Selma Ebrahim, Angela Glascott, Heidi Mayer and Elodie Gair
Recovery Colleges are education-based mental health resources, utilising practitioner and lived experience expertise, promoting skills to enhance student independence. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Recovery Colleges are education-based mental health resources, utilising practitioner and lived experience expertise, promoting skills to enhance student independence. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of engagement with a Recovery College in Northern England on student wellbeing.
Design/methodology/approach
Feedback questionnaires were analysed from 89 students attending the Recovery College. Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMBS) and “Empower Flower” (a measure of personal resources) data for 56 students were compared pre- and post-attendance at courses.
Findings
The SWEMBS and Empower Flower indicated improvements in wellbeing and personal resources pre- to post-attendance at Recovery College courses. Satisfaction with the service was high. Students saw the service as unique, accepting and enabling. Students noted they developed a sense of hope, confidence and aspirations. They related this to practical changes, e.g. increasing work-related activity and decreasing service use.
Research limitations/implications
This research suggests that there is a need for further evaluation of the unique contribution that Recovery Colleges can make to mental wellbeing, and the mechanisms involved in promoting the process of recovery.
Practical implications
The Recovery College may be a cost-effective way to provide a supportive recovery-orientated environment which promotes students’ ability to build self-confidence and skills, enabling them to connect with others and progress towards independence and valued goals. This complements more traditional mental health services.
Originality/value
This paper reports on an area of mental health development where there is very limited research, adding valuable data to the literature.
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Heidi Paesen, Kristel Wouters and Jeroen Maesschalck
Leadership is considered to be a crucial situational factor in predicting and explaining employee deviance. The purpose of this paper therefore is to investigate the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
Leadership is considered to be a crucial situational factor in predicting and explaining employee deviance. The purpose of this paper therefore is to investigate the relationship between servant leadership on the one hand and employee deviance on the other. While previous studies on the impact of servant leadership on employee deviance typically aggregated all its dimensions into a single scale, this study also explores the impact of the various dimensions of servant leadership separately.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected via an online survey in two ministries of the Belgian Federal Government (n=3,445). The analyses were conducted using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear and negative binomial regression analysis.
Findings
The empirical results suggest that the generic servant leadership scale has the expected negative, protective effect on both self-reported and observer-reported employee deviance. As for the dimensions, the authors found that only the “putting subordinates first” dimension had a significant negative, protective effect on both self-reported and observer-reported employee deviance. The dimensions “behaving ethically” and “emotional healing” negatively impacted only observer-reported employee deviance and the dimension “creating value for society” negatively impacted only self-reported employee deviance. Surprisingly, the dimension “empowering” had a significant positive, strengthening effect on both self-reported and observer-reported employee deviance.
Originality/value
While most research assesses servant leadership’s impact on desirable behaviour, this study is about its impact on employee deviance. Also unlike most previous research, this study looks not only at the overall effect of servant leadership, but also at the impact of the various dimensions of servant leadership separately.
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Heidi Olander, Mika Vanhala, Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Kirsimarja Blomqvist
The purpose of this paper is to study how the motivation in firms to safeguard the prerequisites of innovation relates to the strength of the employee-related protection…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study how the motivation in firms to safeguard the prerequisites of innovation relates to the strength of the employee-related protection mechanisms that deal with knowledge leaking and knowledge leaving, and the moderating effect of organizational trust in the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were tested on a sample collected in Finland from 80 companies engaged in R&D. A partial least squares was used for the analyses.
Findings
Knowledge leaking and leaving from a firm can be approached with both formalized and soft types of employee-related mechanisms; that the motivation to secure innovativeness positively relates to both forms; and that the presence of organizational trust is especially effective in reinforcing employee-related practices that can prevent knowledge leaving.
Research limitations/implications
The data were gathered in a single western European country and that may have affected the results.
Practical implications
The managers would do well to introduce both formalized and soft forms of protection so as to mitigate the effects of knowledge both leaving and leaking. Building on the findings of this study, managers could prioritize between the different categories and mechanisms depending on the market and industry they operate in.
Originality/value
This study adds to the literature by studying quantitatively the employee-related protection mechanisms and the effect of organizational trust in the usage of those mechanisms.
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Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of…
Abstract
Purpose
Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of entrepreneurship. This influences how female entrepreneurs are perceived in the popular press and can be manipulated as an alternative entrepreneurial reality. The purpose of this paper is to build upon research into entrepreneurial identity introducing the “Diva” concept.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative methodological approach involves an analysis of biographies of famous Diva's to identify common themes; and an internet trawl to identify supplementary micro‐biographies and newspaper articles on “Divas”. This tripartite approach allows rich data to be collected permitting a comparative analysis.
Findings
This empirical paper presents the socially constructed nature of entrepreneurial narrative and the “Diva storyline” demonstrating the influence of journalistic licence upon how successful women are portrayed. The paper adds incremental credence to power of male‐dominated journalistic practices to vilify enterprising behaviour to sell newspapers.
Research limitations/implications
An obvious limitation to the work is that the sample of articles and biographies selected were chosen via search parameters which mention the word “Diva”. Nevertheless, there is scope for further “more detailed” research into the phenomenon to flesh out the model built in this preliminary paper.
Practical implications
An important implication for scholars and journalists is the need to reconsider how we tell and decode entrepreneur stories. As researchers, we need to recognise that there are other avenues for women to become entrepreneurs than to become businesswomen and that it is alright for women to reject the “entrepreneur” label.
Originality/value
This paper informs our understanding of the socially constructed nature of how we tell, understand and appreciate entrepreneur stories. It thus makes a unique contribution by illustrating that the storylines which constitute the “Diva cycle” are constructed from the same storylines that we associate with entrepreneur stories but narrated in a different order. It provides another heuristic device for understanding the social construction of gendered entrepreneurial identities making it of interest to feminist scholars of entrepreneurship and to social constructionists alike.
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Alexandra C. H. Nowakowski, Katelyn Y. Graves and J. E. Sumerau
Purpose: This report analyzes relationships between chronic inflammation and quality of life (QoL). It assesses the potential role of intimate relationships in associations…
Abstract
Purpose: This report analyzes relationships between chronic inflammation and quality of life (QoL). It assesses the potential role of intimate relationships in associations between inflammation, medical sequelae such as pain and disability, and QoL.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Limited longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) were analyzed. Inflammation was assessed via the biomarker C-reactive protein (CRP). The authors examined pathwise associations between CRP levels and general happiness. The authors used ordinal logistic regression with companion OLS models, and conducted a variety of sensitivity analyses.
Findings: Intimate partnerships – especially marriage – appear to impact associations between inflammation and QoL. When QoL is measured using general happiness, intimate relationships appear to shape directional associations between inflammation and QoL along with medical consequences of inflammation.
Research Limitations/Implications: Inflammation and its clinical consequences may substantially alter intimate relationship involvement and quality that in turn impact QoL. These relationships should not be viewed as unilateral explanations of the tremendous variability observed in QoL among people with inflammatory conditions, but rather as possible elements of complex causal frameworks. Further investigation using advanced methods for longitudinal modeling from limited waves of data can help to shed additional light on the nuances of happiness and QoL among people living with chronic inflammation.
Originality/Value: This chapter provides an overview of possible causal relationships between chronic inflammation, associated clinical and social experiences, and QoL. Researchers interested in advanced causal modeling of relationships between chronic inflammation and QoL can build on this work using novel methods and data sources.
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The focus on local-level policy initiatives in US anti-fracking movements presents unique opportunities to explore interactions between professional advocacy organizations with…
Abstract
The focus on local-level policy initiatives in US anti-fracking movements presents unique opportunities to explore interactions between professional advocacy organizations with regional/national constituencies and grassroots organizations with constituencies who will directly experience changes in local landscapes resulting from unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD). However, research on anti-fracking movements in the US has considered dynamics of interorganizational cooperation only peripherally. This chapter examines factors that motivate coalition building, sources of coalition fragmentation, and the progressive polarization of grassroots anti-fracking and countermovement activists using qualitative research on an anti-fracking movement in Illinois. While grassroots groups may experience some strategic advantages by collaborating with extra-local, professionalized advocacy organizations, these relationships involve navigating considerable inequalities. In the case presented here, I find that coalition building was important for putting UOGD on the policy agenda. However, when anti-fracking activists began experiencing success, institutionalization rapidly produced fragmentation in the coalition, and a countermovement of UOGD supporters was formed. I highlight how ordinary movement dynamics are particularly susceptible to polarization in the context of local land use disputes that “scale-up” to involve broader movement constituencies as perceptions of distributive injustice collide with perceptions of procedural injustice.
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Abstract
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Heidi Winklhofer, Kathryn Houghton and Thomas Chesney
Despite the much publicised advantages of a website for SME exporters, the level of website sophistication, as well as the factors which inhibit or stimulate exporting SMEs to…
Abstract
Despite the much publicised advantages of a website for SME exporters, the level of website sophistication, as well as the factors which inhibit or stimulate exporting SMEs to develop their website beyond a basic level of sophistication, are still unknown. The literature is prone to discuss website establishment and development simultaneously, splitting firms into adopters and non-adopters, yet websites may be established and then neglected, or be continually developed. This paper introduces an instrument for measuring website sophistication within an export marketing context, and proposes and empirically tests a model that depicts factors impacting on perceived advantages of a website and website sophistication levels. The results identify export diversity and environmental pressure as key determinants of perceived advantage of a website which in turn is a good predictor of website sophistication. The firm internal resources, i.e. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge and time, in conjunction with entrepreneurship orientation also determine an SME exporter's website sophistication level.
Sally McKechnie, Heidi Winklhofer and Christine Ennew
Extant research has examined consumer acceptance of the internet in various contexts mainly as a dichotomy (adoption/non‐adoption), thus ignoring the process underlying adoption…
Abstract
Purpose
Extant research has examined consumer acceptance of the internet in various contexts mainly as a dichotomy (adoption/non‐adoption), thus ignoring the process underlying adoption. This paper aims to provide insights into factors determining the extent to which an innovation is adopted.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the literature on the technology acceptance model (TAM), and justifies the use of this model to explore the factors contributing to the extent to which consumers use the internet as a distribution channel for financial services (FS). Data are collected through telephone interviews with 300 UK consumers responding to a questionnaire.
Findings
The application of the TAM model is helpful but additional links need to be included. The key drivers of extent of use are past experience with the internet as a purchasing channel (for non‐FS) and attitudinal aspects, i.e. positive emotions towards the internet as a distribution channel for FS. Insecurity about this channel does not appear to be an obstacle and perceived usefulness is not directly linked to extent of use but fully mediated via attitude towards the channel. Consumers with computer access from home, those with an active interest in FS, as well as consumers who have general online purchasing experience tend to find this channel easy to use, which, jointly with perceived usefulness, leads to a positive attitude toward this distribution channel.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are limited to the FS online retail context and may not be generalisable beyond this context. Future research should be considered using a longitudinal approach.
Practical implications
FS retail providers should consider prior experience with the internet as a distribution channel and product category involvement as segmentation bases, and also provide more opportunities for consumers to try and observe the internet as a distribution channel.
Originality/value
This research explores the determinants of consumer acceptance of online retailing from a process‐based rather than a binary view of adoption of an innovation.
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Heidi Olander, Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen and Pia Heilmann
Human resources in knowledge intensive industries create the basis for continuing innovation and subsequent firm performance. At the same time, they pose risks for the…
Abstract
Purpose
Human resources in knowledge intensive industries create the basis for continuing innovation and subsequent firm performance. At the same time, they pose risks for the competitiveness of the firm: unwanted leaking of knowledge and intellectual capital to outsiders exposes firm-critical knowledge, and knowledge leaving with a departing key employee may jeopardise the firm’s projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine how human resource management can serve as a protection mechanism to diminish knowledge leaking and leaving via employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors approach these issues through a case study utilising interview data from 22 interviews within two large research and development intensive firms.
Findings
Human resources could be seen both as a strength and weakness of a firm with respect to knowledge protection. The findings indicate that there are numerous practices related to commitment, trust, motivation, and sense of responsibility available to deploy to strengthen loyalty and to improve preservation of intellectual capital.
Originality/value
While human resources management aspects have been widely discussed with regard job profitability and efficiency in generating intellectual capital, their connection to knowledge protection has often been overlooked. This study aims to contribute to this area.