This article analyses state-society relations in Ethiopia with particular emphasis on the post-1991 period. The objective of the study is to identify and analyse the fundamental factors of state-society relations at the national level: property rights, political representation, and the urban-rural elite cleavage. The article views state-society relations at the local level with reference to per...

While the advent of technology has revolutionized how businesses operate and how work is done, it has also opened up new avenues and opportunities for individuals to misbehave. This study focused on cyberloafing—the act of employees using their companies’ Internet access for personal purposes during work hours. Using the theoretical framework offered by research on neutralization techniques, we...

This study reports the findings of 6 focus groups conducted with male and female managers working in information technology (IT) at three different companies. The views the managers shared regarding the barriers that men who work in IT face that their female counterparts do not are presented. The themes which emerged in the analysis are viewed through the lens of gender schema theory. In this s...

“I am just a stereotype” sang Terry Hall in 1980. Ariola records took them in and made the band The Specials a world success. How will that process go in 2014? Will they put it on You Tube for free? Do they need a record company? Will they have less or more fans, earn less or more money? Focus group interviews with 90 people between the ages of 15 and 25 were successfully employed to create 20 ...

This work aims to describe the elderly people’s opinions when they are presented scenarios developed into the HERMES project. Two focus groups were held in Austria and Spain in order to collect their impressions about the way in which the technology can cover their needs. Though some of them are reluctant to use the technology, they welcomed some functionalities of the HERMES system and they co...

Sustainable communities are promoted as a desirable policy goal and, in particular, local authorities are encouraged to contribute to climate change mitigation through urban planning. Furthermore, recent research takes a broad perspective on the environmental sustainability of urban areas and considers the environmental impact of all consumption. A focus group study was conducted in Finland for...

The paper describes a study conducted in Rwanda involving 12 participants selected from a larger cohort of 24 final-year university students who were part of a group based training programme. The programme was about how to search, retrieve and use webbased literature. Empirical data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions. The purpose was to explore ways of using Informati...

Despite the fact that governments continue to push the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in public service provision, their adoption rate has not always been as high as expected. In this research, we focus on indicators that could lead to the adoption of video-to-video communication in education. With this aim we organized three focus groups with teachers from Ireland and Gr...

How do women experience the climate of engineering undergraduate education? How is this shaped by race/ethnicity? Using a focus group methodology, we interviewed women who self-identify as Asian, Latina and White at a large public institution in the southeastern United States. Their narratives are analyzed using the interdisciplinary theoretical framework of “microaggressions” from the social s...