School of Arts, Social Sciences and Management
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Item THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF WHISTLEBLOWING IN THE SCOTTISH HEALTH SERVICE: AN INTERPLAY BETWEEN ORGANISATIONS, MEDIA AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE(2025) Burnett, AlexisThe act of whistleblowing has become a common, global phenomenon in recent decades, and the necessity to find satisfactory solutions has become a major focus for organisations world-wide. This is particularly important in the field of health, where the National Health Service has witnessed serious whistleblowing events to the detriment of healthcare staff and, perhaps more importantly, to patients. NHS Scotland is selected as a case study to explore the reconceptualization of whistleblowing as a normative organisational process. This research study contrasts with existing literature on whistleblowing, which has focused primarily on the treatment of healthcare whistleblowers at the hands of their managers and organisations, where the primary victim is the whistleblower, subjected to organisation reprisal. A qualitative research study has been undertaken, which includes interviews with NHS leaders, media coverage of high-profile whistleblowing cases and official whistleblowing-related documents. The primary theme of this thesis concentrates on whistleblowing institutionalisation as an emerging political process initiated by the Scottish Government. This thesis makes two main contributions to the issue of whistleblowing specifically in the Scottish health service. First, it provides evidence of the introduction of whistleblowing institutionalism through related policies and processes for the whole of NHS Scotland and associated organisations, including contractors. Second, it identifies media impact on public policy decision making in relation to whistleblowing with the discovery of a ‘whistleblowing’ specific frame. This frame provides empirical evidence of an influential media on the political landscape.Item Understanding unresolved higher education complaints: A mixed methods study on the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA)(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2025) Elkington, Ossian LeoHigher education (HE) is increasingly shaped by the pressures of marketisation, which positions students as consumers within a competitive educational marketplace. Amidst this shifting landscape, the resolution of student complaints has become a critical issue, raising fundamental questions about fairness, accessibility, and the efficacy of independent adjudication systems. This research addresses these concerns by examining the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), which serves as the principal complaint-handling body for unresolved disputes in HE across England and Wales. By blending theoretical and practical perspectives, this research seeks to illuminate the systemic factors shaping complaint outcomes and procedural fairness in a marketised HE context. Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach, the research comprises two complementary studies. The first is a quantitative analysis of cross-sectional secondary data from 5,111 OIA complaints, revealing key patterns in complainant demographics and their relationship to complaint outcomes. Notably, the findings underscore significant disparities, with males, ethnic minorities, and international (non-EU) students being less likely to secure remedies. The second study delves deeper into these patterns through a qualitative exploration of stakeholder perspectives. Thematic analysis of focus groups involving complainants, university staff, and OIA staff uncovers diverse experiences shaped by structural and procedural factors. Participants describe mixed perceptions of procedural justice, encompassing concerns over impartiality, communication barriers, and varying levels of support. The qualitative findings propose three typologies of complainants, Persistent Pursuers, Reluctant Escalators, and Resolution Seekers, highlighting the motivations and expectations influencing student engagement with the OIA. This thesis makes significant contributions to both academic discourse and practical policy. It explores the application of procedural justice theory to the unique context of a HE ombudsman and challenges existing paradigms of student complaining behaviour. By providing actionable insights into the disparities and barriers within the OIA’s processes, the research offers recommendations to enhance fairness, transparency, and equity in student complaint resolution. Ultimately, this work advocates for a more thorough and transparent adjudication system that reflects the diverse needs of HE students.Item DISORIENTATED AFFECTS: ENCOUNTERING QUEER TRAUMA THROUGH EXPERIMENTAL DOCUMENTARY FILM(2025) Mosch, ReginaThis arts-based PhD investigates microaggressions against queer bodies through an experimental documentary film art process. While the idea of a spectacular, very violent, and rupturing trauma experience begins to take on more nuanced perspectives through inquiries of feminist, post/de/anticolonial and queer scholarship, the particular fragmented, embodied and subjective affects of an exposure to microaggressions have as of yet not been fully understood within trauma studies. What do microaggressions do with queer bodies? How do they change their shape and distort their appearance, thus enacting oppression on and beneath the surface of queer bodies? Thisstudy uses experimental film aesthetics and a queer film-phenomenological lens informed by Sara Ahmed (2006) and Katharina Lindner (2018) to question dominant understandings of trauma as rupture and demands a sensibility to forms of violence that are invisible, intangible, fragmented or purely embodied. Introducing a queer politics of encountering and sharing trauma on a sensory level, this study particularly explores what the cumulative, piercing nature of microaggressions takes out of queer people’s grasp, yet also the potentials of aesthetic and practical disorientation for building new lines of thought and action. The co-creative exhibition over/exposed acts as the main vehicle to (de)construct spaces of queerness, co-creation and trauma in experimental documentary film. over/exposed negotiates trauma through various filmic, bodily and spatial surfaces; its encounters disorientate, twist and trouble co-creators, viewers and researcher as a queer politics of encountering and sharing trauma on a sensory level is assembled. Through an affective analysis of the 10 artworks as well as the co-creative process, this study reveals a new understanding of trauma as overexposure that brings attention to abrasions, frictions and subtle intrusions to queer bodies, the (power) relations within and beyond an artistic process and the significance of an instable and disorientated body for producing new knowledge.Item A PAPER OF RECORD: CONVERGENCE AND COMMUNITY AT THE GLASGOW HERALD(2025) Silver, ChristopherFounded in Glasgow in 1783, the Herald is among the oldest continuously published newspapers in the English-speaking world. In the late 20th century, the paper sought to cast off its reputation as an organ of once powerful local elites; with the goal of becoming the preeminent national paper of record for Scotland. This transformation necessitated an expansion in the range and extent of the Herald’s journalistic output: with a particular emphasis on culture, high literary standards, and the role of specialist correspondents with the requisite expertise to scrutinise state and civil society institutions. These developments form part of a cultural turn in Scottish journalism, facilitated by structural modernisation and energised by prefigurative impulses that emerged in the context of growing demands for enhanced political autonomy, alongside a broader revival of national identity and culture in Scotland. However, a seemingly resilient and expanding national media system, consolidated in the post-war era, was unprepared for the advent of global media convergence. Thus in 2003 Newsquest – a wholly owned subsidiary of US conglomerate Gannett – purchased the Herald and went on to substantially retrench the title’s editorial operations, resulting in a significant reduction in the range and extent of its journalistic output. This project combines a study of documentary and oral history sources which together constitute a cultural history of the Herald. Based on analysis of these sources, this project shows how Herald journalists sustained an interpretive community which resisted the pressures of media convergence by restating journalistic values and valorising institutional memory, while foregrounding the cultural value of the title. This project also situates the Herald’s cultural history and its transformations within wider theoretical debates about community, the public sphere, and modernity. Drawing on these fruitful connections, this thesis concludes by conceptualising four distinct transformations in journalistic culture and practice. These findings are grounded in the Herald’s particular interpretive community, but they also underline the broader salience of the journalistic record amid the pressures and possibilities of global media convergence.Item PROFESSIONALISED CARE: Relational Management at Alchemy Film & Arts(2025-03-12) Tully, KylaThe application of an ethic of care within arts management is of increasing interest to funders, managers, and policymakers invested in the European arts and culture sector as a facet of the perceived benefits of arts to community-building and regeneration efforts. The focus on the potential role of care as a value and a practice within arts management is most noticeable within the increased investment in socially-engaged art within community-centric projects and organisations due to its explicit focus on relationship-building, placemaking, and ultimately community care. Given the growing investment in arts work toward regeneration and maintenance in rural areas and localised communities, understandings of how care might be formalised within arts management practice in these community-centric contexts is vital for the management of individual creative and cultural projects and organisations, as well as the overall sector. The presented research within this thesis therefore investigates how an ethic of care can be incorporated within rural arts management practice alongside processes and expectations of professionalisation. The presented thesis critically examines the perceived importance of care within rural arts management and offers an illustrative perspective on the benefits, tensions, and complications around the relationship between care, management, and professionalisation within the context of rural arts. Alchemy Film & Arts, a cultural organisation based in the Scottish Borders town of Hawick specialising in experimental film and moving image, acts as a case for this exploration in the midst of a pivotal period of organisational development and navigation of precarious socioeconomic landscapes between 2020 and 2022. Through the application of ethnographic and creative research, the offered observations and findings explore the social and relational aspects of both work and management within the arts. The thesis concludes that practices of care within rural arts management are dependent on relationship-building and the context of place, and therefore cannot be fully standardised within processes of professionalisation and perceptions of professional practice. The theory of professionalised care is therefore introduced as part of the findings and observations as a structured yet adaptable way to facilitate the incorporation of ethics of care within rural arts management.Item MEMORY AND MUSEUM COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2024-12-11) Wallen, LinneaIn the past two decades, numerous scholars have highlighted the value of engagement with memory in museum projects. However, what memory – a complex and multifaceted concept – actually refers to in such projects has previously not been investigated in depth. In this thesis, I explore how memory is used, understood and conceptualised in museum community engagement activities in Scotland. Adopting a multiple instrumental case study approach underpinned by the theoretical perspectives of bricolage, hermeneutic phenomenology and practice theory, I examine the memory work in community engagement projects at three museums: The Scottish Crannog Centre, The Devil’s Porridge Museum and The Open Museum. The proximity to living memory varies significantly across the projects – from prehistory, to the First World War, to present day autobiographical memories – and through this variety I expose the nuanced and disparate memory work in the different museum contexts. I examine how the work is shaped by sectoral, institutional and project infrastructures that make certain kinds of participatory and collaborative community engagement practice (im-)possible. Through a combination of interviews, observations and document analysis analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, I critically discuss what memory work looks like and how it is achieved, accounting for museum practitioners’ and project participants’ understandings of what memory ‘is’, where it exists and how they work with it. I present the key findings as three conceptual theses: 1) The Constitution of Memory and Memory Work in Museum Community Engagement; 2) Caring For and About Memory; and, 3) Problematisation as Product and Process. In offering a multiplicitious conceptualisation of memory and critical engagement with the factors that shape memory work, I propose a refined understanding of the meaning, impact and processes of memory work in museum community engagement spaces.Item REDUCING AND MEASURING THE CROSS-RACE EFFECT(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2024-10) TÖREDI, DILHANIndividuals recognise same-race faces better than different race faces, a robust phenomenon called the cross-race effect (CRE). The CRE can contribute to mistaken identifications, making it crucial to study it. This project included two studies. The first aimed to reduce the CRE using targeted interventions and to evaluate how individual differences, confidence, and response time predict eyewitness accuracy. The second focused on creating a reliable measure of eyewitness accuracy for White and Asian witnesses and targets. Both studies examined the confidence-accuracy relationship for White and Asian targets. The first study compared known interventions to reduce the CRE (discrimination training, individuation instructions) against no intervention and explored new variables— individual differences in working memory capacity, selective attention, and need for cognition—and extant variables—confidence and response time—predicting accuracy. Contrary to expectations, participants (White, n = 403) showed similar identification accuracy of Asian and White faces. A CRE was observed for target-absent accuracy. Discrimination training altered the CRE (cf. control group): it increased correct rejections for cross-race faces but decreased them for same-race faces. Working memory capacity, confidence, and response time reliably predicted identification accuracy. Confidence and response time explained unique variance, but the variance explained by working memory capacity overlapped with these. The second study developed the CRE Inventory, combining known predictors of the CRE to improve the prediction of same- and cross-race eyewitness accuracy. A CRE was observed for White participants (n = 202). However, Asian participants (n = 203) recognised White faces similar to Asian faces—potentially because of their minority status. Exploratory factor analysis produced reliable scales with expected factors that significantly predicted identification performance: general face recognition ability, race-specific face recognition ability, racial attitudes towards White individuals, quantity of contact with Asian individuals, motivation to individuate White individuals, and cognitive disregard of Asian individuals. Three scales that predicted identification accuracy also explained unique variance compared to that explained by the eyewitness’ confidence. This research advances the CRE literature theoretically—by identifying factors that relate to recognition—and practically—by testing multiple predictors of accuracy and developing a tool to enhance the reliability evaluations of White eyewitnesses.Item I’M ACTUALLY AN ARTIST TOO… Artists who are arts managers(2024-06-26) Murray, SheilaThis research investigates how artists might resolve their dual professional identities and continue to be artists when also working in arts management in order to earn a more secure living than is usually possible from art alone. In doing so, it asks how arts organisations could benefit more greatly from the creative practice of the artists they employ as arts managers. The study questions the assumption that artists who work as arts managers must have ‘failed’ in their artistic ambitions and argues that a more nuanced approach is necessary. Rather than artists abandoning their creative practice, and necessitating their identity as an artist being kept ‘invisible’ in the workplace, this thesis argues for both their art and artistic identity to be a visible part of their practice as managers. If this were to happen, it is argued artists and arts management would both stand to gain. The study adopted a qualitative methodology and involved a multi-method, three-phase approach. The first phase recorded data about the lived experiences of 30 participants working primarily as arts managers across a range of creative sectors. The second phase took the form of an intervention into their professional practice and asked a smaller group to make at least one artwork in the context of their work as arts managers. This included several individuals who work in a single arts organisation. The third phase investigated the data generated from an online group discussion attended by a smaller group of participants. As a former artist, arts manager and maker of contemporary jewellery, I took part in all three phases as a participant-researcher. The thesis concludes by arguing that arts organisations, and the artist-managers who work in them, need to bring about change through incremental steps, and by consensus. This change is not only to enable artist-managers to retain their creative practices and identity, but in order for the arts organisations where they work to benefit from the particular skills and knowledge artist-managers can bring. It is argued that this is best achieved through dialogue, rather than by keeping the two different, but interdependent practices separate. In this way, through the recognition and visibility of creative practice in the arts workplace, both would be strengthened.Item RHIZOMATIC TRANSPOSITIONS: INCLUDING CREATIVE PRACTICE WITHIN WATER MANAGEMENT POLICY(2024-06-26) Manley, Nicole Antoinette LucieWestern ontology has traditionally viewed rivers as objects for the intentional purposes of human society. Water policy ensures that rivers are maintained to distribute water and protect against flooding. However, with climate change, the health of many rivers is decreasing, while risk of flooding from rivers is increasing. Water policies appear to be unable to change such negative trends, which are inter-related with poor and exploitative human/river relationships. To form a different relationship between humankind and rivers, this creative practice research develops creative practice based on nomadic ontology and psychosocial perspectives. The research develops a methodology that aims to transform the human/river relationship. Practice-led approaches are employed as an exploration of the artist’s creative practice, including 1) physical immersion in water, 2) underwater film, and 3) aerial photographic collage. Using personal reflective methods that critically analysed the artist’s affective experience, a transformative approach was developed, called the ‘Site of possibility’, which created a site of affective engagement between human and rivers that was different from daily habitual routine. Participatory methods included walking, poetry, mark-making and a creative interpretation of the dialogic method known as the ‘visual matrix’. Emerging differences in perception became Deleuzian ‘deterritorialization’, a shift of mind and heart through creative participatory practice. People’s habitual views of rivers became reterritorialized so that human/river relationships were transformed into a new awareness of human positionality in relation to rivers and, potentially, in relation to policy design directed at water. In three case studies, the Site of possibility creative approach proved successful in transforming people’s perceptions and positions in relationship in relationship to rivers in ways that could potentially inform water policy, creating a more bioegalitarian relationship between rivers and people. These findings show that creative practice approaches have potential to inform water policy and provide direction and guidance for systemic change to problems of governance for rivers.Item SMALL TOURISM BUSINESS SURVIVAL IN THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2024-06-26) John, LeeiThis study investigates the role of strategic approaches in the survival of small tourism businesses in the Eastern Caribbean, focusing specifically on Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and St. Lucia. Despite the acknowledged significance of strategic management in fostering business growth and longevity, scant attention has been given to traditional strategic approaches within small tourism enterprises in developing economies heavily reliant on tourism. The Caribbean, renowned for its diverse and attractive tourism offerings, remains a hotbed for multinational tourism corporations, yet the impact of small businesses within this economic landscape remains understudied. Drawing from an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, the study combines qualitative interviews with 31 participants and a survey of 217 small tourism businesses to elucidate the internal and external factors influencing survival and explore specific strategic approaches employed by these enterprises. Findings reveal five validated factors—low season impact, peak and off-peak dynamics, strategic closure, management, and survival—identified through a newly developed measuring instrument (SIDE). Contrary to prevailing assumptions, the study concludes that strategic approaches do not significantly contribute to small tourism business survival in the Eastern Caribbean. External challenges such as political influences, networking constraints, competition, and seasonality, alongside internal obstacles like employee deviance, emerge as critical barriers to survival. These findings underline the intense business environment faced by small tourism enterprises in developing economies reliant on tourism, urging scholars and policymakers to consider these dynamics in future research and decision-making processes. While the research provides a theoretical foundation for understanding survival dynamics, it acknowledges the existence of additional factors shaping small tourism business survival within the dynamic tourism industry, emphasizing the need for future studies to explore these dimensions comprehensively.
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