be applicable both for students who would like to learn about different entry modes and ways of analyzing foreign markets through a theoretical framework, and for Swedish companies that aim to enter the Russian market and need to understand its challenges in order to avoid failures in the initial stage and gain ideas about the most suitable entry mode for them.

Globalization, global competitive market forces and technological progress have made Geographically Distributed Development (GDD) possible and a necessity for most companies in the world. The software industry has consistently been at the forefront of exploring and implementing this business model. This thesis studies the key drivers of GDD, identifies the major challenges which global virtual teams face and existing frameworks for successful global virtual teams. A case study is used to validate the challenges and concerns of managing a global virtual team and a framework is proposed to help overcome the challenges and enable successful global software development. / text

The objective of this paper is to help new investors and project developers identify the challenges of shale gas E&P and to enlighten them of the currently available strategies so that they can develop the best project plan and execute it without suffering unexpected challenges. This paper categorizes the challenges into five groups and concentrates on shale-gas-specific challenges. It excludes conventional oil and gas development challenges because by and large these five major challenge groups seem to decide the success and failure of most shale gas projects. The five groups are the identification of shale gas potentials, the technical challenges in well design and stimulation strategies, the economic challenges such as high cost of new technologies, the environmental challenges concerning the hydraulic fracturing water, and the international challenges of performing projects outside the US. The strategies are yet to be well established and are still evolving rapidly. Hence, before starting a shale gas project, shale gas developers need to perform extensive and intensive check-ups on the challenges and on current available strategies as well as to stay up to date thereafter on new strategies. / text

The rapidly changing Canadian mosaic compels the educational system to devise new and unique means to address the needs of a heterogeneous student and teacher populace emerging from varied cultural, linguistic, social and pedagogical contexts. Considerable work recommends the creation of an inclusive environment for immigrant students; sparse discourse considers the needs of immigrant teachers in a mainstream K-12 setting. The majority of discussions and discourses on immigrant teacher acculturation study the needs and challenges this diverse group of teachers has to contend with inside the environs of a Canadian classroom. This study extends these initial discourses to include the macrocosmic challenges faced by immigrant teachers by analyzing the lived experiences of immigrant teachers who have successfully established their place in the Manitoba educational system. Using a critical lens, the study endeavors to analyze the role of social capital in the integration experiences of immigrant educators in Manitoba.

The physician’s crisis in Cameroon has reached an alarming stage and has the potential to worsen existing health problems including the attainment of millennium development goals. This report emphasized the challenges faced by Cameroonian physicians, and recommended alternative solutions to the current government health workers policies. The report was done through a review of articles and documents covering the topic. At the center of the physician’s crises in Cameroon is the discrepancy between financial, social and professional expectations and what the government offers. The analysis showed that, there is a general dissatisfaction, despite some corrective measures implemented by the government. This suggests that the government needs to aggressively adopt and implement aggressive retention policies, such as improving the remuneration and working conditions of health workers. Beside, there is also need for innovation by adopting and implementing solutions that have been successful in others countries. As in many other countries, establishing powerful unions and lobbying groups by Cameroon physicians may help in negotiating acceptable working conditions that could help in alleviating the challenges of Cameroonian physicians. Despite some limitations, this report can be useful for policy-makers in the formulation of effective human resources for health policies but also to draw attention to the need to publish more on human resources for health issues in Cameroon.

The rapidly changing Canadian mosaic compels the educational system to devise new and unique means to address the needs of a heterogeneous student and teacher populace emerging from varied cultural, linguistic, social and pedagogical contexts. Considerable work recommends the creation of an inclusive environment for immigrant students; sparse discourse considers the needs of immigrant teachers in a mainstream K-12 setting. The majority of discussions and discourses on immigrant teacher acculturation study the needs and challenges this diverse group of teachers has to contend with inside the environs of a Canadian classroom. This study extends these initial discourses to include the macrocosmic challenges faced by immigrant teachers by analyzing the lived experiences of immigrant teachers who have successfully established their place in the Manitoba educational system. Using a critical lens, the study endeavors to analyze the role of social capital in the integration experiences of immigrant educators in Manitoba.

Since the concept of open innovation was put forward by Chesbrough (2003), many researchers focus on open innovation in large enterprises. There is a research gap in how open innovation is implemented in SMEs, specially in Chinese companies. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the motives and challenges of manufacturing SMEs in China to implement onpen innovation. The study is based on analysis of scientific literature and four case studies of manufacturing SMEs. The empirical data were collected by semi-structure interviews and a survey. Overall, collsboration with external partners was found to be good for improving innovation performances in the studies companies. And also, four motives were found, which were forming innovation networks, cooperating with external innovation sources, importing advanced technologies, and driving and motivating innvation processes. Meanwhile, four main challenges were found lack of trust in collaboration, disability for transforming external knowledge to internal knowledge, low support from government, and barriers to overcom intellectual property disputes. At last, the authors suggest that manufacturing SMEs in China could collaborate with each other more, and improve the knowledge of intellectual property as well.

In spite of a multi-decade mandate to enact inquiry in science, research reports that a large gap continues to exist in Ontario between the vision of science education presented in curriculum documents and what is enacted in the classroom. A three-staged, mixed methods design was chosen to examine teachers’ beliefs and practices that contribute to an understanding of this longstanding gap in teaching practice related to inquiry. The participants in this study were secondary school science teachers currently employed by one medium-sized, urban & rural district public school board. Quantitative data was first collected through a self-reporting survey designed to explore teachers’ beliefs related to teaching and learning in inquiry. Completed questionnaires were submitted by 80 % (n = 83) of the population of science teachers. Qualitative data, collected through semi-structured interviews (n = 17), were used to confirm and expand the quantitative findings. Quantitative analysis resulted in the development of an empirical framework to illustrate the dimensionality of teachers’ beliefs and practices related to inquiry. Four types of science teachers were identified during qualitative analysis, each associated with a preferred type of inquiry and each identifiable by a cluster of beliefs. A stance was determined for each of these types of teachers representing their generalized view of teaching and learning related to inquiry including: utilitarian science, content-based science, authentic contextual science, and citizenship science. Additionally, each group of teachers could be associated with one of the four quadrants in my framework. Lastly, a beliefs profile was produced to represent each quadrant in this framework based on integration of the quantitative and qualitative findings. Challenges to enactment and types of program support to foster enactment of open-ended inquiry were identified by science teachers associated with each stance. A few of these challenges and types of program support represent newer areas for research that can inform educational leaders and teacher-educators and support decision-making so as to meet the diverse needs of both pre-service and in-service science teachers, thereby, fostering the enactment of open-ended inquiry as practical science.