The ideal self as the driver of intentional change

Project Managers’ Competence Identification

The objective of this article is to help align higher education of future project managers to the contemporary requirements of global project business. The perspective is project managers’ competencies in knowledge intensive industry, such as in IT branch. In this paper, it is considered that a holistic view of competence self-evaluation helps to assess the current intentional change. The system introduced supports decision making by measuring and capturing the actual drivers designed specifically for the role of project manager. Generalizing the competence identification process appears to be more constructive than detailing about competence content itself. This study brings valuable and novel empirical data using a sample of students acting as project managers in Spain and a sample of experienced project managers from Finland. A number of possible future studies using the same experimental set up are apparent.

Exploring identity within the recovery process of people with serious mental illnesses

OBJECTIVE

To examine self-identity within the recovery processes of people with serious mental illnesses using a repertory grid methodology.

METHOD

Cross-sectional study involving 40 mental health service consumers. Participants rated different "self" and "other" elements on the repertory grid against constructs related to recovery, as well as other recovery focused measures.

RESULTS

Perceptions of one's "ideal self" represented more advanced recovery in contrast to perceptions of "a person mentally unwell." Current perceptions of self were most similar to perceptions of "usual self" and least similar to "a person who is mentally unwell." Increased identification with one's "ideal self" reflected increased hopefulness in terms of recovery.

CONCLUSIONS

The recovery repertory grid shows promise in clinical practice, in terms of exploring identity as a key variable within mental health recovery processes. Distance measures of similarity between various self-elements, including perceptions of others, maps logically against the recovery process of hope.