38332 research outputs found
Sort by
The Impact of Neurodiversity Training on Managers’ Attitudes in an SME: A Qualitative Exploration
No full textThis dissertation investigates the impact of formal neurodiversity training on line managers’ knowledge, understanding, and attitudes within a UK SME. Neurodiversity, while increasingly recognised in larger organisations, remains underexplored in SMEs where resources and awareness are often limited. The study adopts a qualitative, phenomenological approach, drawing on semi-structured interviews with four managers conducted before and after a training intervention. Thematic analysis, supported by NVivo, was used to identify patterns of change in perceptions and practices. Primary data are complemented by an extensive review of academic and practitioner literature on neurodiversity, disability models, inclusive leadership, and SME management contexts. Findings indicate that while training broadened managers’ knowledge of conditions and improved confidence in supporting neurodivergent employees, barriers such as disclosure stigma, fairness concerns, and structural constraints persisted. The research contributes to theory by reframing neurodiversity inclusion as a managerial and organisational responsibility, and to practice by recommending training, policy development, and organisation-wide awareness-raising as key enablers of sustainable neuroinclusive workplaces
Back to the future with a ‘responsibility caveat’ : evaluating the tension of responsibility and accountability within social commerce via a customer-to-customer lens
No full textAs the technological landscape evolves, there are calls for social media companies (SMCs) to be responsible when facilitating customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions in a social commerce environment. The practical examples discussed within the chapter highlight SMCs’ responsibilities taken, but also reveal that SMCs overlook the urgency to take accountability. As a result of taking both responsibility and accountability, SMCs will continue to thrive when aligning with governance in place. The ensuing book chapter provides a current conceptual review of the need for responsibility and accountability in a digital age, whilst emphasising how SMCs should accommodate and foster a sustainable ecosystem for C2C engagement within a social commerce environment. Next, a theoretical review of literature on a C2C framework is provided in a social commerce setting, along with an examination of the responsibility and accountability of SMC, an area of research that warrants exploration. The penultimate section highlights the pertinent discourse surrounding the need for SMCs to go beyond embracing their responsibility and their accountability in facilitating C2C interactions. With lessons learned from the theoretical review, best practice recommendations were provided for future thinking in shaping a more sustainable social commerce environment, considering the responsibility and accountability of various stakeholders
What Factors Influence Freshwater Quality and Associated Faunal Diversity in Oxfordshire?
No full textPollution by excess nutrients has negative effects on the health and associated biodiversity of freshwater habitats. Broad-scale monitoring campaigns have found levels of nitrates and phosphates in different freshwater bodies to be exceedingly above the thresholds of ‘Clean’ water. However, these campaigns do not assess the factors influencing water quality, and the impacts of water pollution on faunal communities. Here we show that the factors driving nitrate and phosphate concentrations in freshwater habitats across Oxfordshire vary in scale and pathway, and that changes in local land-use, particularly increasing urbanisation, has a negative impact on nitrate concentrations, leading to declines in observed Odonata abundance. We found that changes in land-use impacted nitrate and phosphate levels at different scales, and that phosphates had little impact on Odonata. Furthermore, we found that certain site-specific conditions, such as shade, were stronger predictors of Odonata abundance than nutrient concentrations, which has implications for targeted habitat conservation or restoration. Our results demonstrate the need for further research to better understand the sources and pathways of nutrient enrichment, and the potential future ramifications of climate change for freshwater habitats. They also indicate the need for greater regulation on nutrient sources e.g. agricultural activity and urban development, and support restoration efforts through methods like pond creation to boost biodiversity
Why Parent Education Should Be Every Youth Sport Organisation’s Next Priority with Dr Sam Thrower
No full text
Defining sex, work, and sex work
No full textChapter one introduces and then problematises the term ‘incidental sex work’ to characterise casual ways of selling sex, where young men agree to sell sex after being propositioned by other users of social networking sites and smartphone apps, alongside indirect forms of sex (work) such as photo-sharing, video-streaming, and webcamming. Part of an expanding research literature about online sex work, male sex work, and sex work engaged in by other underrepresented groups including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) people, these behaviours raise questions about how we define ‘sex’, ‘work’, and ‘sex work’ in the digital era. As the first study to empirically document people’s experiences of selling sex incidentally, this book considers new terrain for academics, activists, and policymakers who are concerned with the regulation of sexuality in public, private, and virtual spaces. The diversity of experiences described by the study’s 50 participants, within different social and economic contexts, also poses problems for how we seek to understand key concepts within sex work research including queer forms of desire and intimacy, post-identity politics, and digital media platforms, alongside a changing social, political, and economic landscape of expanded sexual freedoms
Cracks in left strategy : interstitial revolution in E. O. Wright and John Holloway
Get PDFOver the past two decades, anti-capitalist social and political theorists have increasingly embraced the transformative potential of solidaristic organisations that exist within the ‘cracks’ (the ‘interstices’) of the capitalist system. The argument goes that by growing and expanding progressive organisations within capitalism’s ‘cracks’, activists can peacefully usher in a post-capitalist future. Such an approach is referred to as an interstitial strategy. Yet, despite the growth of the related literature, which increasingly extends far beyond social and political thought, the foundational ideas of such an interstitial strategy have not been sufficiently interrogated. We demonstrate that two of the key texts that explicitly endorse such an interstitial transformative strategy, Erik Olin Wright’s Envisioning Real Utopias and John Holloway’s Crack Capitalism, use the term in significantly different ways, pointing towards qualitatively distinct and potentially incompatible theories of social change. In this article, we sympathetically reconstruct both accounts, identify their fundamental disconnects and stress the need for a coherent revolutionary strategy to undergird anti-capitalist activism
Constructing categories of ‘desirable migrants’ through bureaucracy in French and Canadian mobility regimes
No full textThis paper comparatively examines ‘highly skilled’ Vietnamese migrants’ encounters with the mobility regimes in France and Canada, through their experiences with immigration administrative procedures in these countries. We seek to highlight how categories of ‘desirable migrants’ are constructed through these bureaucratic encounters, by the policies and bureaucrats but also by migrants themselves. We draw from ethnographic interviews with 64 Vietnamese university-educated migrants, including a majority of international students and graduates. Our findings highlight participants’ experiences of France’s and Canada’s mobility regimes through administrative processes; as well as how participants position themselves with regards to their receiving country’s immigration bureaucracy. Participants in both countries performed as ‘desirable migrants’ through ‘competent management’ of their paperwork. In France, facing procedural injustices and suspicion, ‘highly skilled’ migrants also emphasised their lawfulness. In contrast, in Canada, they experienced more procedural justice and support afforded by their financial capital. Nevertheless, participants presented themselves as ‘desirable migrants’ by emphasising their thoughtfulness in facilitating smooth procedures and their ‘merit’ or ‘hard work’ in securing employer sponsorship and handling paperwork independently. This study enhances our comprehension of mobility regimes as being characterised by dynamic interplays between state policies and migrants’ performances shaping the formation of categories and norms
An image-based approach for advanced statistical quantification of architectural parameters and permeability in porous biological media
No full textLoad-bearing soft tissues—such as the meniscus, articular cartilage, and intervertebral discs—exhibit a multilayered architecture within their extracellular matrix (ECM). Variations in structural organization across these layers give rise to graded physical properties, which are critical for the tissues to perform their diverse biomechanical functions. In this study, we introduce an image-based unified framework for the statistical quantification and spatial evolution of architectural/topological, including Minkowski Functionals (MFs), porosity, pore connectivity, pore size, tortuosity, and permeability through Pore Network Modeling (PNM) of multilayered ECMs, enabling a deeper understanding of the interplay between structure and function. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach using two image datasets—VOI(1) and VOI(2)—obtained from micro-CT scans of meniscal tissue. We observe correlations between the evolution of spatial permeability within VOI(1) and VOI(2) and tortuosity, throat lengths, complex connectivity, and pore pressure zones. Despite VOI(2) containing a higher number of pores and throats, its more complex and tortuous pore network results in convoluted fluid pathways that reduce transport efficiency. Consequently, VOI(2) exhibits lower permeability compared to the simpler and more direct pore architecture of VOI(1). The proposed methodology enables image stack datasets to be used for rapid and advanced characterization of architecture, permeability, and pressure fields within a single, unified code.
Matlab codes and two datasets of image stack of meniscal tissue are available at GitHub (https://github.com/olgaBARRERA/Biologic-porous-media-characterisation) and at ( 10.5281/zenodo.14018501)