Attracting and retraining talent: lessons for Scottish policy makers from the experiences of scottish expatriates in Dublin

With a view to contributing research of value to the Fresh Talent Scotland Initiative, this research project has been devised with specific reference to the first of the three goals noted above. Specifically, it is concerned with gaining insights into why talented individuals leave Scotland in the first instance, and thereafter to ascertain whether anything might be done to both stem the outflow and lure back to Scotland some of its most talented diasporeans. Such a goal in turn begets, it will be argued, greater insights into the actual experiences of contemporary diasporeans in the run up to migration and whilst in exile. Using one emerging magnet for Scottish expatriates as a case study, the Republic of Ireland and more specifically Dublin, the project seeks to examine the embroilment of skilled Scottish expatriates in the so called Celtic Tiger phenomenon. The basic purpose of this report is to present insights into the decision making processes that have led migrants to leave Scotland and to move to Dublin, to gain an appreciation of what life has been like for expatriates living in Dublin and what Scotland might learn from these experiences, and finally to review future locational preferences with a view to establishing whether a return to Scotland may be a possibility

Contextualising Individual Diversity Perceptions: A Relational Study across Egypt, Germany, and the United Kingdom Technology Industries

For this research, the influence of context on individual diversity perceptions was investigated. A relational approach was adopted to account for the influence of national culture, industry, organisation and identity on diversity perceptions. Current diversity literature has been criticised for being decontextualized and for not considering intersections between diversity dimensions. The dynamic and contextual nature of diversity has been, to a great extent, disregarded. Critical diversity studies call for a revitalisation of diversity research through comparative, contextual and intersectional research, which is the focus of this research. To preserve the context-specific nature of the diversity construct, a qualitative social constructionism epistemology was adopted. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with a total of 68 employees in the technology industry across three countries: Egypt, Germany and the United Kingdom. At the macro level, national culture was accounted for using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, cultural tightness-looseness theory and the World Values Survey. At the meso level, industry diversity dynamics and organisational diversity management were considered. At the micro individual level, identity was theoretically conceptualised through social identity theory, professional role identity and intersectionality. Findings have shown that perceived diversity is individually unique and is shaped by the interaction of the multiple contexts individuals exist within, as well as their social and professional identities. National culture has been shown to influence the diversity discourse, taboo topics, gender dynamics and individual diversity attitudes. The research has shown that in Egypt, individual diversity attitudes were avoidance and apprehension. In Germany, individual diversity attitudes were pragmatism and avoidance, and in the UK, individual diversity attitudes were evasiveness and simplification. The industry and organisation contexts have been found to influence individual diversity management perceptions. Three reactions to diversity management are proposed: frustration, incomprehension, and cynicism. The empirical study of perceived diversity is a conceptual contribution to knowledge. A framework of the influence of context on diversity perceptions has been proposed. The current study’s outcomes, in addition to theory and knowledge contributions, allow for explanations to be provided for diversity management practitioners regarding how employees perceive their diversity policies

A persona-based modelling for contextual requirements

[Context & Motivation] Personas are a technique used to guide developing products accommodating people diversity. They are archetypes reflecting common combinations of users’ characteristics, needs and goals. Persons can add a human-centred facet to requirements engineering practice which is often revolving around the concept of business roles. [Question/Problem] Goal modelling is an example of mainstream requirements engineering approach driven by business roles and their responsibilities and needs represented as goals. Personnel in the system are expected to act according to this prescriptive specification. Personnel diversity is often seen as a customization and design issue. [Principal idea/Results]. In this paper we propose to consider such diversity as a conditional context in requirements modelling and, as an approach, augment Contextual Goal Model (CGM) with personas as a new contextual dimension. Additionally, we propose an algorithm to analyse the achievability of CGM goals in the presence of the personas contexts variation. We evaluate our approach using a Mobile Personal Emergency Response System (MPERS) implemented as a prototype. [Contribution] Our persona-based modelling approach paves the way to augment requirements with a consideration of people diversity and enrich the business perspective with a more user-centred design facet

The Impact of Personality on Requirements Engineering Activities: A Mixed-Methods Study

Context: Requirements engineering (RE) is an important part of Software Engineering (SE), consisting of various human-centric activities that require the frequent collaboration of a variety of roles. Prior research has shown that personality is one such human aspect that has a huge impact on the success of a software project. However, a limited number of empirical studies exist focusing on the impact of personality on RE activities. Objective: The objective of this study is to explore and identify the impact of personality on RE activities, provide a better understanding of these impacts, and provide guidance on how to better handle these impacts in RE. Method: We used a mixed-methods approach, including a personality test-based survey (50 participants) and an in-depth interview study (15 participants) with software practitioners from around the world involved in RE activities. Results: Through personality test analysis, we found a majority of the practitioners have a high score on agreeableness and conscientiousness traits and an average score on extraversion and neuroticism traits. Through analysis of the interviews, we found a range of impacts related to the personality traits of software practitioners, their team members, and external stakeholders. These impacts can be positive or negative, depending on the RE activities, the overall software development process, and the people involved in these activities. Moreover, we found a set of strategies that can be applied to mitigate the negative impact of personality on RE activities. Conclusion: Our identified impacts of personality on RE activities and mitigation strategies serve to provide guidance to software practitioners on handling such possible personality impacts on RE activities and for researchers to investigate these impacts in greater depth in future.Comment: Accepted to Empirical Software Engineering Journa

Doing pedagogical research in engineering

This is a book

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Psychometrically Analyzing The Career Choices of Business Majors

This paper discusses a research study conducted to discover if there was a sociological or psychometric difference between undergraduate business majors who opted for the conventional post- undergraduate career paths versus those who did not. To determine this, a qualtrics survey was conducted with various psychometric predictors that covered values, personality, and career interests. This survey was followed by a series of semi structured interviews, to discover if there were any sociological factors that influenced their career choice. The study found that there were statistically significant relationships between the choice of a nontraditional or traditional career and the Five Factor Model (FFM) Openness and Neuroticism; Schwartz’s PVQ openness to change (specifically self-direction) and hedonism, and the passion-purpose-decisions scale, which is a blend of the calling scale and the scale for measuring entrepreneurial passion

Occupation-specific recruitment : An empirical investigation on job seekers’ occupational (non-)fit, employer image, and employer attractiveness

Organizations may need to attract occupational groups they did not recruit so far to implement strategic changes (e.g., digital transformation). Against the backdrop of this practical problem, this study introduces and explores an occupation-based measure of person-organization fit: occupational fit. I investigate its relationship with employer attractiveness based on human capital theory and explore the role of employer image as a moderator in this relationship. I surveyed 153 software engineers and mechanical engineers to analyze whether their occupational fit with software engineering and mechanical engineering firms is related to employer attractiveness. I find that occupational fit is only related to a firm’s employer attractiveness among software engineers. Employer image does not moderate this relationship. A qualitative follow-up study proposes first explanations for the unexpected differences between the two occupations by indicating that occupations may differ in the logic they apply to determine fit and their degree of professionalization. The study contributes to research by highlighting the neglected role of occupation in recruitment research and exploring potential boundary conditions of recruitment for fit. Implications for future research and practice are discussed