Dennis Wardman, Ken Clement and Darryl Quantz
To provide a picture of the access and use of health services by Aboriginal British Columbians living in both reserve and off‐reserve communities.
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a picture of the access and use of health services by Aboriginal British Columbians living in both reserve and off‐reserve communities.
Design/methodology/approach
This project represents a collaborative effort between the University of British Columbia and multiple Aboriginal community partners. Between June and November 2003, 267 face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with Aboriginal persons in seven rural community organizations across the province.
Findings
This paper reports on the results of a survey of 267 Aboriginal clients. It was found that a substantial number of survey respondents accessed health services provided by an Aboriginal person. Although most respondents felt that services were available, they also identified a number of concerns. These revolved around the need to travel for services, as well as a lack of access to more specialized services. A number of self‐reported barriers to service were also identified. These findings have several policy implications and will be useful to service planners.
Research limitations/implications
Several questions for additional research were identified including the need to establish an inventory of service problem areas and investigating service and benefit policy and community awareness issues.
Originality/value
This paper provides policy makers with knowledge on the rural Aboriginal population, a population that has faced long standing problems in accessing appropriate health services.
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Notes that privatization and deregulation are concepts used frequently over the last decade, also in the transport context. Discusses the meaning and relevance of these concepts…
Abstract
Notes that privatization and deregulation are concepts used frequently over the last decade, also in the transport context. Discusses the meaning and relevance of these concepts in the passenger transport sector. Deals with consequences for social welfare of various organizational forms, examining private versus public, competition versus co‐ordination and the mixed form “public planning and competitive tendering for operation”. First, discusses a proposed multi‐billion public transport and ring‐road project in Stockholm in terms of private or public ownership and benefits and costs. Discovers that there are severe problems related to a private profit maximizing regime in the passenger transport sector, especially so for local and regional transport and road transport.
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Frédéric Dobruszkes and Moshe Givoni
This chapter provides a critical discussion of air to rail mode substitution. Environmental impacts, intermodal competition and integration are considered, examining advantages…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter provides a critical discussion of air to rail mode substitution. Environmental impacts, intermodal competition and integration are considered, examining advantages and disadvantages as well as opportunities and constraints.
Originality
Both operation and life-cycle analysis perspectives show that high-speed rail (HSR) is much ‘greener’ than air transport (per seat-km or per passenger-km) provided that the former achieves high load factors and the latter lower load factors and that freed runway capacity is not reused. HSR travel time is its main competitive advantage against air transport, and a 600-km flight is arguably the current limit for robust intermodal effects.
Findings
The potential for air–HSR integration at the airport relies on various service, business and technical constraints. Even when it is successful, its environmental benefit appears to be marginal, if not negative, if airport capacity is reused for longer flights. In the current context, such integration appears more like a business opportunity for airlines, airports and train operators rather than a sustainable option. Yet the environmental benefit of integration may be larger within potential integrated transport policies.
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Ya-Ling Wu, Eldon Y. Li and Wei-Lun Chang
Creative performance relies on the capability of developing and presenting an original concept or idea, and the collaborative production of creative content which enhances feeling…
Abstract
Purpose
Creative performance relies on the capability of developing and presenting an original concept or idea, and the collaborative production of creative content which enhances feeling of connection with others and formation of strong community. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of work performance containing four dimensions (capacity, opportunities, willingness, and performance) to investigate how the capabilities of social network sites enhance user creative performance through collective social capital and information capital (opportunities) for and individual habit of use (willingness) of the user to engage in social learning process.
Design/methodology/approach
Many measurement items are adapted from the literature, except those measuring the constructs of social media capabilities (i.e. transmission velocity (TV), parallelism, symbol sets, rehearsability, and reprocessability) and user creative performance. The study uses survey method to collect data from social media network (SMN) users in Taiwan. Facebook is chosen as the source because it is the most prevalent and sophisticated social media platform that provides a home for users to interact and communicate. Structural equation modeling with partial least square is used to analyze the usable data collected from 533 Facebook users.
Findings
The results show that the constructs are significantly and positively correlated, meaning that social media capabilities enable social capital, information capital, and habit of use to improve user creative performance in SMNs. Three out of five social media capabilities (i.e. TV, parallelism, and rehearsability) are identified as the key enablers.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the sampled surveyed subjects and the single research method, there are some limitations in this study. The research results may lack generalizability that should be taken into account when they are interpreted. The authors encourage researchers to test the proposed theoretical model further with additional subjects, variables, and linkages.
Practical implications
The findings of this research shed light for managers of SMN platforms on how to manage the platforms more effectively. A healthy SMN platform must implement at least these three media capabilities: the functions of news feed (i.e. TV), chat (i.e. parallelism), edit (i.e. rehearsability), in order to sustain its service.
Social implications
This study confirmed that user creative performance can be increased in various ways through social capital, information capital, and habit of use. Company management should use SMNs (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) to enable employees to interact and exchange ideas and promote “coopetition” among employees across the company. If the organizational culture supports free expression of ideas and sharing of opinions, the development and robustness of group creativity can be enhanced, leading to higher competitive advantage for a company against its competitors.
Originality/value
Past studies related to individual creativity have mostly discussed it as a personality trait or talent; yet, personality trait or talent is implicit until it is shown by one’s behavior. Thus, for the collective performance of user creativity on SMNs, the authors elicit individual creativity through the creative performance manifested by user behavior. Furthermore, the authors confirm that social capital, information capital, and habit of use are the critical antecedents of user creative performance, and that the five social media capabilities are the enablers of social capital, information capital, and habit of use on SMNs.
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Mirela Schramm Tonetto, Carlos Torres Formoso, Tarcisio Abreu Saurin, Fabiana Bonesi De Luca, Fernanda Pavan Lora and Elvira Lantelme
The COVID-19 pandemic offered a unique glimpse into the resilience of construction projects, shedding light on several learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic offered a unique glimpse into the resilience of construction projects, shedding light on several learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to develop propositions for the improvement of resilient performance in construction in the post-pandemic era.
Design/methodology/approach
The propositions were developed based on an empirical study in Brazil. Data collection involved the analysis of regulations, interviews with health experts, managers, and workers, in addition to non-participant observations of the use of 37 control practices in 39 construction sites comparing the work-as-imagined and the work-as-done. The practices were classified in a hierarchy of controls.
Findings
Seven propositions for the improvement of resilient performance were developed, addressing collaboration between construction companies, slack resources, new health and safety practices, production planning and control, digital technologies, visual management, and organizational culture. These propositions emphasize organizational support for resilience. This is in contrast to the nature of most observed practices (57%) that relied on administrative controls and personal protective equipment, which are measures dependent on behaviors that resemble resilience at the individual level.
Originality/value
Although much has been studied on COVID-19 implications for construction projects, previous empirical studies have not adopted the organizational resilience perspective as the main theoretical background.
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This research study aims to investigate supplier integration's (SI) impact on supply-side resilience (SSR) while considering the intervening role of supplier sustainability and…
Abstract
Purpose
This research study aims to investigate supplier integration's (SI) impact on supply-side resilience (SSR) while considering the intervening role of supplier sustainability and supplier flexibility (SF).
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in the dynamic capabilities view (DCV), the study posits that integration of the focal firm with firm's suppliers leads to sustainability on the supplier's side, which makes the firms more flexible to work with during disruptive circumstances, resulting in resilience on the supply side. The hypotheses are tested on the data of 181 manufacturing firm supply chain managers from a developing country.
Findings
The research findings confirmed the hypothesized model suggesting that SI positively impacts SSR. The results also confirm the existence of sequential mediation of supplier sustainability and SF between the SI–SSR relationship.
Practical implications
The results of this study show that SI is the primary capability for organizations seeking SSR. Furthermore, the supply-side capabilities, to be effective, are developed in a specific order.
Originality/value
This research advances the body of knowledge by identifying the underlying mechanisms through which SI augments SSR.