No description available.

This thesis explores the use of adapted Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) with individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (ID/D). DBT is a multi-modal psychological intervention that aims to increase skills in interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and mindfulness. It was initially developed for individuals who presented with parasuicidal behaviours, and is recommended for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This thesis is presented in five papers; a systematic literature review, three empirical papers (a, b &c), and a critical review and reflection of the research process. The systematic literature review provides a narrative review of published research regarding the adaptations and outcomes of DBT for individuals with ID/D. Seven studies were reviewed using the Evaluative Method for Determining Evidence Based Practice (EBP) (Reichow, 2011). The findings detail the adaptations, results and critical appraisal of the research to date. The empirical papers consider the outcomes of adults with ID/D who received adapted DBT in a community psychological therapies service. The papers present different methodologies, and combined produce a consilience of evidence regarding the suitability of DBT for this population. Paper 2a found significant reductions on measures of depression, anxiety and anger, and increased mindfulness skills amongst 18 participants following DBT. Paper 2b uses repertory grid technique to explore the psychological changes that occur following DBT for seven participants, and found overall changes in personal construing and improvements in self-esteem. Paper 2c considers the psychological changes that occur in further depth through the presentation of two case studies. The case studies consider the complexity and idiosyncrasy of the individuals and gives consideration to the use of repertory grids to identify implicative dilemmas as part of clinical assessments. The final paper provides a critical review with personal reflections of the thesis. The author considers the research and clinical implications of the study.

The aim of this thesis is to compare two different interface approaches for pervasive gameswith a focus on immersion. We designed and created two small pervasive games and implemented bothon two different platforms; smartphone and wearable device. We created four pervasive gameprototypes which we tested with a group of fourteen testers. We subsequently conducted interviewsusing the Repertory Grid Technique. The findings suggest that our testers appreciated wearable devicesmore than smartphones in the context of immersion, while they identified characteristics theyassociated with each platform; Smartphones were considered familiar, inconspicuous, casual but notvery exciting. Wearables were considered a new experience and fun but also strange and attention-drawing.

Yes / This study uncovers hotel brand positioning and competitive landscape mapping by text-mining user-generated content (UGC). Rather than relying on a single dimension of consumer evaluation, the current study detects brand attributes by using both customer preferences as well as perceptual performance to develop meaningful insights. For this, the study combines content analysis and repertory grid analysis (RGA) to answer three key research issues. 111,986 hotel reviews from two biggest Chinese cities are used to explore and visualize the competitive landscape of six selected hotel brands across three hotel categories. Findings from the study will not only advance the existing literature on brand positioning and competitive landscape mapping but also help practitioners in developing brand positioning strategies to fight competitors within and across hotel categories.

Background: The literature suggests a consensus that individuals can become traumatised through listening to another’s trauma. Much of this research, however, has focused on individuals who have had direct, face-to-face contact with the primary victims of trauma. It therefore appears that there is a paucity of research looking at contact which is less direct, such as telephone contact. Aims: The current research aimed to explore the levels of secondary traumatic stress and posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of Samaritan telephone volunteers, with a view to understanding some of the correlates of trauma. It also aimed to explore the personal construct systems of a sub-sample of Samaritan telephone volunteers, and explore any relationships between personal construct systems and trauma. Method: A cross-sectional design was employed. Questionnaires were used to assess levels of secondary traumatic stress and posttraumatic stress in Samaritan telephone volunteers spread across the United Kingdom. Repertory grid technique was used with a sub-sample of Samaritan telephone volunteers to elicit bipolar constructs comparing themselves and others. Results: 299 Samaritan telephone volunteers completed or partially completed the questionnaires, and of these 50 volunteers completed the repertory grids. Levels of secondary trauma (as determined by the Modified Secondary Trauma Scale) correlated with discrepancy in construing of the current and ideal self, levels of posttraumatic stress and exposure to potentially traumatic events. The Samaritans were not found to be suffering with secondary trauma. Degree of elaboration of self-construing reduced after the named traumatic event, and there was a significant difference in degree of elaboration for ‘self after traumatic event’ on the emergent poles of constructs. Conclusions: This research appears to be the first dedicated to assessing secondary trauma in telephone crisis line volunteers, lending some support to Sewell and Cromwell’s (1990) personal construct model of posttraumatic stress. The findings of this study challenge crisis lines to think about secondary trauma, and to implement some teaching and training around this area. Additionally, it reinforces that further research in the area is needed, and highlights the relative merits of employing a repertory grid methodology alongside questionnaires in understanding trauma.

In the thesis the aim is to investigate different aspects of what teachers value when grading in Swedish physical education (PE) and to analyses how sociological background factors impact students’ grades. Grades in PE have included aspects other than those prescribed in the grading criteria, for instance motivation and effort. Teachers sometimes find their value-setting difficult to articulate and refer to a “gut feeling”. In order to explore both explicit and implicit forms of value-setting, the Repertory Grid interview technique is employed. The thesis includes four sub-studies, three interview studies with Swedish PE teachers and a fourth study based on registry data from the Swedish National Agency for Education. The data of all students leaving nine-year compulsory school in 2014 (n=95317) is analysed to explore how sociological background factors, such as migration background, parents’ education, school provider and gender, affect PE grades. The results reveal aspects of grading that are not detectable in the official description of the grading assignment and highlight problems that teachers need to address when grading. Four themes are discerned in the teachers’ grading practices: motivation, knowledge, confidence and social skills. The implementation of a new national curriculum with specified knowledge requirements seems to improve the alignment with the national criteria, but there is still a gap between policy and practice. The knowledge requirements for movement are often interpreted as performances in competitive sports, even if the teachers try to find other interpretations. The odds ratio for getting a higher grade in PE is greater for the variables migration background and parents’ education than for the other investigated variables. The concepts formulated by Bernstein are applied to explore the relations between teachers’ grading practices and cultural and political influences and to discuss how the tensions between different interests could affect teachers’ grading. The conclusion is that the gap between policy and practice confirmed in this study is related to tensions between the interests and purposes of different agents, all of whom strive to influence steering documents and practice. Cultural and political influences need to be considered and facilitate discussions about how to understand which knowledge is valued in PE and who has better possibilities to assimilate it. / Forskningslinjen Utbildning

Many organizations have a problem with synchronizing individual values regarding information security with expectations set by the relevant security policy. Such discordance leads to failure in compliance or simply subversion of existing or imposed controls. The problem of the mismatch in understanding the security policies amongst individuals in an organization has devastating effect on security of the organization. Different individuals hold different understanding and knowledge about IS security, which is reflected on IS security policies design and practice (Vaast, 2007). Albrecthsen and Hovdena (2009) argue that users and managers practice IS security differently because they have different rationalities. This difference in rationalities may reflect the mismatch between the security policies and individuals’ values. In this research, we argue that occurrence of security breach can change individuals’ values in light of security policy of organization. These changes in the values can be reflected on the compliance between individuals’ norms and security rules and standards. Indeed, organizations need to guarantee the compliance between security policy and values of their employees. Thus, they can alleviate or prevent violations of security of organization. However, it is difficult to find a common method that all organizations can adopt to guarantee the synch between security rules and individuals’ norms. The main aim of this research is to investigate how people perceive information security policy and how their perceptions change in response to security breaches. Besides, this research aims to investigate the relationship between individuals’ values and security policy. Thus, organizations can have the intended level of compliance between individual norms and security rules and standards. With the aid of the Repertory Grid technique, this research examines how a security breach shapes people’s values with respect to security policy of an organization. To conduct the argument, this research offers an assessment mechanism that aids the organization to evaluate employees’ values in regard to security policy. Based on that evaluation, the organization can develop a proper mechanism to guarantee compliance between individuals’ norms and security rules. The results of this research show that employees in an organization hold different perceptions regarding the security policy. These perceptions change in response to security incident. This change in perceptions dose not necessarily result in better compliance with the security policy. Factors like the type of breach and people’s experience can affect the amount of change in the perceptions. Contributions, implications, and directions for future research of this study will be discussed.

The past few year statistics show that more and more small companies are going bankrupt. Only in the year 2013 the figure increased by five percent over the prior year. Therefore, this study intends to highlight the problem of why failures occur and what underlying signals firms receive about a looming bankruptcy. It is not uncommon for firms for various reasons aside from the signals they receive about the company's financial position. The aim of this study is to increase the understanding of the signals at corporate failures.To answer this purpose, the study used a qualitative approach with quantitative elements. The qualitative method has been implemented in the form of personal interviews with the bankruptcy trustee and the quantitative method based on statistics from the district court in Lulea and data based on repertory grid. The quantitative data from the analysis program, Repertory grid, contributes a principal component analysis and factor analysis.With the help of the principal component analysis there could be four different typologies of insolvent companies identified. The dimensions that were found to have the highest variance were corporate structure and degree of external expertise. Based on these dimensions could every business be categorized. The factor analysis presents factor loadings which had the greatest explanation arising from or related construction.Key words: Repertory grid, institutional theory, signal theory, bankruptcy, small businesses, small enterprises. / <p>Validerat; 20140813 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

To help organizations better understand and improve the management of information systems development (ISD) projects, this dissertation aims to understand what ISD project knowledge and beliefs ISD professionals work with and how the knowledge and beliefs are organized in their minds. Drawing on the cognitive perspective using a mental model approach, I define a new construct, ISD Project (ISDP) mental model, which refers to ISD professionals’ knowledge and belief structures that help them understand, conduct, and manage ISD projects. Particularly, two essential elements of ISDP mental models - content and structure – were explored. Regarding the content, forty fundamental concepts were derived from literature reviews and cognitive interviews with 19 ISD experts. Analysis of 95 ISD professionals’ cognitive responses using Multidimensional Scaling revealed four types of evaluative beliefs - customer-, team-, enterprise-, and product-oriented beliefs. This new construct, along with its assessment procedures, provides a useful starting point for academics and organizations to explore the people factor in ISD. To investigate the impact of ISDP mental models, I examined work relationships between project managers and developers where effective work relationships are crucial to project success. Specifically, I explored how the similarity of mental models and an understanding of others’ mental models influence work relationships. Through a multiple case study on 6 project manager-developer pairs in different case conditions (i.e., similarity of mental models x accuracy of understanding), the results provide preliminary support that the project manager-developer pairs who hold accurate understanding have more effective implicit coordination - they are sensitive to one another’s knowledge, beliefs, and preferences and they adjust their task and interpersonal coordination accordingly. Accurate understanding also stimulates the process of knowledge integration in which the dyad builds upon one another’s knowledge to resolve project challenges. This dissertation contributes to the literature on ISD project management by capturing the organization of ISDP knowledge in ISD professionals’ minds and identifying underlying beliefs. Furthermore, it contributes to an understanding of how project managers and developers can coordinate effectively when they have high cross-understanding, despite dissimilarities of knowledge and beliefs. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-17 11:18:07.356

Employees experience a loss of meaning in the workplace as a result of fragmentation and alienation (Casey, 2002). This seems to be the result of a change in the way in which people view their world and their experiences in the world, including their place of work. The purpose of the study was to investigate the loss of meaning at work. The investigation indicated a variety of factors as described by Terez (2000), Casey (2002), and Chalofsky (2010). The problem is not a singular problem which can be discussed in isolation, but tends towards a problem-complex, which relates to negative work-life-experiences and that result in the alienation of the individual from the self, work, the organization and others at work. The purpose of the study: “A meaningful workplace: From theory development to applicability” is to construe a meaningful workplace model through the identification and description of the constitutive dimensions which construe the underlying theoretical base. It was purposefully structured within the Organizational Behaviour domain, to indicate the applicability of the construct and its underlying theoretical base, in management practice in organizational settings. This purpose was pursued along the boundary lines of three objectives: To conceptualize the constitutive elements of the construct: meaningful workplace; to expand (develop) the theoretical base of the construct meaningful workplace and to present evidence for the existence of the construct based on empirical evidence from the world of work. The study follows a qualitative research methodology consisting of a constructivist approach, utilizing two data gathering methods, and interpreted from a phenomenological perspective with a consistent focus on the lived experience of people at work. Two data gathering methods were utilised. Firstly a literature review, of formal scholarly publications was undertaken to identify the constitutive dimensions of the construct. The research followed the lead of the Meaning of Work Project Team (1987), Terez (2000), and Chalofsky (2010), and others. Secondly three empirical data sets were investigated. The first data set consisted of the annual research results of the CRF Institute in relation to the “Best employer to work for”. The second data set consisted of information gleaned from verbatim responses in an exit interview report, being made available for the study. The third data set consists of Repertory Grid interview data. Results of the research indicate that the construct meaningful workplace is an emerging construct in literature and that the tenets exist as an ideal in the lived experience of employees. The study contributes to the expansion (development) of the underlying theory of a meaningful workplace while simultaneously also providing a parallel understanding of human behaviour at work. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted