STEM education in the twenty-first century: learning at work—an exploration of design and technology teacher perceptions and practices

Teachers’ knowledge of STEM education, their understanding, and pedagogical application of that knowledge is intrinsically linked to the subsequent effectiveness of STEM delivery within their own practice; where a teacher’s knowledge and understanding is deficient, the potential for pupil learning is ineffective and limited. Set within the context of secondary age phase education in England and Wales (11–16 years old), this paper explores how teachers working within the field of design and technology education acquire new knowledge in STEM; how understanding is developed and subsequently embedded within their practice to support the creation of a diverse STEM-literate society. The purpose being to determine mechanisms by which knowledge acquisition occurs, to reconnoitre potential implications for education and learning at work, including consideration of the role which new technologies play in the development of STEM knowledge within and across contributory STEM subject disciplines. Underpinned by an interpretivist ontology, work presented here builds upon the premise that design and technology is an interdisciplinary educational construct and not viewed as being of equal status to other STEM disciplines including maths and science. Drawing upon the philosophical field of symbolic interactionism and constructivist grounded theory, work embraces an abductive methodology where participants are encouraged to relate design and technology within the context of STEM education. Emergent findings are discussed in relation to their potential to support teachers’ educational development for the advancement of STEM literacy, and help secure design and technology’s place as a subject of value within a twenty-first Century curriculum.     

How perceived empowerment HR practices influence work engagement in social enterprises – a moderated mediation model

Abstract

Drawing insights from the group engagement model and self-determination theory, our research explored the role of perceived empowerment human resource (HR) practices in the hybrid organizational form of social enterprise in China. Based on two studies, this paper developed and examined a moderated mediation model, linking perceived empowerment HR practices, identification motivation, work engagement, and authority work value. Specifically, in Study 1 we found perceived empowerment HR practices increased employees’ work engagement through enhancing employees’ identification motivation. In Study 2, we adopted a two-wave design to duplicate and extend this mediation model. A moderator, employees’ authority work value, was found to weaken both the mediation relationship, and the positive relationship between perceived empowerment HR practices and identification motivation. This study broadens the understanding of what social enterprises look like in alternative contexts, while providing an opportunity to explore how a HRM mechanism and its boundary condition function in large social enterprises in China.     

与娜塔莉·德约博格对话

有一部电视卡通《弗莱格》(Fraggle Rock)就吓坏了我。杰拉德·马特:你在瑞典出生,获得过马尔摩艺术学院美术新媒体学位,是吗?娜塔莉·德约博格:是的。     

Multimarket Contact and Rivalry over Knowledge‐based Resources

Research summary: Research shows that multimarket contact (MMC ) reduces rivalry involving downstream activities. Yet, studies showing that MMC can increase the threat of imitation suggest a need to better understand how MMC affects upstream rivalry over knowledge‐based resources. In this study, we argue that MMC increases rivalry over knowledge‐based resources since the deterrent threat of retaliation that typically leads to mutual forbearance in downstream activities will not be sufficient to restrain firms from protecting their knowledge from imitation in upstream activities. In support of these arguments we find that MMC increases the likelihood that a firm initiates patent litigation against a rival. This study suggests the relationship between MMC and rivalry may depend on the competitive domain and the type of resources over which firms are competing . Managerial Summary: How does market overlap or MMC affect rivalry between two competitors? Prior studies have largely found that an increase in market overlap decreases rivalry in less knowledge‐intensive context because of the deterrent threat of retaliation. However, in this paper, we argue that an increase in market overlap may not reduce rivalry in more knowledge‐intensive context because of heterogeneity in capabilities to protect knowledge. We find that a firm is more likely to initiate patent litigation against a rival as market overlap increases. Our findings suggest that the incentive to protect value across multiple product markets may surpass the motivation to cooperate with rivals and that managers should have a more nuanced view of how market overlap with competitors affects rivalry in more knowledge‐intensive contexts . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding cooling towers: The route to energy savings

Why do we use cooling towers? The answer is simple. Cooling towers allow us to efficiently reject heat to the atmosphere at a lower temperature than other available processes. The key words in that last sentence are “at a lower temperature”.     

理解万岁

“求同存异”是中国外交史上的宝贵经验，也是中新两国海关合作的宝贵经验。     

Incentives and targets in hospital care: Evidence from a natural experiment

Performance targets are commonly used in the public sector, despite their well known problems when organisations have multiple objectives and performance is difficult to measure. It is possible that such targets may work where there is considerable consensus that performance needs to be improved. We investigate this possibility by examining the response of the English National Health Service to high profile waiting time targets. We exploit a natural policy experiment between two countries of the UK (England and Scotland) to establish the global effectiveness of the targets. We then use a within-England hospital analysis to confirm that responses vary by treatment intensity and to control for differences in resources which may accompany targets. We find that targets met their goals of reducing waiting times without diverting activity from other less well monitored aspects of health care and without decreasing patient health on exit from hospital.     

Task,technology, and tailoring in communicative action: An in-depth analysis of group communication

Communication is fundamental to team work and it occurs increasingly often in a technology-mediated environment. Understanding how communication evolves in such environments is essential to ensuring that the right technology is provided for whatever task a group needs to accomplish, even if it is not precisely known how the technology is going to be used. With the growing body of research on different tools for supporting computer-mediated groups, we still have much to learn about how communication evolves, where potential breakdowns occur, and how groups tailor technology during the communication process. This paper addresses these important issues by providing an in-depth analysis of two-person dyads that communicated over a web-based set of collaboration tools during a 6-week project. We analyze communication through the lens of communicative action theory, showing how social action unfolds during communication and how groups challenge and resolve validity claims in different task-technology environments. This study contributes by exploring group processes, developing and applying group communication analysis tools, and enhancing theorizing on technology tailoring.     

The quality and conservatism of the accounting earnings of local governments

Our aim is to provide insight into the usefulness of accounting earnings for measuring the economic performance of local governments across Australia. Specifically, we explore whether (i) accrual accounting provides useful information, and (ii) earnings of local governments are conservative. We find that accrual accounting by local governments provides useful information as measured by the ability to predict one-year-ahead operating cash-flows. We find no conservatism in the financial reports of the average local government. This, we posit, is due to a lower level of demand for high-quality accrual-based financial reports from these entities. Consistent with this argument, both the quality of accruals and the degree of conservatism increase for local governments for which we predict a demand for higher-quality financial reporting.