The Passionate Combining Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are portrayed as salient drivers of regional development and for a number of years nascent entrepreneurs have been studied in a large number of countries as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project and the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics. Scholars have devoted much effort to investigating factors that determine how individuals engage in entrepreneurial activities, with most of the discussion limited to business start-ups. However, since this type of project does not follow identical nascent entrepreneurs over time, limited knowledge exists about their development and whether they stay in this nascent phase for a long time. In practice, it is common for entrepreneurs to run a business and at the same time work in wage work, so-called combining entrepreneurs. In Sweden, almost half of all business owners combine wage work with a business. However, not all combining entrepreneurs will eventually decide to leave the wage work and invest fully in the business. Consequently, much research has focused on the first step of entering entrepreneurship full time, but less has focused on the second step, the transition from the combining phase to full-time self-employment. The aim of this thesis is therefore to contribute to the theory of entrepreneurship by gaining a deeper understanding of combining entrepreneurs and their motives and intentions.   In the context of combining entrepreneurs, the theory of identity, resources and choice overload has been used to examine how entrepreneurs’ age (when starting the business), entrepreneurial tenure (the length of engagement in the side-business), hours spent (weekly involvement in the side-business), involvement in entrepreneurial teams (leading the business with one or more partners) and involvement in networks (business networks) influence their passion for engaging in entrepreneurship while sustaining wage work. Different categories of combining entrepreneurs and their intentions have also been examined.   A survey was administered to 1457 entrepreneurs within the creative sector in two counties in Sweden (Gävleborgs County and Jämtlands County). Since there were no separate mailing lists to only combining entrepreneurs, the survey was sent to all entrepreneurs within the chosen industry and counties. The total response rate was 33.5 percent and of them 57.6 percent combined, yielding 262 combining entrepreneurs who answered the questionnaire. The survey was then followed up with eight focus group interviews and two single interviews to validate the answers from the questionnaire.   The results indicate three types of combining entrepreneurs: nascent – with the intention to leave the combining phase for a transition into full-time self-employment, lifestyle – with the intention to stay in the combining phase, and occasional – with the intention to leave the combining phase for full-time wage work and close down the business. Transitioning fully to self-employment increases with the individual’s age. Also, a positive interactive effect exists with involvement in entrepreneurial networks. The results also indicate that the ability to work with something one is passionate about is the top motive for combining wage work with a side-business. Passion is also more likely to be the main motive behind the combining form among individuals who are older at business start-up, but passion is less likely to be the main motive behind the combining form among individuals who spend more time on the business. The longer the individual has had the side-business, the less likely passion is the main motive behind the combining form, and passion is less likely to be the main motive among those who are part of an entrepreneurial team.

Sex timmars arbetsdag –ett modigt beslut : För att bli en attraktiv arbetsgivare

I studien undersöks hur arbetstagarnas arbetstillfredsställelse förändrats vis en arbetstidsförkortning. Arbetstidsförkortningens art är i form av en övergång ifrån åtta timmars arbetsdag till sex timmars arbetsdag med bibehållen heltidslön. Studien har genomförts vid ett mindre privat tjänsteföretag. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur denna typ av arbetstidsförkortning förhåller sig till arbetstagarnas arbetstillfredsställelse och därmed öka förståelsen för de båda fenomenen. Det framkommer att arbetstagarnas arbetstillfredsställelse har förändrats sedan arbetstidsförkortningen. Gällande enskilda faktorer i arbetet har somliga faktorer minskat medan somliga faktorer ökat. I diskussionen framkommer att det föreligger en risk för ohälsa för arbetstagarna då det råder brist på stöd, minskad kontroll och ökade krav sedan arbetstidsförkortningen införts. Den föreliggande risken för ohälsa kan dock ses som acceptabel med tanke på den varierande arbetsbelastningen vilket innebär att arbetstagarna under perioder får tid för återhämtning. Trots omständigheterna råder en hög global arbetstillfredsställelse vilket i sin tur borde innebära att teorierna som brukats innehåller vissa brister då hänsyn till svängningar i arbetsbelastningen inte tagits. I resultatanalysen framkom tre teman vilka sågs relevanta för arbetstagarna och dess arbetstillfredsställelse. Dessa teman bestod av förändringar i relationer, förändringar i arbetet och förändringar i belöningar. Den teoretiska referensramen för studien innehåller förväntningsteorin, tvåfaktor teorin, kravkontroll- stödmodellen samt ansträngning- belöning- obalansmodellen. Datainsamling har skett med hjälp av fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer då respondenterna bestått av arbetstagare på det valda fallet som studerats. Studien är uppbyggt efter kvalitativ metod och har en fenomenologisk ansats. Studien har utformats i form av en fallstudie.

Women of Substance : The Aspect of Education, Career and Female Identity in Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary

Although two hundred years separate Jane Austen and Helen Fielding and, subsequently, also their portrayals of society, the similarities outweigh the differences. When juxtaposing Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary in the light of feminism it is evident that both books provide clear examples of the prevailing situation of women in each time and place. The aspects of the study, which are especially important today, show both the development and some degree of stagnation of women’s rights and identities.

Development of a ESES Solar Thermal Lab on Full Scale System

The main aim of this project is to develop an ESES lab on a full scale system. The solar combisystem used is available most of the time and is only used twice a year to carry out some technical courses. At the moment, there are no other laboratories about combisystems. The experiments were designed in a way to use the system to the most in order to help the students apply the theoretical knowledge in the solar thermal course as well as make them more familiar with solar systems components. The method adopted to reach this aim is to carry out several test sequences on the system, in order to help formulating at the end some educating experiments. A few tests were carried out at the beginning of the project just for the sake of understanding the system and figuring out if any additional measuring equipment is required. The level of these tests sequences was varying from a simple energy draw off or collector loop controller respond tests to more complicated tests, such as the use of the ‘collector’ heater to simulate the solar collector effect on the system. The tests results were compared and verified with the theoretical data wherever relevant. The results of the experiment about the use of the ‘collector’ heater instead of the collector were positively acceptable. Finally, the Lab guide was developed based on the results of these experiments and also the experience gotten while conducting them. The lab work covers the theories related to solar systems in general and combisystems in particular. 

Literacy Practices in and out of School in Karagwe : The case of primary school literacy education in rural Tanzania

This study has investigated the question of relation between literacy practices in and out of school in rural Tanzania. By using the perspective of linguistic anthropology, literacy practices in five villages in Karagwe district in the northwest of Tanzania have been analysed. The outcome may be used as a basis for educational planning and literacy programs. The analysis has revealed an intimate relation between language, literacy and power. In Karagwe, traditional élites have drawn on literacy to construct and reconstruct their authority, while new élites, such as individual women and some young people have been able to use literacy as one tool to get access to power. The study has also revealed a high level of bilingualism and a high emphasis on education in the area, which prove a potential for future education in the area. At the same time discontinuity in language use, mainly caused by stigmatisation of what is perceived as local and traditional, such as the mother-tongue of the majority of the children, and the high status accrued to all that is perceived as Western, has turned out to constitute a great obstacle for pupils’ learning. The use of ethnographic perspectives has enabled comparisons between interactional patterns in schools and outside school. This has revealed communicative patterns in school that hinder pupils’ learning, while the same patterns in other discourses reinforce learning. By using ethnography, relations between explicit and implicit language ideologies and their impact in educational contexts may be revealed. This knowledge may then be used to make educational plans and literacy programmes more relevant and efficient, not only in poor post-colonial settings such as Tanzania, but also elsewhere, such as in Western settings.

Building a Learning Architecture : e-Learning and e-Services

With the rapid advancement of the webtechnology, more and more educationalresources, including software applications forteaching/learning methods, are available acrossthe web, which enables learners to access thelearning materials and use various ways oflearning at any time and any place. Moreover,various web-based teaching/learning approacheshave been developed during the last decade toenhance the capability of both educators andlearners. Particularly, researchers from bothcomputer science and education are workingtogether, collaboratively focusing ondevelopment of pedagogically enablingtechnologies which are believed to improve theinfrastructure of education systems andprocesses, including curriculum developmentmodels, teaching/learning methods, managementof educational resources, systematic organizationof communication and dissemination ofknowledge and skills required by and adapted tousers. Despite of its fast development, however,there are still great gaps between learningintentions, organization of supporting resources,management of educational structures,knowledge points to be learned and interknowledgepoint relationships such as prerequisites,assessment of learning outcomes, andtechnical and pedagogic approaches. Moreconcretely, the issues have been widelyaddressed in literature include a) availability andusefulness of resources, b) smooth integration ofvarious resources and their presentation, c)learners’ requirements and supposed learningoutcomes, d) automation of learning process interms of its schedule and interaction, and e)customization of the resources and agilemanagement of the learning services for deliveryas well as necessary human interferences.Considering these problems and bearing in mindthe advanced web technology of which weshould make full use, in this report we willaddress the following two aspects of systematicarchitecture of learning/teaching systems: 1)learning objects – a semantic description andorganization of learning resources using the webservice models and methods, and 2) learningservices discovery and learning goals match foreducational coordination and learning serviceplanning.

Teaching Intercultural Communication in Foreign Language Education through Video Conferencing

Since 1980s, Western linguists and specialists on second language acquisition have emphasized the importance of enhancing students’ intercultural communication competence in foreign language education. At the same time, the demand for intercultural communicative competence increased along with the advances of communication technology with its increasingly global reach and the process of globalization itself.In the field of distance language education, these changes have resulted in a shift of focus from the production and distribution of learning materials towards communication and learning as a social process, facilitated by various internet-based platforms. The current focus on learners interacting and communicating synchronously trough videoconferencing is known as the fourth generation of distance language education. Despite the fact that teaching of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) faces the same or even greater challenges as teaching other languages, the intercultural communication perspective is still quite a new trend in CFL and its implementation and evaluation are still under development. Moreover, the advocates of the new trends in CFL have so far focused almost exclusively on classroom-based courses, neglecting the distance mode of CFL and leaving it as an open field for others to explore. In this under-researched context, Dalarna University (Sweden), where I currently work, started to provide web-based courses of the Chinese language in 2007. Since 2010, the Chinese language courses have been available only in the distance form, using the same teaching materials as the previous campus-based courses. The textbooks used in both settings basically followed the functional nationalism approach. However, in order to catch up with the main trend of foreign-language education, we felt a need to implement the cross-cultural dimension into the distance courses as well. Therefore in 2010, a pilot study has been carried out to explore opportunities and challenges for implementing a cross-cultural perspective into existing courses and evaluating the effectiveness of this implementation based on the feedback of the students and on the experience of the teacher/researcher.

Ubiquitous computing in education : a SWOT analysis by students and teachers

Learning from anywhere anytime is a contemporary phenomenon in the field of education that is thought to be flexible, time and cost saving. The phenomenon is evident in the way computer technology mediates knowledge processes among learners. Computer technology is however, in some instances, faulted. There are studies that highlight drawbacks of computer technology use in learning. In this study we aimed at conducting a SWOT analysis on ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction and their affect on education. Students and teachers were interviewed on the mentioned concepts using focus group interviews. Our contribution in this study is, identifying what teachers and students perceive to be the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction in education. We also relate the findings with literature and present a common understanding on the SWOT of these concepts. Results show positive perceptions. Respondents revealed that ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction are important in their education due to advantages such as flexibility, efficiency in terms of cost and time, ability to acquire computer skills. Nevertheless disadvantages where also mentioned for example health effects, privacy and security issues, noise in the learning environment, to mention but a few. This paper gives suggestions on how to overcome threats mentioned.

Att bli, att vara och att ha varit - om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen i Sverige

Summary To become, to be and to have been: about the  Jehovah’s Witnesses The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in the following text referred to as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or “the organisation”, is a worldwide Christian organisation with about 6.7 million members. The organisation has many times, without any success so far, proclaimed Armageddon when they expect Jehovah to return to Earth. They interpret the Bible in their own, often very literal way, and require their members to live according to these interpretations. Among the consequences of this, members are forbidden to vote, to do military service or to receive blood transfusions. Apart from attending the three weekly meetings, members are expected to be active in missionary work, known as “publishing”. If a member fails to do a certain number of hours’ publishing, he or she risks being deprived of active membership status Sweden in general is considered to be a society where the population is not very religious. The formerly state-governed Lutheran church has lost its influence and the vast majority of ordinary Swedes do not visit church on other occasions than weddings, funerals or christenings. Expressing one’s own religious values has become somewhat of a private matter where publicity is seldom appreciated, which is contrary to the practice of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is one of the reasons why the Jehovah’s Witnesses are commonly perceived by average Swedes as a “suspicious” religious organisation. The aim and methods of the study This dissertation seeks to describe and investigate the entering and leaving of a highly structured and hierarchical religious community, exemplified in this case by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What are the thoughts and aspirations of someone who is considering becoming a Jehovah’s Witness? What are the priorities and what experiences seem important when a person is going through such a process? And when this person has finally reached his or her goal of becoming a member, is it the same motivation that makes him or her stay in the organisation for longer periods of time, possibly for the rest of their lives, or does it change during the process of entering, or does this motivation change its character during the transition from entering to being a regular member? Why do some of the members change their attitude to the Jehovah’s Witnesses from rejoicing to bitterness? And how does this process of exit manifest itself? In what way is it different from the process of entry? The respondents in this study were chosen from both active members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden and those who have left the organisation for personal reasons. Repeated interviews with ten active members of the organisation have been conducted in the course of the study and compared to equal numbers of former members. The interviews have been semi-structured to deal with questions of how a person has come into contact with the organisation; how they retrospectively experienced the process of entry; the reasons for becoming a member. Questions have also been asked about life in the organisation. The group of “exiters” have also been asked about the experience of leaving, why they wanted to leave, and how this process was started and carried out. In addition to this I have analysed a four-year diary describing the time inside and the process of leaving the organisation. This has given me an extra psychological insight into the inner experience of someone who has gone through the whole process. The analysis has been done by categorising the content of the transcribed interviews. An attempt to outline a model of an entry and exit process has been made, based on ideas and interpretations presented in the interviews. The analysis of the diary has involved thorough reading, resulting in a division of it into four different parts, where each part has been given a certain key-word, signifying the author’s emotional state when writing it. A great deal of the information about the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been collected through discussion boards on the Internet, informal talks with members and ex-members, interviews with representatives of the organisations during visits to its different offices (Bethels), such as St. Petersburg, Russia, and Brooklyn, New York, USA. The context Each organisation evolves in its own context with its own norms, roles and stories that would not survive outside it. With this as a starting point, there is a chapter dedicated to the description of the organisation’s history, structure and activities. It has been stated that the organisation’s treatment of its critical members and the strategies for recruiting new members have evolved over the years of its history. At the beginning there was an openness allowing members to be critical. As the structure of the organisation has become more rigid and formalised, the treatment of internal critics has become much less tolerated and exclusion has become a frequent option. As a rule many new members have been attracted to the organisation when (1) the day of Armageddon has been pronounced to be approaching; (2) the members of the organisation have been persecuted or threatened with persecution; and (3) the organisation has discovered a “new market”. The processes for entering and exiting How the entering processes manifest themselves depends on whether the person has been brought up in the organisation or not. A person converting as an adult has to pass six phases before being considered a Jehovah’s Witness by the organisation. These are:  Contact with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Studying the bible with members of the organisation, Questioning, Accepting, Being active as publisher (spreading the belief), Being baptised.  For a person brought up in the organisation, the process to full membership is much shorter:   Upbringing in the organisation, Taking a stand on the belief, Being baptised. The exit process contains of seven phases:   Different levels of doubts, Testing of doubts, Turning points, Different kinds of decisions, Different steps in executing the decisions, Floating, a period of emotional and cognitive consideration of membership and its experiences, Realtive neutrality.   The process in and the process out are both slow and are accompanied with anguish and doubts. When a person is going through the process in or out of the organisation he or she experiences criticism. This is when people around the adept question the decision to continue in the process. The result of the criticism depends on where in the process the person is. If he or she is at the beginning of the process, the criticism will probably make the person insecure and the process will slow down or stop. If the criticism is pronounced in a later phase, the process will probably speed up. The norms of the organisation affect the behaviour of the members. There are techniques for inclusion that both bind members to the organisation and shield them off from the surrounding society. Examples of techniques for inclusion are the “work situation” and “closed doors”. The work situation signifies that members who do as the organisation recommends – doing simple work – often end up in the same branch of industry as many other Jehovah’s Witnesses. This often means that the person has other witnesses as workmates. If the person is unemployed or moves to another town it is easy to find a new job through connections in the organisation. Doubts and exclusions can lead to problems since they entail a risk of losing one’s job. This can also result in problems getting a new job. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not supposed to talk to excluded members, which of course mean difficulties working together. “Closed doors” means that members who do as the organisation recommends – not pursuing higher education, not engaging in civil society, working with a manual or in other way simple job, putting much time into the organisation – will, after a long life in the organisation, have problems starting a new life outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The language used in the organisation shows the community among the members, thus the language is one of the most important symbols. A special way of thinking is created through the language. It binds members to the organisation and sometimes it can work as a way to get back into the normative world of the organisation. Randall Collins’s (1990, 2004) thoughts about “emotional energy” have enabled an understanding of the solidarity and unity in the organisation. This also gives an understanding of the way the members treat doubting and critical members. The members who want to exit have to open up the binding/screening off. A possible way to do that is through language, to become aware of the effect the language might have. Another way is to search for emotional energy in another situation. During the exit process, shame might be of some importance. When members become aware of the shame they feel, because they perceive they are “acting a belief”, the exit process might accelerate.

Capability outcomes from educational and ICT capability inputs : an analysis of ICT use in informal education in Kenya

In the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) ICT use in education is well studied. Education is often seen as a pre-requisite for development and ICTs are believed to aid in education, e.g. to make it more accessible and to increase its quality. In this paper we study the access and use of ICT in a study circle (SC) education program in the south coast of Kenya. The study is qualitative reporting results based on interviews and observations with SC participants, government officers and SC coordinators and teachers. The study builds on the capability approach perspective of development where individuals’ opportunities and ability to live a life that they value are focused. The aim of the study is to investigate the capability outcomes enabled through the capability inputs access and use of ICT in education as well as the factors that enabled and/or restricted the outcomes. Findings show that many opportunities have been enabled such as an increase in the ability to generate an income, learning benefits, community development and basic human development (e.g. literacy and self-confidence). However, conversion factors such as a poorly developed infrastructure and poor IT literacy prevent many of the individuals from taking full advantage of the ICT and the opportunities it enables. 

Distance teacher education – some experiences from Dalarna University, SwedenPaper presented at the 33rd Annual ATEE Conference Brussels, Belgium, 23rd – 27th August 2008

Distance teaching is now-a-days used in different shapes. However, it is something different from traditional campus organised education as it systematically uses Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a key element. When the distance teacher education started in Sweden many teacher educators doubted the wisdom of this. They expressed that the educational process to become a teacher would be deteriorated. For instance, they feared for high drop out rates and difficulties to examine in a proper way. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education has recently edited a report that showed that this form of teacher education was well adapted to the labour market, but the possibilities for the teacher students to shape their education were relatively limited. However, we still know quite little about the effects of this way to educate teacher students. This paper explores the possibility of using distance teacher education.In a case study 20 students, who were the first to finish a complete a distance teacher education at Högskolan Dalarna, were asked in a questionnaire how they had apprehended their education. We also interviewed four of these students, as well as five teacher educators.One of our findings were that the distance teacher education reached new target groups, who not had been able to participate in university studies if it not had been offered in this form. Especially, this was valid for the middle-aged women, living a long distance away from a university, with social responsibilities for children or old parents. Other findings were that these students in general were target oriented and ambitious, wrote more than the campus students and developed that kind of skill better. Marratech, an ICT system for small groups, e-mail and chat were used for the communication. Marratech was considered to permit free and spontaneous communication, both of the teacher educators and the students. Initially the teacher educators were sceptical to distance teacher education, but afterwards they were surprised of how well it had worked. They declared that they had better and nearer contact with their students and more control over the students´ performance, but some parts of the teacher education were better suitable for campus education, for example, power of creating characters. Distance teacher education was considered time consuming and demanded much activity from the teacher educators as the students wanted rapid responses. This study indicates that distance teacher education works well for mature individuals with high motivation. However, it demands more time from the teacher educators, but it gives in general good results. Still, there are pedagogical challenges to overcome. Maybe we should reflect on a mix of distance teacher education and campus based teacher education, instead of separated ways of accomplishing teacher education?

Humming as a mean of communicating during meal time situations : A Single Case study involving a women with severe dementia and her caregiver

Objective: ‘Music Therapeutic Caregiving’, when caregivers sing for or together with persons with dementia during morning care situations, has been shown to increase verbal and nonverbal communication between persons with dementia and their caregivers, as well as enhance positive and decrease negative emotions in persons with dementia. No studies about singing during mealtimes have been conducted, and this pilot project was designed to elucidate this. However, since previous studies have shown that there is a risk that persons with dementia will start to sing along with the caregiver, the caregiver in this study hummed such that the person with dementia did not sing instead of eat. The aim of this pilot project was threefold: to describe expressed emotions in a woman with severe dementia, and describe communication between her and her caregivers without and with the caregiver humming. The aim was also to measure food and liquid intake without and with humming. Method: The study was constructed as a Single Case ABA design in which the ordinary mealtime constituted a baseline which comprised a woman with severe dementia being fed by her caregivers in the usual way. The intervention included the same woman being fed by the same caregiver who hummed while feeding her. Data comprised video observations that were collected once per week over 5 consecutive weeks. The Verbal and Nonverbal Interaction Scale and Observed Emotion Rating Scale were used to analyze the recorded interactions. Results: A slightly positive influence of communication was shown for the woman with dementia, as well as for the caregiver. Further, the women with dementia showed a slight increase in expressions of positive emotions, and she ate more during the intervention. Conclusion: Based on this pilot study no general conclusions can be drawn. It can be concluded, however, that humming while feeding persons with dementia might slightly enhance communication, and positive expressed emotions in persons with dementia. To confirm this, more studies on group levels are needed. Because previous studies have found that caregiver singing during caring situations influences persons with dementia positively it might be desirable to test the same during mealtime.