How I Remember My Mother’s Story: A Cross-National Investigation of Vicarious Family Stories in Turkey and New Zealand

Stories that have not been personally experienced by children and are only told by their parents are called vicarious family stories. An emerging body of literature has shown that vicarious family stories are an important part of children’s narrative ecology. However, to date, only two studies from the same cross-cultural project have examined the role of culture in vicarious family stories. The aims of this study were to examine vicarious mother stories in Turkey and New Zealand (NZ) and to investigate individual variations in national groups with regard to the internalization of cultural orientations (i.e., self-construals). There were 108 Turkish and 79 NZ women in this study. We found that Turkish women’s stories were more thematically coherent and included more social interactions and other-related words than NZ women’s. When reporting reasons for why they thought family members told stories, didactic purposes and expressing emotions were more common reasons for Turkish women, whereas sharing family history and entertainment were more common reasons for NZ women. However, Turkish and NZ women’s vicarious stories were similar in terms of identity connections and affective tone. Unexpectedly, we did not find a significant role of individuals’ self-construals in the link between national groups and vicarious stories. This study contributes to the growing area of research on family narratives by showing the commonalities and differences in the construction of vicarious stories across national groups.

Management research contributions to the COVID-19: a bibliometric literature review and analysis of the contributions from the Journal of Management & Organization

The COVID-19 health crisis triggered changes in the workplace. This paper explores the insights from scholarly work published in the Journal of Management and Organization (JMO) and systematizes this body of knowledge to build a scientific overview that looks at how the COVID-19 health crisis and its repercussions may be managed by organizations. We conducted a bibliometric investigation of JMO's most influential papers published from 1995 to June 2020 that offers insights into the management of the COVID-19 crisis. Our bibliometric investigation reveals six clusters: (1) conservation of resources theory, entrepreneurs, gender and work–family conflict; (2) corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and stakeholder salience; (3) family firms, innovation and research methods; (4) creativity, leadership and organizational change; (5) job satisfaction and psychological empowerment; and (6) team performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Professional expertise amongst speech-language therapists: “willing to share”

Purpose

The current healthcare environment provides several challenges to the existing roles of healthcare professionals. The value of the professional expert is also under scrutiny. The purpose of this paper is to generate a construction of professional expertise amongst practitioners in the current healthcare environment. It used the speech-language therapy community in New Zealand (NZ) as an example.

Design/methodology/approach

Speech-language therapists currently practicing in NZ completed an online survey including qualitative and quantitative components. The range of experience and work settings of participants (n=119) was representative of the workforce.

Findings

Participants clearly identified being “highly experienced” and “having in-depth knowledge” as essential elements of professional expertise. Thematic analysis generated two interconnected themes of a professional expert being a personal leader and teacher, and a highly experienced, knowledgeable and skilful practitioner. Additionally, practitioners needed to be seen to contribute to the community in order to be known as experts. Clinical practice was valued differently from research generation.

Originality/value

This study is novel in exploring a construction of professional expertise amongst practitioners in a current healthcare community. Within that community, experts could be viewed as highly effective practitioners that visibly contribute to the professional community. The study draws attention to the role of reputation and the impacts of being a clinical teacher or leader compared with pursuing a research role. This could be particularly relevant in the promotion of evidence-based practice.