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This dissertation draws on published memoirs, autobiographies, biographies and other sources to explore the higher educational experiences of people who served in UK cabinets and shadow cabinets between 1964 and 2015 and some of their contemporaries. It applies and seeks to contribute to thinking on elite formation associated with Pierre Bourdieu - in particular his work on habitus and capital. It further seeks to explain why graduates of Oxford and Cambridge were so heavily represented at senior levels in the field of parliamentary politics throughout this period, comprising 54% of the political elite and 62% of its graduate population. The thesis argues that Bourdieu's analytical framework provides as useful and valid a means of analysing elite education in the UK as it does in France, despite the very considerable institutional differences between our established systems. It does not, however, provide a complete explanation of why some individuals are more successful than others at reaching elite positions in the political field. This is because Bourdieu only took account of sociological factors in his work, downplaying or ignoring the significance of those which are psychological or biological in nature. On the question of disproportionate representation of Oxbridge graduates among the UK political elite, the thesis concludes that this can be explained to a considerable extent by the opportunities that have been available at Oxford and Cambridge for undergraduates to engage in confidence-building activities and to accumulate non-financial forms of capital while also imbibing field-specific forms of habitus. While similar opportunities were provided at most universities during the Twentieth Century, they tended to be somewhat richer and more plentiful at Oxford and Cambridge.

The success of any formal mentoring scheme depends on whether the organisation provides support and anticipates challenges, and if mentors and protégés can maximise their mentoring relationship. To understand formal mentoring comprehensively, it is helpful to consider the organisation, mentor and protégé together. Studying and understanding only one of the salient actors in mentoring, as most of the literature has tended to do, arguably only provides a partial picture of mentoring. By considering and understanding the role of the organisation, mentor and protégé, this study shifts from thinking about mentoring as an interaction between individuals to mentoring as a system. Hence, at the individual level this thesis will include the perspectives and experiences of mentors and protégés. At the organisational level, the perspectives and experiences of mentoring coordinators who mostly represent the role of the organisation in formal mentoring, will be taken into consideration. Through a single in-depth case study, this study employed a qualitative methodology. It represents the notion that conceptualisations and notions derived from empirical investigations are more appropriate for comprehending "what is going on" in a formal mentoring relationship. Using semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations, the data develops and evolves based on participant insights and behaviours. Research participants were selected based on their participation and involvement in formal mentoring, using a sampling technique known as purposive sampling. Using thematic analysis, the data were organised and coded. As the study is conducted at a public organisation in Malaysia, the budi principles held by Malaysian employees are reflected in the formal mentoring process. The findings of the study lead to the development of a formal mentoring framework for a public sector organisation that focuses specifically on the roles of the organisation, mentor and protégé. The framework revealed that there are social supports that need to be provided by the organisation, namely: instrumental and emotional support. The importance of the organisation providing emotional support towards mentoring participants is scarce in the literature. This study discovered that emotional support constitutes providing recognition and appreciation, empowering a sense of flexibility and reassurance through committee meetings. For the mentor role, while this study is consistent with previous mentoring literature, it expands on the role of the mentor to promote wellness in the relationship by emphasising the five dimensions of wellness: social, emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual. It is important to highlight that the role of the mentor is not only focused on work, but the study emphasises the importance of the mentor's role in the wellness aspect. The study supports the 'best practises' of the protégé role in the mentoring literature which revolve around the willingness to commit to the relationship and the desire to grow. Despite this, the study adds to the literature by demonstrating how reflective practise through log book reporting on mentoring activities can provide the protégé with the opportunity to internally examine and explore recent experiences, thereby making it more comprehensible and increasing the likelihood of a positive change in the protégé's perspective. This is important in the complexity of the work environment of public sector employees today, especially for the new hires such as protégés to train themselves to think critically through reflective practise so they can be better equipped to face issues at work. Practically, the developed formal mentoring framework can be utilised as a basis and guide for public organisations, particularly in Malaysia, that wish to implement a formal mentoring programme. To ensure its success, the study suggests measuring the framework by using a Benefit Realisation Plan.

The aim of the study is to obtain an in-depth understanding of smaller tax practice in the UK, from the perspective of the tax practitioner. The practitioner voice, the empirical data, was collected via a focus group and semi-structured interviews. The thesis investigates how changes in the tax field impact upon smaller tax practice and adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach to generate rich descriptions of tax practice. The study examines the client/practitioner relationship and the practitioner/tax authority relationship and also investigates how the practitioner sees their role within this tripartite relationship. The findings suggest that there are a number of 'client expectation gaps' between what clients want and what practitioners can achieve in provision of service to them. These are the 'expert', 'scope', 'HMRC' and 'fee' gaps. Gaps between the type of relationship and service practitioners desire from HMRC and that which they experience are also identified. These are the 'relationship', 'trust', 'systems' and 'knowledge' gaps. The data also provides evidence about positive aspects of the relationship. The study finds that practitioners adopt a number of roles to enable management of these gaps and to fulfil their responsibilities to both clients and HMRC. The gaps arise as a consequence of the dynamic, complex and interdisciplinary tax field in which smaller tax practice plays out. The tax field consists of various actors and is overlaid by a number of fields, such as the legal, political, judicial and bureaucratic field, of which Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is part. Thus by viewing smaller tax practice against the tax field, a deeper understanding of tax practice is attained. A theoretical framework, a Bourdieusian lens, with a focus upon 'fields' is employed to enable this analysis. Few studies have examined smaller tax practice, yet it is an important market. Smaller tax practice plays an integral role in the tax system, representing thousands of taxpayers, including small and medium sized businesses. Without the help of the tax practitioner taxpayers may find it difficult to meet their tax obligations, given the complexities in the UK tax system. The findings will be of interest to policymakers, the tax authorities, scholars, professional bodies and practitioners alike.

This thesis draws on a Bourdieusian perspective to explore the organisational mechanisms and dynamics in Palestinian politically motivated social movement. The consequent body of literature often lacks an integrated comprehension of Bourdieusian theory, and his three main concepts: field, habitus, and capital. Little has been understood about Bourdieu’s concepts in social movement context to understand the activists’ behaviours, practices, and practical reasoning in structuring their choices and practices. Being inspired by Bourdieu, the researcher relationally analyses and bridges between different subjectivist and objectivist perspectives on social structures and agents’ practices through employing the relational tool-kit of Bourdieu. To further understand the dynamics, mechanisms, and interorganisational and intraorganisational relations in social movements, an interpretive approach was used to gather context-rich data from ordinary activists, core activists and organisers. Findings showed that fields of practices, both external and internal, have specific doxa and species of capital, which shape the rules of the game inside this field, and its relationship with other fields. Data collected found that the ‘state field’ enjoys the most dominant doxa in the Palestinian context, which is deployed to legitimise the oppression of the politically-motivated youth movements that were studied. The external and internal fields’ doxa have a crucial influence on agents’ early socialisation, forms of capital, and field’s positioning. This variation and difference between the activists’ habitus caused multiple modes of domination and conflictual dynamics inside the movement itself in relation to features such as political credibility, recruiting parochialism, ideological conflicts, and repertoires of contention. This study contributes to a more dynamic understanding of the habitus as an open mediating concept and a reflexive space which transforms the activists’ behaviours and actions in some incidents. The findings have implications for social movement practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders such as activism groups and bodies, pressure groups, unions, and human rights and civil society associations. It is suggested that future research examining politically-motivated social movements should consider ethnographic methods to capture multiple observational data and contextual findings. In addition, it is suggested further examine habitus mechanisms in reproduction, change and transformation times.

This study examines the role of board social and human capital in assessing the market value of firms in the UK context. As the world economy has shifted from manufacturing to service and knowledge-based economies, attributes such as knowledge, expertise, skills, ability and reputation are increasingly fundamental to the success of business enterprises. There is a growing consensus that these attributes are an increasingly valuable form of capital, asset or resource, despite their intangibility. In accounting, there are a number of problems arising from the accountability of non-physical, non-financial capital. Firstly, some forms of capital and certain assets are neither recognised nor presented in the statement of financial position. Secondly, some accounting practices relating to intangible assets are very conservative, resulting in undervalued assets and overstated liabilities. Consequently, there is an increasing gap between the book value and market value of firms. This gap restricts the relevance of information presented in financial statements and suggests that there is something missing in financial statements. This is the research problem being addressed in this study. While prior literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult to operationalise intangible forms of capital, there has been significant empirical attention and theoretical development in social and human forms. This thesis aims to contribute to accounting theory and practice by exploring the impact that board social and human capital have on firm market value. In light of extant research, it is hypothesised that social and human capital possessed at board level are positively related to the market value of firms. This study employs the Ohlson’s (1995) residual income valuation model to test the impact of social and human capital using a sample of UK firms listed on the FTSE All Share index for a period of 10 years (2001-2010). Social and human capital measures are derived from interlocking directorate ties and detailed biographic information of board directors. This study benefits from Pajek and Ucinet network packages to generate network maps and calculate positional metrics such as centrality and structural hole measures.

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how individual consumers negotiate in the collective community in order to co-create value. By making use of the concepts of ‘resources’ from the Service Dominant Logic of Marketing and ‘cultural lens’ from Consumer Culture Theory, this dissertation considers both individual and collective interaction in order to demonstrate the roles of individual consumers in the value creation process and how the value creation process works. A comprehensive and up to date review of literature provides a guide to the theory and a path for research. This dissertation employed netnography to understand social and cultural aspects of consumption from an online football fan community. The data collection also included participant and non-participant observations, and local fans interviewings. Hermeneutical framework of interpretation was used to analyse data. The findings show that consumers can co-create value among themselves through the roles of ‘provider’ and ‘beneficiary’. It shows the dynamic movement of individual consumers within the continuous learning process of value creation. This dissertation demonstrates that brand community plays a role as a platform of value creation. Consumers can co-create value among themselves through the process of engaging, educating and enriching. The finding demonstrates active roles of consumers in value creation process. This dissertation also discusses how inequalities between resources of consumers in brand community can cause conflicts among them and how these conflicts stimulate consumers to co-create the collective resources. Within this process, consumers have collectively balanced the power through the social interaction in order to eliminate the domination and conflicts. This dissertation extends the previous researches in value creation within brand community by demonstrating how individual consumers engage and negotiated in value creation process. It contributes to respond working consumers and double exploitation through ‘sacrifice’.