Brandon L. Gray, Samuel Gaster, Christina Early and Amanda Reed
Healthcare professionals work in high stress environments and may benefit from organizational efforts that enhance coping abilities. Community-based psychological first aid…
Abstract
Purpose
Healthcare professionals work in high stress environments and may benefit from organizational efforts that enhance coping abilities. Community-based psychological first aid (CBPFA) is an evidence-informed program designed for building these skills and promoting resilience during stressful times. However, few studies have examined the effectiveness of CBPFA. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examined the effectiveness of CBPFA training in promoting occupational self-efficacy and intentions to use CBPFA among oncology care staff over time using a longitudinal design.
Findings
Participants reported increased occupational self-efficacy and intentions to use CBPFA skills after completing training. These factors remained stable at one-month follow-up.
Research limitations/implications
The implications of these results are limited by the lack of a control group in the study’s design, relatively homogenous sample and participant dropout.
Originality/value
Despite the study’s limitations, these results represent an initial step in empirically examining the impact of CBPFA trainings and providing evidence that CBPFA may be an effective preparedness and development program in high-stress healthcare settings.
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Moral exemplarity is a desirable but complex achievement. The chapter discusses the meaning of moral exemplarity and examines how the self, as a psychological and spiritual centre…
Abstract
Purpose
Moral exemplarity is a desirable but complex achievement. The chapter discusses the meaning of moral exemplarity and examines how the self, as a psychological and spiritual centre within a Jungian perspective, contributes to fostering moral commitment.
Methodology/approach
A narrative study was conducted amongst ten spiritual healers in New Zealand and France. Stories were collected and analysed interpretively to uncover meaningful patterns about spiritual healers’ moral stance and apprehension of the self.
Findings
Spiritual healers demonstrated a deep commitment to the self which clearly sustained a commitment to serve or help others. Commitment to the self was articulated around five core values: self-work, self-reflection, humility, self-integrity and love.
Implications/value
The chapter highlights the moral value of inner work. The self, in its archetypal sense, carries as potential an ‘innate morality’ that resonates in the heart and nurtures integrity and authenticity. To commit to the self requires undertaking a long and painful exploration of the psyche and integrating unconscious material into ego-consciousness. The participating spiritual healers, who had committed to their self and were well advanced on their psychological exploration journey, displayed moral qualities akin to exemplarity.
Karin Aronsson is a professor at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, and before that at Linköping University (1988–2008). Her work focuses on how talk…
Abstract
Karin Aronsson is a professor at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, and before that at Linköping University (1988–2008). Her work focuses on how talk is used to build social organization, with a particular focus on children's peer groups, institutional encounters, and identity-in-interaction. Other research interests include children's play, informal learning, and bilingual conversations. She publishes internationally, and her most recent papers appeared in Language in Society and Discourse & Society. A recent book is: Hedegaard, M., Aronsson, K., Højholt, C., & Skjær Ulvik, O. (Eds.). Children, childhood and everyday life: Children's perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Mukesh Bajaj, Sumon C. Mazumdar and Daniel A. McLaughlin
Following the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Basic, securities class plaintiffs can invoke the “rebuttable presumption of reliance on public, material misrepresentations…
Abstract
Following the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Basic, securities class plaintiffs can invoke the “rebuttable presumption of reliance on public, material misrepresentations regarding securities traded in an efficient market” [the “fraud-on-the-market” doctrine] to prove classwide reliance. Although this requires plaintiffs to prove that the security traded in an informationally efficient market throughout the class period, Basic did not identify what constituted adequate proof of efficiency for reliance purposes.
Market efficiency cannot be presumed without proof because even large publicly traded stocks do not always trade in efficient markets, as documented in the economic literature that has grown significantly since Basic. For instance, during the recent global financial crisis, lack of liquidity limited arbitrage (the mechanism that renders markets efficient) and led to significant price distortions in many asset markets. Yet, lower courts following Basic have frequently granted class certification based on a mechanical review of some factors that are considered intuitive “proxies” of market efficiency (albeit incorrectly, according to recent studies and our own analysis). Such factors have little probative value and their review does not constitute the rigorous analysis demanded by the Supreme Court.
Instead, to invoke fraud-on-the-market, plaintiffs must first establish that the security traded in a weak-form efficient market (absent which a security cannot, as a logical matter, trade in a “semi-strong form” efficient market, the standard required for reliance purposes) using well-accepted tests. Only then do event study results, which are commonly used to demonstrate “cause and effect” (i.e., prove that the security’s price reacted quickly to news – a hallmark of a semi-strong form efficient market), have any merit. Even then, to claim classwide reliance, plaintiffs must prove such cause-and-effect relationship throughout the class period, not simply on selected disclosure dates identified in the complaint as plaintiffs often do.
These issues have policy implications because, once a class is certified, defendants frequently settle to avoid the magnified costs and risks associated with a trial, and the merits of the case (including the proper application of legal presumptions) are rarely examined at a trial.
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Sherwood C. Frey and Dana R. Clyman
Sparta Glass Products has been losing significant market share over the last several quarters in the non-glare-glass market, with a price 10% above the competition. Lowering the…
Abstract
Sparta Glass Products has been losing significant market share over the last several quarters in the non-glare-glass market, with a price 10% above the competition. Lowering the price is under consideration. Unfortunately, fully allocated costs are such that the lower price results in a loss. Issues to be discussed and analyses to be conducted include the relevant costs for the decision and the reactions from competitors.
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Jessica Borg and Christina M. Scott-Young
The aim of this paper is to explore the support that project managers receive from construction project-based organisations (PBOs) in their early careers.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore the support that project managers receive from construction project-based organisations (PBOs) in their early careers.
Design/methodology/approach
Fifty-seven semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with four key stakeholder groups including early career project managers (ECPMs) and employers from Australian construction PBOs, project management professional bodies, and university educators to ascertain (1) what organizations are currently doing and (2) what organizations can do better to support project managers in their early careers.
Findings
Thematic analysis revealed that construction PBOs' responsibilities to ECPMs entailed: (1) providing mentoring, (2) offering training, (3) collaborating with universities, (4) giving time and feedback and (5) assigning manageable workloads. However, the findings revealed inconsistencies in companies enacting these responsibilities.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited to the context of the Australian construction industry, yet the findings shed valuable insights into the current practices of construction PBOs in supporting ECPMs. From a strategic resource-based view perspective, ECPMs have the potential to serve as long-term valuable organizational resources. Failure to invest in new professional entrants constitutes an area of untapped competitive advantage.
Practical implications
Construction PBOs looking to better support their ECPMs may use the results of this research as a guide to tailor their early career professional development initiatives.
Originality/value
The study adopts a holistic, multi-vocal approach by interviewing four key stakeholder groups. The findings contribute new insights into the role of construction PBOs in supporting ECPMs and the implications this has on the sustainability of their project management talent pool.
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Jessica Borg, Christina M. Scott-Young and Naomi Borg
As the youngest generation – Generation Z (Gen Z) – enters the workplace, there is a growing interest in this cohort's career needs and expectations. This paper explores the…
Abstract
Purpose
As the youngest generation – Generation Z (Gen Z) – enters the workplace, there is a growing interest in this cohort's career needs and expectations. This paper explores the under-researched topic of Gen Z project management (Gen Z PM) professionals. In addition to shedding light on the factors that positively affect Gen Z PM professionals' early career-development phase, this research aims to identify specific organization-led practices that can foster sustainable early PM careers and so achieve greater workforce sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the lens of the resource-based view (RBV), Gen Z PM professionals are considered critical resources that can help ensure workforce sustainability in project-based organizations (PBOs). Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 Gen Z PM professionals in Australia to explore the professionals' early career experiences and the organizational-support initiatives that facilitate positive experiences. The results were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Findings
The results revealed that most Gen Z PMs experienced many challenges and a lack of support during their early career phase: Gen Z value (1) mentoring, (2) time for training and development, (3) showing support and guidance, (4) understand skill-gaps and (5) reasonable workloads. Through catering to these needs, PBOs can ensure better career sustainability for their young Gen Z talent and, therefore, greater workforce sustainability for the project profession.
Originality/value
According to the career sustainability lens, PBOs play a significant role in ensuring that their valuable young PM talent are supported and retained in the profession. This research sheds light on what Gen Z PM professionals value in their early careers, which guided recommendations to better support this new generation of project professionals.
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Danielle van den Heuvel and Julia Noordegraaf
How do we make sense of urban life in the past? What do we do when we study urban history, and to what extent do our methods fully capture the complexities of historical city…
Abstract
How do we make sense of urban life in the past? What do we do when we study urban history, and to what extent do our methods fully capture the complexities of historical city living? These are crucial questions for any scholar interested in the historical dimensions of urban experience. Notwithstanding the interest of most urban historians in the relationship between the physical form of urban space and its experience by inhabitants and visitors, very few scholars have written histories that systematically integrate these two areas of inquiry. In this chapter, we argue that such research requires a method and an accompanying tool that can analyze historical urban life in a more integrated, holistic way. We propose a way forward by introducing the Time Machine platform as a scalable data visualization and analysis tool for researching everyday urban experience across space and time. To illustrate the potential we focus on a case study: the area of the Bloemstraat in early modern Amsterdam. Unpacking a section of the Bloemstraat, house by house and room by room, we show how the Time Machine forms an instrument to connect spatial layouts to the arrangement of objects and to the practical and social use of the space by the inhabitants and visitors. We also sketch how this tool illuminates more dynamic spatial and temporal practices such as how people, goods, and activities are connected to locations in the wider city and beyond.
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The aim of this paper is to investigate actors' ways of sensemaking through the use of rhetorical strategies, frames, and categories, in a management team meeting.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to investigate actors' ways of sensemaking through the use of rhetorical strategies, frames, and categories, in a management team meeting.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data were generated from a video recorded and transcribed management meeting, and participant observation. The analysis of institutional discourses and practices builds upon the assumption that language and texts are the main tools for understanding actors' social reality. The managers' ways of sensemaking of institutional discourses and practices is captured through their use of tools like rhetorical strategies, frames, and categories in talk‐in‐interaction.
Findings
The team managers' ways of sensemaking through mobilizing rhetorical strategies, institutional categories, and how they recontextualise frames in negotiation of a disputed issue, adds new aspects to previous studies of the multi voiced complex integration processes in a cross‐border acquisition. The significance of the results is the revealing of actors' frequent use of rhetorical strategies, frames, and categories in sensemaking processes. The study calls for further research on structural features of institutional talk as related to the dynamics of talk‐in‐interaction.
Originality/value
The findings and methods of analysis contribute to international business studies and to the empirical‐based research on institutional interaction through text and talk.