Search results

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the combined impact of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism on individual performance.

A structural model is theorized and data from 250 individuals working for private organizations were analyzed using partial-least-squares structural equation modeling.

Both the ethical environment and organizational trust positively impact workplace optimism. Of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism, only workplace optimism directly impacts individual performance. The impact of the ethical environment and organizational trust on individual performance is indirect through workplace optimism.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to assess the combined impact of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism on individual performance. It is important to conduct similar studies to verify these findings.

An ethical environment and organizational trust foster high levels of workplace optimism that in turn lead to improved employee performance.

The important role that workplace optimism plays within the ethical climate of organizations is theorized and assessed. This is the first empirical assessment of the mediational role of workplace optimism on the established relationships between ethical environment and individual performance, and organizational trust and individual performance.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The literature on electroless gold deposition processes is reviewed both with respect to bath formulation and the kinetics of the electrochemical reduction and oxidation reactions involved. Some modified formulations are discussed in more detail and components processed by the use of electroless gold deposition are illustrated.

Designing learning experiences that mimic real-life contexts has always been a challenge for leadership educators. As a result, many educators in leadership courses rely on studies of leadership perspectives, selfassessment activities, and textbook case analysis. However, many educators also successfully design microlevel processes and interactions that offer students the opportunity to experience the dynamics of power and influence whereby they practice leadership. Others explore the daunting challenges of placing students in various organizations to practice leadership. This latter type of practicing leadership is often full of challenges because of the reluctance of organizations to allow practicing students in decision making processes. In this paper, I present a two-week teaching segment in which leader dilemmas are used as inputs for practicing leadership in micro-level processes. The segment is designed in such a way that it mimics real life group dynamics, problem solving, and decision dilemmas. The objective is to provide a context wherein students practice micro-influence making as they experience the complexity of group life and, at the same time, learn to reflect on their learning, emotion, and the potential capacity to lead and follow.

The present paper reviews the research literature on trust in bargaining and mediation. Several models of trust within the bargaining process are also described. It is concluded that trust means different things, depending upon the relationship under investigation. Trust among negotiators can refer to a personality trail (how trusting a negotiator is of others) or to a temporary state. Within the state perspective, trust often refers to one of three orientations: (1) cooperative motivational orientation (MO), (2) patterns of predictable behavior, (3) a problem‐solving orientation. Trust between a negotiator and constituents usually refers to a cooperative MO (i.e., shared loyalty) between these two groups. The addition of a mediator can impact both the opposing negotiators' relationship and each negotiator‐constituent relationship; the mediator also has direct and indirect relationships with the parties and their constituents. Future directions for research on trust are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of gas supply security enjoyed by the three Baltic States: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The research is predominantly qualitative and is based on information gathered at interviews, policy analysis and analysis of national statistics on the structure of gas consumption.

The research finds that the three Baltic States enjoy a relatively low level of gas supply security and that of the three, Lithuania, with more extensive dual fuel obligations, is most secure.

The paper presents work on countries in a previously under‐researched region and provides a detailed and tailored analysis of their gas supply security situations and policies.

This paper aims to assess COVID-19 as presenting both a crisis and opportunity for police trust and legitimacy by considering the role of police in delivering the legislative requirements of government and enforcing various health orders across Australia and New Zealand.

The research relies on a mixed-methods analysis of national, commonwealth, state and territory policy, corporate police reports, academic commentary and media coverage throughout the pandemic. Survey data gathered during the pandemic relevant to trust and legitimacy in police and government is also analysed.

Five findings relating to police trust and legitimacy are identified. They reveal that police mostly did seize the pandemic as an opportunity to implement practices that enhanced perceptions of trust and legitimacy. However, even where police were able to leverage COVID-19 as an opportunity, the protracted nature of the pandemic posed a challenge for maintaining trust and legitimacy gains. The findings also underscore the importance of a continued focus on building trust and legitimacy post-pandemic to counter any lingering consequences.

The applicability of the findings outside the Australian and New Zealand context may be limited, given differences in jurisdictional legislative frameworks and policing operational environments.

This study identifies good community engagement practice for pandemic policing, contributes to communication strategies for managing trust decay during an emergency, forecasts ongoing trust and legitimacy challenges to policing’s post-pandemic operational environment and enhances aspects of post-pandemic recruitment approaches.

The findings contribute to emerging police practice and research on building and sustaining trust and legitimacy during periods of uncertainty and volatility, such as during and after a pandemic.

Frederick Taylor, the “Father of Scientific Management” is recognized as a pioneer in the field of management. However, many unfair criticisms have been leveled at him starting with the infamous Congressional hearings of 1911. Many scholars of management history believe that such criticisms have resulted in negative portrayals of Frederick Taylor in both practitioner and academic circles, and even in some basic management textbooks. This is unfortunate because many of those criticisms result from either a failure to read and understand Taylor's original works or from misinterpretations of them. The purpose of this paper is to contend that students of management will develop a more accurate impression of Frederick Taylor if they read his words and not interpretations of them.

First, an introduction of Frederick Taylor and scientific management is presented. Then, a categorization of common criticisms of Taylor is offered. The results of a study conducted to measure undergraduate business students' impressions of Taylor from their exposure to him in an introductory management course are then presented. The students then give their impressions of statements taken from Taylor's original work and are tested on the differences between them.

The results of the analyses suggest that students have a negative impression of Taylor from their textbooks, but their reaction to statements taken from the original works of Taylor are rated quite favorably.

Future research could be conducted to determine whether the works of other seminal management theorists should be presented in their complete contexts and direct sources to provide students with a more accurate and complete portrayal of their ideas.

This paper is unique in that it empirically tests whether negative attitudes towards Frederick Taylor and scientific management persist after students are exposed to original source works.

WHILE there is no doubt that the system of issuing books at “net” prices is of great benefit to booksellers, there is also no doubt that, unless care is taken, it is a serious drain upon a limited book‐purchasing income. A few years ago the position had become so serious that conferences were held with a view to securing the exemption of Public Libraries from the “net” price. The attempt, as was perhaps to be expected, failed. Since that time, the system has been growing until, at the present time, practically every non‐fictional book worth buying is issued at a “net price.”

At the commencement of this decade, leaving behind the “striking seventies”, we christened it the “anxious eighties”, for there was a profound disquiet and uncertainty among most of the population, a fear that things were going to get worse, but they could have hardly expected the catastrophic events of the year 1981. The criteria of quality of life are its richness, grace, elegance; by the promise it contains; inspiration and purpose, hope, determination (to survive, to make certain that the evildoer is not permitted to succeed), love of one's country — pro patria, of other days.