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1 – 7 of 7April 2000 sees the beginning of a radical shake‐up of the way housing and support is funded. It will involve the transfer of about £800m to local authorities, which will assume…
Abstract
April 2000 sees the beginning of a radical shake‐up of the way housing and support is funded. It will involve the transfer of about £800m to local authorities, which will assume wide new responsibilities for new groups of people currently in supported housing.Yet there is little awareness in many agencies of these major developments. It is essential that local authorities and health agencies become more engaged, quickly, in discussions of how Supporting People is to work.
Melanie Babooram, Barbara Ann Mullan and Louise Sharpe
The aim of this paper is to qualitatively examine the ways in which primary school children, aged between 7 and 12, perceive various facets of obesity as defined by the common…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to qualitatively examine the ways in which primary school children, aged between 7 and 12, perceive various facets of obesity as defined by the common sense model of illness representation (CCM).
Design/methodology/approach
The study was qualitative in nature. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 33 children on all dimensions of the CSM. Twenty four children were normal weight and nine were overweight. A drawing task formed the methodology for the “identity” section of the interview.
Findings
Although children identified food intake as a main cause of obesity, almost half did not name sedentary behaviours as a cause of obesity. Duration (timeline) of obesity was regarded by most children as reliant on a person's undertaking of positive health behaviours. Normal weight children were found to list more severe consequences of obesity than the overweight group. It was found that experience contributed to the detailed knowledge of overweight children's perceptions of cures of obesity. Overweight children also spoke of personal incidents of barriers to cures.
Practical imlications
The findings suggest that the CSMs can be used to classify children's perceptions of obesity. Future childhood obesity interventions can utilise these findings to create campaigns and strategies that are more consistent with children's understandings of this condition.
Originality/value
To the authors' knowledge, no previous study has examined children's perceptions of obesity beyond perceived causes.
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Keywords
Pablo Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, Mercedes Viera-Armas and Gabriel De Blasio García
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to a workplace that lacks mindfulness and compassion. The authors first hypothesize that supervisors’ mindfulness is related to the mindfulness of their direct followers, and that both are related to employees’ compassion at work. The authors also hypothesize that compassion mediates the link between supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness and cyberloafing, and that empathic concern mediates the link from compassion to cyberloafing.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was distributed to followers working in groups of three with the same leader in all of the 100 banks in London (UK). Supervisors and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) for analyses.
Findings
Results showed that supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness were significantly related to each other and to compassion at work, but compassion acted as a mediator only in the case of supervisors’ mindfulness. Empathic concern mediated the compassion-cyberloafing link.
Research limitations/implications
The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias and specificities of banks and their work processes can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that mindfulness training may facilitate compassion at work, which, in turn, will restrain the occurrence of cyberloafing at work.
Originality/value
This is the first study to analyze how and why employees refrain from harming their organizations out of compassion.
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Keywords
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Ana Isabel Polo-Peña, Dolores María Frías-Jamilena and María Lina Fernández-Ruano
In advanced societies, lifestyles are increasingly sedentary, and it is important to identify strategies to help people acquire healthy habits, such as exercise. The present study…
Abstract
Purpose
In advanced societies, lifestyles are increasingly sedentary, and it is important to identify strategies to help people acquire healthy habits, such as exercise. The present study proposes the use of gamification as a strategy for encouraging users to exercise regularly, based on the possibilities offered by “smart” devices such as smartbands.
Design/methodology/approach
The work analyzes how individuals experience their participation in a gamification program, on the premise that it should provide an experience that is intrinsically motivating and fun. Also the moderator effect of the gender and age on the relationship between their experience of participating in a gamification program and perceived self-efficacy.
Findings
The results show that individuals' experience of participating in a gamification program exerts a positive influence on their perceived self-efficacy in the practice of sport or exercise. The study also finds that the variables “gender” and “age” moderate the relationship between their experience of participating in a gamification program and perceived self-efficacy, such that it exerts a greater influence on women and older people.
Practical implications
The practical implications for the professionals and institutions involved in promoting the adoption of regular sport and exercise in society are about taking advantage of the potential of wearable technology such as smartbands. The present study finds that the use of gamification for encouraging people to adopt regular physical activity is more effective for women than for men, and for older people than for younger users.
Originality/value
The findings of this study provide a better understanding of whether gamification is an appropriate strategy for helping participants to perceive themselves as having greater self-efficacy in their chosen sport or exercise, taking into account the moderating effect of participant gender and age.
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