This dissertation study examined school, family, and community partnerships among Hispanic parents whose children were enrolled in a school district’s Migrant Education Program (MEP). I was guided by the following main question: What issues do parents discuss regarding school, family, and community partnerships? Data were collected from interviews, artifacts, and field notes. Participant observation was conducted at the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) meetings and at The Bridge, a clothing distribution program. Findings that emerged from the research demonstrated that the PAC meetings provided a setting where parents created and developed their social networks and became empowered. The parents who informed this study perceived their role in their children’s education as one where parent advocacy was central to the partnerships between families, schools, and communities. With the assistance and collaboration from the MEP, parent volunteers developed The Bridge, first established to assist school families in meeting their children’s basic needs; it later became a central location for local knowledge, social networks, and funds of knowledge. Through work accomplished at The Bridge, parents instilled in their children the value of hard work and learned to navigate the school system. They moved away from oppression, became empowered, and handled tensions. One of the most significant findings in this study was a shift by the parents from performing a standardized set of schooling practices set forth by the school, to developing a program that advanced as needs were assessed and identified. Parents in this study formally organized themselves in order to have a voice in the school (Delgado-Gaitan, 1991).

The influence of packaging design (PD) on consumer choice is well documented, most notably through its perceived attractiveness and the product beliefs it can generate. However, these aspects of PD’s influence have been tested only in isolation and with little attention paid to the moderating role of consumers’ personal characteristics. Drawing from theories in the fields of visual perception, information processing and response to product form and using the product category of wine, the present thesis investigates consumers’ perceptions of PD styles more holistically, incorporating the moderating role of consumer involvement. Specifically, the thesis hypothesises that consumers’ involvement levels in wine moderate their affective and cognitive responses to wine PD styles, which in turn influence their purchase intentions. The empirical investigation follows a mixed methods approach, comprising seven focus group discussions and an online survey (n = 540) of low involvement (LI) and high involvement (HI) wine consumers. The results confirm that consumers show both affective and cognitive responses to PD and that both types of response have significant effects on purchase intention. However, the study also reveals that consumers’ involvement level determines, which type of PD response is more influential. Affective responses to PD had greater impact for LI respondents’ purchase intention than for HI respondents’ purchase intention. An opposite effect was found for cognitive responses to PD. These results demonstrate the need to take account of different types of consumer response when investigating PD’s effects and they highlight the value of involvement as a factor to predict the types of response consumers may have to PD in a purchase decision.

This thesis explores the barriers to effective tenant involvement at an organisational level in housing associations by tracking, over a long period of time, the experience of tenants who get involved in the forums, panels and boards of housing associations. The focus of the research is the relationship between the tenants and the professional staff, in corporate environments where delivery of a user-focused service is purported to be the shared goal. The aim has been to explore with tenants and staff their experiences of trying to make tenant involvement work at a strategic level within the organisation. My research seeks (a) to unravel the methods used by the different actors to influence activities and outcomes, and (b) to examine their effects on the power balance in and between the groups of people in question. Clegg’s 1989 ‘Circuits of power’ theory is used to plot and analyse the processes involved in the transformation (or not) of power within the culture and practice of tenant involvement and the empowerment (or not) of the tenants who work with staff at the heart of these corporate cultures. In addition I use Somerville’s 1998 typology of empowerment to illustrate the potential for organisational change. I gather a wide range of material, using a detailed questionnaire, 17 case studies plus a further three of national level involvement initiatives, and an analysis of 112 Housing Corporation and Audit Commission inspection reports (from 2003 and 2008). To this I add my own experience as a participant observer in a range of settings over the period. This thesis is intended to shed some light on why the same barriers continue to exist and why so many involved tenants and their housing associations are still struggling to make involvement really make a difference at this level, despite a decade of intensive regulations and inspection of involvement activities.

Advice for Web designers often includes an admonition to use short, scannable, bullet-pointed text, reflecting the common belief that browsing the Web most often involves scanning rather than reading. Literature from several disciplines focuses on the myriad combinations of factors related to online reading but studies of the users' interests and motivations appear to offer a more promising avenue for understanding how users utilize information on Web pages. This study utilized the modified Personal Involvement Inventory (PII), a ten-item instrument used primarily in the marketing and advertising fields, to measure interest and motivation toward a topic presented on the Web. Two sites were constructed from Reader's Digest Association, Inc. online articles and a program written to track students' use of the site. Behavior was measured by the initial choice of short versus longer versions of the main page, the number of pages visited and the amount of time spent on the site. Data were gathered from students at a small, private university in the southwest part of the United States to answer six hypotheses which posited that subjects with higher involvement in a topic presented on the Web and a more positive attitude toward the Web would tend to select the longer text version, visit more pages, and spend more time on the site. While attitude toward the Web did not correlate significantly with any of the behavioral factors, the level of involvement was associated with the use of the sites in two of three hypotheses, but only partially in the manner hypothesized. Increased involvement with a Web topic did correlate with the choice of a longer, more detailed initial Web page, but was inversely related to the number of pages viewed so that the higher the involvement, the fewer pages visited. An additional indicator of usage, the average amount of time spent on each page, was measured and revealed that more involved users spent more time on each page.

More and more parents are turning to the Internet for information about their children’s health and wellbeing. With all of the conflicting information online, how do parents decide which health websites to believe and follow? One website element the impact of which is not well understood is the readability level of content presented. An online survey was conducted with parents and university students in an attempt to isolate the relationships between website readability and credibility judgements and intentions to act. Parents and students were randomly assigned to view and evaluate one of three mock websites about Fragile X syndrome with identical content but differing readability levels. It was predicted that users would find websites that were easier to understand more credible and they would in turn then be more likely to act on the information from simple readability websites. Contrary to the author’s hypothesis, students were more likely to follow recommendations on websites written at a complex readability level, when they were engaged with the website. Results also showed that readability was less of an influence on credibility than were the parents’ pre-experiment knowledge of the disorder. / February 2017

Class of 2009 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: To determine if there is a correlation between student involvement in pharmacy organizations and self-reported professional development. METHODS: A cross sectional, prospective, print-based questionnaire was submitted to students in their last didactic year of the Doctor of Pharmacy program at one university. The questionnaire was administered during a well attended, regularly scheduled class and students self-assessed their professionalism on the Behavioral Professionalism Assessment and provided data on their degree of involvement in pharmacy professional organizations. RESULTS: The questionnaire was completed by 78 of 84 students (a 93% response rate). Nearly 94% of participants reported that involvement in pharmacy organizations played some role in their professional development and approximately 30% of these students based this opinion on participation, leadership, and networking opportunities offered by professional organizations. A significant positive correlation between self-reported professionalism and involvement (i.e., the number of: brown bags/health fairs and organizational meetings attended, p<0.05 for each) was identified. CONCLUSIONS: A relationship was identified between professionalism and involvement at one college of pharmacy. Further research should be conducted at other colleges of pharmacy to determine if these data can be generalized to the larger pharmacy student population.

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This research is an attempt to introduce and operationalize a new concept of proxy diplomacy by exploring how some nations, in this fast changing world, are evolving some effective ways of enhancing their interests and foreign policy objectives in areas in which they do not have vital interests, but which are worth intervening in. To do this, the researcher established Angola as the theater of the practice of proxy diplomacy, and the United States, the Soviet Union, South Africa and Cuba as actors. It is further established that the United States and the Soviet Union actually practice proxy diplomacy by deputizing South Africa and Cuba, respectively, to enhance their interests in Angola.

I en global värld som ständigt utvecklas och konkurrensen hårdnar har ständiga förbättringar bliviten del av vardagen för de flesta företag. Ofta visualiseras förbättringar på en tavla. Tavlan är ett brahjälpmedel för att ledare på ett enkelt men effektivt sätt ska visualisera mål för dess medarbetare.Medarbetarna ska med detta hjälpmedel känna sig mer delaktiga genom att de får vara med ibeslutsprocessen. Utöver de hjälpmedel som existerar måste också ett coachande ledarskapföreligga bland ledare, där högkvalitativ kommunikation och konstruktiv feedback är något som ärdel av det vardagliga arbetet. Det gäller att skapa en tvåvägskommunikation som består av attlyssna, tala, komma överens och därefter agera mellan parterna. Feedbacken ska varaindividanpassad såväl som gruppanpassad för att få ut bästa tänkbara resultat. / In a global world that is constantly evolving and competition hardens, constant improvements havebecome part of everyday life for most companies. Often, improvements are displayed on a board.The board is a good tool for executives to visualize goals for their employees in a simple yeteffective manner. Employees will feel more involved with this tool and participate in the decisionmakingprocess in the business. In addition to the tools that exist, a coaching leadership must alsoexist among leaders, where high quality communication and constructive feedback are somethingthat is part of everyday work. It is a matter of creating a two-way communication consisting oflistening, talk, agreeing and then acting between the parties. Feedback should be individualized aswell as group-adapted to get the best possible results.

Headquarters of multinational corporations can be involved in their subsidiaries and help with the development and transfer of innovative ideas. However, headquarters involvement might not always be desired or needed, and it can thus be perceived as interference with local activities, potentially reducing local willingness to go the extra mile. We address the lack of knowledge about subsidiary manager behavior by answering the following question: How does headquarters involvement influence the proactive behavior of subsidiary managers to push for new and innovative ideas? Using data from 120 top managers in subsidiaries of multinational corporations, we find that the negative relationship between headquarters involvement and their subsidiary managers' support for initiatives can be reduced when socialization mechanisms such as a common corporate culture or rotation programs are put in place.