Culture change in elite sport performance teams: Examining and advancing effectiveness in the new era

Reflecting the importance of optimizing culture for elite teams, Fletcher and Arnold (2011) recently suggested the need for expertise in culture change. Acknowledging the dearth of literature on the specific process, however, the potential effectiveness of practitioners in this area is unknown. The present paper examines the activity's precise demands and the validity of understanding in sport psychology and organizational research to support its delivery. Recognizing that sport psychologists are being increasingly utilized by elite team management, initial evidence-based guidelines are presented. Finally, to stimulate the development of ecologically valid, practically meaningful knowledge, the paper identifies a number of future research directions

Family Supportive Supervision Around the Globe

Family-supportive supervision (FSS) refers to the degree to which employees perceive their immediate supervisors as exhibiting attitudes and behaviors that are supportive of their family role demands (Hammer, Kossek, Zimmerman, & Daniels, 2007; Kossek, Pichler, Bodner & Hammer, 2011: Thomas & Ganster, 1995). A growing body of research suggests that leaders\u27 and supervisors\u27 social support of employees\u27 needs to jointly carry out work and family demands is important for general health and job attitudes, such as satisfaction, work-family conflict, commitment, and intention to turn over (Hammer, Kossek, Anger, Bodner, & Zimmerman, 2009; Kossek et al., 2011). Thus, employee perceptions of FSS are critical to individual well-being and productivity (Hammer, Kossek, Yragui, Bodner, & Hansen, 2009). [excerpt

Is change on the horizon for Maori and Pacifica female high school students when it comes to ICT?

This paper explores some of the factors that discourage the participation of Māori and Pacific girls in ICT in New Zealand. Despite many ICT job opportunities, there has been a steady decrease in the percentage of girls, especial Māori and Pacific girls entering into ICT study, and pursuing ICT careers. This study used a modified version of the conceptual framework designed by Bernhardt (2014) based on the 'STEMcell' model. The STEMcell framework was used to explores the factors that discourage participation in ICT through such concepts as cultural, social, structural and social IT that contribute to the likelihood of student’s career choice in ICT. An online questionnaire gathered data from year 11 students studying at high schools within Wellington, New Zealand. The findings indicated that Pacific girl’s more than Māori girls reported that their family members were seen as role models, which could impact on their future career choices. The statistical results also show that stereotypes are still alive in both Māori and Pacific year 11 student’s perceptions and that both Pacific and Māori girls from year 11 are unlikely to follow a career in ICT. Currently, the number of Māori and Pacific girls enrolling in ICT subjects at secondary school is still substantially below that for boys and, until changes are made, Māori and Pacific girls going into the industry will be in the minority

Subjective Culture

The definition of subjective culture is followed by a listing of the elements of subjective culture and an examination of the content of each element and the methodological problems in studying that element

A Cross-regional Comparison of Selected European Newspaper journalists and their Evolving Attitudes and Beliefs about the Internet - including a single-country focus on the UK.

This study approaches how journalists in the United Kingdom might compare with individuals working in print journalism in 10 other European countries, to assess role perceptions and beliefs in relation to the internet. The continental Europeans were grouped into north and south, and the UK set was independently compared with each. In all, 270 journalists across 44 newspapers in Europe gave scaled reactions to a questionnaire about their role conceptions, the internet, and the future. It appears the sampled UK journalists, despite some historical conceptions about the distinctively separate evolution of their press, conform strikingly with their European counterparts but in a specific and patterned way: the UK journalists align with their counterparts from the north of Europe but have significant differences to those in the south. The principal ingredient of the division is the degree to which the journalists find the internet useful, positive and a worthwhile extension of their working opportunities. The findings conform in some respects to academic studies taking a historical and cultural approach to comparative journalism

Developing teaching and learning programmes for new lecturers in higher education to allow for exploration of the link between research and teaching: a collaborative UK/Canadian project

This is an ESCalate development project led by Lisa Lucas of the University of Bristol and completed in 2009. It looks at teaching and learning programmes for new lecturers in the UK and Canada, specifically the link between research and teaching. The aim of this project was to develop innovative materials and activities, and collect best practice examples that focus on the link between research and teaching that can be utilised within university Teaching and Learning in Higher Education programmes for new lecturers. A comparison between the UK and Canada was taken in order to provide an international perspective on this issue and to help develop materials that would be relevant in different national contexts. It looks at the policy contexts in the UK and Canada, reviews some example teaching and learning programmes and explores the views of early career academics in terms of linking teaching and research. It includes a final project report and colloquium paper, both presented as PDF file

Cultural Differences in Perceptions of and Responses to Sexual Harassment

14 To be considered pervasive, the conduct must be repeated, continuous and concerted, and not merely an isolated incident or occasional occurrence.15 Moreover, to sustain a hostile environment claim, the conduct must have been unwelcome-that is, the conduct was neither invited nor incited by the complaining party-and the complainant must have clearly indicated that the conduct was unwelcome.16 Hostile environment sexual harassment encompasses a wide range of behaviors including, inter alia, displays of sexually-explicit materials, sexuallycharged or demeaning jokes, derogatory names or epithets, physical advances, repetitive requests for dates, repeated comments on physical appearance, and sexually-charged body language or facial expressions.17 The terms and conditions of employment need not have been tangibly affected, even if the offending conduct had the purpose of unreasonably interfering with the victim\u27s work performance.18 To be actionable, the conduct at issue must have been tinged with offensive sexual content and must have demonstrated discrimination based on sex.19 The range of circumstances considered includes the frequency, severity, physical nature, associated humiliation, and job interference inherent in the harassing behaviors.20 As a precondition to an actionable harassment claim, would-be plaintiffs must first utilize any procedures established by the employer for prevention and correction of sexual harassment.21 The concept of hostile environment is both complicated and imprecise, leaving many issues for the courts to resolve

Measuring gender norms about relationships in early adolescence : results from the global early adolescent study

Introduction: Gender norms are increasingly recognized as drivers of health and wellbeing. While early adolescence constitutes a critical window of development, there is limited understanding about how adolescents perceive gender relations across different cultural settings. This study used a mixed-method approach, grounded in the voices of young people around the world, to construct and test a cross-cultural scale assessing the perceptions of gender norms regulating romantic relationships between boys and girls in early adolescence. Methods: The study draws on the Global Early Adolescent study (GEAS), a study focusing on gender norms and health related outcomes over the course of adolescence in urban poor settings worldwide. In-depth interviews were first conducted among approximately 200 adolescents between 10-14 years in seven sites across 4 continents to identify common scripts guiding romantic relations in early adolescence. These scripts were then transformed into a multidimensional scale. The scale was tested among 120 adolescents in each of 14 GEAS sites, followed by a second pilot among 75 adolescents in six sites. We evaluated the psychometric criteria of each subscale using principal component analysis, and parallel analysis, followed by exploratory factor analysis to guide the selection of a more parsimonious set of items. Results: Results suggested a two-factor structure, consisting of an "adolescent romantic expectations" subscale and a "Sexual Double Standard" subscale. Both subscales yielded high internal validity in each site, with polychoric Cronbach alpha values above 0.70 with the exception of Kinshasa for the adolescent romantic expectations scale (0.64) and Hanoi for the sexual double standard scale (0.61). Conclusion: This study reveals common perceptions of gendered norms about romantic engagement in early adolescence, normative for both sexes, but socially valued for boys while devaluated for girls. The findings illustrate that social hierarchies of power in romantic relationships form early in adolescence, regardless of cultural setting

The Emergence of Leader-Society Value Congruence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Previous research on cross-cultural leadership has focused on the outcomes associated with leadership factors consistent with national cultural values without exploring how leaders’ individual cultural orientations become congruent with the societal culture in different national settings. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of how leader-society value congruence is produced and how the degree of such congruency varies across cultures. This paper conceptually clarifies the mechanisms that mediate the influence of cultural context on leader-society value congruence; suggests that the effects of societal context are only distal antecedents of producing congruence between leaders’ individual and societal level cultural values; and concludes that their effects are manifest via their impact on self-construal and communication patterns