Engendering executive reflexivity: A multi-perspective executive coach competency

This study seeks to present an original contribution to the theorisation of executive coach competencies. A set of competencies which belong to the category engendering executive reflexivity were identified as being evident across a sub-group of executive coaching research that have not been theorised to date. The competency to engender executive reflexivity is believed to depend on a coach’s ability to make a particular type of educational intervention, one where they invite executives to consider that their sense-making is subject to psychological or psychosocial processes that are invisible to them. Different sub-types of the competency are defined in relation to the specific type of psychological or psychosocial processes that the coach brings to the executive’s awareness. A flexible research strategy was adopted (Robson, 2002). Primary data were collected from five executives and thirteen executive coaches. Two case studies from the executive coaching literature were analysed. A multi-perspective analysis of the data analysis was influenced by Holland’s (1999) transdisciplinary reflexivity model. The data analysis was informed by critical realism (Bhaskar, 2006, 2010). The main goal of the analysis was to develop an explanatory framework of the role particular coach competencies played in equipping executives to shift from unreflexive to reflexive approaches to their problems. It is proposed that when executive coaches possess competencies to make educational interventions which provide executives with insights to practice reflexivity they can help executives to resolve problems which they might not otherwise be able to do. It is concluded that the competencies can play a valuable role in helping executives to develop efficacious responses to problems they encounter when influenced by some psychological and psychosocial processes such as psychodynamic defences, unconscious group processes, and self-limiting beliefs

Designing Open Electronic Texts in Education: Positioning Theory Revisited

A series of investigations into aspects of designing electronic texts is summarised. One aspect is a critical evaluation of existing provision, including educational videos and available software like PowerPoint and Xerte, and a description of our own practice over several years. There is a review of more theoretical work about ‘realism’ in cinema and in visual ethnography, and effects which include ‘positioning’ the viewer as passive. We discuss the potential of electronic texts for organising academic material in a more open ‘writerly’ way than is conventional, and end with suggesting future theoretical inquiry

Representing ‘the Real’: Realism and Visual Culture in Tourism, Leisure and Ethnography

The collection and use of visual evidence is widespread in a wide range of academic and professional activities. The paper explores the similarities and differences of a range of related phenomena: realism, documentary and authenticity. The status of the ‘realism effect’ is evaluated in a range of leisure activities with an emphasis on tourism and the significance of realist texts in popular culture in narrative and nonnarrative forms. The creative treatment of the representation of reality in the documentary tradition is highlighted. The paper emphasises the pleasures to be gained from ‘experiencing the real’ using semiotics and film theory, in particular. There is a discussion of the possible ideological effects of these pleasures as well as more fundamental matters relating to the extent to which we are able to actually experience the ‘real’ in any meaningful way. The argument develops that the pleasures of realist cultural forms may also be found in academic work too. The representations of reality using written and visual forms in ethnography are explored: consumers of academic work as well as popular cultural forms employ a series of codes and conventions and these forms may be subjected to post-structuralist analyses

Winchester City Council. Young People: Employment and Education Mapping

Winchester City Council commissioned this mapping exercise to ensure that it had a clear, evidence-based picture of unemployment amongst young people aged 16-24 in the Winchester District and to help it identify opportunities to improve these young people's life chances in a practical and affordable way. The research was conducted in the Winchester district, between February and April 2012, with data gathered through a review of UK-wide research into unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds;face-to-face consultations with 13 young people aged 16-24 and living in the Winchester district; face-to-face and telephone consultations with 41 local stakeholders representing the public, private and voluntary sectors

Inventory of ammonia emissions from UK agriculture 2009

The National Ammonia Reduction Strategy Evaluation System (NARSES) model (spreadsheet version) was used to estimate ammonia (NH3) emissions from UK agriculture for the year 2009. Year-specific livestock numbers and fertiliser N use were added for 2009 and revised for previous years. The estimate for 2009 was 231.8 kt NH3, representing a 2.3 kt increase from the previously submitted estimate for 2008. Backward and forward projections using the 2009 model structure gave estimates of 317, 245 and 244 kt NH3 for the years 1990, 2010 and 2020, respectively. This inventory reports emission from livestock agriculture and from nitrogen fertilisers applied to agricultural land. There are a number of other minor sources reported as ‘agriculture’ in the total UK emission inventory, including horses not kept on agricultural holdings, emissions from composting and domestic fertiliser use

Empirically inspired simulated electro-mechanical model of the rat mystacial follicle-sinus complex

In whiskered animals, activity is evoked in the primary sensory afferent cells (trigeminal nerve) by mechanical stimulation of the whiskers. In some cell populations this activity is correlated well with continuous stimulus parameters such as whisker deflection magnitude, but in others it is observed to represent events such as whisker-stimulator contact or detachment. The transduction process is mediated by the mechanics of the whisker shaft and follicle-sinus complex (FSC), and the mechanics and electro-chemistry of mechanoreceptors within the FSC. An understanding of this transduction process and the nature of the primary neural codes generated is crucial for understanding more central sensory processing in the thalamus and cortex. However, the details of the peripheral processing are currently poorly understood. To overcome this deficiency in our knowledge, we constructed a simulated electro-mechanical model of the whisker-FSC-mechanoreceptor system in the rat and tested it against a variety of data drawn from the literature. The agreement was good enough to suggest that the model captures many of the key features of the peripheral whisker system in the rat

A Review of Twenty Consecutive Cases of Acute Mastoiditis Treated by B.I.P. and Primary Suture

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Beyond the Fringe: The Role of Recreation in Multi-Functional Urban Fringe Landscapes

This paper reviews some of the academic literature and policy documents that relate to and promote the need for urban design and the re-invigoration of the processes and practices of ‘masterplanning’. Specifically, this paper concerns the implications for recreation in areas that have been conceptualised in a number of ways including ‘urban fringe’ and ‘fringe-belt’ and the ways in which these areas are being re-developed as multi-functional spaces in the planning process. The paper pays particular attention to the proposed development of the ‘North Plymouth Community Park’ examining the claims made for the sustainable characteristics of the development and questioning the absence of the cultural aspects of recreation

Making the most of housing and growth in the East Midlands: a report on removing the barriers to low public investment in the region

The Smith Institute, in association with the Economic Strategy Research Bureau at Nottingham Business School, has undertaken an investigation into the lack of central government investment in the East Midlands in housing and physical regeneration. The work has been based on desk research, two round tables with stakeholders (in Nottingham and Melton Mowbray) and interviews with over 30 decision makers, experts and opinion formers from across the region. The objectives of the report were: first, to quantify the reduction in central government investment in the region compared with other regions; second, to suggest reasons why this might have occurred; third, to consider the impact that this might be having on the implementation of government policies such as housing provision, “rebalancing” the economy and achieving greater value for money for government investment. The report concludes with a number of recommendations for local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), local authorities, the housing sector and central government