Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Personal agency'
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1
Ross, Stanley A. "Personal agency in employment groups." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25147.pdf.
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Brown, Julia. "Making Health Agency: Clozapine, Schizophrenia, and Personal Power." Phd thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148757.
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This thesis demonstrates how experiences of agency and health
persist in spite of confining social and biological
circumstances. I take the case of clozapine-treated
schizophrenia, where patients are presented with both renewed
hope for an independent life at the same time as undertaking an
intensive physiological monitoring regimen that prioritises their
life in the most immediate sense only. Clozapine patients face a
high risk of chronic multi-morbidities that significantly lower
their life expectancy, and they are not quite ‘cured’ of
their mental disturbances pertaining to chronic schizophrenia. I
demonstrate, though, how patients are able to experience a sense
of what I term health agency, where we might otherwise imagine
their well-being to be significantly compromised. Health agency
is a feeling of control over one’s well-being, where well-being
is defined in one’s own terms. It was remarkable to find it in
the clinical contexts in which I was working, where very narrowly
constituted definitions of health were ostensibly endorsed and
imposed. But in the thick of life in the clozapine clinic,
patients and institution did not occupy strict polar positions.
My fine grained ethnographic work revealed how patients worked
creatively with the clinical circuitries, biomedical imaginaries
and temporal underpinnings of clozapine treatment to personalise
their experiences and to exert subtle, personal power over their
health and future prospects.
My fieldwork was based in the UK and Australia over an 18-month
period (2015-2016) between two clozapine clinics. Research
participants included 43 people diagnosed with schizophrenia
(termed patients, hereafter) and 16 clinical staff at the
clozapine clinics (termed clinical caregivers, hereafter). I
conducted participant observation and 130 interviews. Drawing on
my ethnographic data, this thesis explicates how health agency
was available to patients in four central ways. First, health
agency was part of a hopeful, personal persistence for holistic
health in spite of the ‘physical,’ ‘mental,’ and
‘social’ aspects of health appearing irreconcilable in terms
of clinical definitions. Second, patients were able to creatively
manipulate and complement the goals of clozapine clinic blood
monitoring to actively participate in the aspect of their
treatment that is otherwise the furthest from patient control.
Third, patients drew on the ambiguities of clozapine and other
‘health’ consumptions or behaviours to negotiate how
clozapine impacted their minds and bodies. Fourth, patients
utilised the temporalities of clozapine and clinical suspending
of non-biological concerns to abundantly “live in the
present” and harness focused energies that kept their futures
open, while ephemerally suspending clinical symptoms and
clozapine side effects. I suggest that patients’ self and
social labour, and their quiet everyday efficacies in making
their own health, problematise some previous anthropological and
clinical conceptions about living with chronic schizophrenia
under biomedical treatment models. I make the case for further
ethnographic consideration for quiet expressions of agency within
highly structured conditions.
3
Lundquist, Simone. "Impact of gender, perception of being overweight and fat acceptance on personal agency| Establishing additional validity and reliability for the personal agency questionnaire." Thesis, Alliant International University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3722307.
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The overarching goal of psychoanalytic and narrative therapies is to increase agency; however, few tools assess for agency. The Personal Agency Questionnaire (PAQ) was developed for this purpose and was found to be a valid and reliable instrument (Lundquist, 2012). The primary aims of this study were to (a) replicate past findings by performing correlations between the PAQ and scales measuring constructs thought to be part of agency (RSES for self-esteem; GSE for self-efficacy, and IPC for internal locus of control), (b) increase internal consistency and reliability of the PAQ through performing a factor analysis, and (c) establish additional validity by performing regressions to determine how three additional variables were related to agency: gender, perception of being overweight, and antifat attitudes. Females were expected to score lower than males on the PAQ because of the influence of gender norms on agency. Overweight status has shown a negative relation to agency, self-efficacy, and self-esteem; however, the fat- accepting individuals were expected to have greater agency compared to those who have internalized the culture’s antifat messages. Participants accessed the online survey through postings on Craig’s List and Yahoo discussion groups. Analyses were conducted with 280 participants, a majority of whom were White (65%), female (74%), employed (59%), highly educated (64% had college degree or greater, 33.20% attended some college), and had attended therapy (68%). Factor analysis revealed 4 factors underlying the PAQ (which replaced the previously hypothesized 6 subscales); items of the PAQ were reduced from 42 to 24, increasing reliability among the factors, with α = .78, α = .78, α = .72, α = .73, and the total reliability from α = .62 to α = .90. The new PAQ had stronger correlations than previously with the three scales that established its construct validity. Fat acceptance, age, education and therapy were significantly, positively correlated with agency. When looking at gender alone, or perceptions of being fat alone or in combination with gender, no differences in agency were evident. However when adding the antifat variable to gender and perceptions of being overweight, being female, significantly overweight, with antifat attitudes predicted reduced agency.
4
Sage, David A. "Re/discovering the self, personal explorations in subjectivity and agency." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0014/MQ33268.pdf.
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McNamara, Sara B. "Shifting Personal Agency During Transition from Military to Civilian Workforce." Thesis, Pepperdine University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10843996.
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This study examined US enlisted veterans? personal agency during their transition from the military to civilian workforce. Veterans currently working in a civilian corporate environment were involved: 41 were surveyed, 10 were interviewed, and 80 supplied comments to the researcher?s LinkedIn request for responses. Participants were asked to describe their sense of personal agency and how it evolved over the time period before, during, and after military service. Participants offered slightly varying descriptions of their transition experience. In general, participants experienced low agency before military service, minimal agency at the start of military service that grew over time, and an unprecedented and sometimes paralyzing degree of freedom and agency after military service. Transitioning veterans are thus advised to understand that the psychological transition process is complex, increase their competencies through cultural immersion experiences and field research, maintain a learning mindset, and build a relevant and committed support team.
6
Lichtenstein, Patricia Vail. "Authorship valence: An investigation into personal agency in linguistic experience." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1270826915.
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Kinser, Amber E. "Holding On by Letting Go: Personal Agency as Maternal Activism." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2012. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/1239.
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Despite the efforts of maternal advocates and feminists through 150 years or more, a great many mothers today feel dissatisfied, shortchanged, and/or inadequate in their own lives. Even those who have reckoned with the fact that standards for mothering are absurdly out of synch with the real lives that families are living in contemporary times, or have carved out comfortable personal and familial space for themselves just beyond, or far beyond, the margins of mainstream motherhood ideologies, often struggle nevertheless with a needling sense of unrest and lack of personal agency. Further, women who agree that maternal empowerment is an important point of focus for social justice may not feel positioned to organize on behalf of mother activism. This essay explores ways that mothers can hold on to the continued struggle for maternal empowerment by letting go of some of the psychological barriers to living fully and purposefully as mothers. Focusing on personal agency as a form of maternal activism, Kinser examines ways for forgiving and embracing the humanity of our own mothers or maternal figures, our selves, and our children that can serve as powerful catalysts for significant change on personal and political scales.
8
Daniels, Michael A. "The Roles of Personal Agency and Emotional Discrepancy in Emotion Regulation." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1288664133.
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Johansson, Emilia. "Kan inhyrning av personal utgöra ett otillåtet kringgående av företrädesrätten?" Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för ekonomistyrning och logistik (ELO), 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-43822.
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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issue of preferential rights in relation to the increased practice of hiring temporary staff. The object is illuminated from a diversity perspective by seeing what a circumvention of the preferential rights may have consequences for vulnerable groups on the Swedish labor market. The question of preferential rights to reinstatement is controlled in The Employment Protection Act. The preferential right is for the protection of workers made redundant due to redundancy. The use of agency workers has increased significantly in the Swedish labor market since the industry's legalization in 1993. This has created some problems in terms of preferential rights. To a circumvention of the law, shall exist requires that the measures constitute circumvention is justified, measures should have been sought to circumvent the law and been unfair in view of the particular case. Hiring of staff is not considered as a new employment, which is the requirement to invoke preferential rights, thus causing it to staff hiring is legitimate action under the preferential time. To reduce the abuse of the right of priority, I believe that the application of law should be changed so that it takes into account the triangular available on today's labor market.
10
McKenzie, Heather Marie. "Why Bother Blogging? Motivations for Adults in the United States to Maintain a Personal Journal Blog." NCSU, 2008. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-03182008-224555/.
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A blog is an online journal that is updated regularly and usually maintained by a single author. Roughly 8 to 9 percent of adult Internet users in the U.S. maintain a blog, which is about 12 million people. This study examines the most prevalent motivations for adults in the U.S. to maintain a specific type of blog â the personal journal blog. The personal journal blog is defined as a blog maintained by one person and containing mostly personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. An online survey of 127 personal journal bloggers who updated their blog at least every 4-5 days was conducted in December 2007 and January 2008. Participants in the survey represented a wide range of ages, geographical locations, and educational achievement levels, with most being 25 â 44 years old, female, White, and having at least some college education. Results indicate that the two most prevalent motivations for adults in the U.S. to maintain a personal journal blog are: (a) to entertain oneself and (b) to clarify thoughts and/or emotions. Survey participants also responded to questions regarding their feelings about blogging. Implications for the field of counseling and future research on the topic are addressed.
11
Butt, Bruce Robert Charles. "Self, society and politics : teenagers' experiences of identity, agency and globalisation." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.244970.
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Naudin, Annette. "Cultural entrepreneurship : identity and personal agency in the cultural worker's experience of entrepreneurship." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2015. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/73086/.
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This thesis examines the role of personal agency in the cultural worker’s experience of entrepreneurship. The thesis is a response to a call for further empirical studies capturing the lived experience of cultural work and of entrepreneurship (See Banks, 2006; Gill and Pratt, 2008; Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2011; and Steyaert and Hjorth, 2006). I am inspired by an emerging literature which seeks to re-invent entrepreneurship by placing it within a social context, including being ‘enterprising’ for counter-cultural activities or for ‘good’ work (morally, ethically and practically), and female entrepreneurship. I draw on the academic disciplines of cultural studies, cultural policy studies and entrepreneurship studies as a context for this empirical research. By exploring the lived experience of cultural entrepreneurship I focus on the worker’s position and personal agency within a milieu. Day-to-day activities reveal a pragmatic approach to managing the challenges of cultural work, and the possibility for ‘rethinking cultural entrepreneurship’ (Oakley, 2014). The cultural entrepreneur’s capacity for reflexivity emerges as a means of subverting or negotiating entrepreneurial modes of work. Identity and myths are challenged by discussing ideas of performing the entrepreneur, or counteracting popular stereotypes. My research approach encourages individuals to construct their story within this dynamic context, a space they shape as well as being shaped by it.
13
Louws, Margie. "Electronic multi-agency collaboration : a model for sharing children's personal information among organisations." Thesis, University of Bradford, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/5694.
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The sharing of personal information among health and social service organisations is a complex issue and problematic process in present-day England. Organisations which provide services to children face enormous challenges on many fronts. Internal ways of working, evolving best practice, data protection applications, government mandates and new government agencies, rapid changes in technology, and increasing costs are but a few of the challenges with which organisations must contend in order to provide services to children while keeping in step with change. This thesis is an exploration into the process of sharing personal information in the context of public sector reforms. Because there is an increasing emphasis of multi-agency collaboration, this thesis examines the information sharing processes both within and among organisations, particularly those providing services to children. From the broad principles which comprise a socio-technical approach of information sharing, distinct critical factors for successful information sharing and best practices are identified. These critical success factors are then used to evaluate the emerging national database, ContactPoint, highlighting particular areas of concern. In addition, data protection and related issues in the information sharing process are addressed. It is argued that one of the main factors which would support effective information sharing is to add a timeline to the life of a dataset containing personal information, after which the shared information would dissolve. Therefore, this thesis introduces Dynamic Multi-Agency Collaboration (DMAC), a theoretical model of effective information sharing using a limited-life dataset. The limited life of the DMAC dataset gives more control to information providers, encouraging effective information sharing within the parameters of the Data Protection Act 1998.
14
Life, Patricia. "Long-Term Caring: Canadian Literary Narratives of Personal Agency and Identity in Late Life." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31162.
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This thesis analyses thirteen key literary texts taken from the last century of Canadian English-language publishing to assess how each text reveals, reinforces, and /or resists narratives of natural-aging, decline, progress and positive-aging. When considered together, these texts illustrate overall patterns in the evolution of age-related beliefs and behaviours. Stories have a potential emotional impact that scholarly readings do not, and thus the reading and study of these texts can serve to promote conscious intellectual consideration of the issues surrounding age and aging.
My analysis focuses on how our Canadian literature envisages aging into old age, primarily addressing stories set in late-life-care facilities and comprising what I am naming our ‘nursing-home-narrative genre.’ Although my chapters follow a chronological progression, beginning with Catharine Parr Traill’s 1894 Pearls and Pebbles and concluding with Janet Hepburn’s 2013 Flee, Fly, Flown, I am not arguing that each age-related belief is replaced by a succeeding one. I would assert instead that over time Canadians have accumulated an assortment of age ideologies, some of which mesh and some of which duplicate or even contradict others. For example, although many people have embraced new positive-aging ideologies, aging-as-decline narratives still circulate strongly.
Using social and literary theory as support, I argue that the selected literary texts of my analysis (Traill, Wilson, Laurence, Shields, Wright, Barfoot, Munro, Tostevin, Gruen, Hepburn, King) reveal a genre that is evolving quickly in both form and content. The nursing-home-narrative genre begins with gothic stories of fear of the nursing home, of aging and of death, expands to include darkly humorous stories featuring increasingly empowered residents successfully living within care homes, and is introducing, during the twenty-first century, fantastical stories of escape from the home and of return to youthful behaviours and preferable habitats. This most recent narrative joins the earlier ones to create a new master narrative in which aging people can overcome fear with agency and thus ultimately reject the nursing home and old age itself. However, in the most compelling of the new agency and escape narratives, authors lay a thin icing of entertainment over a dark undercurrent of reality.
15
Herman, Elizabeth. "Supporting student writers' personal agency through meditation in the composition classroom : an exploratory study /." Available to subscribers only, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1674093551&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1509&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2008."Department of English." Keywords: Agency, Composition, Holistic education, Meditation, Pedagogy, Teacher research. Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-245). Also available online.
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Herman, Elizabeth Dianne. "Supporting Student Writers' Personal Agency Through Meditation in the Composition Classroom: An Exploratory Study." OpenSIUC, 2008. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/258.
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This study examines questions about the relationships that seem to exist between the goal of supporting personal agency in student writers and a specific meditation practice as implemented in the second semester of freshman composition. With both whole-class and individualized data sources, the study seeks to address changes in students' attitudes toward the meditative practice as well as their own senses of personal agency. In addition the study seeks to identify to what extent and in what ways do students articulate relationships between their use of meditative techniques in class and their own perceptions of their personal agency in writing. The individualized case studies examine students' reflective writings completed during one semester of data collection, in addition to their verbalized reflections discussed during an oral interview conducted at the end of that semester.
17
Louws, Margie. "Electronic Multi-agency Collaboration. A Model for Sharing Children¿s Personal Information Among Organisations." Thesis, University of Bradford, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/5694.
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The sharing of personal information among health and social service organisations is a complex issue and problematic process in present-day England. Organisations which provide services to children face enormous challenges on many fronts. Internal ways of working, evolving best practice, data protection applications, government mandates and new government agencies, rapid changes in technology, and increasing costs are but a few of the challenges with which organisations must contend in order to provide services to children while keeping in step with change.
This thesis is an exploration into the process of sharing personal information in the context of public sector reforms. Because there is an increasing emphasis of multi-agency collaboration, this thesis examines the information sharing processes both within and among organisations, particularly those providing services to children. From the broad principles which comprise a socio-technical approach of information sharing, distinct critical factors for successful information sharing and best practices are identified. These critical success factors are then used to evaluate the emerging national database, ContactPoint, highlighting particular areas of concern. In addition, data protection and related issues in the information sharing process are addressed.
It is argued that one of the main factors which would support effective information sharing is to add a timeline to the life of a dataset containing personal information, after which the shared information would dissolve. Therefore, this thesis introduces Dynamic Multi-Agency Collaboration (DMAC), a theoretical model of effective information sharing using a limited-life dataset. The limited life of the DMAC dataset gives more control to information providers, encouraging effective information sharing within the parameters of the Data Protection Act 1998.
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Curukvelioglu, Eda. "Romantic Relationship Satisfaction In Emerging Adulthood: The Role Of Self Concept Clarity And Personal Agency." Master's thesis, METU, 2012. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614822/index.pdf.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of gender, age, duration of relationship, self concept clarity and personal agency in predicting romantic relationship satisfaction of emerging adults. Participants were consisted of 344 (70.3% female, 29.7% male) volunteered undergraduate students from one of the state universities in Central Anatolia. Age of the participants ranged from 18 to 25 with the mean of 20. 85 (SD = 1.65). The data was gathered using four instruments namely, Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), Self Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS), Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale- Short Form (MAPSSF), and personal information form. In order to analyze the data, hierarchical regression analysis was conducted. Results revealed that gender, age and duration of relationship were not significant predictors of romantic relationship satisfactionwhereas self concept clarity and purpose in life dimension of personal agency were significant predictors which explained the 12% of the total variance in romantic relationship satisfaction scores of emerging adults. Results of the study are discussed in the light of the relevant literature. Finally implications of the study and recommendations for further research are presented.
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Alcock, I. K. "lifelong learning, structural socio-demographic factors, and personal agency-a study of adults in Wales." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.535857.
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Amuzu, Elom A. "Agency and Power in the Lives of African American Women: The Role of Personal Beliefs of Justice in the Discrimination - Personal Control Link." OpenSIUC, 2014. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1522.
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In an effort to extend the literature (e.g., Landry & Mercurio, 2009; Moradi & Hasan, 2004) on the effects of discrimination on personal sense of control, this current study aims to examine how African American women's sense of personal control is affected by their beliefs about discrimination and how their beliefs about justice and fairness in their own lives further explain the relationship. A total of 173 African American or Black identified women were recruited through professional contacts, an undergraduate psychology course, and social media networking sites. Participants' awareness of discrimination was experimentally manipulated by random assignment to one of four conditions suggesting varying likelihoods of personally experiencing discrimination. Participants responded to self-report instruments of Personal Beliefs in a Just World (Dalbert, 1999) before the manipulation and Environmental Mastery (Ryff, 1989; measure of personal control) as the dependent variable after the manipulation. It was predicted that a significant interaction term between experimental condition and just world beliefs on personal control would supersede any main effects. Yet only a significant main effect was found between personal beliefs in a just world and personal control, with no significant interaction effects.
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Ince, Merlin Ince. "Youth employability in ghetto neighbourhoods: The role of personal agency in reproducing or transforming social structures." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28349.
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This thesis explores variations in employment outcomes among youth living under similar structural conditions of poverty and unemployment in ghetto neighbourhoods. It challenges structuralist accounts that ignore the role of personal agency and hold that structures alone determine action. The critical realist framework offers a helpful understanding of social structures as both material and cultural since human agency, or action, is influenced by circumstances that are both materially objective and culturally subjective. By probing the interaction of agency and structure this research shows that individual agency is a response to cultural beliefs and competing cultural norms. The ensuing worldview informs decisions and actions of youth which, under different cultures and material family structures, either reproduce or transform their educational and employment prospects in ghetto neighbourhoods. Ten case studies are analysed from youth in Manenberg, Cape Town, a neighbourhood that was historically segregated through the apartheid system of forced removals and resettlement. In-depth interviews provide evidence from life histories, experiences of education institutions and of looking for work. Further information is gathered from interviews with secondary participants, apart from participant observation in family and community activities through an ethnographic approach. Findings reveal that the culture of disengaged parenting leaves youth exposed only to the influence of low education and employment expectations such that they despondently relinquish career aspirations by dropping out of school, remaining unemployed and underemployed as a result. By contrast, consistent mentoring from parents entails a culture that competes with the negative influence of gangs and enables resilience among youth to pursue tertiary education. Youth thereby transform, rather than reproduce, their position in the labour market as unemployed or underemployed unskilled manual workers. Similarly, social networks beyond the neighbourhood provide youth with job information, supportive resources, and cultural capital, which enable them to conceptualise ideas of professional careers. This transforms the historical and contemporary material structure of ghetto neighbourhoods with socially isolated networks that limit youth to low-skilled employment opportunities. Such networks do not support personal agency towards alternative employment and youth resort to cultural practices of gangsterism, irregular and informal work.
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Hart, Janelle Marie. "Contextualized Motivation Theory (CMT) : intellectual passion, mathematical need, social responsibility, and personal agency in learning Mathematics /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2010. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd3393.pdf.
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Lee, Jessica Nalani Oi Jun. "Too Much Information: Agency and Disruptions of Power in Personal Narratives of Mental Illness and Suffering." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/323465.
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Healing in the mental health system of the 21st century is difficult as the credibility of mental health users is constantly called into question, their experiences and perceptions of their "illness" undervalued or even completely ignored. This attitude towards mental health users must be changed in order to work towards truly alleviating mental illness and suffering. Careful analysis of the rhetoric of published personal narratives written by women describing their experiences with mental healthcare reveals the ways in which medical knowledge is created, owned, and disseminated only by the “authoritative expert,” defined as healthcare professionals who categorize, taxonomize, and pathologize in order to treat both physical and mental illness. I argue the authoritative expert marginalizes the "everyday expert," exemplified through the perceptions of women who, in their narratives, record realities that do not always match the diagnoses and prognoses assigned to them by their healthcare providers. My project's central question asks: In what ways do personal narratives of mental illness and suffering illuminate the ways in which language constructs reality? My research illuminates the ways in which narratives of mental illness and suffering are healing, and thus serves as an advocate for patient rights, both by empowering patients and by furthering discussion among medical professionals regarding problematizing "standard" treatment. My work advances the connection between politics and language as it takes a commonly undervalued form of language and lived experience--narrative--and researches the ways in which it has been and can continue to be used as a powerful political agent to empower mental health users by giving them a voice. Specifically, I demonstrate how patients' personal experiences should and can be valued as a way to illuminate their own understanding of their disease as well as to inform their treatment. This project lays the foundation for future research examining ways treatment for mental illness should be differentiated from treatment for physical illness. I am interested in ways to further combat the stigma of mental illness by looking at ways providers can honor and respect the opinions and values of mental health patients in non-pejorative ways.
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Räisänen, S. (Sari). "Changing literacy practices:a becoming of a new teacher agency." Doctoral thesis, Oulun yliopisto, 2015. http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:9789526208480.
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Abstract The general aim of this research was to explicate what kind of a process ‘doing things differently’ in the context of literacy practices is from the teacher agency perspective. The research was based on development work on literacy practices, which I as a teacher-researcher conducted in a Finnish first grade classroom during one school year. I based the new literacy practices on the concepts of a broad conception of text and the communicative view of language presented in the Finnish national core curriculum 2004. The new practices mirrored the affordances of ‘new literacies’ involving use of technology, diversified texts and collaborative learning. They deviated from the traditional Finnish ones, which are based on the use of text- and workbooks and teacher-directed interaction, and therefore their implementation brought forth a change process. The meaning was not only to challenge the prevailing practices content and mode wise, but also to transform the social structures of the classroom community towards being more pupil-centred. It became evident that my agency involved the change in organising the possibilities for new kinds ways of working. The change also influenced my subjective level of being a teacher. The act of ‘doing things differently’ became a reflective learning process for me involving a struggle against traditional practices. The social structures changed in connection with literacy practices towards increased pupil participation and emancipation. The teacher agency transformed from instructor to guide, offering the pupils opportunities for learning. The findings showed that the change in the literacy practices was based on the choices I as a teacher made during the process, creating in this way a style for it. The style was characterized by relativity and ‘becoming’, as well as by the need for both professional and personal support. The experiences of these kinds of change processes are currently topical in Finland. This is especially because there is a new curriculum coming out in 2016 and the principles and contents in it will emphasize the use of new technologies and their benefits towards practices and collaborative learning in even more extensive scale than the current one. Educators need knowledge of what kind of process the implementation of these principles and contents will be and what kinds of professional learning it involvesTiivistelmä Tämän väitöstutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli tarkentaa tekstitaitojen käytänteiden muutosprosessi opettajan toimijuuden näkökulmasta. Tutkimus perustuu kehittämistyölle, jonka minä opettaja-tutkijan roolissa toteutin suomalaisella ensiluokalla lukuvuoden ajan. Tekstitaitojen käytänteiden kehittämistyö perustui Suomen perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteiden 2004 laajaan tekstikäsitykseen ja yhteisölliseen näkemykseen kielestä. Tältä perustalta luodut käytänteet sisälsivät monilukutaidollisia ulottuvuuksia rakentuessaan erilaisten tekstien ympärille ja sisältäessään teknologian käyttöä ja yhteistoiminnallisia työskentelytapoja. Nämä käytänteet poikkesivat perinteisistä suomalaisista käytännöistä, jotka enimmäkseen perustuvat opettajajohtoiseen työ- ja oppikirjojen käyttöön. Tarkoituksena oli siis sekä muuttaa tekstitaitojen käytänteiden sisältöä ja välineitä, että myös vaikuttaa luokkahuoneyhteisön sosiaalisiin rakenteisiin oppilaskeskeisyyttä lisäämällä. Tutkimusprosessin aikana kävi selväksi, että toimijuuteni oli tärkeä osa työskentelytapojen mahdollisuuksien järjestelyissä, mutta muutos vaikutti myös subjektiiviseen käsitykseeni itsestäni opettajana. Muutostyöstä tuli minulle reflektiivinen oppimisprosessi, jossa pyrin pois perinteisistä käytännöistä. Prosessin aikana luokkayhteisön sosiaaliset rakenteet muuttuivat tekstitaitojen käytänteiden mukana kohti kasvavaa oppilaiden osallisuutta ja emansipatorista vuorovaikutusta. Opettajan toimijuus muuttui ohjaavaksi, tarjoten oppilaille mahdollisuuksia oppimiseensa. Tulokset antavat ymmärtää, että muutos muotoutui prosessin aikana tekemistäni valinnoista, jotka loivat muutokselle omaleimaisen toteutuksen. Tätä omaleimaista toteutusta karakterisoi monitasoisesti suhteellisuus ja ’joksikin tulemisen’ käsite sekä opettajan ammatillisen ja henkilökohtaisen tuen tarve muutostyössä. Kokemukset tekstitaitojen käytänteiden muutosprosessista ovat tällä hetkellä erittäin ajankohtaisia Suomessa, sillä uusi opetussuunnitelma tullessaan voimaan 2016 painottaa monilukutaitoa. Kasvatuksen ja koulutuksen ammattilaiset tarvitsevat tietoa siitä, millainen prosessi uusien käytänteiden toteuttaminen on luokkahuoneyhteisön tasolla ja millaista ammatillista oppimista prosessi opettajalta vaatii
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Chamberlain, Tawny. "Individual, agency, and state economic characteristics: a comparative analysis across state-federal vocational rehabilitation agencies." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6389.
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State federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies are one of the most wide spread and oldest programs designed to help individuals with disabilities. Currently, VR agencies provide various services designed to aide individuals with disabilities obtaining and maintaining employment. Currently, VR agencies serve approximately 1 million individuals with disabilities and spend about 3 billion dollars annually. Given how large and the amount of state and federal dollars are spent on VR, it is important that the outcomes of this program are researched and evaluated.
The purpose of this study was to examine how different variables are related to VR outcomes across states. More specifically, this study utilized the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) as a framework to study how contextual factors such as personal characteristics, agency level factors, and state-economic variables impact the employment rate of three different groupings based on state VR agency performance.
This study utilized secondary data analysis to explore these relationships using the FY 2013 RSA-911 dataset was paired with the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS). Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relationships that exist between personal characteristics and state economic factors across the VR performance groups. Further, a hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used to investigate how the relationship between personal level characteristics and state economic variables may be influenced by investigating this data by considering the levels of the agencies.
Results of this study revealed that agency-level factors and state economic variables are important predictors of the employment rate. The final model of the HLM found that state economic variables and agency-level factors moderate the relationship between personal characteristics and the employment rate. Further, all agency-level factors and state economic variables except poverty resulted in a significant relationship regarding the employment rate. In this final model, none of the personal characteristics were significant. The results of the multiple regressions revealed different relationships exist among personal characteristics, agency-level factors, and state economic variables and employment rate given the performance group.
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Goodliffe, Tess. "An exploration of structural factors and personal agency in the education to work transition context in Oman." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/27806.
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Oman, as with many other countries in the Middle East region, is facing a ‘demographic bulge’ which is resulting in a growth in youth unemployment. A significant increase in the number of graduates entering the labour market also means a more competitive environment for qualified job seekers. While graduates have traditionally sought employment in the public sector, the government is promoting ‘Omanisation’; a range of localisation policies to increase the number of Omanis being employed in the private sector and reduce dependence on an expatriate workforce. Research (Salehi-Isfahani-Dhillon, 2008; Al Lamki, 1998) suggests that despite the government’s efforts, graduates entering the regional job market have not been engaging with efforts to promote localisation. While structural factors and agency have been explored in other transition context research, this study explores these areas within the Oman education to work transition context. This research used a combination of research methods (focus groups and a self-completion questionnaire) with final year Omani students enrolled on business-related degree programmes in four different institutions in Muscat. The findings suggest that while students perceive structural factors such as government, labour market, the education system, gender and socio-cultural factors to be influencing and shaping their transition context, there is a suggestion that their own abilities and efforts have a role to play, reflecting evidence of agency in their transition behaviour. It is proposed that concepts such as Evans (2007) “bounded agency” provide a useful basis to explore the stirrings of active individualisation within the social structures of the Omani education to work transition context.
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Simunich, Bethany A. "Emotion Arousing Message Forms And Personal Agency Arguments In Persuasive Messages: Motivating Effects On Pro-Environmental Behaviors." The Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1228334861.
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Moio, Jené Andra. "Resiliency and recovery an exploration of meaning and personal agency for women survivors of state sponsored torture /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1680020551&sid=5&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Simunich, Bethany. "Emotion arousing message forms and personal agency arguments in persuasive messages motivating effects on pro-environmental behaviors /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1228334861.
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Silva, Maya Lucy. "Examination of the Personal Narratives of Desisters and Non-Offenders: Do They Really Differ?" Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2016. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/405439.
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Criminal JusticePh.D.
Background. This study investigates the ways in which former offenders tell their life stories and integrate explanations for their previous criminal activity and desistance from crime into their personal narratives. It addresses an important gap in the desistance literature by including non-offenders as a comparison group. The specific aims of this study were to explore the similarities and differences in the personal narratives of desisters and non-offenders and to investigate the presence of generativity, agency and communion themes as well as the use of redemption sequences and contamination sequences in the life stories of both groups. Methods. Respondents were identified through snowball sampling and targeted advertising (e.g., an organization that provides services to ex-offenders). Two groups were interviewed: men who had committed multiple crimes after turning 21 years old but were crime-free for the past year (desisting ex-offenders) and men who grew up in similar neighborhoods but reported no involvement in crime as adults (non-offenders). The final sample consisted of 19 desisters and 12 non-offenders; groups were matched on age and other background characteristics. Data collection included a life story interview and a set of open-ended questions about the respondent's juvenile offending and adult criminal history. Participants also completed two standardized instruments to assess generative concern and generative behavior: the Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS) and the Generative Behavior Checklist (GBC). Analyses identified themes through open coding, examined the structure of life narratives, and applied pre-established coding schemes for agency, communion and generativity themes and redemption and contamination sequences. Results. Overall, the life stories of desisters and non-offenders were remarkably similar, even if they contained dramatically different content and reflected unique personal experiences. Respondents in both groups tended to craft narratives where they drew from earlier life experiences to identify reoccurring themes that helped to explain the trajectory of their lives and express deeply held beliefs about who they are as people. Desisters and non-offenders also were very similar in their use of redemption sequences and agency, communion and generativity themes. On the two generativity surveys, the desisting group reported levels of generative concern and generative behavior that were, at the very least, equivalent to average people their own age. While almost all desisting respondents reported some kind of cognitive transformation, the degree to which they saw themselves as changing and how they described that change differed depending on the type of offenses committed. Two types of desistance narratives were identified. The hustler desistance narrative was used by former drug dealers. These men believed that they were involved in drug sales primarily for economic gain and could replace this source of income with legal pursuits. They did not view their past illegal activities as inconsistent with who they were as people. In contrast, the “real me” narrative was used by respondents who had perpetrated acts of violence. They argued that they were innately good people. Conclusions. Overall, the study’s findings were consistent with previous research results that supported the “cognitive transformation and identity” view of desistance, which emphasizes behavioral change as resulting primarily from internal rather than external sources. Previous offending patterns played an influential role in how ex-offenders viewed their past criminal activity, the ways in which they decided to change their lives, and their understanding of the desistance process. Involvement in peer-based programming, mutual support groups and mentoring relationships, whether they were institutionalized, volunteer-oriented, or self-initiated, were identified as major life changing experiences by many desisting ex-offenders. These activities also played a key role in shaping personal narratives and self-concepts in important ways that helped to sustain desistance over time.
Temple University--Theses
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Vasquez, Alexandria. "Choosing Surgical Birth: Personal Choice and Medical Jurisdiction." VCU Scholars Compass, 2012. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/2751.
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This is an exploratory study of women’s childbearing decisions and outcomes in non-medically indicated cesarean section childbirths (CS). Focusing on the structure-agency dichotomy, the research is guided by Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration used in the context of the medicalization framework in order to analyze elements of personal choice and medical jurisdiction in childbearing methods. Quantitative analysis of secondary data and a thematic content analysis of Internet forums are conducted in order to analyze women’s perceptions of autonomy and constraint in their childbearing decisions and outcomes. The findings suggest that the polarization between second- and third wave feminist critiques on medical intervention in childbirth, and between structure and agency, impede our understanding of the complex phenomenon. Applying structuration theory to the medicalization framework helps to work through this polarization, further lending support to third-way feminism.
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Hensens, Lauren. "A PERSONAL APPROACH TO LANDSCAPE: EMPATHY, SENTIMENT, AND THE ENVIRONMENT'S REPRESENTATION IN TUMULTUOUS TIMES." VCU Scholars Compass, 2018. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5375.
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My work approaches the multitude of personal experience within the landscape, considering its cultural representation, aiming to give the environment agency within these tumultuous times. The following text is a personal narrative, realizing the many lenses through which a landscape can be experienced, including analyses of artists, writers, and musicians who have represented landscape through their own individuality.
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Harrison, Kirsty Anne. "Behind closed doors : towards developing a greater understanding of suicidality in restricted settings." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2013. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/behind-closed-doors-towards-developing-a-greater-understanding-of-suicidality-in-restricted-settings(f075e10e-7afd-4337-9cfc-39263d7aa8ca).html.
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Suicide is a prevalent and international problem which has substantive economic and psychological consequences. This has led to governments placing prevention of suicide as a priority on healthcare agendas. Recognition has been given to vulnerable groups in society that have been identified as being at particularly high risk of self-harm and suicide. This includes those in contact with mental health and forensic services. There is a great deal of literature that has considered the risk factors, processes and mechanisms associated with suicide. Comparatively only a small amount of literature has looked at the concept of suicidality within restricted samples such as psychiatric inpatients and prisoners. This may be as a consequence of extensive ethical and procedural processes that are involved in conducting research in such settings. This results in it being necessary to continually make generalisations from community based literature, meaning that factors relating specifically to such settings may be overlooked or underestimated. In the first paper, the initial sections consider existing risk assessments and models of suicidality. Predominantly being structured around static risk factors, means they are often criticised for lacking predictive utility and specificity. Literature examining dynamic psychosocial factors of suicidality in restricted samples was reviewed and 20 articles were identified. A wide range of dynamic correlates are presented. These form a theoretical model of suicidality specific to restricted samples. The clinical and theoretical implications are discussed in terms of risk assessment procedures and adapting and shaping interventions in accordance with the findings. Developing risk assessments around more dynamic factors will allow for greater sensitivity and prediction of those at greatest risk of imminent harm. The second, empirical paper supports the promotion of recovery focused practice and explores the relationship between suicidality and perceived personal agency in patients in secure mental health settings; Personal agency having previously been suggested as conferring resilience to suicidality. Psychometric measures and experience sampling methodology were utilised to examine the relationship. Perceptions of personal agency were found to confer resilience against suicidality. Change in perceptions of personal agency was not associated with suicidality but the overall level of personal agency was. Implications for service delivery are discussed with emphasis given to fostering perceptions of agency, control and self-efficacy and promoting inclusion, empowerment and person centred care. The final paper provides a personal and a critical reflection on the research process. It highlights and discusses clinical and theoretical strengths and limitations of the two papers and considers the methodological processes of both papers in more detail. Further reflections on how practice could be adapted in line with the findings are given. Future directions for research within secure settings are considered, in the hope of maintaining the drive for research with this vulnerable and often overlooked population.
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Smith, Lauren. "Critical information literacy and political agency : a critical, phenomenographic and personal construct study of young people's experiences of political information." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2015. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26632.
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This work focuses on young people’s experiences of political information, to identify how information literacy instruction may support young people to develop political agency. To explore the phenomenon of political information, the study uses three theories: personal construct theory, phenomenography and critical pedagogical theory. The methods used were surveys, repertory grid interviews and semi-structured focus groups. Prior to the collection of substantive data, a survey was conducted to gain insight into the participants’ political knowledge and attitudes. To identify what sources of political information young people are exposed to, 23 repertory grid interviews were conducted with 14 and 15 year old pupils in a secondary school in South Yorkshire, England. To map the different ways in which these sources are understood, three focus groups were conducted in line with the phenomenographic approach. Parents, friends and teachers were found to be the most influential sources of the wide range of political information the participants use and are exposed to. Additionally, mass media and social media were found to be significant. The interview and focus group data was analysed using personal construct theory and phenomenographic techniques to produce a set of personal construct categories and a phenomenographic outcome space. The participants experienced the production of information, the evaluation of information, the relationship between their use of information and their sense of political agency, and their conception of politics in variously complex ways. Although the majority of experiences of political information were found to be lacking a critical dimension, the potential for young people to critically evaluate information and its sources was identified. Several critical pedagogical concepts were identified as being of potential use to practitioners seeking to support young people in the development of critical capacities. The most relevant of Giroux’s critical pedagogical concepts to illuminate the structural issues affecting young people’s experiences of political information were identified as political illiteracy, the banking model of education, media literacy, political agency, civic literacy and critical consciousness. These findings contribute to information literacy and information behaviour theory. Most significantly, the recommendations emerging from the analysis of the research data through the outcome space and construct categories may help practitioners in their work, to better understand the information literacy needs of young people in relation to political participation.
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Crowther, Rebecca Louise. "Journeys to the ideal self : personal transformation through group encounters of rural landscape in Scotland." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/28941.
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This thesis focuses on explaining why group encounters with rural landscapes in Scotland are deemed to be positive for mental wellbeing. The relationship between greenspace and human wellbeing is a phenomenon that researchers across multiple disciplines are grappling with, though little research engages qualitatively. This thesis clarifies, ethnographically, why some people make excursions into rural spaces and why these excursions are believed to be positively transformational and associated with mental wellbeing. It outlines motivations for engaging in excursions from urban central Scotland to areas in rural Scotland. My research explores the intangible, ineffable and ephemeral experience of case study groups in ‘natural’ rural landscapes and what is relevant in the relations between the self and non-human in these circumstances. This thesis describes how and why group interactions within ‘natural’ space is adopted as a positive self-transformation strategy. It considers the ‘nature experience’ as relational between the self, the social and place - with what constitutes the social as ambiguous within case study interaction. This project was multi-sited: I travelled with my case study groups to rural spaces around the lowlands, highlands, and islands of Scotland. Case studies were multiple and diverse: A community living initiative, a youth development project, a mental health initiative, a forestry management project, and a loose community of artistic, neo-shamanic and psychotherapeutic practitioners. To remain responsive to my research communities and their activities I have developed a framework for a serendipitous ethnography which is outlined within the thesis. This project adopted a transdisciplinary research strategy, engaging with a theoretical framework spanning psychotherapy, psychology and eco-psychology, sociology, philosophy, human geography, anthropology and outdoor education as well as landscape and performance studies. This transdisciplinary thesis contributes to understandings of human and nature connectedness providing an account of cognitive, social and cultural experience. Primarily, this research was concerned with the self, the perception of the ideal and ought self in relation to motivations to journey in this manner and the self as part of a group and within the landscape as a dynamic and relational subject. I have considered the sense of self within these experiences as a metaphorical liminal site. I have discussed the group collectively as a site of dynamism and thus liminality. I then argue that this allows for the way that the landscape is perceived to be a site of liminality. With this we see the importance of temporality and structure, or indeed anti-structure, within these excursions as something which aids in the perspective that they are transformative. I have considered notions of perceived affordance and how this changes throughout experience with the increasing ability to associate ideas and abstract experience within one’s personal narrative. I explain how each group differs in how they perceive the rural landscape as something to instrumentalise, personify or anthropomorphise. With this comes an exploration of complex anthropocentric mindsets and the influence of these ways of thinking on experience. I suggest that individuals choose to journey to ‘natural’ rural environments to self-verify an aspect of their ought or ideal self with a desire to re-imagine the self through engagement with others. In self-verifying one’s ideal or ought sense of self, finding a sense of belonging within a group and believing oneself to be doing something good in relation to the ‘natural’ rural space, individuals and groups experience a sense of personal and social transformation.
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Fermer, Richard Malcolm. "Spirit, identity, freedom : an account of how the Spirit's agency in Christian metamorphosis is compatible with human freedom and personal identity." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2002. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/spirit-identity-freedom-an-account-of-how-the-spirits-agency-in-christian-metamorphosis-is-compatible-with-human-freedom-and-personal-identity(cd173a5d-5dbd-44b5-b743-ee3e253bde1f).html.
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Ash, Margi Brown. "A Mouthful of Pins : questioning constructionist therapy frameworks in theatre-making." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2009. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/40278/1/Margi_Brown_Ash_Thesis.pdf.
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A Mouthful of Pins constitutes the practical component (50 per cent) of a practice-led Master of Arts through the Creative Industries Faculty of Queensland University of Technology. This research reports on the attempt to create a constructionist/collaborative theatre-making process by incorporating postmodern constructs borrowed from the therapy room. The study asserts that, when applied with awareness, therapeutic frameworks can help members of the creative team . including the director, performers, writer, designers and technicians . to fulfil their artistic capacity, thereby enriching their process, their performance and their collaborative relationship with each other. For this to occur, it is imperative that the director/facilitator stay curious and aware of how they lead their creative team, with particular care around their use of language, as well as an increased awareness of the multiple stories (including the sometimes invisible social, historical, political, theatrical and leadership discourses) that surround and impact the artist.s process. This research is designed to assist students of theatre, as well as established professional practitioners, to find an alternative approach for collaboration that can result in longevity of practice, while at the same time embracing best practice for their outgoing creativity.
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Woodbine, Gordon F. "Moral choice in an agency framework and related motivational typologies as impacted by personal and contextual factors for financial institutions in China." Thesis, Curtin University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/667.
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In this study an empirical investigation is conducted of the factors affecting moral choice, a necessary antecedent to moral behaviour (or action). The theoretical framework has drawn upon Rest's (1983, 1986) model of moral behaviour, with particular interest in the components motivation and moral judgment. The theoretical framework also integrates agency theory, with its emphasis on the individual as a psychological egoist, as a perspective from which to test hypotheses about determinants of moral choice and the motivational typologies arising from moral choice. Such hypothesis testing is undertaken in the setting of the banking and financial services industry in the People's Republic of China.The development and empirical testing of a set of motivational typologies is a major focus of this study. Such a set of typologies effectively replaces the singular concept of the agent as a self-serving individual. It enables the identification of other realist moral predispositions that may strongly influence the choices business operatives make. These predispositions range from altruism to thinly disguised self-interest. An individual's predisposition to be altruistic or to display strongly disguised self-interest has long been recognized in the ethics literature, but these notions have received little attention in agency theory testing. In addition, an attempt was made to incorporate human judgment theory, including Simon's (1992) concept of "bounded rationality", as a basis for decision making as part of the proposed model.This research study has been conducted in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone of the People's Republic of China during the period 1999 to 2001 and has involved a sample of 400 business operatives employed within national state-owned banks, regional commercial banks, insurance companies and securities companies. Use has been made of a modified experimental design that involves operatives listening to a culturally adapted audiotaped business dilemma (involving an agency problem) and making moral responses that are recorded on an accompanying questionnaire. The latter has been designed to collect data used to construct motivational typologies. In addition, various personal and contextual data have been collected as part of the research agenda. Of particular interest has been the collection of personal data that permits the author to investigate the impact of both Chinese cultural values and the moral judgment ability of the respondents.After considering the literature pertinent to this study, a number of hypotheses have been developed and tested using the instruments referred to above. The results of these tests can be summarized into three parts.The first set of tests has involved the effects of various personal and organizational factors in the agency-based experiment. After confirming the veracity of the standard agency model as a predictor of moral choice, it was then found that differences in age, gender, employment status and religious affiliation act to significantly affect moral choice, whereas differences in business experience, and education level do not affect choice. The investigation has provided clear evidence that female operatives, within the age group of 26-30 years, who occupy clerical positions within the tested institutions, display a significant adversity to risk when making moral choices in situations that involve moral hazard, including the presence of adverse selection criteria.In comparison, the effects of size and type of institution have provided rather mixed results when tested as organizational factors influencing moral choice within an agency framework. A further analysis of the related data, however, points to other variables such as differences in ethical climate type and cultural orientation being significantly associated with moral choice. There is also some evidence that age acts to influence the extent to which business operatives apply traditional Chinese cultural orientations.The second part of the data analysis has involved the use of appropriate multivariate statistics in order to establish the existence of a mutually exclusive set of motivational typologies (involving concern for self and/or management within an agency context). The pattern of membership across the typologies does not change significantly when agency conditions altered. This outcome provides evidence that, in relation to the field experiment used in this study, respondents have used informational heuristics that are consistent and logically applied.Financial sector operatives, who identify with a particular typology, are found to respond to moral issues in specific ways. For example, altruists hold high moral positions regardless of the agency conditions facing them, while operatives adopting a thinly disguised form of egoism are likely to be less supportive of management. Further, the study demonstrates that operatives, who displayed strongly disguised egoism/enlightened self-interest positions in situations where an agency problem is not excessive, are likely to be replaced by psychological egoists when faced with a significant moral hazard and adverse selection criteria.Again, by applying multivariate statistical analysis, it has been possible to identify those personal and contextual factors that discriminate between the various typologies. Of the personal characteristics, the Chinese cultural value orientations, integration and human heartedness have been identified as relatively strong discriminators of motivational typology group membership regardless of the agency conditions. The role that traditional value orientations play as discriminators of group membership become even more significant for operatives aged 30 years and older.The discriminating influence of the contextual factors, namely elements of ethical work climate and job satisfaction, has been somewhat less definitive and has tended to depend on the nature of the agency conditions. The ethical work climate perception, instrumentalism is seen to display a significant influence on the way that the job satisfaction variables of pay and conditions, co-workers and work itself discriminate between the motivational typologies. However, these perceptions do not necessarily influence moral choice depending on the typology adopted by the financial operatives.The third part of the analysis has examined the direct influence of various personal and contextual factors on moral choice. A linear multiple regression analysis of data has revealed that certain factors affected moral choice depending on the nature of the agency conditions defined within the experimental design. The value orientation, integration, arises as a major predictor when adverse selection criteria is absent from the field experiment, whereas the contextual variables instrumentalism and employment status emerge when such conditions are present. In this study it appears evident that operatives expressing strong collectivist views are more likely to be supportive of management when agency conditions minimize the degree of personal conflict. Instrumentalism is identified as a widespread condition in the financial sector and influences moral choice when moral hazard, including adverse selection criteria, is present. Employment status, as a workplace demographic is found to be associated with adversity to risk, impelling junior employees to avoid supporting management in situations that might affect their employment or promotion prospects.The widely accepted component of moral behaviour, namely moral judgment ability, has been thoroughly tested within the terms of the hypotheses developed for this study. The variable did not emerge as a statistically significant factor influencing moral choice and its role as a discriminator of the motivational typologies was limited. However, its application within an oriental setting produced some interesting outcomes, including evidence that all stages of moral development exist amongst the respondents and that levels of principled reasoning (as identified by the standard p-score (Rest, 1983, 1986)) are on average lower than for equivalent tests conducted in western societies.This research study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge about morality of business agents employed in the financial sector and permits investigators to look beyond the simplistic assumptions associated with the classical principal-agency model. The study's originality as contained in the derivation of motivational typologies and the factors discriminating between them, provides a fresh stepping off point for further studies seeking to refine the understanding of moral choice in business organizations. The fact that the study was conducted in a rapidly developing sector of the People's Republic of China provided additional insights into how people in this environment view moral issues and how traditional cultural values impact on their thinking.
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Woodbine, Gordon F. "Moral choice in an agency framework and related motivational typologies as impacted by personal and contextual factors for financial institutions in China." Curtin University of Technology, School of Accounting, 2002. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=12493.
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In this study an empirical investigation is conducted of the factors affecting moral choice, a necessary antecedent to moral behaviour (or action). The theoretical framework has drawn upon Rest's (1983, 1986) model of moral behaviour, with particular interest in the components motivation and moral judgment. The theoretical framework also integrates agency theory, with its emphasis on the individual as a psychological egoist, as a perspective from which to test hypotheses about determinants of moral choice and the motivational typologies arising from moral choice. Such hypothesis testing is undertaken in the setting of the banking and financial services industry in the People's Republic of China.The development and empirical testing of a set of motivational typologies is a major focus of this study. Such a set of typologies effectively replaces the singular concept of the agent as a self-serving individual. It enables the identification of other realist moral predispositions that may strongly influence the choices business operatives make. These predispositions range from altruism to thinly disguised self-interest. An individual's predisposition to be altruistic or to display strongly disguised self-interest has long been recognized in the ethics literature, but these notions have received little attention in agency theory testing. In addition, an attempt was made to incorporate human judgment theory, including Simon's (1992) concept of "bounded rationality", as a basis for decision making as part of the proposed model.This research study has been conducted in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone of the People's Republic of China during the period 1999 to 2001 and has involved a sample of 400 business operatives employed within national state-owned banks, regional commercial banks, insurance companies and securities companies. Use has been made of a modified ++experimental design that involves operatives listening to a culturally adapted audiotaped business dilemma (involving an agency problem) and making moral responses that are recorded on an accompanying questionnaire. The latter has been designed to collect data used to construct motivational typologies. In addition, various personal and contextual data have been collected as part of the research agenda. Of particular interest has been the collection of personal data that permits the author to investigate the impact of both Chinese cultural values and the moral judgment ability of the respondents.After considering the literature pertinent to this study, a number of hypotheses have been developed and tested using the instruments referred to above. The results of these tests can be summarized into three parts.The first set of tests has involved the effects of various personal and organizational factors in the agency-based experiment. After confirming the veracity of the standard agency model as a predictor of moral choice, it was then found that differences in age, gender, employment status and religious affiliation act to significantly affect moral choice, whereas differences in business experience, and education level do not affect choice. The investigation has provided clear evidence that female operatives, within the age group of 26-30 years, who occupy clerical positions within the tested institutions, display a significant adversity to risk when making moral choices in situations that involve moral hazard, including the presence of adverse selection criteria.In comparison, the effects of size and type of institution have provided rather mixed results when tested as organizational factors influencing moral choice within an agency framework. A further analysis of the related data, however, points to other variables such as differences in ethical climate type and ++
cultural orientation being significantly associated with moral choice. There is also some evidence that age acts to influence the extent to which business operatives apply traditional Chinese cultural orientations.The second part of the data analysis has involved the use of appropriate multivariate statistics in order to establish the existence of a mutually exclusive set of motivational typologies (involving concern for self and/or management within an agency context). The pattern of membership across the typologies does not change significantly when agency conditions altered. This outcome provides evidence that, in relation to the field experiment used in this study, respondents have used informational heuristics that are consistent and logically applied.Financial sector operatives, who identify with a particular typology, are found to respond to moral issues in specific ways. For example, altruists hold high moral positions regardless of the agency conditions facing them, while operatives adopting a thinly disguised form of egoism are likely to be less supportive of management. Further, the study demonstrates that operatives, who displayed strongly disguised egoism/enlightened self-interest positions in situations where an agency problem is not excessive, are likely to be replaced by psychological egoists when faced with a significant moral hazard and adverse selection criteria.Again, by applying multivariate statistical analysis, it has been possible to identify those personal and contextual factors that discriminate between the various typologies. Of the personal characteristics, the Chinese cultural value orientations, integration and human heartedness have been identified as relatively strong discriminators of motivational typology group membership regardless of the agency conditions. The role that traditional value orientations play as discriminators of group ++
membership become even more significant for operatives aged 30 years and older.The discriminating influence of the contextual factors, namely elements of ethical work climate and job satisfaction, has been somewhat less definitive and has tended to depend on the nature of the agency conditions. The ethical work climate perception, instrumentalism is seen to display a significant influence on the way that the job satisfaction variables of pay and conditions, co-workers and work itself discriminate between the motivational typologies. However, these perceptions do not necessarily influence moral choice depending on the typology adopted by the financial operatives.The third part of the analysis has examined the direct influence of various personal and contextual factors on moral choice. A linear multiple regression analysis of data has revealed that certain factors affected moral choice depending on the nature of the agency conditions defined within the experimental design. The value orientation, integration, arises as a major predictor when adverse selection criteria is absent from the field experiment, whereas the contextual variables instrumentalism and employment status emerge when such conditions are present. In this study it appears evident that operatives expressing strong collectivist views are more likely to be supportive of management when agency conditions minimize the degree of personal conflict. Instrumentalism is identified as a widespread condition in the financial sector and influences moral choice when moral hazard, including adverse selection criteria, is present. Employment status, as a workplace demographic is found to be associated with adversity to risk, impelling junior employees to avoid supporting management in situations that might affect their employment or promotion prospects.The widely accepted component of moral behaviour, namely moral ++
judgment ability, has been thoroughly tested within the terms of the hypotheses developed for this study. The variable did not emerge as a statistically significant factor influencing moral choice and its role as a discriminator of the motivational typologies was limited. However, its application within an oriental setting produced some interesting outcomes, including evidence that all stages of moral development exist amongst the respondents and that levels of principled reasoning (as identified by the standard p-score (Rest, 1983, 1986)) are on average lower than for equivalent tests conducted in western societies.This research study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge about morality of business agents employed in the financial sector and permits investigators to look beyond the simplistic assumptions associated with the classical principal-agency model. The study's originality as contained in the derivation of motivational typologies and the factors discriminating between them, provides a fresh stepping off point for further studies seeking to refine the understanding of moral choice in business organizations. The fact that the study was conducted in a rapidly developing sector of the People's Republic of China provided additional insights into how people in this environment view moral issues and how traditional cultural values impact on their thinking.
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Hamark, Frida. "Flexibilitet kontra anställningstrygghet : En studie av svensk rätt vid inhyrning av personal när återanställningsrätt föreligger." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för ekonomistyrning och logistik (ELO), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-90139.
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Because of the globalization, the labor market has been thru some changes and the need to be flexible has increased. The need of flexibility can be met by using temporary staff that is rent from a temporary-work agency. In Sweden the regulation in Section 25 of the Swedish Employment Security Act (LAS) give previous employees priority right to re-employment when the employer is hiring new staff. If the employer hire staff from a temporary-work agency instead of hiring new staff the priority right to re-employment is not applicable. The Swedish court of labor have judged that it is accepted to hire staff when there are former employees that have priority right to re-employment. In 2010 this was an issue surrounded by discussions from the trade unions. The result of the discussions in 2010 was regulations in collective agreements. This means that each sector has their own regulation. Because of a segregated labor market, the consequence can be unequal protection in this area. The purpose of this paper was to see if the protection is unequal and it might be. If you interpret the regulations in the collective agreements by just reading what they say the collective agreement that regulate female dominated sectors have a lower, if any special protection.
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Jonsson, Daniel. "Polygami på dagens arbetsmarknad : Ansvarsfördelning mellan bemanningsföretag och kundföretag." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för ekonomistyrning och logistik (ELO), 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-51951.
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Today, the temporary agency work is a well-established industry in the Swedish labour market. The industry has grown every year since the start 1992 and seemingly, the legislation has not kept up with its’ pace. The reason behind the growth of temporary agency work is their clients impulsion for flexibility as well as making their organisation more efficient. Employers organizations argue that the ability to be flexible is a tool to increase economic growth in the society while the unions argue that the temporary agency workers are paying the price with insecure employment-contracts. The line between cancelation of employment due to redundancy and dismissal due to personal reasons is unclear, with disadvantages to the employment protection, through this triangular relationship between the temporary agency work, user company and the employee. The question is if the goal justifies the means. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the temporary agency work-industry is affecting the temporary agency workers employment protection, in addition, the thesis will investigate which legal impacts the legislation is creating in a diversity perspective. In order to answer the research questions properly, a traditional legal dogmatic method has been used as well as legal sociological perspective.
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Bukovský, Josef. "Implementace CRM ve společnosti flow-r s.r.o." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2016. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-203902.
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This paper addresses the issue of the implementation of CRM in the personnel agency flowr s.r.o. The aim is to analyze the state of the use of CRM in the company, to identify possible areas for improvement, design and implement measures that will optimize the use of CRM and evaluate the impact of this work on the use of CRM in the company. Objectives of the paper are fulfilled by the analysis of the company and its needs, identifying key issues and the establishment and implementation of the plan, which aims to eliminate these problems. The paper looks at user requirements from two perspectives, namely in terms of structure (analytical, operational and collaborative CRM) and from the perspective of the user relationship to the use of IS/ICT (user experience). The realized optimization plan is evaluated by questionnaire survey among company employees. The results show that even the fulfillment of all the requirements for CRM regarding covered system functionality is not sufficient for users acceptance. The main obstacles leading to a negative attitude are identified, originating from combination of previous unreliability and complexity of the solution and the errors occurring in the course of implementation.
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Navarro, Dolors. "La participació social dels adolescents en el context escolar i el seu benestar personal: estudi psicosocial d'una experiència participativa." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Girona, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/52645.
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The aim of this research is to gain greater understanding of the psychosocial implications of adolescents’ social participation at school and how this relates to their personal well-being. We designed this research from the perspective of methodological pluralism, articulating quantitative and qualitative methodology. The data obtained allow us to identify key elements of the relationship between social participation and personal well-being in adolescents and led us to elaborate a theoretical model that explains how the relationship between social participation and personal well-being is concerned with three interrelating factors: (a) adolescents’ stance with regard to social participation, (b) their aspirations for change, and (c) the attitudes and expectations of key adults in the adolescents’ lives with regard to them and their social participation.L’objectiu d’aquesta investigació és aprofundir en el coneixement de les implicacions psicosocials de la participació social dels adolescents en el context escolar, i de la seva relació amb el seu benestar personal. Hem dissenyat aquesta recerca des de la perspectiva del pluralisme metodològic, tot articulant metodologia quantitativa i qualitativa. Les dades obtingudes permeten identificar elements clau de la relació entre la participació social i el benestar personal en els nois i noies i ens han conduït a elaborar una proposta de model teòric explicatiu en el que la relació entre participació social i benestar personal té a veure amb la interrelació de tres factors: (a) el posicionament (autoassignació) de l’adolescent davant de la participació social, (b) les aspiracions de canvi que tingui el noi o noia i les actituds i (c) les expectatives dels adults del seu entorn sobre els adolescents i la seva participació social.
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Woodland, Maryanne. "Inclusive education and integrated working : an exploration of the transition into care for young people in Key Stage 4." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/3033.
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Paper 1 - Integrated Working and the Personal Education Plan: An Exploration of the Transition into Care for Young People in Key Stage 4: The Social Care and Education systems have undergone major reform in recent years, papers such as the Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and The Children’s Plan (DCSF, 2007) have acted as political drivers for the identification of children in care as an vulnerable group within education. In addition, the need for effective integrated working has been identified as a key area of development in terms of professional practice. The Personal Education Plan has been identified as a vehicle for raising attainment and promoting integrated working, however, the process of engaging in the Personal Education Plan has remained relatively unexplored. This study reports a qualitative exploration of integrated working in the support of young people entering care in Key Stage 4. The study specifically explored transition, integrated working and the application of psychology within this process. Data was collected using focus groups and interviews to elicit the views of the professionals who engage in supporting young people entering care. Data was analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings of the study identify the successive nature of changes experienced by the young person entering care as potentially detrimental to him/her and the supporting professionals. Findings from the study suggest that professionals supporting young people in care experience ambivalence regarding the usefulness of the PEP Personal Education Plan. The competent management of change, acknowledgement of psychosocial implications and effective group working were identified as areas of development for young people entering care and for the professionals supporting them. In addition, the study found that the knowledge and experience of Educational Psychologists’ is an under utilised but potentially valuable resource. Paper 2 - Inclusive Education and the Personal Education Plan: An Exploration of the Support for Young People Entering Care in Key Stage 4 Abstract The education system has undergone major reform in recent years, papers such as the Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and The Children’s Plan (DCSF, 2007) have instigated a re-evaluation of the process and context of the education system. One of the major implications of this reform has been the need to identify any groups within the population who underachieve educationally with the intention of providing additional support. The role of designated teacher and use of the Personal Education Plan has been established within school settings, however, the process of supporting young people entering care within college settings has remained relatively unexplored. This study reports a qualitative exploration of core subject teachers in the support of young people entering care in Key Stage 4. The study specifically explored professional engagement in the Personal Education Plan, classroom practice and support of young people entering care. Data was collected using focus groups to elicit the views of the professionals who teach young people entering care. Data was analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings of the study suggest that teaching staff identify individual need in response to conflict (in the form of response to presenting behaviour within school). The nature of additional need identified within the study was predominantly psychosocial. Additional support is therefore reactive. The dichotomy between inclusive legislation and practice is explored Teachers identified the need for a proactive response to supporting young people in care as an area for development at both the individual and systemic level. Future considerations for the application of psychology and research are identified.
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Bourbon, Marion. "De l'unicité à la personnalité : recherches sur la contribution stoïcienne au concept d'individu." Thesis, Bordeaux 3, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016BOR30052.
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Dans l’histoire de la construction philosophique de l’individualité, le système stoïcien, le plus unitaire et déterministe qui soit, semblait en principe être le moins susceptible d’engendrer une conception forte de l’individu. Celle-ci suppose en effet une séparation qui, dans le cas de l’individualité humaine, s’incarne dans une « volonté » propre. Or pour les Stoïciens, chaque être concourant inexorablement comme partie du tout à l’unité organique du monde, il paraissait difficile de l'en dégager, même en tenant compte de l’autonomie proclamée de l’assentiment, principe de jugement et d’action. Notre recherche espère montrer que c’est pourtant la philosophie stoïcienne qui construit une combinatoire conceptuelle inédite qui n’avait jamais été jusque-là à ce point unifiée et qui en vertu de la nature systématique de cette pensée conduit de l’unicité qu’elle reconnaît à tout être, ancrée dans un corps, à la personnalité qui réalise cette unicité au niveau de l’éthique, du fait d’une capacité subjective qui n’est plus non seulement quelque chose de l’individu mais ce à quoi il s’identifie, son principe d’identité personnelle. Nous nous attachons à mettre en évidence les conditions qui ont rendu possible ce « surgissement » de l’individu à la faveur d’une série de mutations internes au système stoïcien mais aussi d’une mutation politique et culturelle majeure, celle que constitua l’Empire romain. A travers ces mutations, la physique stoïcienne de l’identité, sous-bassement de la conception stoïcienne de l’individu, produit diachroniquement et synchroniquement, dans le champ de la psychologie et de l’éthique, une véritable conception de la subjectivation avec la notion sénéquienne de voluntas et le concept épictétéen de prohairesis qui en viennent à occuper la centralité dévolue au destin dans le premier stoïcisme. Par-delà la singularité des apports sénéquien et épictétéen, la voluntas et la prohairesis font de la faculté de choix le principe d’identité personnelle : l’identité personnelle est décrite comme celle du sens que nous décidons de donner à notre existence qui définit celle ou celui que nous sommes en propre et qui autorise et façonne la plasticité d’un usage de soi qui réside exclusivement en nous. Les usages stoïciens de la métaphore théâtrale permettent enfin d’éclairer cette conception de la subjectivité sous un jour irréductible : ils déploient chacun à leur manière la dialectique de la distance et de l’engagement au cœur du rapport à l’existence, et, avec eux, la non- coïncidence constitutive du rapport à soi qui situe l’identité dans l’entre-deux d’un rapport d’identification toujours à rejouerThe Stoics, who elaborated the most coherent deterministic system in the history of philosophy, seemed unlikely to produce a concept of the individual. Such a concept is necessarily founded on separateness and implies personal agency. And although the Stoics insisted on the autonomy of assent as a principle of judgement and of action, they believed that each being contributed to the organic whole of the cosmos, making it difficult to consider beings separately from that whole. This inquiry seeks to show that the Stoics nevertheless elaborated a previously unexamined complex of notions that - as a result of the systematic nature of the Stoic thought - moved from the idea of uniqueness of all beings, to personality, which achieves uniqueness on an ethical level. Personality requires agency, which is not of the individual, but is instead that with which the individual is identified. It is the principle of personal identity. We will examine the conditions that enabled the “emergence” of the individual thanks to a series of transformations in the Stoic system as well as another major political and cultural transformation, the constitution of the Roman Empire. As a result of these changes, the Stoics’ conception of the individual, founded on their physical conception of identity, produced - diachronically and synchronically - a notion of both psychological and ethical subjectivation. Seneca’s notion of voluntas and Epictetus’s concept of prohairesis came to occupy the central position once held by fate for the early Stoics. Both these contributions were highly original, but voluntas and prohairesis further identified the principle of personal identity with the faculty of choice: personal identity was described as the meaning we decide to give our lives, defining who we are. It conditions our adaptability and shapes the way we make use of what is irreducibly ours. The Stoics’ use of the actor metaphor sheds light on the nature of subjectivity since it foregrounds the gap between the actor and his role. The dialectic between disengagement and commitment that is at the heart of the relationship to existence, and the consequent discrepancy in the relationship to oneself, leaves identity in the entre-deux of a continually renewed attempt at identification
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Smart, H. L. C. "Flexibility and conformity in Postclassic Nahua rituals." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2018. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/22622/.
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The Postclassic (pre-conquest) Nahua often performed displays of religious devotion. Usually involving stripping victims of their skin, flesh and internal organs, these public, state-sanctioned rites have been understood as astonishing, even exceptional, for their brutality. As a consequence, scholars have focused on human sacrifice at the steps of the Templo Mayor; ritual away from the imperial capital Tenochtitlan has remained very poorly understood. Where attempts have been made to understand regional practices, scholars have generally assumed binary distinctions between central versus periphery or state versus local. Existing studies fail to appreciate Nahua ritual as fluid and dynamic, instead casting ceremonial behaviour across space as unrelated and fundamentally oppositional. Integrating the ethnohistorical and archaeological records, this thesis takes understandings of Nahua ritual in new directions by examining the relationship between the public arena, the sacred landscape and domestic spheres. Crucially, this thesis argues that rituals were sensitive to circumstantial pressures and personal imperatives, across hierarchies,space and time. In so doing, this study suggests a more fluid model for understanding Nahua ritual than binary distinctions can allow. A lack of appreciation for variation or agency in ritual performance has perpetuated the understanding that the Nahua were trapped in a cycle of ferocious ritualism which left little room for critical thought. Using alphabetic, pictorial and archaeological evidence for a rounded perspective, this thesis examines the intersection between official structures and personal agency to question the notion that all Nahuas unthinkingly repeated human sacrifice and other ritual bloodshed. This study argues that the household was a crucial arena for the normalisation of the blood debt which permitted the acceptance of mass public human sacrifice. This thesis finds that, within the Nahua's symbiotic worldview, activities of the temple, mountain and household rituals were mutually supporting. Moreover, it is shown that the Nahuas chose to adapt their rituals throughout the years, to suit individual preferences and environmental circumstances. Taken as a whole, my findings suggest that the Nahuas sought to control their daily existence by adapting rituals to assuage violent and impulsive supernatural forces.
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Strapatý, Michal. "Podnikateľský plán personálnej agentúry zameranej na IT." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2015. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-206886.
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The diploma thesis is focused on the topic of creation a business plan for a personal agency with specialization on information technology industry. There are described general rules of writing the business plan as well as specifics of personal agencies in the theoretical part. The practical part applies this theoretical knowledge on the specific case and there is also a feasibility analysis of such a project. Practical part follows the theoretical one and applies the knowlege sucha s marketing plan, financial plan etc. on the specific project. There is also analysis of micro and macro environment.
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Fischer, Emily Rebecca. "Negotiating agency and personal narrative in clinical social work practice : a qualitative study investigating how clinicians' experiences of multiple narratives influence their clinical work : a project based upon an independent investigation /." View online, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10090/5881.
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Johnson, Christine. ""Choose Your Words" : refining what counts as mathematical discourse in students' negotiation of meaning for rate of change of volume /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2008. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2474.pdf.
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Berglund, Amie, and Oskar Danell. ""Inte sjutton läser man alla de där papperna man får" : En kvalitativ studie om hur MiFID II påverkat Principal agent problem vid investeringsrådgivning." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-158492.
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Bakgrund: Den tredje januari 2018 trädde EU-direktivet Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) i kraft. Direktivet ämnar öka investerarskyddet genom att eliminera informationsasymmetri och intressekonflikter på finansmarknaden, och samtidigt harmonisera reglerna mellan EU-länder. Inom investeringsrådgivning innebär det nya regelverket ökad dokumentation, ett större fokus på att försäkra sig om att investerarna förstår risker, hårdare krav på hur avgifter kommuniceras och striktare regler kring incitament. Allt detta för att skydda investerarna, som ofta visat sig ha en bristfällig finansiell kunskap och ett lågt intresse för privatekonomi. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att utifrån värdepappersföretagens perspektiv skapa förståelse för vilken påverkan EU-direktivet MiFID II har haft på principal-agent problem som uppstår vid investeringsrådgivning. Genomförande: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie. Vidare har ett fenomenologiskt forskningsperspektiv använts, med en abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sammanlagt sju respondenter som alla jobbar på värdepappersföretag, vilka valdes ut med ett målstyrt bekvämlighetsurval. Resultat: Uppsatsen kommer fram till att principal-agent problemen inom investeringsrådgivning inte har eliminerats. Informations- asymmetrin är enligt vår tolkning av de traditionella teorierna närmast obefintlig, men utgör fortfarande ett stort problem på grund av investerarnas ointresse och relativt låga förmåga att ta till sig informationen. Vi argumenterar därav att dessa dimensioner bör inkluderas i teorin för vilka trösklar som kan orsaka informationsasymmetrin. Intressekonflikterna har reducerats, men finns till viss mån fortfarande kvar. Motivationen att agera i ett egenintresse har dock inte påverkats. Uppsatsen visar således på att MiFID II inte har förflyttat principal-agent relationen till en stewardship relation. Kunskapsbidrag: Det teoretiska bidraget gällande informationsasymmetri utmanar antagandet om att principalen vill ha information som är relevant för denne. Uppsatsen visar att så inte alltid är fallet. Förutom att det uppstår informationsasymmetri om det är kostsamt eller svårt att ta reda på agentens handlingar, kan det även uppstå i situationer där principalen är ointresserad av, eller oförmögen att ta till sig av informationen enligt vår mening. Vidare har MiFID II inneburit att det är svårare för agenten att tillgodose sitt egenintresse om detta strider mot principalens. Däremot har direktivet inte inneburit att den interna motivationen ändrats och det går därför inte att förutsätta att ett kontraktsförhållande som haft en principal-agent relation övergår till en stewardship relation när dessa problem elimineras. Genom en ökad förståelse för hur tvingande lagstiftningar påverkar principal-agent problem kan det empiriska bidraget hjälpa tillsynsmyndigheter i sitt arbete att hantera principal-agent problem. Uppsatsen skulle således kunna underlätta vidareutveckling av regleringen som finns idag, likväl som utformningen av framtida direktiv och lagar. Med ett utomstående perspektiv på vilka intressekonflikter som kan uppstå vid investeringsrådgivning skulle det empiriska bidraget också kunna vara gynnsamt för värdepappersföretag och deras arbete för att hantera intressekonflikter.Background: On January 3, 2018, the EU directive Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) came into effect. The directive is intended to expand investor protection through eliminating information asymmetry and conflicts of interest in the financial market, while also harmonizing the regulations between nations within the EU. For investment advising, the directive results in more extensive documentation and stricter regulation of how fees and risks are communicated, as well as how incentives are handled; all with the aim of protecting investors. At the same time, the general public shows low interest in personal finance, as well as inadequate financial knowledge. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to further the understanding of how the introduction of the EU directive MiFID II has affected the principal-agent problem that arises during investment advising, from an investment firm perspective. Completion: This is a qualitative case-study which utilizes a phenomenological research perspective and an abductive approach. The empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews at investment firms with a total of seven respondents, whom were selected through goal-oriented convenience sampling. Conclusion: The study concludes that the principal-agent problems in investment advising have not been eliminated. According to our interpretation of the traditional theories, information asymmetry is nearly non-existent. Yet it remains a significant problem due to lack of interest and an inability to assimilate the information. Thus, we argue that the theoretical framework should be revised to include these barriers, as they may lead to information asymmetry. Conflicts of interest have been reduced, but still remain to some extent. Furthermore, the motivation to act based on self-interest still remain. Hence, the study shows that MiFID II has not turned the principal-agent relationship into a stewardship relationship. Contribution: The theoretical contribution to information asymmetry challenges the assumption that the principal is interested in all the information that is of relevance for them. The study show that this is not always the case. Apart from information asymmetry arising when ascertaining the actions of the agent is expensive or difficult, it can also arise due to the principal’s lack of interest or inability to assimilate the information. Moreover, MiFID II has made it more difficult for the agent to act in their own self-interest, should it deviate from the interest of the principal. The directive has not, however, affected the intrinsic motivation of the agent. Thus, we cannot assume that the elimination of these problems causes a principal-agent relationship to transform into a stewardship relationship. Through an increased understanding of how binding legislation affects principal-agent problems, the empirical contribution can help regulatory bodies in their work to mitigate the aforementioned problems. Hence, the study may help to not only expand existing legislation, but also in the development of future legislation and directives. By providing an outside perspective of what conflicts of interests could arise in investment advising, the empirical contribution could also be of use for investment firms in their work to identify and manage conflicts of interest