Arminée Kazanjian and Carolyn J. Green
Health technology assessment (HTA) has been identified as a national priority by a wide range of decision‐makers at the same time that a provincial cost constraint process has…
Abstract
Health technology assessment (HTA) has been identified as a national priority by a wide range of decision‐makers at the same time that a provincial cost constraint process has decreased available funding. The contribution of the British Columbia Office of Health Technology Assessment is outlined in this paper along with consideration of ways in which both funding and the inclusion of HTA into health policy decision making can become more stable. An expanded HTA assessment framework to dovetail with increasing interest in equity issues is discussed.
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Carolyn Green and Karen Ruhleder
Discusses the visions of “global villages”,“borderless worlds” and “towers of Babel” which,according to the visionaries of our day, we are heading towards,enhanced by the rapid…
Abstract
Discusses the visions of “global villages”, “borderless worlds” and “towers of Babel” which, according to the visionaries of our day, we are heading towards, enhanced by the rapid development of communications and information technologies. Explores the shortcomings of these metaphors and the visions conveyed by them. Considers the means by which alternative metaphors could be constructed in an effort to make sense of how information technology‐supported globalization will re‐shape the world in which we live.
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Suzanne Findlay and Michael Moran
As an emerging field of financing, impact investing is under-institutionalised and is in a legitimacy building phase. In an attempt to unpack how impact investing is deployed in…
Abstract
Purpose
As an emerging field of financing, impact investing is under-institutionalised and is in a legitimacy building phase. In an attempt to unpack how impact investing is deployed in global markets, the key elements of its definition (intentionality, returns and measurement) are examined through a review of academic and practitioner literature. A refined definition is developed which emphasises the key elements of intentionality and measurement as separating impact investment from the established field of socially responsible investment (SRI).
Design/methodology/approach
Funds and products from a publicly available database are systematically analysed against the refined definition to determine the rigour with which intentionality and measurement are applied by self-identified market participants. These elements are used as a proxy to determine “purpose-washing” – a process where funds are presented as impact investments but do not satisfy a tightly applied definition. Purpose-washing enables the possibility of “retrofitting”, where funds originally defined as other products (e.g. SRI) retrospectively claim to be impact investments.
Findings
Having found evidence of purpose-washing but not retrofitting, actions are identified to enhance impact investment’s integrity, focussing on intentionality, measurement and transparency. Clarity of definition and purpose are important for a field in the market-building phase, as a lack of clarity could have negative implications for integrity and growth. The authors postulate that purpose-washing may be attributed to twin but distinctive motivations by market participants: interest in fee-generation among fund managers and attempts to bolster field legitimacy by demonstrating sector growth among impact investing proponents.
Originality value
This paper represents a unique analysis of impact investments against a robust and refined definition. By doing so, it offers a systematic appraisal of impact investments and an overall assessment of market integrity in its field-building phase.
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Shelley Green and Douglas Flemons
Shelley:I suppose we should explain the title.Douglas:“From Lingua Franca to Scriptio Animi”: Sounds so scholarly, eh? So learned.S:In an uptight, un-Carolyn kind of way.D:We…
Abstract
Shelley:I suppose we should explain the title.Douglas:“From Lingua Franca to Scriptio Animi”: Sounds so scholarly, eh? So learned.S:In an uptight, un-Carolyn kind of way.D:We first heard about her in that profile in Lingua Franca.S:I was teaching a qualitative research class. The idea of reflexive ethnography jumped off the page. She sounded so fascinating and courageous.D:And so close by! Living just across the swamp from us in Tampa. Was it then that you went out and bought Final Negotiations?S:Yes, and found myself drawn into her life and her writing in an intense way.D:How did reading her work change your approach to the research class?S:I became more and more interested in personal experience methods, and ultimately created a class devoted almost exclusively to autoethnography. I guess you could say Carolyn was a ghost member of our curriculum committee.D:Oh, I love the image of her hovering around us.S:She actually sort of entered my blood stream, and I’d never even met her yet, though I certainly wanted to.D:And during that same time, I happened to email this guy named Art Bochner to thank him for his amazing “Forming Warm Ideas” chapter in Rigor and Imagination (Bochner, 1981). He and I started corresponding back and forth, developing an online friendship, and all the while I didn’t have a clue that he and Carolyn were together.S:One day you came home and said, “You know Art, the guy I told you I’ve been chatting with via email? You’re never going to believe who his partner is!”D:The coincidence was wonderful! I was clueless!S:The Latin formality of the title is doubly ironic then. “Scriptio Animi.” Brother!D:How so?S:Well, for one thing, Latin is not the first language that jumps to mind for capturing the intimate, speaking-in-vernacular nature of Carolyn's scholarship.D:Right. Despite the fact that the term lingua franca has to do with speaking a common language and scriptio animi translates as “writing of the heart-and-mind-and-soul.”S:That's the first irony – using a dead language of disembodied scholarship to refer to Carolyn's lively and embodied first-person voice.D:And the second irony?S:The use of Latin makes us sound like we’re these all-knowing academics. But neither of us knows anything about Latin. In you’re words, we’re clueless.D:Absolutely. I was trying (and failing) to cobble together a meaningful phrase by working backwards in the O.E.D. Our friend John brought his expertise in classical languages to bear on my first few attempts and very sensitively suggested I torch them. Without him, we’d never have come up with “Scriptio Animi” (John Leeds, personal communication, March 9, 2003). A Liberal Arts colleague at the university, however, kindly normalized my ignorance: “Native Latin speakers,” he assured me, “are either dead for over a thousand years (in Rome) or in prison for child molestation” (Mark Cavanaugh, personal communication, March 7, 2003).S:Irony and our cluelessness aside, the title does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of Carolyn's work. After all, she values “narrative soul” (Ellis, 2000, p. 274) – pretty close to the “writing of the soul” of “scriptio animi.”D:But irony and cluelessness shouldn’t be put to the side – they belong at the center. Carolyn's whole enterprise is grounded in the irony of knowing and the importance of maintaining a not-knowing stance.S:Okay, so the Latin stays. Besides, I like the reflexive paradox of the title, and Carolyn is nothing if not reflexive.D:Little did Lacan know that social science would go through its own “mirror stage,” using an ethnographic looking glass to encounter and transform the self-in-context.S:Right. Carolyn says reflexive stories should have “therapeutic value” – that they should change the reader in some significant way. Her stories, and her students’ stories, transformed me as a researcher and as a teacher. I invited personal experience into class discussions in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible. After hearing her perform her story of her brother's death, I found that her voice was often with me in the classroom; it was very powerful.D:Therapeutic not only for the reader, but also for the writer. Last fall when I was traveling back and forth to Calgary while my mom was dying, I started writing an autoethnographic account of what I was going through. Carolyn and Art were in my head and my heart a lot as I storied my experience.S:Yes, I remember. And Carolyn's stories about her mother's illness and her many trips to West Virginia to be with her became entwined with your stories.D:Yeah. And something odd happened – something that unsettled me at the time and that cries out for a Carolyn consultation. It was like I couldn’t put down my pen. At some of the most tender, most difficult, most intimate times, I was composing sentences in my head, wondering how I could best grab the color and texture of what I was living. But in doing so, I felt removed from it. There I was, in the moment, crafting sentences rather than breathing life, forming descriptions rather than facing death.S:Carolyn talks about how writing autoethnographic texts has intensified her living (Ellis, 1996, p. 243).D:Maybe she isn’t plagued like me. Maybe she can have the experience without being interrupted by the anticipation of setting it down.S:She certainly recognizes that “written reality is a second-order reality that reshapes the events it depicts” (Bochner & Ellis, 1996, p. 26).D:Sure, but I’m troubled by the reshaping that was going on in the moment. It wasn’t a forced thing; it happened automatically. I was (and am) still struck by, and stuck on, the irony of it all.S:Still more irony? What do you mean?D:Let's say when I complete my narrative, I give it to Carolyn, and it manages to engage, evoke and provoke (Ellis, 2000, p. 274) her. Her reading will allow her to immerse in an experience that I, because I couldn’t turn off my goddamn autoethnographic eye-and-ear, felt distant from. So what's with that? She – or any reader – ends up being able to drink in my experience more than me? That's a hell of a price to pay. Rather than being with the fear in my mother's eyes, rather than being with the words and short phrases coming out of her mouth, expressions I hadn’t heard in forty years and so were transporting me back to my childhood, rather than being with the dry thin skin on her hands, rather than being with her sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night, scared to death, rather than being with her, I was a step ahead of both of us, getting it all down in my head so I could later transpose it to paper so some reader I don’t even know could get a handle on what it was like. But how the hell could I write what it was like if I was so damn busy writing what it was like, I wasn’t quite there? A curse! I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.S:The curse of rendering experience.D:Exactly! Rendering in both senses of the word. When you render something personal [writes in the air], you render it [rips the air apart].S:Carolyn points out that “the world as we ‘know’ it cannot be separated from the language we use to explain, understand, or describe it” (Bochner & Ellis, 1996, p. 20).D:Maybe the “known” world can’t, but how about the felt world, the sensed world?S:Which is where “not knowing” comes in.D:Another link to our way of approaching therapy. It's about engaging in discovery, not about imposing what you think you already understand.S:We’ve brought autoethnography to our therapy students as a way of enhancing their ability to understand their own and their clients’ experiences – a mirror inversion of Carolyn's bringing “therapeutic sensitivity” to her autoethnography students.D:Right. She tells her students that one of the goals of writing about their lives “is that they should become their own therapist…. Writing can help them have insights about themselves, help them work through problems themselves” (Flemons & Green, 2002, p. 116).S:Carolyn is right about stories having “therapeutic value,” but I think Carolyn herself – the in-person-Carolyn – does, too. Her way of being embodies her work. Because she is so intrigued by personal experience, she brings a unique intensity to her relationships. Her curiosity and genuine not-knowing stance allow her to know others deeply.D:And care about them. For someone who has done so much self-reflection, she's the least self-absorbed person I know.S:Autoethnography as a method has been criticized as a form of narcissistic self-indulgence (Sparkes, 2002), but that is the antithesis of what Carolyn does as a person and a scholar.D:She reaches in, but also out.S:Both personally and professionally, she touches us.
Patricia Geist Martin and Jeanine Minge
The room is packed. I mean jam packed. Carolyn is beaming. Just five minutes’ till show time, all but a few seats are taken. As I place my file folder of notes on a seat next to…
Abstract
The room is packed. I mean jam packed. Carolyn is beaming. Just five minutes’ till show time, all but a few seats are taken. As I place my file folder of notes on a seat next to Carolyn, I look around to see people lining the walls, some ducking in to claim the floor in front, and still people keep filing in. Carolyn dressed in flowing purple and green mingles, continuing to beam as she says hello with her sparkling eyes. For just a moment, Art and I scowl at each other with a knowing look of “How could they have put us in such a tiny room!”. But Carolyn, well she beams brighter. Christine and I jump to action, pilfering through an adjoining room searching for just a few more chairs. None to be found. I tell a passing hotel staff member “We need more chairs, please.” “Yes, sure.” the automatic reply came with the look of “I’ll get on that right away – tomorrow.”
This paper aims to explore the outputs of an internship programme, one of a number of campus-based sustainability activities that have been introduced at the University of Wales…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the outputs of an internship programme, one of a number of campus-based sustainability activities that have been introduced at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, to encourage student-led campus-based greening initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach was undertaken, allowing the researcher to investigate the programme in its real-life context. The researcher used multiple sources of evidence to gain as holistic a picture as possible.
Findings
Interns report positive changes in their behaviours towards sustainability, s well as encouraging feedback on their experiential learning, the development of their soft skills and the creation of new knowledge. Moreover, students communicated perceived benefits for their future careers. The reported outcomes reflect mutually beneficial relationships for student and institution, for example, raising the profile of campus greening activities and supporting the University’s aim to embed sustainability throughout its campus, community and culture.
Research limitations/implications
The researcher recognises the limitations of the research, in particular, the small sample size, which has resulted primarily in qualitative results being presented.
Practical implications
Feedback from previous interns will be used to shape future internships. In particular, Institute of Sustainable Practice, Innovation and Resource Effectiveness (INSPIRE) will look for opportunities to work more closely with University operations, departments, faculties and alongside University staff, both academic and support staff.
Social implications
Following student feedback, INSPIRE will give students opportunities for wider involvement, including an opportunity to propose their own projects to shape future internships that meet the needs of student body on campus.
Originality/value
Despite being one case study from one institution, the research highlights the value of such programmes for other institutions.
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Charles Jebarajakirthy, Achchuthan Sivapalan, Manish Das, Haroon Iqbal Maseeh, Md Ashaduzzaman, Carolyn Strong and Deepak Sangroya
This study aims to integrate the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory into a meta-analytic framework to synthesize green consumption literature.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to integrate the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory into a meta-analytic framework to synthesize green consumption literature.
Design/methodology/approach
By integrating the findings from 173 studies, a meta-analysis was performed adopting several analytical methods: bivariate analysis, moderation analysis and path analysis.
Findings
VBN- and TPB-based psychological factors (adverse consequences, ascribed responsibility, personal norms, subjective norms, attitude and perceived behavioral control) mediate the effects of altruistic, biospheric and egoistic values on green purchase intention. Further, inconsistencies in the proposed relationships are due to cultural factors (i.e. individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity–femininity, short- vs long-term orientation and indulgence-restraint) and countries’ human development status.
Research limitations/implications
The authors selected papers published in English; hence, other relevant papers in this domain published in other languages might have been missed.
Practical implications
The findings are useful to marketers of green offerings in designing strategies, i.e. specific messages, targeting different customers based on countries’ cultural score and human development index, to harvest positive customer responses.
Originality/value
This study is the pioneering attempt to synthesize the TPB- and VBN-based quantitative literature on green consumer behavior to resolve the reported inconsistent findings.
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Sheena Fatima Paro Ragas, Flora Mae Angub Tantay, Lorraine Joyce Co Chua and Carolyn Marie Concha Sunio
The purpose of this paper is to determine the moderating role of green lifestyle to the impact of green human resource management (GHRM) on employee’s job performance from various…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the moderating role of green lifestyle to the impact of green human resource management (GHRM) on employee’s job performance from various industries and a possible spillover of GHRM to employee’s lifestyle.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling and exploratory factor analysis were utilized in order to determine the relationship of the variables. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 332 respondents from various private industries who were randomly selected for this study.
Findings
This study shows that the implementation of GHRM has an effect on an employee’s lifestyle and also on their job performance. It suggests that organizations can contribute to the environment and also maintain employees’ good performance.
Research limitations/implications
Considering the locus of the study, it was restricted to industries from the National Capital Region in the Philippines. The study was also limited to industries who are ISO14001 certified, aiming for that certification, or implementing green practices. The survey was also not disseminated according to age groups and gender. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to explore further the effects of these variables to other factors.
Practical implications
This study may encourage human resource practitioners to implement GHRM practices in the workplace to motivate employees to participate in greening the world.
Originality/value
This study brings great importance to the implementation of GHRM as it is needed by the current status of the world.