Lindsey Morse, Mark Trompet, Alexander Barron, Richard Anderson and Daniel J. Graham
This paper describes a benchmarking framework applied to medium-sized urban public bus agencies in the United States, which has overcome the challenges of data quality…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper describes a benchmarking framework applied to medium-sized urban public bus agencies in the United States, which has overcome the challenges of data quality, comparability, and understanding.
Design/methodology/approach
The benchmarking methodology described in this paper is based on lessons learned through seven years of development of a fixed-route key performance indicator (KPI) system for the American Bus Benchmarking Group (ABBG). Founded in 2011, the ABBG is a group of public medium-sized urban bus agencies that compare performance and share best practices with peers throughout the United States. The methodology is adapted from the process used within international benchmarking groups facilitated by Imperial College and consists of four main elements: peer selection, KPI system development, processes to achieve high-quality data, and processes to understand relative performance and change.
Findings
The four main elements of the ABBG benchmarking methodology consist of 18 subelements, which when applied overcome three main benchmarking challenges: comparability, data quality, and understanding. While serving as examples for the methodology elements, the paper provides specific insights into service characteristics and performance among ABBG agencies.
Research limitations/implications
The benchmarking approach described in this paper requires time and commitment and thus is most suitably applied to a concise group of agencies.
Practical implications
This methodology provides transit agencies, authorities, and benchmarking practitioners a framework for effective benchmarking. It will lead to high-quality comparable data and a strong understanding of the performance context to serve as a basis for organizational changes, whether for policy, planning, operations, stakeholder communication, or program development.
Originality/value
The methodology, while consistent with recommendations from literature, is unique in its scale, in-depth validation and analysis, and holistic and multidimensional approach.
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Verity Chester, Anthony Scott Brown, John Devapriam, Sharon Axby, Claire Hargreaves and Rohit Shankar
There is increasing emphasis on caring for people with intellectual disabilities in the least restrictive, ideally community settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
There is increasing emphasis on caring for people with intellectual disabilities in the least restrictive, ideally community settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the risk factors considered by clinicians involved in discharging people from secure services.
Design/methodology/approach
The views of five senior clinicians were sought in semi structured interviews. Data were analysed thematically.
Findings
Themes related to risk assessment, risk management, and multidisciplinary and multiagency working. Illustrative quotes are used to evidence themes.
Practical implications
This study described the risk assessment and management factors considered during the discharge of patients from secure to community services, which are of direct relevance to multiple stakeholders post-Winterbourne.
Originality/value
Challenges when facilitating discharge were highlighted, such as ongoing risk management issues, or unexpected discharge from tribunals, and how these were addressed, via the development of extensive risk assessment and management processes, and interdisciplinary and interagency working.
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Stephen R. Getty, Kenneth E. Barron and Chris S. Hulleman
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an important driver of student well-being, academic achievement, and future success. Despite decades of work on motivation theory and…
Abstract
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an important driver of student well-being, academic achievement, and future success. Despite decades of work on motivation theory and frameworks to promote student motivation and achievement outcomes, connections between motivation and recent frameworks and measures of SEL could be stronger. The purpose of our chapter is to help address this shortcoming. First, we begin by reviewing which theories of motivation currently appear in major SEL frameworks. Second, we introduce how a more comprehensive theory of motivation (based on an expectancy–value–cost framework) could be incorporated into SEL frameworks to advance their overall impact. Third, using examples from our ongoing research in STEM classrooms, we show how a broader knowledge of motivation can inform practitioners on how to promote key SEL competencies and subsequent achievement and engagement for students, especially to address inequities for historically marginalized and minoritized students. Finally, we close with recommendations for future directions for research and practice.
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WHERE are we going? The aim is to double our standard of living in the next 25 years and, as Sir Alexander Fleck, K.B.E., Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., so aptly…
Abstract
WHERE are we going? The aim is to double our standard of living in the next 25 years and, as Sir Alexander Fleck, K.B.E., Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., so aptly staled recently, ‘The man who knows where he is going is the one who is most likely to arrive.’ One might venture to expand this statement by adding that he is still more likely to arrive if the cluttering debris of inefficient methods and movements are cleared away.
This paper examines the role of professional associations, governmental agencies, and international accounting and auditing bodies in promulgating standards to deter and detect…
Abstract
This paper examines the role of professional associations, governmental agencies, and international accounting and auditing bodies in promulgating standards to deter and detect fraud, domestically and abroad. Specifically, it focuses on the role played by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), and other national and foreign professional associations, in promulgating auditing standards and procedures to prevent fraud in financial statements and other white‐collar crimes. It also examines several fraud cases and the impact of management and employee fraud on the various business sectors such as insurance, banking, health care, and manufacturing, as well as the role of management, the boards of directors, the audit committees, auditors, and fraud examiners and their liability in the fraud prevention and investigation.
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This chapter identifies and analyzes three systemic obstacles to American public policy addressing natural disasters: symbolic obstacles, cognitive obstacles, and structural…
Abstract
This chapter identifies and analyzes three systemic obstacles to American public policy addressing natural disasters: symbolic obstacles, cognitive obstacles, and structural obstacles. The way we talk about natural disaster, the way we think about the risks of building in hazardous places, and structural aspects of American political institutions all favor development over restraint. These forces have such strength that in the wake of most disasters society automatically and thoughtlessly responds by rebuilding what was damaged or destroyed, even if reconstruction perpetuates disaster vulnerability. Only by addressing each of the obstacles identified are reform efforts likely to succeed.
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To explore the advice given by the British Girl Guides Association, a popular girls' youth organisation, to urban members in the period from 1930 to 1960.
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the advice given by the British Girl Guides Association, a popular girls' youth organisation, to urban members in the period from 1930 to 1960.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on an analysis of the Girlguiding publications The Guide and The Guider in 30 years spanning 1930–1960.
Findings
The article shows that, although rural spaces maintained symbolic position in the education and training of the British Girl Guides Association throughout the mid-twentieth century, the use of urban spaces were central in ensuring that girls embodied Guiding principles on a day-to-day basis. While rural spaces, and especially the camp, have been conceptualised by scholars as ‘extraordinary’ spaces, this article argues that by encouraging girls to undertake nature study in their urban locality the organisation stressed the ordinariness of Guiding activity. In doing so, they encouraged girls to be an active presence in urban public space throughout the period, despite the fact that, as scholars have identified, the post-war period saw the increased regulation of children's presence in public spaces. Such findings suggest that the organisation allowed girls a modicum of freedom in town Guiding activities, although ultimately these were limited by expectations regarding the behaviour and conduct of members.
Originality/value
The article builds upon existing understandings of the Girl Guide organisation and mid-twentieth century youth movements. A number of scholars have recently argued for a more complex understanding of the relationship between urban and rural, outdoor and indoor spaces, within youth organisations in the 20th century. Yet the place of urban spaces in Girlguiding remains under-explored.
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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on hospitality management education from a “practice epistemology” and discuss how a connecting of savoir (theoretical knowledge or…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on hospitality management education from a “practice epistemology” and discuss how a connecting of savoir (theoretical knowledge or “knowing”), savoir-faire (knowing how to do tasks, i.e. task-related skills) and savoir-être (knowing how to be, i.e. behavior) can develop into practical knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
The purpose of the paper is achieved through novel reading of the literature on practical knowledge and formativeness applied to a higher education context.
Findings
The paper suggests that it is only through the creation of context that a sensation of practicing for students can be provided, which ultimately may lead to practical knowledge. Context must be actively created through situations that invite participation to explore the logic of practice. Therefore, savoir should be treated as “organizing knowing” and savoir-faire and savoir-être as “practicing knowing” to do and to be, respectively. The terms savoir, savoir-faire and savoir-être were chosen for this paper, as they were the common reference terms used in hospitality (master-) apprenticeship systems in Europe.
Originality/value
The value of the paper is a personal reflection on a practice epistemology for hospitality management education from the perspective of two academic faculty members who have been practitioners in the hospitality industry and who regularly teach hospitality executives.
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Dr. Alexander R. M. Gibb has been appointed regulatory affairs officer by Anchor Chemical (UK) Ltd.
Jeffrey R. Albrecht and Stuart A. Karabenick
The idea that education should be made relevant to students is long-standing and pervasive in American society. Recently, motivation scientists have clarified important…
Abstract
The idea that education should be made relevant to students is long-standing and pervasive in American society. Recently, motivation scientists have clarified important characteristics of students’ relevance beliefs, ways to intervene, and individual characteristics moderating intervention effects. Yet, there has been little consideration of the role of situational constraints and sociocultural influences on students’ relevance appraisal processes. We describe how societal changes and broader educational purposes affect the issues that students consider to be relevant to their educational experiences and the values they subsequently attribute to their studies. After differentiating components of relevance and highlighting ways in which particular components may be influenced by changing sociocultural milieus, we consider the implications of these processes for the development of subjective task value beliefs. Specifically, we show how the proposed model of relevance helps to parse out aspects of relevance appraisals that can be used to differentiate between components of subjective task value and argue that there is need to expand current models proposed in expectancy-value theory (EVT). Finally, we explore how recent global events may impact the social construction of educational relevance and constrain students’ developing beliefs about the value of their educational opportunities and implications for future research and educators.