Eileen Patterson, Sara Branch, Michelle Barker and Sheryl Ramsay
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of power in cases of upwards bullying by examining the bases of power that staff members use, and how these bases create power…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of power in cases of upwards bullying by examining the bases of power that staff members use, and how these bases create power imbalances.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six managers from several organisations. After completion of each interview, verbatim transcripts were created and examined using NVivo, allowing in-depth thematic analysis. The broad coding schema, developed through a review of the literature, was refined as analysis progressed.
Findings
Three major themes emerged: a loss of legitimate power, coercive power, and structural power. The findings suggest a “power cycle” exists in upwards bullying episodes, which is presented diagrammatically. Discussion focusses on the processes that commence with a decrease or loss of a manager’s legitimate power, associated with a lack of organisational support, and staff members’ perceptions of illegitimacy. Managers indicated vulnerability to inappropriate behaviours by staff members, and the potential for greater power imbalances to build due to these behaviours triggering a feedback mechanism, with managers experiencing a further loss of legitimate power.
Originality/value
The study recommends that research into the perspectives of staff members (such as alleged perpetrators) can further strengthen our understanding of the use of power in workplace bullying, and in upwards bullying in particular. Given the applicability of the outcomes of this research to our understanding of workplace bullying, such theory development can also foster practical approaches to addressing workplace bullying within organisations. Understanding the nature of power within workplace bullying processes can inform organisational strategies to disrupt the cycle of inappropriate behaviours, upwards and otherwise.
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Eileen L. Sullivan, George P. Sillup and Ronald K. Klimberg
The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multicriteria decision support system that has been successfully applied to numerous decision-making situations, has been applied to…
Abstract
The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multicriteria decision support system that has been successfully applied to numerous decision-making situations, has been applied to patient assessment. The AHP was used with Timeslips™, a group storytelling program that encourages creative expression among dementia patients, to determine the optimal scale for pre and post assessment among the nine most common agitation and anxiety scales. The AHP used the six criteria identified by qualitative assessment of the nine scales: (1) validity/reliability, (2) observation period, (3) training required, (4) time to administer, (5) most appropriate administrator, and (6) accessibility/cost. The AHP indicated that the Overt Agitation & Anxiety Scale was optimal for use with Timeslips; the process and results are discussed.
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Elizabeth S. Redden, James B. Sheehy and Eileen A. Bjorkman
This chapter provides an overview of the Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory structure to help equipment designers, modelers, and manufacturers determine where research…
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory structure to help equipment designers, modelers, and manufacturers determine where research, testing programs, or relevant findings can be found. The chapter includes a discussion of the performance measures and metrics typically used in DoD laboratories and concludes by considering the current state-of-the-art as well as the state-of-the-possible for human performance measurement.
The January 1987 issue of Access, a quarterly update from R.R. Bowker Company, contains a brief article entitled “Ulrich's: A Prime Source in Any Format.” This short piece tells…
Abstract
The January 1987 issue of Access, a quarterly update from R.R. Bowker Company, contains a brief article entitled “Ulrich's: A Prime Source in Any Format.” This short piece tells us that 1987 marked the silver anniversary of the founding of Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory and that we have good reason to celebrate. The reason is that Ulrich's, and its sister publications, Irregular Serials and Annuals and Bowker's Serials Database Update, are now available on CD‐ROM and known as Ulrich's Plus. The article states that “this electronic disc format offers high speed access, multiple search points and ease of use.” The article also informs us that data for Ulrich's are continuously revised and updated by no less than thirteen editors who have multilingual skills and whose combined efforts provide indepth profiles of seventy thousand serials and thirty‐five thousand irregulars published worldwide, that there are updates for more than sixty‐five thousand entries, and that there is a “descriptive analysis of the content and point of view of each publication.” And, finally, that all periodicals are subject indexed.
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Noah Pollock, Eileen Horn, Robert Costanza and Matt Sayre
Universities are increasingly aspiring to be both models and catalysts of change, leading the world to a more sustainable and desirable future. Yet complex and ineffective…
Abstract
Purpose
Universities are increasingly aspiring to be both models and catalysts of change, leading the world to a more sustainable and desirable future. Yet complex and ineffective governance, traditional disciplinary boundaries, and the lack of a shared vision at academic institutions often hinder progress toward this goal. The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach to envisioning and engagement used by the University of Vermont (UVM) to overcome these barriers, and in the process, continue the university's progress toward leadership in systems thinking, ecological design, and sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The envisioning and engagement process involved 1,500 participants from the UVM campus and Burlington community. Participants' visions of a sustainable and desirable university are gathered through two community events and three online surveys. Their responses are analyzed using a modified Q methodology, a survey method in which participants direct the formation of survey categories. The results of the analysis lead to the formation of a vision narrative, a sustainability charter, and guide the creation of a range of initiatives.
Findings
The results of these efforts suggest that when provided with ample and well‐structured opportunities, university community members will become active participants in initiatives aimed at fostering institutional change. By focusing on shared values and long‐term goals, envisioning exercises can achieve a surprising amount of consensus while avoiding the divisiveness and polarization that often plague open‐ended discussions and university governance.
Originality/value
While envisioning exercises are sometimes conducted by local governments, institutions of higher education still rely predominantly on more traditional and hierarchical methods of planning. The innovative process outlined in this paper for adapting Q methodology for community envisioning appears to be an effective method of eliciting participants' visions and establishing broad‐based support for actions that promote sustainability planning and education.
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Mary Ann Glynn, Elizabeth A. Hood and Benjamin D. Innis
As hybrid organizations become increasingly common, the authors observe that some hybrid forms are becoming institutionalized and legitimated. The authors explore the implications…
Abstract
As hybrid organizations become increasingly common, the authors observe that some hybrid forms are becoming institutionalized and legitimated. The authors explore the implications of the institutionalization of hybridity, addressing both the internal tensions that plague many hybrids and the external tensions stemming from evaluator assessments and stakeholder uncertainty. The authors propose that institutionalization can dampen internal tensions associated with hybridity and also facilitate legitimation and acceptance by external audiences. The authors present identity as a useful theoretical lens through which to examine these questions, as identities are born from, but also have the potential to modify, existing institutional arrangements. The authors present directions for future research at the juncture of identity, hybridity, and institutionalization, suggesting potential avenues of inquiry in this productive stream of research.
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This chapter explores the role of libraries and librarians from the perspective of the information seeker in general and from business school students in particular. In a recent…
Abstract
This chapter explores the role of libraries and librarians from the perspective of the information seeker in general and from business school students in particular. In a recent article in First Monday, Keller et al. (2003) pose the question: “What is a library anymore, anyway?” The answer to this question would be “That depends.” It depends upon who you are asking and the perspective from which you are answering the question. The notion of perspective has been raised before in the library and information science literature. Zweizig (1976) noted that users were the focus of studies, they were examined from the perspective of “the user in the life of the library” rather than from the perspective of “the library in the life of the user.” More recently, Lipow (1999) noted that librarians discuss how to serve “remote users” when in fact it is the library that is remote to the user.
Writing in 1995, what seems from our vantage point an almost primitive moment in technological evolution, hypertext theorist, and fiction writer Catherine Marshall, with her…
Abstract
Writing in 1995, what seems from our vantage point an almost primitive moment in technological evolution, hypertext theorist, and fiction writer Catherine Marshall, with her colleague David Levy, presciently described modern libraries;The academic and public libraries most of us have grown up with are the products of innovation begun approximately 150 years ago. We would find libraries that existed prior to that time largely unrecognizable. It is certain that the introduction of digital technologies will again transform libraries, possibly beyond recognition by transforming the mix of materials in their collections and the methods by which these materials are maintained and used. But the better word for these evolving institutions is “libraries,” not digital libraries, for ultimately what must be preserved is the heterogeneity of materials and practices. As library materials and practices of the past have been diverse—more diverse than idealized accounts allow—so they no doubt will remain in the future (Levy and Marshall, 1995, p. 77).By reminding us that libraries were always much more than repositories of collated pages of print, Levy and Marshall highlight the characteristics of modern libraries that mark them not as something new and different, but as something wholly in keeping with the diversity of “traditional” library holdings. “Our idealized image of a library imbues it with qualities of fixity and permanence. This is hardly surprising, since the library is considered to be the Home of the Book, and books are by and large one of the more fixed, more permanent types of documents,” the authors write, but “libraries have always contained materials other than books. Special collections and archives are filled with unbound and handwritten ephemera—correspondence, photographs, and so on … [And] traditional libraries have long contained a diversity of technologies and media; today these include film and video, microfilm and microfiche, vellum and papyrus” (p.77). Now that libraries contain various forms of digital media as standard parts of their collections (electronic journals, electronic catalogs, digital images, digitized sound files), the distinction between “traditional” and “digital” libraries has lost much of its original use, and so has the distinction between traditional and new types of librarians, the stewards of the libraries in any and all forms.