How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

Determining whether people in certain countries score differently in measurements of interest or whether concepts relate differently to each other across nations can indisputably assist in testing theories and advancing our sociological knowledge. However, meaningful comparisons of means or relationships between constructs within and across nations require equivalent measurements of these constructs. This is especially true for subjective attributes such as values, attitudes, opinions, or behavior. In this review, we first discuss the concept of cross-group measurement equivalence, look at possible sources of nonequivalence, and suggest ways to prevent it. Next, we examine the social science methodological literature for ways to empirically test for measurement equivalence. Finally, we consider what may be done when equivalence is not supported by the data and conclude with a review of recent developments that offer exciting directions and solutions for future research in cross-national measurement equiva...

Measurement Equivalence in Cross-National Research

Coding is a ubiquitous part of the qualitative research process, but it is often under-considered in research methods training and literature. This article explores a number of questions about the coding process which are often raised by beginning researchers, in the light of the recommendations of methods textbooks and the factors which contribute to an answer to these questions. I argue for a conceptualisation of coding as a decision-making process, in which decisions about aspects of coding such as density, frequency, size of data pieces to be coded, are all made by individual researchers in line with their methodological background, their research design and research questions, and the practicalities of their study. This has implications for the way that coding is carried out by researchers at all stages of their careers, as it requires that coding decisions should be made in the context of an individual study, not once and for all.

https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3560&context=tqr

Thinking about the Coding Process in Qualitative Data Analysis

Media Discourse. (Cet. 1)

Introduction:Visual methodologies are a collection of methods used to understand and interpret images. These methods have been used for a long time in anthropology and sociology; however, they are ...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1609406917748215

Visual methodologies in qualitative research: Autophotography and photo elicitation applied to mental health research

Tackling the part of the research project that students and first time qualitative researchers find the most difficult - being faced with data from interviews or focus groups which they are unsure how to analyze - this book takes the reader on a step-by-step journey through the different stages of analysis.

Qualitative Data Analysis: From Start to Finish

Many governments have adopted a policy of seeking to increase the number of students entering higher education and to finance this expansion by transferring costs from the state to the individual. In the United Kingdom, this policy has been pursued with relatively little concern for the impact that the increasing financial burden may have on students. Research at one case-study university suggested that many students were coping with their day-to-day living costs more comfortably than they had expected to in the first year. However, those in a difficult financial position at the start of their period of study were likely to face greater problems in the course of their first year. Two difficulties in particular – having missed payments at the start of the academic programme, and having to wait for the first student loan payment – were shown to have a damaging effect on academic performance.

Financial circumstances, financial difficulties and academic achievement among first-year undergraduates

A case study demonstrates some of the causes of widespread housing difficulties among former prisoners, such as a lack of appropriate advice in prisons and a failure to coordinate the work of the prison and probation services. While the government has taken action to tackle these problems, a more fundamental difficulty is that social landlords may be unwilling to meet housing needs because they perceive that offenders pose a threat to community safety. Changing this perception is essential to prevent conflict between the government’s housing and resettlement policies and to ensure that the needs of former prisoners are met.

Inclusion and exclusion in the re-housing of former prisoners:

Research in one local authority area suggests that a number of social policy difficulties and contradictions need to be resolved if single homeless people are to be resettled effectively. In particular, there are competing pressures on social housing providers, who are expected to meet the needs of socially excluded individuals while also creating sustainable communities and operating in a cost efficient manner. The government needs to clarify that meeting housing need is a priority for social landlords, and provide adequate funding for long-term support, if single homeless people are to find appropriate permanent accommodation.

/pdf/barriers-and-contradictions-in-the-resettlement-of-single-x8yegl711w.pdf

Barriers and Contradictions in the Resettlement of Single Homeless People

Successive governments have encouraged the view of users of public services as consumers, choosing between different providers on the basis of information about the quality of service. As part of this approach, prospective students are expected to make their decisions about which universities to apply to with reference to the consumer evaluations provided by the National Student Survey. However, a case study of a post-1992 university showed that not all students made genuine choices and those who did tended to be in stronger social and economic positions. Where choices were made, they were infrequently based on external evaluations of quality.

/pdf/choice-and-information-in-the-public-sector-a-higher-16tkru64xf.pdf

Jamie Harding

Papers

Qualitative Data Analysis: From Start to Finish

Financial circumstances, financial difficulties and academic achievement among first-year undergraduates

Inclusion and exclusion in the re-housing of former prisoners:

Barriers and Contradictions in the Resettlement of Single Homeless People

Choice and Information in the Public Sector: A Higher Education Case Study