Spanning the Academy-Practice Divide with Doctoral Education in Business

The economy has always been a knowledge economy. We accept as a premise of this paper that phenomena such as the explosion of information, information technology, intellectual capital, knowledge workers and firms as knowledge systems are real, while reserving space elsewhere for the critique of such phenomena. To date, doctoral education in business has focused almost exclusively on the needs of future academic staff. One response to the growing demand for a practitioner-oriented doctoral education is the rise of Doctorate of Business and Administration (DBA) programmes. The DBA differs from a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) because of its increased focus on the application of knowledge, in addition to the development of that knowledge. While PhD research needs to make a significant contribution to theory, DBA research is expected to contribute to both theory and practice. This paper provides a brief history of doctoral education in business. We discuss the choices that have been taken in the design and content of the Massey DBA in relation to the academic/practice divide. An interim report of experiences by both academics and students is provided. The implications for doctoral education in areas that span the research/practice divide are then identified.     

The role of coach-athlete relationship quality in team sport athletes’ psychophysiological exhaustion: implications for physical and cognitive performance

The present study aimed to examine associations between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and athlete exhaustion by assessing physiological and cognitive consequences. Male and female athletes (N = 82) representing seven teams across four different sports, participated in a quasi-experimental study measuring physical performance on a 5-meter multiple shuttle test, followed by a Stroop test to assess cognitive performance. Participants provided saliva samples measuring cortisol as a biomarker of acute stress response and completed questionnaires measuring exhaustion, and coach-athlete relationship quality. Structural equation modelling revealed a positive relationship between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and Stroop performance, and negative relationships between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and cortisol responses to high-intensity exercise, cognitive testing, and exhaustion. The study supports previous research on socio-cognitive correlates of athlete exhaustion by highlighting associations with the quality of the coach-athlete relationship.     

Leading higher education professionals: local,connected, and artful

In this paper, we explore the work life of a scholar new to academia in her methods of leading informally. We discuss five vignettes that offer moments of learning and reflection, including reducing performance anxiety, privileging financial accountability, the rise of the virtual world, the impact of silence, and the potential for confrontation to strengthen working relationships. We offer suggestions as to how contemporary leaders may adapt to the freedom that artful action offers.     

Perceptions of personal and familial adjustment by children from intact,single-parent,and reconstituted families

The present study investigated children's (N=566) personal and familial adjustment, and sought to determine if this varied as a function of familial configuration and gender. More specifically, these children were surveyed across a broad range of adjustment measures, including self-concept, perception of school adjustment, home adjustment, peer relationships, state and trait anxiety, as well as their evaluations of mother, father, and family. The results from these measures revealed: (a) less positive adjustment among children from divorced families (whether the remaining parent remarried or not) as opposed to children from intact families; (b) mixed findings regarding comparisons of psychosocial adjustment between single-parent and remarried groups; and (c) a pattern of effects related to significant interactions of family type and gender in which males appeared to be favorably affected within the single-parent configuration, while females were more favorably adjusted within the reconstituted family.     

FM: Clinically meaningful rorschach index with minority children?

Recent court actions have spurred psychologists to develop improved assessment tools and to utilize diagnostic measures that take into consideration developmental and affective growth patterns of disadvantaged and minority youth. The present study, working through a case vignette, has weighed the possibility that the FM index may serve as a forerunner of abstract thinking, or the capacity to internalize imagery, which, in Rorschach theory, is, with older subjects, best illustrated in M. Findings also suggest that the Z (Organizational Activity) index may not be useful in evaluating intellectual potentials of preschool minority children. Following blind analysis of the Rorschach, replicative data were obtained through a social history and an individually-administered ability test. Data from these sources support the major finding that FM may enable educational diagnosticians to estimate more accurately the intellectual capabilities of some preschool minority and other culturally disadvantaged children.     

Research Methods

ESSENTIALS OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH by Robert Rosenthal and Ralph Rosnow (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984—price not given)

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH by Jerome Kirk and Marc L. Miller (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1986—$10.95/6.00)

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS by Matthew B. Miles and A. Michael Hubermann (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984—price not given)

HOW TO CONDUCT SURVEYS by Arline Fink and Jacqueline Kosecoff (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985—$12.00, paper)     

Children Develop Initial Orthographic Knowledge During Storybook Reading

We examined whether young children acquire orthographic knowledge during structured adult-led storybook reading even though minimal viewing time is devoted to print. Sixty-two kindergarten children were read 12 storybook “chapters” while their eye movements were tracked. Results indicated that the children quickly acquired initial mental graphemic representations of target nonwords. This learning occurred even though they focused on the target nonwords approximately one fourth of the total time while viewing the pages. Their ability to acquire the initial orthographic representations of the target nonwords and their viewing time was affected by the linguistic statistical regularities of the words. The results provide evidence of orthographic learning during structured storybook reading and for the use of implicit linguistic statistical regularities for learning new orthographic word forms in the early stages of reading development.     

Neophobias and conditioned taste aversions in rats following exposure to novel flavors

Rats were successively exposed to three solutions with distinctively different flavors and then tested for both neophobia and propensity to form conditioned taste aversions to a fourth distinctively flavored solution. All permutations between the four solutions (salty, bitter, sweet, and sour) were examined. The prior exposures resulted in attenuation of neophobia to novel salty and sour solutions, but not to equally novel bitter or sweet solutions. These effects were found to depend upon thediversity of the prior ingestive events rather than upon either a single specific flavor experience or a summation of the reductions in generalized neophobia accrued by each substance separately; both of the latter findings are inconsistent with stimulus generalization being responsible for the observed attenuation of neophobia to salty and sour solutions following exposure to diverse different solutions. A further test of generalization between the salty and bitter solutions, consisting of associating one flavor with poison and extinguishing the avoidance response in half the animals prior to testing for generalization of conditioned taste aversion to the other flavor, also proved negative. Although these effects of exposure to flavors distinctly different from the test solution may be dependent upon solution concentrations, further research found that the same pretest exposures and same test concentrations failed to inhibit formation of conditioned taste aversions. A demonstration of “latent inhibition” attested to the sensitivity of our procedure to potential interference with acquisition of conditioned taste aversions. The results are considered in light of the relationship between neophobia and conditioned tasted aversions, the differential biological relevancy of specific tastes, and abstraction as a cognitive capability of rats. The possibility is raised that the defense against toxins is not the primary function of neophobia.