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Child-cen1red practice is a key concept in social work with children and families, yet its origins, its definition and most importantly its effects have not been specifically explored. The discourse of child-centred practice is seen to have emerged through the influential findings of inquiries into child deaths in the 1980's. In this it is firmly located within a child protection orientation to child welfare which has the potential to affect the practice approach to parents and carers. This study asked twenty local authority field social workers, assessing and providing services to children in need and their families, what child-centred practice meant to them, and how endeavouring to be child-centred impacted on their practice. The research method was qualitative, using a semi-structured interview schedule. The analysis considered the themes emerging from the discourse of the practitioners to consider how the concept 'child-centred' is constructed. In their discourse the practitioners were considered to be on a continuum between 'child-oriented' and 'family-oriented'. There were no examples of 'parent-oriented' discourse where the child was 'lost' in the work. Organisational structures and processes were considered to impact on the practitioners' ability to be child-centred. The findings of the study suggest that practitioners see themselves as upholding a child-centred practice which, where appropriate, involves working with the child within the family and offering support to parents, but when necessary involves action to protect the child. In this they are managing the complex task set for them by legislation of protecting the child and supporting their welfare and development whilst working, as far as possible, in partnership with parents. It is my contention that, for the most part, skilled and experienced practitioners are doing this by holding onto a relationship-based supportive approach despite many competing demands.

Signaling theory has improved our understanding of how the release of new private information signals by a firm insider can influence the decision-making processes of outsiders. While much research has focused on the influences of hard information signals (easy to codify unambiguous information; e.g., a new patent approval), we still know relatively little about soft information signals (hard to codify ambiguous information; e.g., a market orientation). This dissertation explores this gap in the literature by studying the soft signals of normative and economic orientations sent by top managers to the market in the context of quarterly earnings conference calls—a routine corporate practice wherein top managers inform shareholders about the firm’s current and future strategy. The present dissertation makes an important distinction between normatively oriented soft signals (concerned with the creation of normative value) and economically oriented soft signals (concerned with the creation of economic value). The antecedents and consequences of these signals are studied, and the following research questions are asked: How do earnings for the quarter (met or missed) influence normative and economic signaling in a conference call? How does the market react to normative and economic signals, under different earnings conditions? These research questions are investigated through computer-assisted-text-analysis (CATA) methodology and event-study methodology with a multi-quarter longitudinal sample of 1,920 observations. Analysis of variance and fixed-effects regression analyses were performed to test this dissertation’s hypotheses. Firms that missed their earnings were found to use more economic language than firms that met/beat their earnings, while normative language was not found to differ based on earnings conditions. When earnings were met/beat, both normative and economic orientation signals were found to positively influence market performance, but the latter had a greater positive influence than the former. However, when earnings were missed, neither normative nor economic orientation signals were found to have an effect on market performance. A discussion of these results concludes this dissertation and highlights the potential benefits of impression management when earnings are missed, the usefulness and additive nature of soft information signals when earnings are met/beat, and the need to carefully prepare conference calls regardless of earnings direction.