Professional Style Research Articles

A passion for learning Chinese?

PurposeFollowing the Olympic Games of 2008 and the World Expo in 2010, many Westerners have increasingly begun to pay attention to China; a country which combines ancient history with modern economic achievements. As a consequence there has been renewed interest in the West in learning about Chinese language and culture. Confucius education schools have even begun to spring up round the world, with the intention of promoting interest in Chinese language and cultural influences. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a community‐based Chinese culture education institution, in a provincial city in New Zealand, to understand the issues and risks of operating a cross‐cultural education institution business in a foreign country which is physically distant from China and to identify barriers which need to be overcome in order to run such an institution more effectively.Design/methodology/approachThis research used a single site case study research design. Qualitative in‐depth interviews were used to develop an understanding of the rich, complex and idiosyncratic nature of human phenomena. In total, ten interviews were conducted with the Principal, Board members, teachers, local students of Institute A, students' parents (both Chinese and New Zealand), and institutional “outsiders”.FindingsIt was found that Institute's management team preferred the traditional Chinese educational methods which conflicted with ways used in the local (New Zealand) teaching system. It also found that the current management style conflicts with the professional style of organization management. The management team had a chaotic management and operational style, while lacking basic knowledge of the principles of effective administration concepts.Practical implicationsIdentifying the risks and issues associated with the operation of a community‐based cultural education institution outside China will assist managers to understand the potential for cross‐cultural clashes between their belief in the principles of traditional Chinese education systems and the fit with the local culture. The finding of this study, in identifying the specific issues in relation to operational and professional modes of management, should assist managers to put into place an administrative system which is sufficiently flexible to accommodate both perspectives.Originality/valueAlthough formerly a bi‐cultural nation, New Zealand has increasingly become a multicultural society. Interest in Chinese language and culture has also been fuelled by New Zealand's shift in immigration policy from 1974 (to a skills based rather than an ethnicity policy). This study is a first attempt to evaluate the efficacy of a Chinese community‐based educational institution in New Zealand.

Accommodating learning styles in international bridging education programs

PurposeBridging education programs have been developed to enhance the ability of internationally educated professionals (IEPs) to access professional employment in Canada. IEPs are professionals who received their original training outside of Canada. Bridging education programs consist of specialized courses, offered by higher education institutions, focusing on skill and knowledge upgrading in preparation for meeting professional licensure requirements. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the preferred learning styles of IEPs enrolled in nursing, pharmacy and teacher programs.Design/methodology – This survey research assessed the learning styles/preferences and degree of self‐directed readiness of IEPs enrolled in three different Ontario bridging education programs: pharmacists, nurses and teachers. These professions represent some of the largest regulated professions in Canada. Three professions were selected for this study because they have similar regulatory procedures for candidates seeking licensure. These programs were situated within higher education institutions. Adult immigrant students participated by completing Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and Guglielmino's Self‐Directedness Scale.FindingsThe most significant finding of this research is that all three professions were found in the divergent quadrant of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory. The learner with a divergent style of learning prefers observation rather than action and is able to view concrete situations from multiple perspectives. These learners value concrete experience and reflective observation, suggesting that they tend to consider a situation from differing perspectives. This finding suggests that being a recent adult immigrant has a stronger effect upon preferred style of learning in bridging education than profession‐specific factors. IEPs are also illustrated to be highly self‐directed learners.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of these results must be treated with caution due to the small sample size. Several factors influenced the results such as difficulties in accruing a larger and more representative sample.Social implicationsCurrently, substantial funding is provided for bridging education in Canada. There is little research being conducted on the effectiveness of this type of higher education from the perspective of learning processes. More research is needed to enhance the ability of IEPs to succeed in these programs. Ultimately, it can improve new immigrant professionals' success in the labor market.Originality/valueResearch on bridging education is still in its infancy and there is little research evidence to guide the development of effective programs. Some research indicates that bridging education programs are useful for providing profession‐specific language training and orientation to the Canadian workplace. If the preferred learning styles of immigrant professionals can be identified, more effective courses for immigrant learners can be developed. Educators can create increased academic success and improved employment outcomes.

Theorizing the links between e-HR and strategic HRM: a model, case illustration and reflections

In this paper we develop a model of e-human resources (e-HR) focusing on the relationship between HR strategy, e-HR goals and architectures, and positive and negative e-HR outcomes. This relationship is moderated by a number of key factors, including the organization and resources of the HR function, the absorptive capacity of HR, the skills and preferred styles of HR professionals, the levels of technology acceptance among employees and line managers and the models of change used in implementing e-HR programs. We illustrate certain features of this model using data from a case study of a leading international oilfield services provider. These data provide a partial confirmation of the model's validity but show the need for a more dynamic understanding of the links between e-HR variables and the importance of context in explaining differences between line managers' acceptance of e-HR.

Do doctors, nurses and managers have different thinking styles?

A study of the preferred thinking styles among senior health professionals is reported. A total of 49 medical consultants, 50 senior nurses and 53 health managers from two public teaching hospitals in Adelaide, Australia, were invited via a personal letter to complete a questionnaire comprising measures of thinking style (the Rational Experiential Inventory) and cognitive style (two dimensions of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). Managers reported a higher preference for 'rational' reasoning than nurses, whereas medical consultants reported a lower preference for 'experiential' reasoning than both managers and nurses. Cognitive style was largely homogenous. Although generalisation of the findings may be limited due to small sample sizes and the self-selection of participants, an understanding of the thinking styles of senior health professionals will likely inform the design and evaluation of future change strategies.

Communication competence within dietetics: dietitians’ and clients’ views about the unspoken dialogue – the impact of personal presentation

Although client communications are affected by clients' assumptions about professionals' characteristics drawn from dress attire, little is known about how this dialogue operates in dietetics. The present study aimed to describe how dietitians and their clients interpret this dialogue and to explore the implications for practice. A purposive quota sample of dietitians (n = 46) from 21 health services in one state of Australia and a quota of their adult patients (n = 34) were interviewed about dietitians' nutrition education roles. Semi-structured interviews were transcribed and identified themes developed into a questionnaire to survey Australian dietitians. Analysis used frequencies and nonparametric statistics (P <0.05). Triangulation of the results obtained from the studies revealed a strong agreement between data sources. Dietitians' dress attire was perceived as a key source of nonverbal communications by dietetics clients. This was recognised by 75% of the 256 dietitians who were surveyed nationally. Dietitians favoured a professional style (i.e. skirt or slacks, with top). Many clients rejected formal dress (i.e. suit, high heels) as being a potential communication barrier. Some clients viewed dietitians' bodily size/shape as a role model. Implications of dietitians' presentation (i.e. how you look) were important to both clients and dietitians. Dress style is implicated in nonverbal communication dialogues between the dietitian and client. As a matter of competence and to maintain congruency in communication, dietitians should be aware of their clients' preferences for formality of dress, and conduct their attire accordingly.

The Engineers' Engineer: Sir John Kennedy and the Port of Montreal

This article gives an overview and analysis of the career of Canadian civil engineer Sir John Kennedy (1838-1921), and comments on what Kennedy's career reveals of the professional ideals of early twentieth century engineering. Kennedy was a highly regarded engineer in his day. He served as an early President of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers (CSCE) in 1892 and is one of the few Canadian engineers to have been knighted. Kennedy spent most of his working life as Chief Engineer of the Montreal Harbour Commission, in which capacity he oversaw the deepening of the St Lawrence River channel from Quebec to Montreal and a complete reconstruction of the Montreal harbour—two projects that essentially made the modern Port of Montreal. The study provides details of these construction jobs and of Kennedy's role in the work. So well regarded was Kennedy by his peers that shortly after his death the CSCE named its highest professional award after him, making him literally a professional icon. The author takes this to indicate that Kennedy's professional style and values—congenial, practical, and public-spirited—evidently embodied the professional ideals of the time.

A rejoinder to David Bartram, October, 2008

This brief article is a direct and invited rejoinder to the comments by David Bartram on our original paper on the use of 360 degree feedback in coaching. Bartram raises important issues which are likely to be of concern and interest to coaches and other users of psychometric tools, even if they do not relate directly to the primary focus of our original paper. This rejoinder reiterates our original approach which was based on a practical workshop on coaching that included a case study reinforcing the benefits of good structural alignment and validity between psychometric trait measures and criterion measures of work effectiveness. This we consider a logical and practical extension of the criterion-centric perspective to measurement, which is a measurement perspective we share with Bartram.Next, our rejoinder addresses how the Great Eight model mapping was used in the analysis as a unit weighted aggregate to predict overall effectiveness at work rather than predict behavioural competencies. Overall effectiveness (and ability) is central to Saville Consulting Wave® Performance 360 criterion measure, and we put this in the context of a hypothetical gap analysis to make the link back to the application in coaching.High level models which lead to aggregation of both predictors and criterion variables are increasingly commonplace in the literature and include Bartram (2005). We further this work by defining a reliable overall (global) effectiveness scale and reporting validities against the total scale source as well as its de-aggregated items each of which represents a distinct segment of overall performance. Rather than differentially weighting these predictors we used a priori unit weighting of the Great Eight predictors from Wave® Professional Styles and OPQ32i. We were primarily concerned with testing the hypothesis that the results were non-zero in predicting overall effectiveness in the original article.We confirm that Wave® Professional Styles trait measure of Competency Potential clearly improved on OPQ32i’s prediction of overall effectiveness (p&lt;.05, two tailed, N=169) in this study.Finally, we emphasise the advantages of single co-validation studies in the comparison of the validity of different models and psychometric tools based on fully pre-hypothesised equations to aggregate predictor scales. This approach, paired with other methodologies, we argue will lead to the scientific advancement of the field.

Comparison between Wave and OPQ32 – a comment on McDowall and Kurz

In their paper McDowall and Kurz (2008) claimed that Wave Professional Styles ‘clearly improved on the prediction offered by the well-established OPQ32i tool…’ The claim was based on the report of a study in which there were no significant differences in the validities reported for the two instruments. Hence it cannot be argued that one ‘clearly improved’ on the other. Issues are also raised with the way the data were treated and reported. Composites scores were created by adding together lots of different predictor scales and these composites were then correlated with unreliable single item criterion measures. While the authors say they created Great Eight competency measures in the process of carrying out this aggregation, no data are reported on the correlations of the Great Eight predictors with the criteria, or on potential differences between validities of competency potential and competency rating measures. No information was provided on correlations between the criteria or on the rationale for combining three different criteria into a ‘global performance measure’. Finally, it was difficult to see what role publication of the report of this study played in a paper that was ostensibly about integration of 360 degree feedback into the coaching process.

Dualisms: The Agons of the Modern World

DUALISMS: THE AGONS OF THE MODERN WORLD, Richard J. Quinones. Toronto and London: University Press, 2007. Pp. 451 + xvi. Cloth, npi. Reviewed by J. Harold Ellens. Ricardo J. Quinones is notable Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus in Department of English, and Director of Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont's McKenna College. He has previously given us Renaissance Discovery of Time, Cambridge University Press, 1972; Dante Alighieri, Twayne, 1985; Mapping Literary Modernism, Princeton University Press, 1985; Modernism: Challenges and Perspectives, University of Illinois Press, 1986; The Changes of Cain: Violence and Lost Brother in Cain and Abel Literature, Princeton University Press, 1991; Foundation Sacrifice in Dante's Comedia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994; Dante Alighieri, Updated Edition, G. K. Hall, 1998; numerous professional journal articles; and substantial reviews. Now he offers us, perhaps, most profound of all his erudite publications, Dualisms: The Agons of Modern World. is a weighty volume about telling tensions in life and literature that describe creative contrasts and persistent polarities pervasively present in every aspect of existence. Agon means struggle, contest, playing to win a game, and Quinones declaims, as his jacket declares, Dualism is a motif that runs through literature of all genres and historical contexts, inspiring argumentation at highest level and showing formation of ideas in association as a creative exchange. arises with special pertinence in Western literature since Renaissance and Reformation. David M. Hertz of Indiana University observed that This is field of Comparative Literature as it should have been all along, and hopefully as it could be in future (cover). Quinones begins his book with a quote from Martin Luther's Th^ Righteousness of God, that warns us we are all either Esauites of Jacobites, and as one ideology triumphs, from its very heart will spring up contesting notions; thus always Cain or Abel, Esau or Jacob. That aptly sets theme and course for this remarkable valuable volume. has Preface, Introduction, five substantial chapters, and an Epilogue. The endpapers include a worthy index of 350 entries, a sturdy bibliography of 360 cited works, and 32 pages of endnotes. The University of Toronto has packaged this fine volume in a most attractive and professional style. is an absolutely lovely book to see, hold, fondle, smell, read, and cherish! How did we do without it for so long? Presenting a new typology with a distinctive paradigm of development, Dualisms considers four different encounters from four different centuries: Erasmus and Luther, Voltaire and Rousseau, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, and Sartre and Camus. These four dualisms are important for what they are and what they represent; they are historically specific, psychologically farreaching, and quite dramatic. They stand out as major intellectual contests that create modern era, agons of our time (Preface, ix). Quinones consciously inquires into the nature and function of dualism at highest level of encounter between pre-eminent figures, hoping by this means to initiate a new analysis of modern models for conceptualizing and interpreting life and literature (Preface, x). He starts with Erasmus and Luther because they open modern era and its context between radical Protestantism and humanistic philosophy. It is practically inevitable that clash between two such as Luther and Erasmus should have occurred, one requiring such totality of commitment in exercise of conscience, and other engaged in play of consciousness upon world's multiplicity - Matthew Arnold's 'Hebraism' and 'Hellenism' (Preface, xi). To Quinones' pleasant surprise, it seems, dualisms that follow and form content of this book all adhere to same patterns of tension, contrast, and mutuality as that of Erasmus and Luther. …

Determinants of Success within an Integrated Business Curriculum Context: An Econometric Assessment

This paper studies an ongoing curriculum innovation at the College of Business and Economics at the University of Idaho, with junior level economics and business classes under one common team taught course, the Integrated Business Curriculum (IBC), instead of independent classes. In our study, there were six modules (classes) within IBC. The students were required to form teams, along with several other individual based academic activities. Faculty mentors provided guidance throughout the process. The student's success in IBC, measured as the grade obtained in modules, might be affected by a host of factors such as his/her own academic capacity, proxied by the pre-IBC GPA, the mentor's impact, proxied by his/her experience in the program, and the team impact, controlled by a dummy variable. To determine exactly what causes a student's success is absolutely important since the program continuously seeks to improve in a professional style with academic considerations, which was missing from the relevant literature on IBC. The data were collected from three different modules in 2001 Spring semester. After quite a few diagnostics tests in accordance with the econometrics and with the help of heteroskedasticity consistent estimation method, we searched for the factors affecting the student's success. We also conducted ordered logit/probit analyses as an alternative modeling of the grades for several reasons explained in the study. At the end, we found that the most significant factor in determining the success in IBC was still the student's own academic skills, while mentors did not differ from each other in contributing to the dependent variable. We also provided other relevant statistics and graphs supporting the findings.

Julia Morgan: Gender, Architecture, and Professional Style

Architect Julia Morgan (1872-1957) cultivated a professional style that enabled her to exert authority in a male-dominated profession. This article focuses on three aspects of that style: her costume, her relationship to the media, and her downtown San Francisco offi ce. Rather than a shy woman who sought anonymity, Morgan was a savvy professional with a strong gender consciousness who actively sought success and shaped her own destiny. Her story provides insight into the history of women in the professions and the gendered landscape of the Progressive Era city. Since Julia Morgan left behind few words regarding her social views, professional intentions, or architectural philosophy, this article is also an interdisciplinary exercise that investigates the intersection of biography, material culture, gender, and the built environment.

Oppenheimer's first paper: Molecular band spectra and a professional style

Beginning early in the 20th century spectroscopists attributed the infrared band spectra emitted by diatomic molecules to quantum vibration and rotation modes of the molecules. Because of these relatively simple motions, band spectra offered a convenient .rst phenomenon to which to apply formulations of the new quan-tum mechanics in 1926. In his .rst paper, completed in Cambridge in May 1926, Oppenheimer presented a derivation of the frequencies and relative intensities of the observed spectral lines on the basis of Paul Dirac's new quantum commutator algebra. At the same time Lucy Mensing published a similar derivation utiliz-ing matrix mechanics, as did Edwin Fues utilizing wave mechanics. Analyses of Oppenheimer's paper and of its historical and scienti.c contexts offer insights into the new quantum mechanics and its utilization and reception during this brief period of competing formalisms, and into the characteristic features of Oppenheimer's later style of research and publication.

A Study of Styles and Outcomes in Construction Dispute Negotiation

The adversarial nature of the construction industry contributes to the germination and manifestation of construction disputes. Negotiation between the disputants is most often the first attempt in getting disputes resolved. During negotiation, personality characteristics of the disputants affect their behavior and thus the outcomes. Understanding the negotiating behaviors and negotiation outcomes is therefore of both academic and practical value. This paper reports such a study conducted with construction professionals in Hong Kong. The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II was used to measure the negotiating styles of construction professionals. Taxonomies of negotiation outcomes were developed through a principal component factor analysis. Three functional and four dysfunctional negotiation outcomes were identified. Based on these results, the relationships between the negotiating styles and negotiation outcomes were examined by the use of the multiple regression analyses. The findings suggested that the use of obliging, dominating, and avoiding styles are less influential in achieving functional negotiation outcomes. However, integrating negotiating styles is found to be useful to achieve functional outcomes and the use of comprising styles is a practical approach in resolving dispute. These findings are therefore supportive of the notion of the contingent use of negotiating styles.

O ensino de comunicação: o desafio de vencer a lacuna entre o discurso e a prática

The pedagogical projects of the social communication courses present a speech marked by the interaction among the actors involved in the teaching-learning process; however, the pedagogical practice doesn't always follow the proposed actions presented. This article intents to promote a reflection about the importance of the teacher-student relationship under a new perspective, considering the new profile of the learner, the demands of our actual society in relation to the characteristics of the professional, and the need to transform the construction of knowledge into a pro-active process with a meaningful result. In addition, this paper presents a review of the articles in this journal according to the profile and the professional style of each author describing the proposed theme: the teaching of communication.

Molding National Research Systems: The Introduction of Penicillin to Germany and France

In our historical imagination, penicillin plays the role of the good sister of the atomic bomb. It epitomizes the success of the U.S. scientific mobilization and the emergence of modem biomedicine. This chapter discusses the fate of penicillin in France and Germany, comparing the reactions of the two countries to the antibiotic challenge under restricted conditions. The comparison centers on the scientific and industrial practices that created penicillin. It also sheds light on the professional styles, forms of expertise, and political resources that helped shape the meanings and uses of the antibiotic. The French section recounts how the Pasteur Institute and the military administration organized penicillin research and production during 1945-1947. The alliance between the two has roots in the highly peculiar political and social climate of the liberation and in the biotechnological tradition of the Pasteur Institute. The German section focuses on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry. The study of the institute, which worked closely with a pharmaceutical company, features the interplay between academic chemists and industry, while providing insights into the research organization under National Socialism.

German universities seek to reclaim lost glory

German universities were originally designed to train members of an ultra-elite cadre to become teaching researchers. Despite a professional style that was somewhat authoritarian and pompous, the system was generally collegial, informal, and open. This would have been all well and good if the university system had changed to meet new needs. In this paper, the author proposes a reform that promotes a class of super-elite schools. The German universities moves to an undergraduate-graduate-postgraduate systems by 2010 to make it easier for students to transfer credits and degrees within Europe and to allow students seeking training for a profession to receive a degree within three to four years rather than five or six.

Trauma histories and attachment styles of members of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

The study is focused on the training, demographics, perceived emotional and physical health, past traumatic experience histories, and attachment styles of mental health professionals in the field of trauma (members of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies). While the data set is limited by a low response rate of 20%, the uniqueness of the sample and distinctive themes yield insight into the experience of trauma and its association with attachment style.

Family Business Management Activities, Styles and Characteristics: A Correlational Study

In the literature of family business, certain management activities, styles and characteristics have been most frequently examined. Yet no prior research focusing on the relationship between these family businesses variables has been found. This is a survey‐research correlation study of 149 family businesses. Of the twelve variables studied, twenty of the sixty‐six correlations were found to be significant. Major findings are the consistent use of professional management activities, styles and characteristics in family businesses, and that using non‐family members within top management does not significantly increase the professionalism of management of such businesses.

Leadership styles: some evidence from the Turkish construction industry

The construction industry provides an interesting research alternative to other sectors because of its unique characteristics. For this reason, this paper aims to explore and compare the leadership styles of managerial personnel in the construction industry. The study focuses on the empirical evaluations of the similarities and differences in leadership styles of construction professionals. A managerial‐style questionnaire is developed based on the review of relevant literature. Questionnaire data obtained from 43 respondents show that the authoritative style is more frequently performed than all other styles. Results also indicate differences in terms of gender and managerial hierarchy. Implications of the results are discussed.

Cognitive style as a component in meeting workplace demands for consumer services professionals: benchmarking professional and student styles

Job skill evolution suggests an increased complexity of tasks in consumer services. To provide benchmarks about the role of cognitive style in the development of a talent pool for consumer services the field-dependence cognitive styles of current professionals were assessed. Then, the field-dependence cognitive styles of secondary students were assessed to provide a comparison for the development of future professionals. Professionals were found to be more field-independent than students.