The Irish Defence Forces currently employs approximately 8,750 personnel, with some 7,300 employe... more The Irish Defence Forces currently employs approximately 8,750 personnel, with some 7,300 employed in the army. Approximately 3,139 Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) have changed career paths into civilian roles between the years 2000-2015. Many of these individuals found the transition from a military career to a civilian career challenging, despite having obtained some useful transferable skills. One of the most pertinent challenges has been the lack of any appreciation by employers of the range of transferrable skills that were gained by NCOs during their military careers. This paper aims to identify what transferable skills contribute to the transition from a military career to a civilian career from the perspective of a small sample of former army NCOs. The methodology consists of a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with key personnel who previously served in the Irish Defence Forces. The findings indicate that the range of transferable skills gained in a mi...
The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and t... more The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and their countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or meritocratic, society, has been an enduring subject of concern, debate and research. Many of these debates are made all the more difficult by our inability to directly compare elite formation systems within and between countries and over time. To resolve these problems, this paper employs elite formation quantitative indices to directly and transparently compare elite formation systems, namely the role of higher education systems in political elite formation over three quarters of a century in two countries. Specifically , the paper compares the influence, exclusiveness and eliteness of the Irish and British higher education systems in the production of their respective governing political elites in the 75 years between 1937 and 2012.
This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ide... more This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ideas enter the political arena, and how endogenous forces within the policy making environment transform ideas into new policies. The central hypothesis is that in times of crisis, new ideas emanate from a number of change agents, but in order for any of these ideas to enter the institutional environment, one specific agent of change must be present: the political entrepreneur. Without political entrepreneurs, ideational change, and subsequent policy change, would not occur. The paper sets out a framework for identifying and explaining the endogenous drivers of policy change, and then tests this framework on two case studies, from two countries.
This paper provides a case study that focuses upon the interpretation of freehand drawings produc... more This paper provides a case study that focuses upon the interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree students of business studies in response to the question: “What is Corporate Social Responsibility?” Student generated freehand drawings are used to bypass cognitive verbal processing routes, thereby facilitating students to produce clearer images of their level of understanding. In using freehand drawing, we are trying to create a creative learning environment where students can develop their understanding of complex ideas and narratives at their own individual pace. The drawings themselves provide insights into how soon-to-be-graduates of business perceive their society and the corporations that operate within it, and thus communicate their understanding of corporate social responsibility.
Journal of International Education in Business, 2020
Purpose-This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of... more Purpose-This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree level learners in response to the question: "What is civic engagement"? The aim in using this approach, with final year degree learners from different countries, but pursuing the same degree, was to compare and contrast their understanding of civic engagement. Design/methodology/approach-Learners completed their drawings and then discussed their drawings in small groups. All of their drawings were initially examined quantitatively before a sample of six drawings were selected for in-depth qualitative examination. Findings-Using learner-generated drawings enables learners convey visually what can be challenging to verbalise. After the exercise, some learners discovered that they had a good basic appreciation of civic engagement. Research limitations/implications-Describing civic engagement pictorially forced participants to think about what the essence of civic engagement was for them. Originality/value-This study shows how a collaborative learning experience, rather than a competitive comparison of performance, facilitates learners readily demonstrating their level of understanding and appreciation for civic engagement.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has lasted over half a century,
with both sides endurin... more The conflict between Israel and Palestine has lasted over half a century, with both sides enduring military and political turmoil. This paper explores how Twitter is being used as a medium to portray identities in the conflict. We examine the tweets contained in the @IDFspokesperson and @ISMPalestine Twitter accounts between late 2015 and early 2016. Using textual analysis, we gain an insight into how these Twitter accounts, defined by the conflict, are used in portraying the self and the other.
Whistleblowing has gained increasing media attention over the past 40 years, as incidents of abus... more Whistleblowing has gained increasing media attention over the past 40 years, as incidents of abuse and wrongdoing associated with businesses, religious institutions, the media and politics have come to light. In this article, we investigate the consequences of a military whistleblower’s actions for both himself and the military institution that he was a part of. The case concerns former army officer Dr. Tom Clonan and his findings concerning the bullying and sexual harassment of female personnel in the Irish Defence Forces at the turn of the century. As these revelations came to light over 17 years ago we are able to examine their consequences for the military since that time.
In this article, we wish to investigate if disciplinary differences exist among students when con... more In this article, we wish to investigate if disciplinary differences exist among students when considering the topic of civic engagement. We use freehand drawing to create a learning environment in the classroom wherein students can seek to develop meaningful associations with civic engagement. The drawings examined here, produced by three different class groups, provide insights into how young adults perceive their society and their place in it, and thus communicate their understanding of civic engagement. Freehand drawing, in bypassing cognitive verbal processing routes, leads students to produce clearer and more holistic images. It allows them to put into visuals a level of comprehension that is sometimes difficult for them to articulate with words. This use of the visual method can help students to identify the tacit knowledge that they already possess.
This paper analyses the strength of the new laws regulating lobbying in Ireland and the United Ki... more This paper analyses the strength of the new laws regulating lobbying in Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK). This examination was conducted using the Centre for Public Integrity’s (CPI) “Hired Guns” quantitative method for assessing the stringency of lobbying legislation. These laws were introduced, after years of unfulfilled promises and scandals, in an effort to increase the public’s trust in their representative institutions. We find that the Irish Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 offers a slightly higher level of transparency than the UK’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. Additionally, using the CPI’s index allows our findings to be compared with those from other jurisdictions around the world with lobbying regulations in place.
This paper examines the development of a system of easily readable and comparable qualifications ... more This paper examines the development of a system of easily readable and comparable qualifications within a single Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (QFEHEA) as part of the Bologna process. Employing a path dependence approach, combined with new understandings of critical junctures and incremental policy change, as our conceptual lens, we find that multiple self-reinforcing events between the 1998 Sorbonne Declaration and the 2005 Bergen Communiqué, in the form of Declarations and Communiqués, guided implementation of the Bologna policy process, along with elements of incremental layering. We also see evidence that policy formation and implementation are self-reinforcing in the context of the development of the QFEHEA.
The Irish Defence Forces currently employs approximately 8,750 personnel, with some 7,300 employe... more The Irish Defence Forces currently employs approximately 8,750 personnel, with some 7,300 employed in the army. Approximately 3,139 Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) have changed career paths into civilian roles between the years 2000-2015. Many of these individuals found the transition from a military career to a civilian career challenging, despite having obtained some useful transferable skills. One of the most pertinent challenges has been the lack of any appreciation by employers of the range of transferrable skills that were gained by NCOs during their military careers. This paper aims to identify what transferable skills contribute to the transition from a military career to a civilian career from the perspective of a small sample of former army NCOs. The methodology consists of a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with key personnel who previously served in the Irish Defence Forces. The findings indicate that the range of transferable skills gained in a mi...
The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and t... more The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and their countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or meritocratic, society, has been an enduring subject of concern, debate and research. Many of these debates are made all the more difficult by our inability to directly compare elite formation systems within and between countries and over time. To resolve these problems, this paper employs elite formation quantitative indices to directly and transparently compare elite formation systems, namely the role of higher education systems in political elite formation over three quarters of a century in two countries. Specifically , the paper compares the influence, exclusiveness and eliteness of the Irish and British higher education systems in the production of their respective governing political elites in the 75 years between 1937 and 2012.
This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ide... more This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ideas enter the political arena, and how endogenous forces within the policy making environment transform ideas into new policies. The central hypothesis is that in times of crisis, new ideas emanate from a number of change agents, but in order for any of these ideas to enter the institutional environment, one specific agent of change must be present: the political entrepreneur. Without political entrepreneurs, ideational change, and subsequent policy change, would not occur. The paper sets out a framework for identifying and explaining the endogenous drivers of policy change, and then tests this framework on two case studies, from two countries.
This paper provides a case study that focuses upon the interpretation of freehand drawings produc... more This paper provides a case study that focuses upon the interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree students of business studies in response to the question: “What is Corporate Social Responsibility?” Student generated freehand drawings are used to bypass cognitive verbal processing routes, thereby facilitating students to produce clearer images of their level of understanding. In using freehand drawing, we are trying to create a creative learning environment where students can develop their understanding of complex ideas and narratives at their own individual pace. The drawings themselves provide insights into how soon-to-be-graduates of business perceive their society and the corporations that operate within it, and thus communicate their understanding of corporate social responsibility.
Journal of International Education in Business, 2020
Purpose-This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of... more Purpose-This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree level learners in response to the question: "What is civic engagement"? The aim in using this approach, with final year degree learners from different countries, but pursuing the same degree, was to compare and contrast their understanding of civic engagement. Design/methodology/approach-Learners completed their drawings and then discussed their drawings in small groups. All of their drawings were initially examined quantitatively before a sample of six drawings were selected for in-depth qualitative examination. Findings-Using learner-generated drawings enables learners convey visually what can be challenging to verbalise. After the exercise, some learners discovered that they had a good basic appreciation of civic engagement. Research limitations/implications-Describing civic engagement pictorially forced participants to think about what the essence of civic engagement was for them. Originality/value-This study shows how a collaborative learning experience, rather than a competitive comparison of performance, facilitates learners readily demonstrating their level of understanding and appreciation for civic engagement.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has lasted over half a century,
with both sides endurin... more The conflict between Israel and Palestine has lasted over half a century, with both sides enduring military and political turmoil. This paper explores how Twitter is being used as a medium to portray identities in the conflict. We examine the tweets contained in the @IDFspokesperson and @ISMPalestine Twitter accounts between late 2015 and early 2016. Using textual analysis, we gain an insight into how these Twitter accounts, defined by the conflict, are used in portraying the self and the other.
Whistleblowing has gained increasing media attention over the past 40 years, as incidents of abus... more Whistleblowing has gained increasing media attention over the past 40 years, as incidents of abuse and wrongdoing associated with businesses, religious institutions, the media and politics have come to light. In this article, we investigate the consequences of a military whistleblower’s actions for both himself and the military institution that he was a part of. The case concerns former army officer Dr. Tom Clonan and his findings concerning the bullying and sexual harassment of female personnel in the Irish Defence Forces at the turn of the century. As these revelations came to light over 17 years ago we are able to examine their consequences for the military since that time.
In this article, we wish to investigate if disciplinary differences exist among students when con... more In this article, we wish to investigate if disciplinary differences exist among students when considering the topic of civic engagement. We use freehand drawing to create a learning environment in the classroom wherein students can seek to develop meaningful associations with civic engagement. The drawings examined here, produced by three different class groups, provide insights into how young adults perceive their society and their place in it, and thus communicate their understanding of civic engagement. Freehand drawing, in bypassing cognitive verbal processing routes, leads students to produce clearer and more holistic images. It allows them to put into visuals a level of comprehension that is sometimes difficult for them to articulate with words. This use of the visual method can help students to identify the tacit knowledge that they already possess.
This paper analyses the strength of the new laws regulating lobbying in Ireland and the United Ki... more This paper analyses the strength of the new laws regulating lobbying in Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK). This examination was conducted using the Centre for Public Integrity’s (CPI) “Hired Guns” quantitative method for assessing the stringency of lobbying legislation. These laws were introduced, after years of unfulfilled promises and scandals, in an effort to increase the public’s trust in their representative institutions. We find that the Irish Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 offers a slightly higher level of transparency than the UK’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. Additionally, using the CPI’s index allows our findings to be compared with those from other jurisdictions around the world with lobbying regulations in place.
This paper examines the development of a system of easily readable and comparable qualifications ... more This paper examines the development of a system of easily readable and comparable qualifications within a single Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (QFEHEA) as part of the Bologna process. Employing a path dependence approach, combined with new understandings of critical junctures and incremental policy change, as our conceptual lens, we find that multiple self-reinforcing events between the 1998 Sorbonne Declaration and the 2005 Bergen Communiqué, in the form of Declarations and Communiqués, guided implementation of the Bologna policy process, along with elements of incremental layering. We also see evidence that policy formation and implementation are self-reinforcing in the context of the development of the QFEHEA.
We believe that a politics education should seek to build a just society, while questioning assum... more We believe that a politics education should seek to build a just society, while questioning assumptions embedded in theory and practice. This conceptualisation requires students to reflect critically on their world. In seeking to broaden students’ perspectives and contribute to their development as ‘critical beings’ (Barnett, 1997), our aim is to challenge all perspectives, both prevailing wisdom and views opposed to it. This will enable students to critically assess the merits of each perspective, irrespective of its status. However, this requires overcoming an enduring bias in instructional pedagogies toward simplification (Dehler, Welsh and Lewis, 2004, 168), privileging propositional knowledge (Heron and Reason, 1997), and the perception that academics tend to possess a left-wing bias (Horowitz, 2006).
This paper focuses upon the themes contained in over 500 freehand drawings produced by 5 classes ... more This paper focuses upon the themes contained in over 500 freehand drawings produced by 5 classes of sophomore students (2010-2014), in their first class in an Irish Politics introductory module. The primary objective of the exercise was to implement a critical pedagogy in the classroom, as freehand drawing is a technique that can stimulate a critical stance. By sidestepping cognitive verbal processing routes, through employing freehand drawing, we aim to create a critical and collaborative learning environment, where students develop their capacity for interpretation and critical self-reflection. This is because the freehand drawing technique, as part of a critical pedagogy, can generate a more critical and inclusive perspective, as visual representations permit us to comprehend the world differently, and understand how others also see the world.
This paper will apply cognitive mapping techniques to understand the manner in which political br... more This paper will apply cognitive mapping techniques to understand the manner in which political brand equity is formed and distributed amongst the four largest Irish political parties from the perspective of citizens. It assesses the fundamental aspects of branding and brand equity in the marketing and political marketing literatures and offers and overview of the market in question – the Irish political environment. Primary data was generated through the participation of 232 citizens in the political brand elicitation stage and a further 75 citizens were involved in the construction of the cognitive maps of brand equity. From the mapping process we see that Irish political parties brands are plagued by a number of negative associations. Fianna Fáil’s brand is overshadowed by past mistakes and past leaders with bad reputations; whilst the Fine Gael brand is wracked by low levels of engagement. This paper constitutes the first attempt to measure the political brand equity of Irish political parties.
This paper focuses upon the interpretation of drawings produced by first year honours degree stud... more This paper focuses upon the interpretation of drawings produced by first year honours degree students in an introductory module to Irish Politics. The drawings, which contain a rich tapestry of understandings that we seek to interpret here, were produced in response to the question: ‘What is Irish Politics?’ We have found that by sidestepping the cognitive verbal processing routes, through the use of freehand drawing, students present an understanding of Irish politics from their own unique perspectives. We feel that the drawings provide startling insights into how young people see their society and their place within it, after five years of economic stagnation. Through interpretation, we feel that these drawings offer a window into the minds of our political economy’s youngest voters and future leaders.
The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and t... more The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and their countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or meritocratic, society, has been an enduring subject of concern, debate and research. Many of these debates are made all the more difficult by our inability to directly compare elite formation systems within and between countries and over time. To resolve these problems, this paper employs elite formation quantitative indices to directly and transparently compare elite formation systems, namely the role of higher education systems in political elite formation over three quarters of a century in two countries. Specifically, the paper compares the influence, exclusiveness and eliteness of the Irish and British higher education systems in the production of their respective governing political elites in the 75 years between 1937 and 2012.
The contributors investigate policy paradigms and their ability to explain the policy process – a... more The contributors investigate policy paradigms and their ability to explain the policy process – actors, ideas, discourses and strategies employed – to provide readers with a better understanding of public policy and its dynamics. Drawing together leading researchers in the field, this edited collection offers a unique insight into a selection of policy paradigms, investigating their significance for public policy, policy making and policy change, in both theory and practice. The contributions open up new avenues of research on policy dynamics while re-evaluating the accuracy and effectiveness of existing policy orthodoxy.
This paper examines the evolution of the Bologna process, the European-wide policy development an... more This paper examines the evolution of the Bologna process, the European-wide policy development and implementation vehicle in higher education, with a particular focus upon the development of a system of easily readable and comparable awards within a single Framework for Qualifications in the European Higher Education Area (FQ-EHEA). Employing path dependence – combined with new understandings of critical junctures and incremental policy change – as our conceptual lens, we find that multiple self reinforcing events between the 1998 Sorbonne Declaration and the 2005 Bergen Communiqué, in the form of Declarations and Communiqués, guided implementation of the Bologna policy process, along with elements of incremental layering. We also see evidence that policy formation and implementation are self reinforcing.
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Papers by Sharon Feeney
insights into how soon-to-be-graduates of business perceive their society and the corporations that operate within it, and thus communicate their understanding of corporate social responsibility.
with both sides enduring military and political turmoil. This paper explores how Twitter is being used as a medium to portray identities in the conflict. We examine the tweets contained in the @IDFspokesperson and @ISMPalestine Twitter accounts between late 2015 and early 2016. Using textual analysis, we gain an insight into how these Twitter accounts, defined by the conflict, are used in portraying the self and the other.
insights into how soon-to-be-graduates of business perceive their society and the corporations that operate within it, and thus communicate their understanding of corporate social responsibility.
with both sides enduring military and political turmoil. This paper explores how Twitter is being used as a medium to portray identities in the conflict. We examine the tweets contained in the @IDFspokesperson and @ISMPalestine Twitter accounts between late 2015 and early 2016. Using textual analysis, we gain an insight into how these Twitter accounts, defined by the conflict, are used in portraying the self and the other.