The influence of context on intentional service

International audienceSeveral service-oriented approaches promote the intention concept as a way to describe and document services based on user's requirements. However, these approaches have two main limitations: (1) they don't take into account the fact that a user evolves in a context that can influence his intentions, and (2) at the software service level, the corresponding intentional description of these software services is missing. Such a description should be a high level one, which is not directly connected to the software services. The objective of the paper is to propose a semantic service description that considers both intention corresponding to the service and context in which it is supposed to emerge. In addition, the variability embedded in the intentional description can be also affected by the user context. Such influence is also considered in our proposition

Understanding Rural Water Services as a Complex System: An Assessment of Key Factors as Potential Leverage Points for Improved Service Sustainability

Rural water supply services worldwide consistently fail to deliver full public health impacts as intended due to a low service sustainability. This failure is increasingly attributed to weak local systems composed of social, financial and environmental factors. Current approaches in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector for understanding and improving these systems typically focus on the strength and capacity of these factors, but not the interactions between them. We contend that these approaches overlook the inherent complexity and context-specific nature of each local system. To assess this complexity, we conducted four participatory factor mapping workshops with local stakeholders across multiple rural water contexts to identify the factors and interactions that support service sustainability. We then evaluate the potential for factors to act as strategic leverage points based on influence, dependence and feedback metrics that arise from their interactions with other factors. We find that while participants across the contexts tend to identify a common set of factors, the interactions amongst those factors and their individual ability to influence service sustainability varies considerably across contexts. These findings suggest that a more intentional focus on factor interactions inWASH systems could lead to more effective strategies for improving service sustainability

How professional service managers in higher education understand leadership

Based on the idea of leadership as an intentional process of influence the research question for this study asks how do professional service managers in higher education understand leadership? This question is answered by investigating the understanding of leadership by twenty professional service managers operating in two research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom in 2012. The topic of leadership has been much researched and debated, however the leadership of professional service managers within the particular context and culture of higher education, where the primary focus is on academic activity and leadership, has been little considered. Therefore, given their supportive or even subordinate role, the way in which professional service managers believe they need to undertake the leadership of their own staff and influence academic and other colleagues within the organisation is important to providing a more comprehensive understanding of the processes of leadership within higher education. In recent decades, academic research on leadership has expanded beyond a focus on the traits and competencies of individual leaders to considering leadership as a social process encompassing ‘followers’ within an organisational context in which ‘leadership’ may be distributed or variously configured. My study retains a focus on the understandings of leadership by professional service managers who, as knowledgeable agents, undertake leadership as a process of intentional influence on the basis of how they perceive the ‘context’ in which they operate. My research question is, “how do professional service (administrative) managers in higher education (institutions) understand leadership?” To address this question data constructed from semi-structured interviews is analysed thematically and interpreted using elements of the ‘structuration theories’ of Giddens and Bourdieu which seek to bridge the apparent divide between agentive and structural social theories and align with process/practice notions of leadership. From Bourdieu I particularly draw upon the idea of leaders acquiring and using a range of capitals or sources of ‘power’ to energise their leadership action and from Giddens I utilise the idea of leaders as knowledgeable agents who can go beyond ‘practical consciousness’ to formulate and enact leadership intentions. My study reveals some of the dilemmas that professional service managers face and the intentional activities employed by them to achieve multi-directional influence amongst their direct reports/staff and other organisational members (own manager, academic colleagues, peers). The relevance of understanding the organizational context in research-intensive higher education institutions is highlighted together with the potential constraints of leadership effectiveness imposed by the perceived identity of professional service staff and some of the self-limiting beliefs and perceptions of the managers themselves. Drawing upon a wide-ranging literature review and the findings from the empirical study, I propose a holistic model of managerial leadership consonant with a conceptualisation of leadership as a process of intentional influence and delineate ways in which the managers develop and draw upon various capitals including upon positional power. Finally, I review some of the limitations of the study and propose a number of areas for future research which logically arise from the theoretical and empirical findings in this study; I also reflexively account for my potential influence and bias on the study as a whole and the challenges and personal learning and development that has arisen for me from its delivery

Intergenerational Formation as a Tool for Main Line Protestant Revitalization

Generations X (“Gen X”), Y (“Millennial”), and Z (“iGen”) are not being formed in the faith by many mainline protestant congregations, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the Pacific Northwest, as evidenced by their absence. Practices of applied intentional intergenerational Christian formation are vital for being formed in and passing on the faith to subsequent generations. This can take place in worship, Christian education, spiritual formation activities and missional service. Foundational for the author’s approach to the problem is how shifts in culture, theology, learning theories, and spiritual formation intersect with the cyclical pattern of generation theory, including related life stages, cultural Turnings, and intergenerational relationship challenges between some of the repeating generation types. Introducing all of the above in the context of a small rural congregation sets the stage in chapter 1. Chapter 2 provides a summary of generation theory. Undergirded by generation theory insights, chapter 3 addresses the influence and impact of religious education and leadership theories that inform spiritual formation as a whole. Intentional integration of Intergenerational Christian Formation (IGCF) practices is introduced. In chapter 4, Biblical and theological foundations for IGCF are addressed. In chapter 5, the intersection of generation theory, learning theories, and leadership theories are woven together to undergird development of applied intergenerational Christian formation. Finally, in chapter 6, examples of applied intergenerational Christian formation experiences are offered for experimentation moving forward, with some critical analysis of experiments undertaken in the small church context introduced in the first chapter

In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning

The aim of the paper is to advance understanding of in-service learning and skills sector trainee teachers’ learning and propose ways of improving their learning. A conceptual framework is developed by extending Billett’s (International Journal of Educational Research 47:232–240, 2008) conceptualisation of workplace learning, as a relationally interdependent process between the opportunities workplaces afford for activities and interactions and how individuals engage with these, to a third base of participation, the affordances of the initial teacher education course. Hager and Hodkinson’s (British Educational Research Journal 35:619–638, 2009) metaphor of ‘learning as becoming’ is used to conceptualise the ways trainees reconstruct learning in a continuous transactional process of boundary crossing between course and workplace. The findings of six longitudinal case studies of trainees’ development, and evidence from other studies, illustrate the complex interrelationships between LSS workplace affordances, course affordances and trainee characteristics and the ways in which trainees reconstruct learning in each setting. The experience of teaching and interacting with learners, interactions with colleagues, and access to workplace resources and training are important workplace affordances for learning. However, some trainees have limited access to these affordances. Teaching observations, course activities and experiences as a learner are significant course affordances. Trainees’ beliefs, prior experiences and dispositions vary and significantly influence their engagement with course and workplace affordances. It is proposed that better integration of course and workplace learning through guided participation in an intentional workplace curriculum and attention to the ways trainees choose to engage with this, together with the use of practical theorising has the potential to improve trainee learning

The effectiveness of the international strategy in the analysis of the political language: Berlusconi´s speech at the chamber of deputies on the 13TH May 2008

In this context we will oversee to understand if and in which measure, the intentional attitude delineated today by the school of Anglo-Saxon thought and, in particular, by Dennett’s philosophy, can constitute an opportune and effective instrument for the analysis of the public language. With the expression “intentional system” we refer to the addressee of the communicative enterprise: a collectivity of people joined by the sharing a physical space and a temporal time; such a system can be explained, rationalized and, possibly, anticipated (as for its actions and to its behaviors) through the attribution to it of shared convictions and desires, which constitute the common sense of that organism. The so delineated philosophy of intentionality becomes, in this within, hermeneutics of the speech held by the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the Chamber of Deputies on May, 13 2008, that is in occasion of the beginning of its IV legislature. The exposure of the former prime Minister insisted, in order to guarantee to his own government the necessary consent, on the baggage of convictions and desires shared by the Italians, in an historical moment of confusion and political-institutional instability. That speech evidenced proper values of the cultural and ideological matrix of Italy: the house, the family, the entrepreneurial increase of North, the elimination of the organized crime in the South, the tax reduction on the job of the entrepreneurs, individual safety, the removal of the material causes of the abortion. Such concepts were introduced in order to attract the interest of a conservative public opinion and to diverge the attention from the substance of that government’s action, that realized itself in a plan of drastic reduction of the job in Public Administration and of increase of the tax charge, in the picture of a progressive and general economic recess

The Implications of Psychological Research Related to Unconscious Discrimination and Implicit Bias in Proving Intentional Discrimination

Building on the psychological research and publications indicating that much discrimination is unconscious and the result of implicit bias, this Article addresses the utility of laws that prohibit intentional discrimination in addressing this recently understood form of discrimination. More specifically, does unconscious discrimination violate a statute that prohibits intentional discrimination? The Article argues that the answer is yes.Unconscious discrimination is the result of stereotyping or categorization, a cognitive mechanism used by most people to simplify the task of perceiving, processing and retaining information about people. Absent a special effort to overcome this cognitive mechanism in making decisions about people, such decisions are frequently made on the basis of the category into which the decisionmaker places the person, rather than an individualized assessment. When a decisionmaker chooses to base decisions on the category into which an individual falls, rather than an individual assessment, the decisionmaker has made an intentional choice. Thus, the argument advanced here is that the intentional decision to discriminate is made when a decisionmaker chooses to use categories rather than an individual assessment, not at the precise point where a specific decision is made. Therefore, while a specific decision to hire or fire may not be the result of intentional discrimination at the point where the decision is made, it is, nevertheless, the product of intentional discrimination because at some point the decisionmaker decided to base decisions on categories rather than an individual assessment.The Article also discusses the common proof schemes for disparate treatment claims, including the direct method, the indirect method (McDonnell-Douglas) and mixed-motive. When the direct method is properly understood to include circumstantial evidence, it becomes the dominant method of establishing intentional discrimination. The key to proving intentional discrimination is showing that the decisionmaker engages in stereotyping and a likely way to establish this is through comments made by the decisionmaker, not necessarily in the context of the challenged decision. Once it is established that the decisionmaker engages in stereotyping and has a negative view of persons in the challenger\u27s protected group, the burden of persuasion should shift to the one whose decision is being challenged to establish an affirmative defense. What constitutes an affirmative defense, and the effect of such a defense, is explained in the Article.Understanding how discrimination works, will help guide organizations that want to eliminate all discrimination, including unconscious discrimination. Once discrimination is better understood, preventive measures can be tailored to addressing the problem

Structural Justice: A critical feminist framework exploring the intersection between justice, equity and structural reconciliation.

Violence against women is a human rights violation (UN, 2006). It affects the health of women globally (UN, 2009) and its elimination is at the heart of many international and national goals. Intimate partner violence (IPV), one of the most common forms of gender-based violence, affects one in three women worldwide (WHO, 2013). The consequences of IPV create negative health outcomes for women that diminish their quality of life and their overall well-being. Abused women access community supports such as shelters to seek safe refuge from the abuse and restore their lives. While shelters play an extensive role in helping women to rebuild their lives they often struggle to navigate inflexible and unjust systemic structures that can be re-victimizing to women and undermine their ability to live violence free. This study describes an emergent narrative of structural justice (SJ) that arose while examining the structural challenges of 6 shelters for abused women in urban and rural Virginia. It details the critical exploration of the intersection between structure and justice by integrating existing literature with qualitative participant narratives (N=36); and constructing an operational definition of structural justice (SJ) through an iterative process. Findings reveal SJ oriented patterns that shape five core tenets at the heart of this narrative. This SJ offers a framework out of which we can create a narrative of hope and a call-to-action. to rectify systemic violence. This framework contributes to the discourse concerning the elimination of VAW as it focuses on creating justice, equity and structural reconciliation