scholarly journals Researching ‘Care’ in and around the Workplace

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Smith ◽  
Linda McKie

In this research note we critically consider the concept of ‘care’ both inside and around the workplace. Care, we assert, is ever-present in the workplace and evident in friendships and wider social relations. Moreover, many organisational policies and practices provide a framework within which caring may take place or be denied. ‘Organisation carescapes’ is introduced as a conceptual framework, which we argue can aid the identification and analysis of ‘care’ in employing organisations. Drawing on exploratory interviews, we discuss the implications these had on future stages of the research project in terms of our use of language and ways of conceptualising care at work. We explain how we operationalised the concept of care at work through the development of a questionnaire, which sought to map the care policies and services offered by a range of employing organisations. Furthermore, we discuss the appropriateness of the critical incident interview technique in uncovering the cultures and practices of care both in and around the workplace. Hence, through our conceptual and empirical research, we seek to bridge the sociologies of work and care.

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jen Gilbert ◽  
Jessica Fields ◽  
Laura Mamo ◽  
Nancy Lesko

In 2014, Beyond Bullying, a research project examining LGBTQ sexualities and lives at school, installed private storytelling booths in three US high schools. Students, teachers, and staff were invited to use the booths to share stories about LGBTQ sexualities—their stories often invoked the pleasures and disappointments of being and having a friend. This article analyzes narratives of friendship as told in the Beyond Bullying storytelling booths. Drawing on Foucault’s (1996) interview, ‘Friendship as a way of life,’ we explore participants’ stories of friendship as heralding ‘new relational modes’ that chart a liminal space between family and sexuality. These relational modes of friendship disrupt the familiar trope of the ‘ally’ in anti-bullying programs and complicate what empirical research on LGBTQ youth calls, ‘peer social support.’ Theorizing friendship allows LGBTQ sexuality in schools to reside in an ethics of discomfort, which accommodates complex social relations and varied forms of desire, intimacy, and yearning.


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Marsden

This paper argues that despite 50 years of empirical research, the phenomenon of social contagion is still poorly understood. Social contagion research has produced an eclectic, largely confused and jumbled body of evidence that lacks any comprehensive organising principle or conceptual framework. Whilst the great majority of this empirical research has identified and confirmed existence of the social contagion phenomenon, results have been undermined because the phenomenon itself has been variously and ambiguously defined and operationalised. This has meant that the potential radical implications of social contagion research findings for an orthodox understanding of the human individual as a rational Cartesian agent, have been largely ignored. It is suggested that the emerging evolutionary paradigm of memetics may providea novel conceptual framework for understanding and explaining the empirical phenomenon of social contagion, by understanding it as the observable action of selfish memes replicating through a population. The article concludes by proposing a memetic theory of social contagion, and ends with a call for the synthesis of the two bodies to create a comprehensive body of theoretically informed research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana-Alexandra DUMITRESCU

Social exclusion of older adults represents a focal problem in Romania. It has a multidimensional character, manifesting in multiple areas: exclusion from social relations, from material resources, from services, from community and society. This paper presents the rationale of the AMASE project, our research and social policy objectives, as well as our work philosophy. Keywords: social exclusion; vulnerability; ageing; Norwegian grants.


Author(s):  
Vonia Engel ◽  
Teresa Noronha ◽  
Cidonea Machado Deponti

This chapter is the result of an interuniversity exchange doctoral research project carried out in the Algarve region, Portugal, in 2017. Its objective was to discuss the economic trajectory of Portugal and its implications for those political strategies encouraging technological innovation. The empirical research used interviews and the analytical results were based on the path dependence theory. The outcomes of this study point to the dependence of the Algarve region from external investments.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1712-1730
Author(s):  
Piotr Tarka ◽  
Mirosława Kaczmarek

This chapter focuses on the similarities and differences between quantitative and qualitative marketing research projects and the possibilities of combining them in triangulation. The comparative analysis of both types of the research was conducted on the basis of literature review and the empirical research results, which were obtained from the evaluation of usability of Polish bank website. In the following sections, the authors discuss issues such as: 1) specificity of quantitative vs. qualitative marketing research, with regards to the implemented research projects; 2) methodological aspects of quantitative and qualitative research. They compare the selected research and sampling methods. Also, the problems which may occur with reference to quantitative and qualitative marketing research triangulation on different stages of the research project are discussed. Moreover, strengths and weaknesses of triangulation are analyzed. At the end, the example of quantitative and qualitative triangulation in the research project investigating the usability of websites is presented.


2021 ◽  
pp. 139-147
Author(s):  
Sara D’Amario ◽  
Freya Bailes

Timing and synchronization represent fundamental elements of ensemble playing. Empirical research has demonstrated remarkably tight synchronization in ensembles, including instrumental and classical singing formations. Nevertheless, asynchronies between co-performers during ensemble playing are inevitable and, to some extent, desirable: musicians deliberately co-vary their timing and synchronization to attain mastery in expressive ensemble performance. By reviewing published studies on ensemble synchrony, the contextual factors that may impact synchronization are presented. Considerations of ensemble timing are then broadened to better recognize variations by musical tradition. Ultimately, the chapter reflects on the relationships between intrapersonal and interpersonal synchrony in ensemble, from the lowest levels of the temporal hierarchy, including neural activity, to the higher levels comprising breathing and cardiac activities, and musicians’ body gestures. This overview provides a conceptual framework to explore aspects of context as well as the physiology and the psychology of collective music-making, suggesting a fruitful avenue for further investigations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-586
Author(s):  
Tiina Tuominen ◽  
Bo Edvardsson ◽  
Javier Reynoso

Purpose This study aims to understand and explain how institutional change occurs at the level of value co-creation practices in service ecosystems. Despite the centrality of collective practices to the service ecosystems perspective, theoretically grounded explanations of how practices change and become institutionalized remain underdeveloped. Applying the theory of routine dynamics, this paper addresses two questions as follows: what does the institutional change mean at the level of value co-creation practices and what processes underlie these changes? Design/methodology/approach The study develops a conceptual framework that characterizes value co-creation practices as routines involving three aspects, namely, ostensive, performative and artifactual. As a key element in institutional change, the interplay between these informs an account of institutional change processes in service ecosystems. Findings The proposed conceptual framework specifies the conditions for institutional change in terms of value co-creation routines. First, any such change is seen to be grounded in alignment between changing institutional rules and the ostensive, performative and artifactual aspects of routines. Second, this alignment is seen to emerge through a dialectics of planned and practice-based activities during institutional change. An empirical research agenda is proposed for the analysis of institutional change processes in different service ecosystems. Originality/value This conceptual framework extends existing accounts of how service ecosystems change through the contributions of multiple actors at the level of value co-creation practices.


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