Alireza Amrollahi and Bruce Rowlands
The purpose of this paper is to show how collaborative information technology (IT) tools and a crowdsourcing model can be leveraged for the purpose of strategic planning. To…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how collaborative information technology (IT) tools and a crowdsourcing model can be leveraged for the purpose of strategic planning. To achieve this objective, a formal method of open strategic planning (OSP) is proposed.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a review of the literature a set of activities, stakeholders, and governing rules are identified in the form of an OSP method. The proposed planning method is implemented in a case study of strategic planning in an Australian university. Observations by the research team, and archival records were used to ascertain the relevance of the used method.
Findings
A method for OSP is presented and assessed. The method contains four phases: pre-planning, idea submission, idea refinement, and plan development. These phases cover the activities required from conceptualization to preparing and publishing the strategic plan. The findings clarify how the principles of OSP helped the organization to include more stakeholders and provided the opportunity to make the planning process transparent through use of a collaborative IT tool.
Practical implications
The study provides managers and planning consultants with detailed guidelines to implement the concept of open strategy.
Originality/value
This study is among the few to propose a method for OSP based on empirical research. The study also shows how collaborative IT tools can be used for high-level organizational tasks such as strategic planning.
Details
Keywords
This paper seeks to provide insights into the process of applying Lamb & Kling's user as social actor model as an institutional lens to analyse data and to generate findings of IS…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to provide insights into the process of applying Lamb & Kling's user as social actor model as an institutional lens to analyse data and to generate findings of IS practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides an example from a recently published research project why the social actor model was chosen, and an application of how the model was operationalised in data collection and analysis.
Findings
The paper provides two illustrations of theorising the social actor model at different levels: at an elementary level by using instantiation to map the model's constructs to a match in the transcript text; and at a higher level where the model enabled the paper to tie together a number of individual phenomena to construct a broader higher‐level schema.
Originality/value
As the social actor model is relatively new, and few guidelines or examples exist, the paper provides rich insights into the difficulties with the application of this model and a solution for coping with these so that other researchers can read of an example that may be similar to their own and therefore guide their work.
Details
Keywords
Tricia Olea Santos, Hanna K. Ulatowska and Carla Krishan A. Cuadro
Dementia is characterized by the progressive decline in cognitive and daily functioning. Although the decline is often the defining characteristic of dementia in biomedical…
Abstract
Dementia is characterized by the progressive decline in cognitive and daily functioning. Although the decline is often the defining characteristic of dementia in biomedical models, several scholars highlight the preserved skills of persons with dementia. Identity, or a sense of self, is among the areas relatively preserved in the later stages of dementia. It is the window through which caregivers understand the subjective experiences of persons with dementia.
This qualitative exploratory study highlights the value of social relationships, particularly the role of the Filipino family in recognizing personhood and maintaining identity in dementia care. Preserving identity entails understanding the person’s unique characteristics that reflect one’s sense of self. In a highly collectivistic culture, such as the Philippines, the family is crucial to preserving identity and overall well-being in dementia. This study explores the perspectives of 15 Filipino caregivers as regards caring for a family member with dementia. Participants discuss changes in family structure and the challenges in dementia care. More importantly, they delve into strategies used to preserve identity and encourage life participation in their loved one with dementia. Essential Filipino cultural values in dementia care, such as collectivism, religion, and the values of filial piety and utang na loob (or debt of gratitude) are further discussed.
Details
Keywords
Protecting my mother offers a moving account of a daughter's experiences of her mother's placement(s) in long term care and her exposure to poor care and/or abuse. The article…
Abstract
Protecting my mother offers a moving account of a daughter's experiences of her mother's placement(s) in long term care and her exposure to poor care and/or abuse. The article highlights a number of the key features of the care of nursing home residents that need to addressed if standards are to improve and abuse become a rarity. The very dependent and frail nature of most residents renders them vulnerable to receiving poor care which may, if unchecked, become routinised abusive or neglectful practice. Risk is compounded for residents with dementia who often have limited communication skills and high levels of need. The fact that most residents are not known by care staff on admission is a primary challenge to offering good care, an issue that is compounded by a focus on tasks rather than relationships. The combined impact of dependency on staff for survival and having no, or few, opportunities for advocacy places residents in a profoundly powerless position to complain about mistreatment. This experience is mirrored by relatives. A primary deficit is that the emotional well‐being of residents is given limited attention by the care home sector or agencies tasked with inspecting them. Raising the status of care home work; improving pay, conditions and training; and embedding person‐centred values in care home practice are key to raising standards. Ensuring that all residents have access to an advocate and improving the capacity of safeguarding systems to address abuse in care homes are also important elements of reducing risk.
Details
Keywords
The inaugural meeting of the newly established National Party was held in the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, on Thursday, October 25th, under the presidency of Admiral Lord…
Abstract
The inaugural meeting of the newly established National Party was held in the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, on Thursday, October 25th, under the presidency of Admiral Lord Beresford. There was a large and distinguished audience numbering about 3,000 persons, among those on the platform being Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Brigadier‐General Page Croft, M.P., Mr. Havelock Wilson, Miss Constance Williams, the Hon. G. J. Jenkins (all of whom addressed the meeting), Earl Bathurst, Sir C. Allom, Major Alan Burgoyne, M.P., Colonel Cassal, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Sir R. Cooper, M.P., Capt. Viscount Duncannon, M.P., Sir W. Earnshaw Cooper, Mr. H. A. Gwynne, Mr. Rowland Hunt, M.P., Lieut.‐Col. Lord Leconfield, Lord Leith of Fyvie, Admiral Sir H. Markham, The Earl of Northesk, Colonel R. H. Rawson, M.P., Lord Edward St. Maur, Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, Lord Stafford and others.
Chris Sugnet, Henriette D. Avram, Rowland Brown, Clifford A. Lynch, Susan K. Martin, Ron Miller, C. James Schmidt, Sharon Walbridge, Louella V. Wetherbee and Bruce Ziegman
When the initial library networks were established in the United States, they provided affordable, online automation services that were available from virtually no other source…
Abstract
When the initial library networks were established in the United States, they provided affordable, online automation services that were available from virtually no other source. The surge of automation experienced by American libraries for the past two decades has altered the historical relationships that characterize library cooperation. Local networks are being created and machine‐readable products previously available only from the networks are now being packaged on optical media and distributed to individual institutions. With these technological advances, the need for, services offered by, and financial viability of the networks have begun to undergo dramatic change. This is also a time of great opportunity for libraries and networks. There is on the horizon what may be the infrastructure for a national information network. The realization of this network will require close cooperation of librarians, who have embraced the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model for networking, and members of the academic and research community, which is still relying heavily on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocols (TCP/IP) for communications purposes.
A Report has been issued by the Medical Research Council upon the investigations of the Salmonella Group, with special reference to food‐poisoning, conducted by Dr. William G…
Abstract
A Report has been issued by the Medical Research Council upon the investigations of the Salmonella Group, with special reference to food‐poisoning, conducted by Dr. William G. Savage and Mr. P. Bruce White. In a preface to the report, it is stated that early in 1921 the Ministry of Health invited the co‐operation of the Medical Research Council in the promotion of a scheme of investigation into outbreaks of food‐poisoning, of which the general lines had been arranged by the Ministry in consultation with Dr. W. G. Savage, medical officer of health for Somersetshire. Nearly nine‐tenths of food‐poisoning outbreaks are due to organisms of the Salmonella or Gaertner group of bacteria, and although much successful work has been done in the identification and classification of these organisms and in tracing the causes of particular outbreaks of poisoning, we have very little knowledge of the paths, whether through animal infections or otherwise, by which these organisms have found their way originally into the food to which their subsequent ill‐effects may have been traced. The council undertook to promote further investigation. They secured the whole‐time services of Mr. P. Bruce White for the bacteriological work required, and by the courtesy of Professor Walker Hall he was enabled to work in the bacteriological laboratories of the University of Bristol, in close touch with Dr. Savage at Weston‐super‐Mare. The field inquiries were arranged by the Food Department of the Ministry of Health, with the assistance of medical officers of health and of veterinary surgeons. In these, Dr. Savage and Mr. Bruce‐White co‐operated while conducting the laboratory investigations. The results already gained include some important advances in our knowledge of the natural history of organisms of the Salmonella group, and a record of the details of many varieties of outbreaks of food‐poisoning among human beings. That side of the inquiry, in which it was hoped to deal effectively with the paths of infection through domestic or agricultural animals, has halted, in spite of much effort, for want of better facilities in this country for systematic studies of comparative pathology, but it is hoped that in the early future the work can be extended successfully in this direction. The introduction to the report explains that the primary object of the investigation has been the elucidation, not merely of the causes of bacterial food‐poisoning outbreaks, which are for the most part known, but the paths by which infection is transmitted to the food. The latter, in spite of much work, remains largely unascertained. Since the majority of outbreaks, and practically all of any importance, which occur in this country are due to specific infection or intoxication with bacilli of the Salmonella group, work has been restricted to that group. The problem is so complex that the investigators have repeatedly been compelled to branch off into studies which at first may not seem to be germane to the primary object, but they are necessary deviations and bear directlv upon the work. The report is divided into three parts. Part I. contains an extensive survey of the serological properties of the group. It shows that the sub‐grounds described are definite entities which arc fairly clear‐cut, and which do not pass into one another under any known conditions. It is hoped that these studies, following on the valuable work of Schütze and others, will establish the different sub‐groups or types on a clearly recognizable basis. In Part 2 the investigators have tried to demonstrate that these sub‐groups not only have a definite distribution in nature, but have become somewhat specialised in their disease‐producing characters. It is obvious that until this is done it is not possible to disentangle their relationships to disease or to place the aetiology of food‐poisoning on a firm basis. The definitions and distinctions between the different sub‐groups have been so confused in the past that the essential importance of this relationship has largely been overlooked. In Part 3 experimental work is advanced which the investigators consider helps to explain the differing disease‐producing rôles of these sub‐groups.
Rasa Mikelyte and Alisoun Milne
The purpose of this paper is to explore evidence about the role played by micro-cultures in long-term care (LTC) settings in shaping residents’ mental health and wellbeing.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore evidence about the role played by micro-cultures in long-term care (LTC) settings in shaping residents’ mental health and wellbeing.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review on micro-cultures in LTC, including database search of academic and grey literature using pre-determined combinations of key terms and specific inclusion/exclusion criteria. The review followed the methodological framework of Arksey and O’Malley (2005).
Findings
Micro-cultures (localised, distinctive cultures of a small group of people) in LTC are complex, multi-faceted and multi-directional; they include social dynamics as well as structural and environmental factors. Although much work has been done on the nature of micro-cultures, limited work has focused on LTC for older people. Initiatives to promote the mental health and wellbeing of residents rarely consider micro-cultures in any holistic way; they tend to be taken into account either as part of a contextual backdrop, or as a uni-directional process often equated with the concept of “care culture” or “organisational culture”.
Originality/value
The role played by micro-cultures in influencing the mental health and wellbeing of older people living in LTC settings is significantly under researched. The findings of this review suggest that their complexity and multidimensionality challenges researchers. However if the authors are to develop interventions that promote the mental health and wellbeing of residents it is important to invest in work to explore their nature and systemic influence.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to consider the experiences and perspectives of residents with dementia living in a care home.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the experiences and perspectives of residents with dementia living in a care home.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews current sources of evidence about “the care home experience”, including material drawn from: research instruments, interviews, observational methods and phenomenological research which aims to capture the lived experiences of residents.
Findings
Research that is attempting to capture the lived experiences of residents further adds to the understanding of quality of life (QoL) and quality of care. Specifically, residents prioritise non‐disease‐related domains of QoL, which is somewhat different than those identified by relatives, care home staff and “objective” measures.
Originality/value
Not only is it evident that residents are able to describe aspects of their situation but they appear to retain a sense of self and identity. There is a distinctive need for assessment of QoL amongst residents with dementia that places their subjective view of this concept at its core.
Details
Keywords
Lettie Y. Conrad, Christine S. Bruce and Virginia M. Tucker
This paper aims to discuss what it means to consider the information experience of academic information management from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. Using a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss what it means to consider the information experience of academic information management from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. Using a doctoral study in progress as a case illustration, the authors demonstrate how information experience research applies a wide lens to achieve a holistic view of information management phenomena. By unifying a range of elements, and understanding information and its management to be inseparable from the totality of human experience, an information experience perspective offers a fresh approach to answering today's research questions.
Design/methodology/approach
The case illustration is a constructivist grounded theory study using interactive interviews, an original form of semi-structured qualitative interviews combined with card-sorting exercises (Conrad and Tucker, 2019), to deepen reflections by participants and externalize their information experiences. The constructivist variant of grounded theory offers an inductive, exploratory approach to address the highly contextualized information experiences of student-researchers in managing academic information.
Findings
Preliminary results are reported in the form of three interpretative categories that outline the key aspects of the information experience for student-researchers. By presenting these initial results, the study demonstrates how the constructivist grounded theory methodology can illuminate multiple truths and bring a focus on interpretive practices to the understanding of information management experiences.
Research limitations/implications
This new approach offers holistic insights into academic information management phenomena as contextual, fluid and informed by meaning-making and adaptive practices. Limitations include the small sample size customary to qualitative research, within one situated perspective on the academic information management experience.
Originality/value
The study demonstrates the theoretical and methodological contributions of the constructivist information experience research to illuminate information management in an academic setting.