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1 – 10 of 67Brenda Phillips, Dave Neal, Thomas Wikle, Aswin Subanthore and Shireen Hyrapiet
This study aims to conduct the first original research on mass fatality management in nearly 30 years.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to conduct the first original research on mass fatality management in nearly 30 years.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research design captured local perspectives within a culturally‐appropriate context to examine roles and responsibilities of government officials within the State of Tamil Nadu and District of Naggapattinam (spellings reflect the most commonly‐used local choice), India. Research data were gathered in the context of the Indian Ocean Tsunami that claimed nearly 300,000 lives across approximately 13 nations.
Findings
Local officials and residents faced unprecedented challenges during the hours immediately following the tsunami. These included removing debris that covered bodies, body identification, health and sanitation issues, and the necessity of creating mass graves. The findings identify prior experience with disasters, familiarity with the local area, the quality of pre‐existing networks among officials, a strong desire to rescue those yet living and the presence of linkages between government and non‐governmental organizations as critical factors affecting an expedited management process.
Practical implications
Practical implications include the value of general disaster training that can transcend specific circumstances, the pre‐establishment of mutual aid agreements, strong lines of horizontal and vertical cooperation and inter‐organizational coordination and an understanding of local culture and customs.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to scant social science understanding of mass fatality management processes and furthers a line of inquiry applicable to a wide variety of hazards such as pandemics, terrorism and natural events.
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By engaging levels of W/writerliness, this paper aims to identify how English Language Arts teachers’ personal and professional W/writerly identities impact their performance of…
Abstract
Purpose
By engaging levels of W/writerliness, this paper aims to identify how English Language Arts teachers’ personal and professional W/writerly identities impact their performance of pedagogical agency.
Design/methodology/approach
In this narrative inquiry, the author draws on theories of writing identity and agency to analyze how four mid-career English teachers’ personal beliefs around writing intersect with their professional practice. Data sources include interviews, journal entries and classroom observations.
Findings
Nuanced differences in teachers’ W/writerly identities produce more substantial differences in their pedagogy, especially impacting their performance of agency to (re)define successful writing outcomes and to balance process and product in their writing instruction.
Practical implications
This paper presents one method to expand preservice and in-service English Language Arts (ELA) practitioners’ approaches to teaching writing even alongside limitations of their teaching context by (1) emphasizing their ownership over their own writing in university methods courses; (2) leading teachers on an exploration of W/writerly identities; and (3) investigating ways teachers can transfer their personal and professional learning to students via their own pedagogical agency.
Originality/value
The study extends the work of scholars in the National Writing Project, suggesting that nuanced exploration of ELA teachers’ W/writerly identities in preservice and in-service settings could increase their sense of agency to work against and within cultures of standardization.
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The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related…
Abstract
The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐second to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1995. After 21 years, the title of this review of the literature has been changed from “Library Orientation and Instruction” to “Library Instruction and Information Literacy,” to indicate the growing trend of moving to information skills instruction.
Mohammad Abdolmohammadi and Alan Reinstein
Prior research suggests that perceived levels of a subordinate auditor’s competence affects audit reviewers’ judgments. We extend this line of research by investigating the…
Abstract
Prior research suggests that perceived levels of a subordinate auditor’s competence affects audit reviewers’ judgments. We extend this line of research by investigating the effects of perceived client competence (hereafter, ClientComp) and its interaction with subordinate auditor’s competence (hereafter, AuditorComp) on audit reviewers’ judgments. Using data from highly experienced CPA audit managers, senior managers, and partners, we find a significant main effect for AuditorComp, but not for ClientComp. We also find that when AuditorComp is high, levels of ClientComp do not affect audit reviewers’ judgments. However, we cannot support the hypothesis that when AuditorComp is low ClientComp will significantly affect audit reviewers’ judgments. These mixed results suggest that in the post-SOX (2002) era regulatory environment, audit reviewers may be exercising heightened professional skepticism about ClientComp whenever they consider clients’ assertions.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that socio‐religious context plays in the decision of whether to become and entrepreneur, and what type of new business venture to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that socio‐religious context plays in the decision of whether to become and entrepreneur, and what type of new business venture to create.
Design/methodology/approach
Interpretivist development from qualitative data obtained by interviews of entrepreneurs in Nepal and Canada.
Findings
Conceptions of Right Livelihood play an important role in the evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities and in the day‐to‐day operations of the resultant new businesses.
Originality/value
Links the literatures of social economics and entrepreneurship to explore how entrepreneurs must balance economic, social, and religious objectives when launching and operating new businesses.
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Daniel Huerta, Dave O. Jackson and Thanh Ngo
The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the impact of investor sentiment on real estate investment trust (REIT) returns using direct, survey-based measures of sentiment to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the impact of investor sentiment on real estate investment trust (REIT) returns using direct, survey-based measures of sentiment to categorize sentiment from institutional and individual investors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide a framework in which sentiment is classified into individual and institutional investor sentiment under the assumption that investors, depending on sophistication, react differently to the same set of information and will influence REIT prices differently. The authors employ a methodology that uses panel regression analyses and divides the sample of REITs into size and performance portfolios.
Findings
The regression results suggest that institutional investor sentiment is positively and significantly related to REIT returns contemporaneously for multiple sample specifications. These results are consistent with high levels of institutional ownership in REITs. Results also suggest that individual investor sentiment only influences small capitalization and low-α portfolios.
Originality/value
The findings provide more evidence on the influence of investor sentiment on security pricing even for highly regulated sectors such as the REIT industry. Investors may use changes in sentiment as signals for portfolio rebalancing and capital allocations.
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Richard Bull, Joanna Romanowicz, Neil Jennings, Marina Laskari, Graeme Stuart and Dave Everitt
This paper aims to present findings from an EU-funded international student-led energy saving competition (SAVES) on a scale previously unseen. There are multiple accounts of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present findings from an EU-funded international student-led energy saving competition (SAVES) on a scale previously unseen. There are multiple accounts of short-term projects and energy saving competitions encouraging pro-environmental behaviour change amongst students in university dormitories, but the purpose of this research is to provide evidence of consistent and sustained energy savings from student-led energy savings competitions, underpinned by practical action.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods approach (pre- and post-intervention surveys, focus groups and analysis of energy meter data) was used to determine the level of energy savings and quantifiable behaviour change delivered by students across participating university dormitories.
Findings
This research has provided further insight into the potential for savings and behaviour change in university dormitories through relatively simple actions. Whilst other interventions have shown greater savings, this project provided consistent savings over two years of 7 per cent across a large number of university dormitories in five countries through simple behaviour changes.
Research limitations/implications
An energy dashboard displaying near a real-time leaderboard was added to the engagement in the second year of the project. Whilst students were optimistic about the role that energy dashboards could play, the evidence is not here to quantify the impact of dashboards. Further research is required to understand the potential of dashboards to contribute to behavioural change savings and in constructing competitions between people and dormitories that are known to each other.
Social implications
SAVES provided engagement with students, enabling, empowering and motivating them to save energy – focusing specifically on the last stage of the “Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action” framework. Automated meter reading data was used in the majority of participating dormitories to run near real-time energy challenges through an energy dashboard that informed students how much energy they saved compared to a target, and encouraged peer-to-peer learning and international cooperation through a virtual twinning scheme.
Originality/value
Findings from energy saving competitions in universities are typically from small-scale and short-term interventions. SAVES was an energy-saving competition in university dormitories facilitated by the UK National Union of Students in five countries reaching over 50,000 students over two academic years (incorporating dormitories at 17 universities). As such it provides clear and important evidence of the real-world long-term potential efficiency savings of such interventions.
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