Kathy Brock and Robert P. Shepherd
According to the traditional view of public administration, a critical component of good policy formulation is the provision of frank and fearless advice to elected…
Abstract
Purpose
According to the traditional view of public administration, a critical component of good policy formulation is the provision of frank and fearless advice to elected decision-makers. This advice can be provided by permanent public officials or by the people selected by the elected governments to fill key and continuing posts. However, there are major questions as to whether new Governor-in-Council (GIC) appointment processes rooted in new public governance (NPG) are yielding the expected results promised, such as less partisanism, as a consideration for appointment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a mixed methods approach to examine the GIC process as it is used in Canada. In using these methods, the authors employed interviews with senior officials, governmental documents review and expert validation interviews to triangulate its main findings.
Findings
The paper uses the case of the revised appointment process for GIC appointments in Canada and suggests that the new arrangements do not deliver on merit-based criteria that ensures independence is protected between political executive and senior bureaucratic officials. Although new processes may be more open and transparent than past processes, the paper suggests that such processes are more susceptible to partisan influence under the guise of being merit-based.
Research limitations/implications
The research was limited to one country context, Canada. As such, it will be necessary to expand this to other Westminster countries. Testing whether manifestations of new public governance in appointment processes elsewhere will be important to validate whether Canada is unique or not.
Practical implications
The authors are left to wonder if this innovation of merit-based appointments in the new administrative state is obscuring the lines of accountability and whether it forms the basis for good policy advice despite promises to the contrary.
Social implications
Trust in the government is affected by decisions behind closed doors. They appear partisan, even when they may not be. Process matters if only to highlight increased value placed on meritorious appointments.
Originality/value
Previous studies on GIC appointments have generally been to explore representation as a value. That is, studies have questioned whether diversity is maintained, for example. However, few studies have explored appointment processes using institutional approaches to examine whether reforms to such processes have respected key principles, such as merit and accountability.
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Kathy Brock Enger, Stephanie Brenenson, Katy Lenn, Margy MacMillan, Michele F. Meisart, Harry Meserve and Sandra A. Vella
Problem‐based learning (PBL) is a teaching strategy that is currently being introduced in undergraduate curricula in colleges and universities across the country, particularly in…
Abstract
Problem‐based learning (PBL) is a teaching strategy that is currently being introduced in undergraduate curricula in colleges and universities across the country, particularly in applied areas such as engineering and the biological sciences. Faculty are increasingly interested in using PBL as an instructional tool because students more readily transfer the knowledge they acquire using PBL to real‐world situations. Librarians at a June 2002 LOEX‐of‐West pre‐conference workshop on PBL questioned how it could be used in the 50‐minute library instruction period, since PBL relies on cooperative learning techniques for successful implementation. The librarians determined that PBL could be applied in the 50‐minute library instruction period using specific Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards, but it could be more effectively implemented in two 75‐minute periods where collaboration among students may more easily be facilitated.
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The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources and research and computer skills…
Abstract
The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐first to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1994. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.
Anna Marie Johnson and Sarah Jent
This article presents an annotated bibliography of literature recently published on the topic of library instruction and information literacy in academic, school, public, special…
Abstract
This article presents an annotated bibliography of literature recently published on the topic of library instruction and information literacy in academic, school, public, special, and all types of libraries. Collaboration was a strong theme, especially among academic and school libraries. Other themes discussed in the articles include the globalism of information literacy, assessment, the use of course management systems, and the use and value of online tutorials.
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Kelley A. Packalen, Kaitlyn Sobchuk, Kelly Qin-Wang, Jenelle Cheetham, Jaclyn Hildebrand, Agnieszka Fecica and Rosemary Lysaght
The goal of this study was to understand which employee-focused workplace practices and priorities – more formally known as human resource (HR) practices and priorities �…
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this study was to understand which employee-focused workplace practices and priorities – more formally known as human resource (HR) practices and priorities – employees with mental health and/or addiction challenges (MHAC) valued and how they perceived the day-to-day implementation of those practices and priorities in the workplace integration social enterprises (WISEs) that employed them.
Design/methodology/approach
Twenty-two WISE workers who self-identified as having serious MHAC participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify ways that employees did or did not feel supported in their WISEs.
Findings
Participants identified three HR practices and two HR priorities as important to establishing an inclusive workplace that accommodated their MHAC. The extent to which individual participants felt included and accommodated, however, was shaped by interactions with their supervisors and coworkers.
Originality/value
By evaluating the salience of WISEs’ employee-focused workplace practices and priorities through the lens of the employees themselves, our study articulates the critical role that interactions with coworkers and supervisors have in determining whether HR practices and priorities have the intended effect on worker experience.
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Morgan R. Clevenger, Cynthia J. MacGregor and C.J. Ryan
This chapter considers how higher education has enticed and interacted with corporations. This chapter explores how higher education behaves, in the aggregate, with a set of…
Abstract
This chapter considers how higher education has enticed and interacted with corporations. This chapter explores how higher education behaves, in the aggregate, with a set of external partners, including businesses. It concludes with a discussion of how higher education should behave, given its external partners, in the modern context in which it finds itself. Discussion topics in this chapter include expectations of external partners; tactics to attract and retain business engagement and support; and internal organization by higher education to address corporate relations, ethics, and effective strategic planning. The Network of Academic Corporate Relations Officers' (NACRO) ideas and models are discussed. A set of guiding principles focused on Strategic Corporate Alliances by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is highlighted.
Hanna Salminen, Monika E. von Bonsdorff, Deborah McPhee and Pia Heilmann
By relying on a sustainable career perspective and recent studies on senior employees’ late career phase, this study aims to examine senior (50+) nurses’ late career narratives in…
Abstract
Purpose
By relying on a sustainable career perspective and recent studies on senior employees’ late career phase, this study aims to examine senior (50+) nurses’ late career narratives in the context of extending retirement age. Given the current global nursing shortage, there is a pressing need to find ways on how to promote longer and sustainable careers in the health-care field. Yet, there is limited knowledge about the extended late career phase of senior nurses.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data were derived from 22 interviews collected among senior (50+) nursing professionals working in a Finnish university hospital. The qualitative interview data were analysed using a narrative analysis method. As a result of the narrative analysis, four career narratives were constructed.
Findings
The findings demonstrated that senior nurses’ late career narratives differed in terms of late career aspirations, constraints, mobility and active agency of one’s own career. The identified career narratives indicate that the building blocks of sustainable late careers in the context of extending retirement age are diverse.
Research limitations/implications
The qualitative interview data were restricted to senior nurses working in one university hospital. Interviews were conducted on site and some nurses were called away leaving some of the interviews shorter than expected.
Practical implications
To support sustainable late careers requires that attention be based on the whole career ecosystem covering individual, organizational and societal aspects and how they are intertwined together.
Originality/value
So far, few studies have investigated the extended late career phase of senior employees in the context of a changing career landscape.
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Abigail Hackett, Steve Pool, Jennifer Rowsell and Barsin Aghajan
The purpose of this paper is to report on video making in two different contexts within the Community Arts Zone research project, an international research project concerned with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on video making in two different contexts within the Community Arts Zone research project, an international research project concerned with the connections between arts, literacy and the community.
Design/methodology/approach
At one project site, researchers and parents from the community filmed their children making dens with an artist. At another site, a professional film crew filmed young people engaged in arts practice in school settings.
Findings
In both cases, researchers, artists and community participants collaborated to do research and make video. This paper discusses the ways that this work was differently positioned at the two sites. These different positionings had implications for the meaning ascribed to video making from the point of view of the participants, researchers and artists involved.
Originality/value
By drawing on perspectives of researchers and artists, the paper explores implications for video making processes within ethnographic research. These include a need for awareness of the diversity and fragmentation of the fields of both visual research and visual arts practice. In addition, the relationship between research and the visual is unfolding in a context in which the digital is increasingly ubiquitous in everyday life. Therefore the authors argue for the need for researchers and artists to explore their epistemological assumptions with regards to video and film, and to consider the role of the digital in the lives of their participants. The coming together of these positions and experiences is what constructs the meaning of the digital and visual in the field.