Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universität, Berlin, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-230).

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Introduction Patients with intestinal failure (IF) develop problems of malabsorption and malnutrition associated with short bowel syndrome (SBS). Home parenteral nutrition (HPN) became available to treat these patients since the 1970s. There is a paucity of qualitative research on patients’ experiences in the UK. The study aim was to generate theory that explains the experiences of adults living with HPN and complex medication regimens. Method The grounded theory methodology was used to explore the experiences and to generate theory about this health intervention. Twelve participants were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The joint process of data collection and analysis followed the principles of constant comparative approach. Results The core categories of stoma care and HPN treatment were supported by the subcategories of maintaining stoma output, access to toilets, maintaining HPN infusion routine, access to technical help to set up HPN infusion, and general health changes. Strategy used to manage living with loss was demonstrated by the subcategory of maintaining daily activities and social interactions. Discussion The theory of living with loss suggests that patients with a stoma receiving HPN experience the sense of loss at home and in social situations. Opportunities for professional practice development are detailed along with implications for future research. Conclusions The findings resonate with the Kubler-Ross Model of the five stages of grief (Kubler-Ross, 1970). The theory of living with loss was generated by the use of the grounded theory methodology. This study identified opportunities for changes and improvement in clinical practice.

This research introduces a framework for explaining why managing family members create a shared understanding of caring and being cared for with their nonfamily employees, called ‘Social Reciprocity'. Applying an embedded case study design, using grounded theory method, this research adds to the understanding of the social mechanisms of internal stakeholder management in family firms, which have been largely ignored. The emergent framework proposes that the ability of family members to build trusting relationships with employees, based on cognitive and affective trusts contributes to the creation of social reciprocity. Affective trust, in particular, has a direct and moderating role in the creation of social reciprocity on emotional and instrumental level. The moderating role of affective trust is considered a valuable finding; since it emphasizes the role of trust as a meta theoretical concept. The developed framework suggests that affective trust initiates a social learning process that leads to a positive attribution bias, i.e. an automatic positive attribution of managing family members' actions as being based in benevolence and genuine care. Furthermore, social learning in the form of trust network reproduction emerges as contributory to the diffusion of social reciprocity to lower hierarchical levels. Analysis of data demonstrates that employees with little direct interactions with managing family members develop trusted weak ties to managing family members, with similar levels of cognitive and affective trust. This finding is particularly valuable as it challenges traditional network theory, which argues for frequent personal interaction to be necessary in creating trust ties. This thesis contributes to theoretical and methodological knowledge in several ways. First, it advances understanding of the social dynamics and mechanisms of internal stakeholder engagement in and SME family firm context. Second, the developed framework demonstrates the importance that concepts form multiple disciplines such as psychology, social psychology and sociology have on the development of theories in management research. Third, trust network reproduction and upper network stability emerged as causal mechanisms of potentially meta theoretical value that may have applicability on a wider range of topics in management research. Lastly, this thesis demonstrates the value of grounded theory in developing theory in management research.

The U.S. toxic food environment has impacted the increased rates of childhood obesity and disordered eating patterns (Battle & Brownell, 1996), and prevention efforts are beginning to take an ecological approach to addressing these weight-based problems. Researchers have begun to discuss the importance of starting prevention efforts during infancy and early childhood (Flynn et al., 2006; Olstad & McCargar, 2008). Caregivers and parents have the most impact on child eating and activity levels during early development, but there is scarce research on ways to engage parents in programming. The present study used a qualitative design to investigate parents' experiences receiving, making meaning of, and applying sociocultural messages about children's health and nutrition. Individual interviews were conducted with parents from 16 very low-income Early Head Start families. Interview transcripts, field notes, documentary evidence, and follow-up participant checks were used during grounded theory analysis of the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). A theoretical model of parental movement toward action was developed that included (a) the culture and context influencing parents, (b) parents' sources of social and cultural messages, (c) parental attitude and engagement, (d) parental motivation for action, (e) intervening conditions impacting motivation and application, and (f) parent action taken on the individual and social levels. The categories and subcategories of the model are illustrated by narrative data. Implications for research, parent engagement, and prevention programming for weight-related problems in young children are discussed.

The grounded theory method is used to generate a theory of leaving crime (“going straight”) from 24 women and men who were interviewed for this study. The main concern for ex-offenders is the degree to which residuals of a stigmatized, past self can be transcended. This residual self is comprised of three interrelated phenomena: i) the visible evidence pointing to a disreputable past, ii) the remnants of disreputable character traits, thinking patterns and emotional states which persist into the present, and iii) the social interactions which stigmatize ex-offenders. Ten of the research respondents are “hardcore” ex-offenders because their former immersion in criminal identities left residuals that are more apparent or knowable to others. The other 14 have criminal identities that were transient, or limited in time and the extent to which they subscribed to criminal values. For both types of offenders, a self-crisis preceded the decision to go straight. Ex-offenders import an exculpatory conversation from helping others that interprets their past harms as the result of the disease of addiction, early childhood trauma, or as lives unfolding within some greater plan by God or fortune. Hardcore offenders seek enveloping forms of help which occupy their ongoing daily consciousness and routines, whereas transient criminal offenders use help for transitory and pragmatic ends. The more that a past, residual self is knowable to others and subjectively problematic, the greater the difficulty that ex-offenders will have negotiating their stigmatized identity. An ongoing process of interpreting and negotiating one’s identity with self and others lies at the core of going straight. The outcome of going straight is credentials which consist of clean time, official pardons for criminal records, amends made with others or society in general, the performance of good works, and most importantly, making distinctions between who I was and who I am. The self presented today is an authentic one, unlike the criminal identity which they now see in retrospect as inauthentic. The degree to which a residual self remains with ex-offenders varies, with hardcore ex-offenders more likely to show or report signs and traits which can be stigmatized by evaluative audiences. However, it is also apparent that the residual self can be used for pragmatic and credentializing purposes, especially when one’s current identity is linked to who one was in the past. The problem of the residual self is differentially negotiated through culturally endorsed narratives of reform. To the degree that ex-offenders discriminate who I was from who I am in familiar stories of change, the greater will be their success in resolving the problems of the residual self. The theory of the residual self fits with recent findings in developmental theories in criminology, and offers optimism about the possibilities for change in adulthood criminal pathways suggested by life-course theories. This study, and others like it, can help promote a wider discourse to counter the “once a con, always a con” thinking which stigmatizes ex-offenders. / Graduate

Context: Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and are extremely fast in producing cutting-edge technologies. These companies develop software un- der highly uncertain conditions, tackling fast growing markets with severe lack of resources. Startups present an unique combination of characteristics which pose several challenges to the software development activities, creating interesting problems for software engineers. However, despite the increasing economical importance and the high failure rate, there are only a few sci- entific studies attempting to address software engineering (SE) issues, especially for early-stages startups. In a context where a wrong decision can easily lead the entire business to failure, the support of SE can contribute to foster performances of startups and making a big impact on a large number of companies. Objective: In view of a lack of primary studies, the first step to attending the software development strategies with scientific and engineering approaches is by an understanding of the startups’ behavior. For this reason this research aims to understand how software development strategies are engineered by practitioners, in the period of time that goes from idea conception to the first open beta release of the software product. Methods: This research combines a systematic review of the state-of-the-art with a cross- sectional case study conducted in 13 web startups recently founded and distributed in di↵erent geographic areas and market sectors. A grounded theory approach guided the execution of a sys- tematic mapping study, integrated with semi-structured interviews and follow-up questionnaires to explore the state-of-practice. Results: We selected, classified and evaluated 37 relevant studies. The systematic review revealed that the studies which constitute the body of knowledge are generally not rigorously designed and executed, make use of inconsistent terminology, and cover only small samples of startups. Moreover, we extrapolated concepts from the case study to form a theoretical model, explaining the underlying phenomenon of software development in early-stage startups. The model is grounded in the empirical data and its explanatory power was further validated through a systematic procedure. Finally we proposed a multi-faceted evolutionary model to describe the dynamics of the software development after the first product release. Conclusions: The research provided a wide set of evidences fostering the understanding of how software development is structured and executed, from idea conception to the first release. The results revealed the urgent priority of startups of releasing the product as quickly as possi- ble to verify the product/market fit and to adjust the business and product trajectory according to the early collected user feedbacks. Nevertheless, the initial gain obtained in speeding-up the development by low-precision and product-centric engineering activities is counterbalanced by the need of restructuring the product and the workflows before setting o↵ for further grow. In fact, when user requests and company’s size start to increase startups face an initial and temporary drop-down in productivity, creating the need of mitigation strategies to find a sweet spot between being fast enough to enter the market early while controlling the amount of accu- mulated technical debt. The conclusions can be generalized with a good degree of confidence to the majority of early-stage software startups involved in the production of innovative products, especially for web and mobile applications.

Children's well-being is an extremely relevant topic at the moment both culturally and politically. Counselling psychologists complete training that includes a diversity of clinical and research approaches though these focus mainly on adults and neglect children. This study aimed to explore the construction of counselling psychologists' experiences of, and perceived contribution to, working with children. Charmaz's (2006) social constructivist version of the original grounded theory method was employed. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants from the British Psychological Society's website. Participants also self-selected for the study. Eleven individuals who were chartered counselling psychologists and had experience of working with children therapeutically were interviewed. Intensive interviewing was employed and the interviews were audio-taped with a typed transcript of each produced. Data analysis revealed a central concept which the researcher termed 'Being a Professional Chameleon', which gained expression through the subcategories of 'Adapting to Working with Children', 'Professional Selves' and 'Training and Competency of Working with Children'. The findings are discussed in relation to related literature, counselling psychology training and career paths. Implications for the counselling psychology profession are discussed, including suggestions for future research and clinical practice.

A qualitative study was carried out with 10 qualified counselling psychologists to explore their perceptions regarding the influence of their early family experiences on their practice. The method employed was grounded theory using data gathered from semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the participants' accounts suggested that early family experiences provided a strong motivation to enter the field of counselling psychology, in order to make sense out of early difficult experiences and utilise early learned skills. Additionally, participants percieved their early experiences to have both a positive and negative influence on their therapeutic competency and practice. The experience of working through and coping with personal struggles enhanced their empathic, relexive abilities and emotional resilience in staying with their clients' difficulties. However, early experiences presented a challenge for the particpants in their ability to facilitate their clients' therapeutic process. These challenges were triggered when re-living earlier experiences in the therapeutic encounter. Early family and later experiences also appeared to influence the participants' developing professional identity, in providing inclinations of working with certain client groups, settings, and therapeutic modalities. In the process of developing their professional identity, participants were in search of authenticity by utilising the theories and therapeutic stance that fits with who they are internally. The participants also emphasised the importance of personal therapy, in terms of dealing with personal issues, increasing self-awareness, modelling their own practice and cultivating therapeutic skills. Personal therapy has been found to have a positive influence on therapeutic practice. A constructed theoretical framework is also presented offering an understanding of the main psychological process identified : "counselling psychologists' self-formation : entering a process of ongoing transformation". The implications of these findings for the relational practice of counselling psychology are discussed.

This research aimed to provide an understanding into the experiences of counselling and clinical doctoral training on trainees and their partners. It was hoped that this would increase understanding would provide support for couples impacted by the doctoral programmes in managing the changes induced and maintaining relationship satisfaction. A mixed methods design was chosen to provide an empirical view of stress, dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction of trainees. It adopted a survey design and an analysis of the processes trainees and partners experience throughout the course as a couple through using a Grounded Theory approach. In total 50 trainees in clinical and counselling psychology took part in the survey study that measured perceived stress, dyadic coping and their relationship satisfaction. Data was analysed using regression analysis to explore relationships between the three constructs. The analysis revealed similarities between clinical and counselling trainees in terms of perceived stress, coping and relationship satisfaction. Regression analysis suggested trainees’ relationship satisfaction was predicted by number of children, communication of stress, length of relationship and length of time cohabiting. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with counselling doctoral trainees and partners. The interviews were transcribed and analysed in accordance with a constructivist version of grounded theory as developed by Charmaz (2006). The grounded theory study revealed a central storyline of 'a journey towards the light at the end of the tunnel' with the social process of striving for equilibrium. This referred to the journey participants experienced whilst the trainee was on the course and highlighted a process as trainees and partners moved through as they developed and adapted to their new lives. The idea of the course being temporary was a thread through the model as participants worked through the stresses whilst focusing on the finishing line at the end of the course. Conflicts arose with participants with children who appeared to undergo a strengthened version of the model. This research provided implications for further specialised support for trainees and partners undergoing the doctoral programmes. It hoped to highlight the difficulties and strengths couples endure on the programme and provides implications for universities and personal therapists to offer systemic support for couples to manage the processes together, making the adjustment process more seamless and meaningful to the couple.