Book Review: Teaching with Comics Empirical, Analytical, and Professional Experiences, by Robert Aman and Lars Wallner (Eds.)

This thesis explored the experiences of professionals who work with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours. The systematic literature review addresses the question “what are the experiences of professionals who provide therapeutic intervention to CYP who have displayed HSB?” A systematic search of seven electronic databases was undertaken with inclusion and exclusion criteria applied. This resulted in eight papers whose data were extracted and synthesised using a meta-ethnographic approach. Three overarching themes are reported: (1) Countercultural beliefs; (2) Professional self-confidence; (3) Altered experiences of the world, which contains the subtheme: Positive experiences emerging from the work. Findings are discussed and clinical implications at the service and organisational level are suggested. Next, the empirical paper explores the impact of working with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours on residential care workers. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Four themes were reported: 1) “In theory you should hate them” – The impact of personal beliefs; 2) “You learn why they behaved like they did” - Developing alternative understandings of HSB; 3) “We are here to care” - Purpose of the role; and 4) “I didn’t feel safe, he made my skin crawl” - The impact of threat. Themes are discussed in relation to relevant literature and clinical implications for residential care services are discussed. The critical appraisal provides a brief outline of the findings of the empirical paper before discussing reflections on key parts of the research process including; reflections on the researcher’s relationship with HSB; an exploration of the decision to use thematic analysis methodology; and finding the balance between the dual roles of researcher and clinician.

The relation between professionals and female users of health care is influenced by the way the involved individuals are inserted and interact in the social space they occupy, which makes the practice to be directed by gender relation as well. Assuming the consideration of the life of professional women and users may contribute to qualify women’s health care, a study was made aiming at offering a reflection and debate on the relation between women’s life and their need for health care and identifying convergent and divergent aspects between the demand for care which results from the experience of professionals and that of the women they care for. It is a qualitative study with gender as a theoretical reference. It was made between a multiprofessional female staff of a public health care setting. The production of empirical material was directed by a problematical methodology and reflection wokshop technique, the latter making experience exchange and collective knowledge building possible. The data were analyzed through the speech analysis technique that recognizes the most abstract, hematic level in the text, which makes it coherent by revealing the enunciator’s view of the world. The empirical material analysis showed that female health professionals present at times similar demands to those of the women they care for originated from their multiple functions and existing tension in private and public settings, which points out their need to be heard and have the conflicts related to gender decreased. Key words: woman’s health; women working; gender Identity; Gender and Health.

The study of law in Colombia undertaken by German Silva Garcia fills four vol-umes. The first of these deals with the legal profession, the second with the judiciary, the third with the administration of justice and the fourth with the professional ideol-ogy espoused by the country’s legal practitioners. The research is the result of 210 interviews conducted with legal practitioners in Bogota and its province, of 57 in-depth interviews aimed at acquiring qualitative as well as quantitative data, of the results compiled in a series of focus groups and of the author’s own professional experience as an attorney. The unequivocally clear result is therefore a study that is empirical in nature, although it is also one that goes further than merely describing the data collected, organising and interpreting them in the light of a prevalently conflictual sociological theory, much of which can be traced back to the approach adopted by the theories of labelling. The survey deals with criminal law in particular, highlighting its eminently politi-cal nature and tackling the study of crime in its stigmatising dimension of social con-struction. In addition, while redefining the concept of deviance, the author proposes the new term of divergence, which has less of an evaluative connotation and is more explicit in its intention to identify a potentially criminogenous and criminal social area of conflict. Silva Garcia clearly highlights the ideological and artificial content of law, but at the same time underlines its reality and social importance. Although the law con-structs a thoroughly artificial social reality, that reality does not always contribute to the development of democracy. Nevertheless, the law remains the most effective tool that human organisations have found to date for guaranteeing acceptable levels of freedom and equality between individuals.

Professional schools for business, medicine, engineering, and law are established in order to produce research and teaching that are relevant for practice. Despite concerns that practitioners often fail to adopt the findings of research (Van de Ven, 2007), there is very little doubt that a training in medicine, engineering, or law is essential in order to be a physician, an engineer, or a lawyer. The same, however, cannot be said for business. In fact, not only has the gap between management science and practice been widening more than in other professional schools, making academic research less useful for solving practical managerial problems (Bartunek et al., 2001), but even the teaching in business schools seems to be of little use for managerial practice (Rubin & Dierdorff, 2009), leading some to claim that ‘the only business that could seem to benefit would be the business school business!’ (Murray, 1988: 71). Another convincing argument is that teaching in business schools can even be very harmful for managerial practice (Mintzberg, 2004). The most enlightening proposals for innovative teaching that is relevant for practice are enlisting co-teaching courses where one of the instructors is an executive or former executive, hiring colleagues with professional experience, encouraging clinical, qualitative research and case studies (Pfeffer, 2007), and creating development activities to improve the practice of management (Mintzberg, 2004). These latter activities have been qualified as the ‘experiential learning’ approach in education, and the effectiveness of the approach has been proved empirically (Nadkarni, 2003).

Introduction: Teaching with Comics: Empirical, Analytical, and Professional Experiences

In Taiwan Stock Exchange Market are 85% individual investors, who lack of professional investment experience as institutional investors. This may account for the prosperity of the public recommended information from various newspapers and magazines of professional analysts. We use the event study method employed by Brown and Warner (1980) and the market model to estimate the abnormal returns and the study attempts to comparison between two CAPITAL and SINOPAC that have different reader for investment professional situation. The study period is from September 2003 to September 30, 2005 and the research sample comprises 1099 observations. The empirical results are as follows: 1. We have observed significant abnormal returns in the pre- event period possibly because firms recommended by information from internet tend to have performed quite well before the publication day. 2. Investor can not earn abnormal returns if they buy on the event day. However, the abnormal returns vanish quickly after event day. When hold it more time, will get fewer abnormal returns after event day. It displays some patterns of overreaction. 3. Firms from various industry segments respond differently to these recommendations.

The sphere of education is in urgent need of a professional academic, able to prepare students for their future profession while mastering new teaching technologies, pedagogical methods, and managerial tools. The present article focuses on the systemic changes needed in higher education. The methodological and theoretical framework of the present research included the concepts of the modern science on the dialectical nature of active cognitive activity as a basis for contextual training. The study was also based on the theoretical foundations of pedagogical education at university. Other fundamental principles included pedagogy and psychology of developing the pedagogical culture of future academics and their personality. The methods involved an analysis of documents and scientific publications on the reform of higher education and empirical experience connected with professional skills of academics. The authors believe that highly specialized professional skills are still valued on the labor market, yet they are gradually being displaced with quasi-professional skills that grant future employees a high level of adaptability, inter-sectoral mobility, and freedom of choice. A modern university has to provide its students with these skills, as well as with the ability of independent learning. As a result, a professional academic has to be able to teach students how to act in a changing environment. The required skills can be mastered by acquiring the culture of independent work based on the assimilation of social experience during practical activities. Students can obtain problem solving skills only via their own social experience. Thus, university education should provide students with experience of solving cognitive, ideological, moral, organizational, and communicative problems. Academics improve their professional skills by building up intellectual experience and professional pedagogical competence. The competence is based on knowledge, skills, life, and professional experience, strict pedagogical culture, and values.

The article is dedicated to revealing the essence of professional training of humanities teachers in conditions of postgraduate education to realize reflexive activity. As a result of the retrospective analysis of goals and objectives of the Ukrainian postgraduate teachers’ education, the shift of educational accents from cognitive to personal has been proved, and the need for implementing a reflexive approach in the educational process has been substantiated. Basic paradigmatic characteristics of modern postgraduate pedagogical education have been revealed (dominance of axiological and sense-making components in the content of education, consideration of teacher’s professionalism from the reflexive perspective, reliance on empirical professional and social experience of trainees). Pedagogical reflection is viewed as a complex psychological phenomenon, manifested in the teacher’s ability to take an analytical position in relation to his/her activities. It has been proved that the effective development of professional pedagogical reflection in postgraduate education is possible provided that reflexive mechanisms of activity are used in practice, presented in the form of reflexive techniques designed on the basis of the reflexive didactic method. Reflexive techniques in postgraduate education provide an optimal level of professional and personal development. A significant part of reflexive techniques is realized in group forms of activity, the most effective of them are reflexive workshops

Empirical Evidence on Development Effectiveness: From Macroeconomic Structures to Micro-Level Implementation

Cette recherche vise a determiner le role de l’entrepreneur dans la dynamique d’internationalisation engagee par des PME. Les auteurs mettent en relief les principaux modeles d’expansion internationale suivis par ces entreprises et se focalisent sur celui des born-again globals. Cette strategie concerne des PME traditionnelles centrees sur le marche domestique qui decident soudainement de s’ouvrir a l’international. L’etude empirique porte sur le cas de l’entreprise SLAT, une PME du secteur industriel de la region Rhone-Alpes. Les resultats obtenus permettent d’identifier les caracteristiques de l’entrepreneur qui expliquent l’internationalisation rapide de cette entreprise : (1) les experiences professionnelles passees, (2) les competences personnelles, (3) l’esprit international et (4) les reseaux personnels, professionnels et institutionnels.

Proud of Their Money. The Artist as an Entrepreneur in the Hip Hop (Sub)culture Hip hop, both in Poland and in the U.S.A., has broken with the image of an artist guided by the principle of ‘art for art’s sake’, which was very popular in the 20th century. For rappers, the commercial success is one of the proofs of their artistic success. Such a statement contradicts the value system of artists involved in the so called „high art”. In this article we reconstruct the worldview of American and Polish rappers, we describe how it was formed in the historical process and explain its relationship with the practices of rap music production. We also interpret the positive attitude towards money within the wider context of the development of creative industries. We illustrate our theoretical arguments with several empirical examples from Poland and the U.S.A. The article provides a detailed description of the process of the production and distribution of rap music which is based on the professional experience of one of the authors.

The aim of this presentation is to discuss a preliminary question and four issues. The preliminary question refers to the extent to which communication has become strategic for management and for the development of complex organisations. Recent research outputs and professional experience suggest a positive response that will be discussed in this paper together with the following four issues. First: why has organisational communication become so important and upon which underlying theoretical and empirical factors does it rest? Second: what are its most important and specific contents? Third: how can and must communication be used in order to fully benefit from all its effects? Fourth: has communication, as it has been described, reached its maximum and strategic importance and could its operational applications be further expanded? Finally this presentation deals with the future of organisational communication, in particular the evolution of its characteristics, its instruments and initiatives, of its goals for both the organisation and the stakeholders, the organisational structure and dimensions of the communication department.

We analyze the evolution of management consulting in the field of human resources (HR) for the past 20 years in the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our framework for HR consultancy is based on extensive professional experience in the region, several sets of multiyear surveys, and a review of the literature. We focus on the evolving HR theory and the current HR practice in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. Our paper relies on three major sets of multiyear surveys, conducted by the authors’ direct or indirect involvement. Special attention is paid to HR consulting in multinational firms and public sector organizations.