Perceptions and misperceptions of computing careers

Two issues were addressed. 1. Women are underrepresented in computing courses and in the computing workplace. Despite almost two decades of recognition of the issue and of intervention to correct it, the proportion of women in computing continues to decline. 2. There is a shortage of people with appropriate skills and qualifications in computing, and, more specifically, a need for people with particular personality attributes. There is an increasing demand for computing personnel to have good communication and interpersonal skills, but the predominant personality types of computing people do not include these characteristics. The research relating to the underrepresentation of women was conducted as a series of interviews with university students, female computing professionals and secondary school girls. The main findings of these studies were: 1) schoolgirls are interested in careers that are interesting and varied and provide opportunities for interaction with others; 2) schoolgirls perceive computing as involving working alone; 3) women working in computing describe careers that are interesting, varied, and people-oriented; 4) tertiary computing students equated 'computing' with 'programming'; and 5) single interventions are unlikely to result in individuals in the targeted group deciding to study computing. The perception of schoolgirls that computing involves working alone, which is reinforced by many tertiary computing courses, suggested that the type of person who is likely to be attracted to computing is one who would prefer to work alone. It was predicted that schoolboys would have similar perceptions of computing. Thus, computing is likely to attract students who would prefer to work alone. For various social and stereotypical reasons addressed by previous research, these students will be predominantly male. In the final study, preferred Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest Inventory personality types were suggested for computer programmers, systems designers and systems analysts. The existing literature and the 'types' of 72 study participants tended to confirm that 1) certain personality types are overrepresented in computing; 2) these types are well suited to programming and design tasks; and 3) there is an underrepresentation of individuals who have the combination of analytical, communication and people skills that are required particularly of analysts but also of many others working in computing today. Interviews with participants supported the earlier findings that computing careers are perceived by students to be technical and involve working in isolation, but for many computing people this is not the reality.

Attitudes and perceptions of workers to sexual harassment

This thesis highlights the importance of workers’ perceptions of and attitudes to sexual harassment. Past researchers have found that a variety of individual factors (age, gender, gender role, and past experiences of sexual harassment), and organisational factors (gender ratio, sexual harassment policies and the role of employers), correlate with the incidence of sexually harassing behaviours. Two studies presented in this thesis extend this research and were designed to investigate how these factors relate to workers’ attitudes towards and perceptions of sexual harassment. Study one investigated 176 workers from a large, white-collar organisation. Study two sampled 75 workers from a smaller, blue-collar organisation. By comparing two different workplaces the effect of the organisational climate was investigated. Individuals from Study two experienced more sexual harassment, were more tolerant of sexual harassment and perceived less behaviour as sexual harassment compared with individuals from Study one. The organisational context was found to affect the way in which organisational and individual factors related to workers' attitudes to and their experiences of sexual harassment. However, the factors that influenced workers’ perceptions of sexual harassment were stable across both studies. Although workers’ attitudes to and their perceptions of sexual harassment were significantly correlated, they were influenced by different factors. Overall, workers’ perceptions of sexual harassment were influenced by their attitudes, the behavioural context, and the gender of the victim and perpetrator. In contrast, attitudes to sexual harassment appeared to be more strongly influenced by individual factors, such as age, gender, gender role, past experiences of sexual harassment, and perceptions of management’s tolerance of sexual harassment. The broader implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are suggested.

Australian perceptions of the Orient 1880-1910

Abstract not supplied. Keywords taken from contents page.

Perceptions and experiences of taking oral hypoglycaemic agents among people of Pakistani and Indian origin : qualitative study

Objective:  To explore British Pakistani and British Indian patients’ perceptions and experiences of taking oral hypoglycaemic agents (OHAs).
Design : Observational cross sectional study using in-depth interviews in English or Punjabi.
Setting and participants : 32 patients of Pakistani and Indian origin with type 2 diabetes, recruited from primary care and community sources in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Results : Respondents reported complex and ambivalent views about OHAs, which reflected their ambivalent attitudes towards Western drugs in general. Respondents considered OHAs to be an important part of the diabetic regimen because they perceived British healthcare professionals to be competent and trustworthy prescribers, and they considered the medicines available in Britain to be superior to those on the Indian subcontinent. Despite this, some respondents made deliberate efforts to reduce their tablet intake without being advised to do so. Reasons for this included perceptions that drugs worked by providing relief of symptoms and concerns that OHAs could be detrimental to health if taken for long periods, in conjunction with other drugs, or without traditional foods.
Conclusions : British Pakistani and Indian patients’ perceptions of their OHAs may partly derive from popular ideas about drugs on the Indian subcontinent. Cultural factors need to be understood and taken into consideration to ensure that these patients are given appropriate advice and to avoid unnecessary changes to prescriptions.

Ethical perceptions of Hong Kong chinese business managers

This paper investigates ethical perceptions among Hong Kong Chinese managers of themselves and peers according to age, location of education and employment (local vs. multinational), based upon responses to thirteen potentially unethical situations.

The major conclusions of the study are: (1) there is little consistency among perceptions of ethical situations; (2) Hong Kong managers perceive their peers as more unethical than themselves; (3) ethical perceptions in some situations are affected by age and to a lesser extent, place of education; and (4) significant interactions were found between age and the nature of employer, as well as between the place of education and the nature of employer.

To conclude, the management implications of these findings are discussed.

Staff perceptions of the implementation of enterprise resource planning systems in three Australian universities

This chapter reports a study that examined the staff perceptions of the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERPs) in three Australian universities. The literature on issues impacting on effective Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations identified a number of issues that translate from the corporate sector to the higher education sector and included a number that require particular focus in this sector. Case study methodology is used to examine the staff perceptions of the management of ERP implementations in three Australian universities in the process of implementing ERP systems. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase of the study obtained data through a series of focus groups at one university and, combined with an analysis of the relevant literature served as a framework for the development of the research process in the second phase of the study. This phase involved in depth interviews with staff that enabled the researcher to undertake a more detailed exploration of the staff perceptions of influences affecting ERP system implementations at three Australian universities. This chapter reports that staff perceptions of the process of ERP implementations are central to their efficacious implementations in Australian universities. Staff perceptions demonstrate that particular consideration of organisational influences related to their context and the perceptions of the users of the systems must be factored into the planning for ERP implementations in Universities.

Assurance of corporate social responsibility reports : impact on report users' perceptions of reliability

This study examined whether (1) assurance, (2) the level of assurance (reasonable vs. limited), and (3) the type of assurance provider (accountant vs. specialist consultant) affect users’ perceptions of reliability of sustainability reports. Based on an experimental questionnaire, we find that the provision of assurance improves report users’ perceived reliability of the environmental and social information. There were no significant main effects between the two experimental factors; level of assurance and type of assurance provider, and report users’ perceptions of the reliability of sustainability reports. However, a significant interaction was found between the two experimental factors and report users’ perceptions of reliability of such reports. More specifically, report users placed more confidence in the sustainability reports where the level of assurance provided is reasonable (high), and when such assurance is provided by a top tier accountancy firm, rather than when the assurance is provided by a specialist consultant. No such difference was found when the level of assurance provided was limited (low) for either type of assurance provider group. The results of this study thus highlight the relevance of assurance for sustainability reporting.

Cognitive style as a factor in accounting students' perceptions of career choice factors

Since prior studies of individuals' perceptions of career-choice factors have not considered the effect of cognitive styles of subjects, this study, using 68 accounting students, investigated the mediating effects of the field dependent-independent cognitive dimension on perceptions of the importance of career-choice factors. The results, in general, show that cognitive style affected individuals' perceptions of career-choice factors, suggesting that future studies of individuals' perceptions should take into account individual cognitive differences.