No description available.

No description available.

Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine the experiences of first-generation, highly educated Iranian women who came to Canada to pursue further education in a ‘just’, ‘safe’, and ‘peaceful’ place. The research has revealed that these women who were fleeing from an ‘oppressive’ and ‘unjust’ Iranian regime face new challenges and different forms of oppression in Canada. This dissertation examines some of the challenges that these women face at their place of work and/or at graduate school. The research findings are based on narratives of eleven Iranian women who participated in in-depth interviews in the summer of 2008. These women, whose ages range from 26 to 55 and are of diverse marital status, all hold an academic degree from Iran. They were also all enrolled in different graduate schools and diverse disciplines in Ontario universities at the time of the interviews. The research findings indicate that their presence in Canada became more controversial after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade centers in New York. Historically, the social images imposed on Middle Eastern women derive from the Orientalism that arose following the colonization of the Middle East by Western imperialists. The perpetuation of such images after the 9/11 attack has created a harsh environment for the participants in this research. After 9/11 most immigrants from the Middle East were assumed to be Muslim and Arab, which many North Americans came to equate with being a terrorist. In order to analyze the participants’ voices and experiences, I have adopted a multi-critical theoretical perspective that includes Orientalism, anti-colonialism and integrative anti-racist feminist perspectives, so as to be equipped with the tools necessary to investigate and expose the roots of racism, oppression and discrimination of these marginalized voices. The findings of this research fall under six interrelated themes: adaptation, stereotyping, discrimination, being silenced, strategy of resistance, and belonging to Canadian society/ graduate school. One of the important results of this research is that, regardless of the suffering and pain that the participants feel in Canadian graduate school and society, they prefer to stay in Canada because of the socio-political climate in Iran.

Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine the experiences of first-generation, highly educated Iranian women who came to Canada to pursue further education in a ‘just’, ‘safe’, and ‘peaceful’ place. The research has revealed that these women who were fleeing from an ‘oppressive’ and ‘unjust’ Iranian regime face new challenges and different forms of oppression in Canada. This dissertation examines some of the challenges that these women face at their place of work and/or at graduate school. The research findings are based on narratives of eleven Iranian women who participated in in-depth interviews in the summer of 2008. These women, whose ages range from 26 to 55 and are of diverse marital status, all hold an academic degree from Iran. They were also all enrolled in different graduate schools and diverse disciplines in Ontario universities at the time of the interviews. The research findings indicate that their presence in Canada became more controversial after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade centers in New York. Historically, the social images imposed on Middle Eastern women derive from the Orientalism that arose following the colonization of the Middle East by Western imperialists. The perpetuation of such images after the 9/11 attack has created a harsh environment for the participants in this research. After 9/11 most immigrants from the Middle East were assumed to be Muslim and Arab, which many North Americans came to equate with being a terrorist. In order to analyze the participants’ voices and experiences, I have adopted a multi-critical theoretical perspective that includes Orientalism, anti-colonialism and integrative anti-racist feminist perspectives, so as to be equipped with the tools necessary to investigate and expose the roots of racism, oppression and discrimination of these marginalized voices. The findings of this research fall under six interrelated themes: adaptation, stereotyping, discrimination, being silenced, strategy of resistance, and belonging to Canadian society/ graduate school. One of the important results of this research is that, regardless of the suffering and pain that the participants feel in Canadian graduate school and society, they prefer to stay in Canada because of the socio-political climate in Iran.

Innovation, digitalization, technology disruption, fast to market are commonly used terms in the technology industry. However, in today’s world, these terms are used to define the state of art of the automotive industry. The onset of innovative vehicle models and the technology-driven vehicle manufacturing in the automotive industry offers many opportunities and an equivalent amount of challenges. Therefore, how an organization reacts to the ongoing technology discontinuities and how an organization transforms its business model to adapt to the changes to sustain in the industry are becoming significant factors in evaluating its strategic value and determining its success. This doctoral research titled ‘Technology-Based Transformation in Automotive Supply Chain – Role of Organizational Development aims to investigate the critical factors of technology-based transformation in the automotive industry using the automotive supply chain as the research set-up to demonstrate the ongoing transformation. This doctoral research further strives to conceptualize an organizational development framework that seamlessly enables organizations to manage technology-based transformation.

<p>  </p> <p>Higher education has embedded systemic disadvantages for women within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. As a result, parenting women who pursue doctoral degrees in STEM fields face an uphill battle; yet the literature has given short shrift to the experiences of women who have children while training to become scientific professionals. This absence exists despite the fact that parenting is frequently an underlying theme in the literature on women’s decreased participation in STEM disciplines. Further, studies that do address parenting women’s experiences in higher education at large focus on individual characteristics and are limited by an emphasis on gender at the expense of other social inequalities. These inequalities have remained persistent and poorly understood. To re-imagine STEM higher education as an institution, it is necessary to understand the everyday social relations embedded within organizations that are a part of the institution. This institutional ethnography addresses these gaps. This study aimed to explore the social relations of the STEM higher education that shaped women’s experiences in STEM doctoral programs. Using Intersectionality and Inequality Regimes frameworks, this study examined women’s interactions with the institution, thereby providing a highly contextualized perspective on the STEM higher education institution. Data collection followed an emergent design with interviews with parenting women in STEM doctoral programs. Through these interviews, narrative events were identified that helped to isolate institutional processes that shaped their experiences. From there, data collection involved interviews with institutional informants and analysis of institutional texts (e.g., graduate handbooks, university policies). Data analysis followed narrative analytic methods using the Listening Guide, Labovian narrative analysis, and institutional ethnographic ruling relations mapping. Therein, three key studies from the data are shared. First, a narrative analysis with interpretation by Inequality Regimes showed how regimes of inequality shaped the experiences of two women who were pregnant and parenting while pursuing STEM doctorates. Second, an institutional ethnographic inquiry into the institutional relations that made up the lactation rooms and women’s interactions with them and revealed a decentralized organization that made accessing the spaces challenging for doctoral student women. And third, an institutional ethnographic analysis of women’s experiences with parental leave illustrated the lack of responsibility to ensure that students know about parental leave and could use the policy. Findings examine the institution’s organization around an ideal worker that many participants struggled to perform; this resulted in a diffuse and disorganized approach to policy and procedures for parenting women. Findings indicate that the neoliberal discourses in the institution shaped these experiences. The institution's masculine, white, classed nature results in it being insular to parenting women. While women persist within this environment, they face adversity emergent from the relations that make up the institution. I offer recommendations to improve gaps in consideration for parenting students, and a call to transform the overall institution to support parenting women at this critical juncture in their training. </p>

No description available.

No description available.