This article reports on research addressing the role of incident reporting at the workplace as a textual representation of lean management techniques. It draws on text and discourse analysis as well as on ethnographic data, including interviews, recorded interaction, and observations, from two projects on workplace literacy in Sweden: a study in…

This study explores how visual narratives stemming from the experience of healthy embodiment in social virtual worlds, especially for individuals living with chronic disease or disability, both fosters relationships and more broadly impacts physical and emotional life experience and overall quality of life. It does so through the lens of social…

The last 30 years have seen a significant increase in babies attending nursery, with corresponding questions about the aims and organisation of practice. Research broadly agrees on the importance of emotionally consistent, sensitive and responsive interactions between staff and babies. Policy objectives for nursery and expectations of parents and…

This study was aimed at identifying the critical interactions within work environments that support the development of early career academics as researchers in institutions with lower order research profiles, that is, environments that differ from research-intensive universities. Ten early career academics, five from Australia and five from the…

This paper draws on the KINSA project (The Communicative Situation of Immigrants at Swedish Workplaces), which aimed to identify communicative factors that have a positive impact on the integration of second language speakers in the workplace and in their immediate work team. The focus here is on humour and swearing as strategies for doing…

This multiple case study explored classified staff interactions with students as a strategy for increasing success. Interviews, observations, and focus groups examined interactions from the staff perspective. Findings indicate staff members enhance the educational process by providing a human connection, offering practical strategies for success,…

What role does race play in the lives of fourteen African American (7 women, 7 men) faculty on a predominantly White campus? This case study focuses on their narratives which revealed that racial microaggressions were a common and negative facet of their lives on campus. Specifically, their narratives suggest interactions of microinvalidations…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that contribute to teachers' career longevity. The study gives voice to nine experienced teachers to help understand the challenges these teachers faced, the satisfaction they obtained, and the opportunities that allowed them to remain at one school for ten years or more. I use the lenses of…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to better understand how female mechanical engineering faculty members' career experiences in academia affect their satisfaction. Specifically, the research considered differences in satisfaction reported by female and male mechanical engineering faculty members in terms of: (a) departmental…

Published qualitative studies have not focused on nurses who solely care for children with special health care needs. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe (a) the work of school nurses who care exclusively for these children, (b) nurses' interaction with parents, staff, or providers, and (c) the challenges, benefits, and support…

Youth work is a profession in development, engaged in the creation and practical application of its own theoretical base. This chapter connects the theoretical discussion and description of not-knowing to recommendations for practical action. Four lessons learned from the research are presented: (a) not-knowing is normal; (b) not-knowing cannot be…

This paper tests a central implication of the theory of equalizing differences, that workers sort into jobs with different attributes based on their preferences. We present evidence from four new time-use data sets for the United States and France suggesting that workers who are more gregarious, as revealed by their behavior when they are not…

In this paper, Larkin and Gould's (1999) activity theory methodology for defining work-related roles and Burns' (1963) analysis of organismic organizational form are merged into a model that describes associate and leadership roles and relationships in virtual organizations. The effects of a lack of shared physical space and face-to-face social…

Examines the role of physical surroundings and artifacts and how they contribute to the knowledge work occurring there, based on preliminary analysis of data collected in interviews and observations of a research group over a four-month period. General issues of the interaction between information work and environment can be revealed and applied…

The processes whereby nurses develop the skills and knowledge required to deliver individualized and holistic care were examined in a 2-year study of nurses in a range of clinical settings and a university department of nursing in England. Members of two research teams of qualified nurses joined various communities of nursing practice as…