Brian O’Donovan and Dewald Roode
The debate about the emerging discipline of IS has been continuing at least since Banville and Landry questioned the possibility of “disciplining” MIS in 1989. Recent papers such…
Abstract
The debate about the emerging discipline of IS has been continuing at least since Banville and Landry questioned the possibility of “disciplining” MIS in 1989. Recent papers such as those in the book by Mingers and Stowell introduce fresh viewpoints and reopen the discussion along a new frontier. It would appear that an ontological framework to define a discipline could assist in making sense of what it is that information systems are all about. To this end, we develop a framework which derives from Heidegger’s concept of a regional ontology informed by the fundamental ontology of Dasein. This framework draws from Heidegger’s work and contends that a discipline also has Dasein’s kind of being. Following Heidegger, we arrive at a static model of a discipline in which the two constitutive parts are the cultural structure and the context of significance. A discipline is a totality, which emerges from and integrates these two components which are simultaneously irreducible to one another, and nonseparable in the whole. We then utilise Heidegger’s four ways of being, to show how change in a discipline can be incorporated in the framework. Finally, we reflect on how the framework could contribute towards the understanding of the discipline of information systems.
Details
Keywords
Brian Park, Anaïs Tuepker, Cirila Estela Vasquez Guzman, Samuel Edwards, Elaine Waller Uchison, Cynthia Taylor and M. Patrice Eiff
The purpose of the study’s mixed-methods evaluation was to examine the ways in which a relational leadership development intervention enhanced participants’ abilities to apply…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study’s mixed-methods evaluation was to examine the ways in which a relational leadership development intervention enhanced participants’ abilities to apply relationship-oriented skills on their teams.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors evaluated five program cohorts from 2018–2021, involving 127 interprofessional participants. The study’s convergent mixed-method approach analyzed post-course surveys for descriptive statistics and interpreted six-month post-course interviews using qualitative conventional content analysis.
Findings
All intervention features were rated as at least moderately impactful by at least 83% of participants. The sense of community, as well as psychological safety and trust created, were rated as impactful features of the course by at least 94% of participants. At six months post-intervention, participants identified benefits of greater self-awareness, deeper understanding of others and increased confidence in supporting others, building relationships and making positive changes on their teams.
Originality/value
Relational leadership interventions may support participant skills for building connections, supporting others and optimizing teamwork. The high rate of skill application at six months post-course suggests that relational leadership development can be effective and sustainable in healthcare. As the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic crises continue to impact the psychological well-being of healthcare colleagues, relational leadership holds promise to address employee burnout, turnover and isolation on interprofessional care teams.
Details
Keywords
There exists a rich sociological literature dealing with secularisation. Such nineteenth‐century sociologists as Weber and Durkheim and twentieth‐century sociologists as Greeley…
Abstract
There exists a rich sociological literature dealing with secularisation. Such nineteenth‐century sociologists as Weber and Durkheim and twentieth‐century sociologists as Greeley, Bellah, Berger and Wilson have contributed. Berger refers to secularisation as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols”, while Wilson defines it as “the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance”. These definitions represent the thrust of academic thinking about secularisation. Generally, social scientists interpret secularisation as the decline of religiosity — a movement from faith to reason. They cite numerous indicators of the change: decline in such areas as church attendance, praying, use of religious rites and rituals, recruitment to the church bureaucracy, church construction. Often they suggest a kind of inevitability relating to urbanisation and industrialisation. The focus of the process involves man becoming less concerned with the spiritual and more concerned with the mundane. Eventually, the spiritual becomes irrelevant; the Age of Enlightenment triumphs over the Age of Faith.
Paul Crawford, Lydia Lewis, Brian Brown and Nick Manning
The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of approaches to mental health based on creative practice in the humanities and arts, and explore these in relation to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of approaches to mental health based on creative practice in the humanities and arts, and explore these in relation to the potential contribution to mutual recovery.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a conceptual analysis and literature review.
Findings
Recovery can embrace carers and practitioners as well as sufferers from mental health problems. Divisions tend to exist between those with mental health needs, informal carers and health, social care and education personnel. Mutual recovery is therefore a very useful term because it instigates a more fully social understanding of mental health recovery processes, encompassing diverse actors in the field of mental health. Research demonstrates the importance of arts for “recovery orientated mental health services”, how they provide ways of breaking down social barriers, of expressing and understanding experiences and emotions, and of helping to rebuild identities and communities. Similarly, the humanities can advance the recovery of health and well‐being.
Originality/value
The notion of mutual recovery through creative practice is more than just a set of creative activities which are believed to have benefit. The idea is also a heuristic that can be useful to professionals and family members, as well as individuals with mental health problems themselves. Mutual recovery is perhaps best seen as a relational construct, offering new opportunities to build egalitarian, appreciative and substantively connected communities – resilient communities of mutual hope, compassion and solidarity.
Details
Keywords
Galway provided another example of ‘risk society’ with the outbreak of a parasitic-related contamination of municipal water supplied in 2007. The ‘Galway Water Crisis’ emerged in…
Abstract
Galway provided another example of ‘risk society’ with the outbreak of a parasitic-related contamination of municipal water supplied in 2007. The ‘Galway Water Crisis’ emerged in March of 2007, in the aftermath of an outbreak of the cryptosporidium parasite in the local water system.1 This crisis reflects the failure to protect large bodies of water such as Lough Corrib from the impacts of human development. As the degradation of water supplies has continued, urban centres such as Galway have had to contend with boil notices, health warnings and a political ‘blame game’ in the run-up to the 2007 election. This chapter will examine the key issues surrounding the water crisis in the west, detailing the costs of this issue to those charged with dealing with it.
Wilfred Ashworth and Ian Pettman
This is a most important study of an essentially modern situation. The first part, “Getting in Print”, introduces the way short‐run publications can be produced without…
Abstract
This is a most important study of an essentially modern situation. The first part, “Getting in Print”, introduces the way short‐run publications can be produced without sacrificing quality or being priced out of the market. There has been considerable polarisation in the publishing trade as huge multinational combines have continued to take over smaller units and now dominate the publishing, marketing and distribution of English language titles worldwide. This could well have made it difficult indeed for authors of low‐volume, less profitably saleable works to find a publisher. Paradoxically, however, helped by computer technology it has opened up the field for enterprising new small‐scale publishers, with an eye for scholarly specialist subjects and new authors, to issue short‐run editions and even to achieve a better return on capital and higher profit ratios than do the major publishers. The total number of titles produced has actually grown, causing bibliographical problems for librarians who need to keep track of publication, and greatly increasing the number of works going out of print before they can be acquired. The reprint trade is similarly in confusion because the economics of reprinting have become more chancy for some works and potentially easier for others.