Marion L. Mitchell, Loretta McKinnon, Leanne M Aitken, Sarah Weber, Sean Birgan and Sharon Sykes
The number of disasters has increased by 30 per cent worldwide in the past 30 years. Nurses constitute the largest clinical group within a hospital and their ability to respond to…
Abstract
Purpose
The number of disasters has increased by 30 per cent worldwide in the past 30 years. Nurses constitute the largest clinical group within a hospital and their ability to respond to disasters is crucial to the provision of quality patient care. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a four-year disaster preparedness partnership between two tertiary hospitals from the perspective of executive staff, senior clinical managers and specialist nurses. The national disaster response centre was situated in one hospital and the other hospital was located 3,500 km away.
Design/methodology/approach
The intervention involved selected nurses working at the partner hospital to enable familiarisation with policies, procedures and layout in the event of a request for back-up in the event of a national disaster. A mixed-methods design was used to elicit the strengths and limitations of the partnership. Surveys, in-depth interviews and focus groups were used.
Findings
In total, 67 participants provided evaluations including ten executive staff, 17 clinical management nurses and 38 nurses from the disaster response team. Improvements in some aspects of communication were recommended. The successful recruitment of highly skilled and committed nurses was a strength. A disaster exercise resulted in 79 per cent of nurses, able and willing to go immediately to the partner hospital for up to 14 days.
Research limitations/implications
During the four year partnership, no actual disaster occurred that required support. This limited the ability to fully trial the partnership in an authentic manner. The disaster exercise, although helpful in trialling the processes and assessing nurse availability, it has some limitations.
Originality/value
This innovative partnership successfully prepared specialist nurses from geographically distant hospitals for a disaster response. This together with a willingness to be deployed enhanced Australia’s capacity in the event of a disaster.
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Marion Mitchell, Benjamin Mackie, Leanne M. Aitken and Loretta C. McKinnon
– The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a partnership with specialized nurses from geographically disparate hospitals to provide critical support in national disasters.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a partnership with specialized nurses from geographically disparate hospitals to provide critical support in national disasters.
Design/methodology/approach
The Australian Government established the National Critical Care Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC) within Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH). A partnership with the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) occurred to support RDH during national disasters. PAH nurses undertook two-week rotations to RDH in readiness for deployment. PAH, NCCTRC and RDH nurses’ perceptions of the efficacy of the nurse rotations were explored in surveys and focus groups.
Findings
PAH nurses felt they were well equipped for practice in RDH and the partnership developed professional reciprocity with the PAH nurses feeling respected, valued and part of the RDH team. This finding of adequate preparation and effective integration was consistent with the perceptions of senior staff from the participating organizations.
Originality/value
This unique partnership created a well-prepared team to provide support in a national disaster.
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My feminist, narrative research privileges women’s voice. It comprises a cross‐cultural narrative analysis of 11 Mongolian and 11 Australian women’s stories of survival, recovery…
Abstract
My feminist, narrative research privileges women’s voice. It comprises a cross‐cultural narrative analysis of 11 Mongolian and 11 Australian women’s stories of survival, recovery and remaking of self following domestic/intimate partner violence. With a major focus on narrative identity, I identified plots and themes of individual autobiographical narratives, as well as relevant canonical narratives (general stories of lives arising from dominant discourses in a particular culture). From these elements I created a meta‐narrative which constitutes the body of the research report. The strength of this narrative research method was to elicit narratives of women’s journeys through and beyond domestic violence. The research process involved myself as researcher, as well as participants themselves, bearing witness to and reflecting on the women’s stories. Particularly empowering for participants was hearing and responding to their own stories and the sharing of stories among participants. In this article I give an overview of my theoretical approaches and research methods, tell the story of conducting the research and give a brief summary of my findings and conclusions.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the new construct online shopper confusion and to identify online confusion causes and consequences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the new construct online shopper confusion and to identify online confusion causes and consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
Data obtained from a projective technique and a quantitative study were analyzed to identify online shopper confusion causes. Two experiments employing different stimulus materials tested the conceptualized consequences of online shopper confusion.
Findings
Confusing online store elements are classified into three online confusion causes. Data yielded from two experiments using fictitious and real shopping scenarios as stimulus material show that a confusing internet retail process leads to negative consumer reactions.
Research limitations/implications
The resulting taxonomy of confusing online store elements offers guidance on the creation of non-confusing online shopping trips, and highlights the relevance of a non-confusing internet retail process. Online shopper confusion is linked to negative behavioral reactions. Consequently, this research offers an explanation for undesirable consumer reactions in internet retailing.
Practical implications
The findings provide practitioners with concrete insights into how the internet retail process confuses shoppers which help to assess the confusion potential of their existing online stores and consider confusion issues in the development of new online stores.
Originality/value
This research is the first to explore confusion during the internet retail process. The multi-method approach offers highly valid insights into the causes and consequences of online shopper confusion.
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An outline of the public library service offered to disabled people in Glasgow, Scotland.
Abstract
Purpose
An outline of the public library service offered to disabled people in Glasgow, Scotland.
Design/methodology/approach
A descriptive account.
Findings
It is a great challenge for a public library service to be able to offer services to its large and diverse body of disabled users, who may need to use any part of the public library system at any time, and whose needs must be anticipated. This paper sketches how one particular public library service attempts to meet that challenge.
Research limitations/implications
A specific account of one particular example of good practice.
Practical implications
Offers clearly described models for service delivery to disabled users which will be of great interest to those in public library management, and library practice generally.
Originality/value
The finding that, despite the range and number of disabled users catered for by a large public library service such as Glasgow, it is possible to offer services that comply with legislation and anticipate the needs of disabled users.
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Marc Wouters, Susana Morales, Sven Grollmuss and Michael Scheer
The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).
Methodology/approach
This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.
Findings
The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.
Research limitations/implications
This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.
Originality/value
This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.
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This chapter helps us to understand the staffing and workflow ramifications of Linked Data. A survey of the current state of metadata work, compared to the possibilities and…
Abstract
This chapter helps us to understand the staffing and workflow ramifications of Linked Data. A survey of the current state of metadata work, compared to the possibilities and intentions of Linked Data modeling and technology, allows us to make a needs assessment for future planning. Findings are that current trends in metadata work – distributed production alongside centralized management, iterative and collaborative resource description – are appropriate in a Linked Data environment, and should be further cultivated. A plan for training staff on the conceptual modeling of Linked Data is also outlined, together providing a launching pad to begin organizational planning for Linked Data.
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Ron Ashkenas, Wes Siegal and Markus Spiegel
Organizations today operate in highly dynamic environments and are becoming more complex. Helping their organizations master this complexity is a major leadership challenge. To…
Abstract
Organizations today operate in highly dynamic environments and are becoming more complex. Helping their organizations master this complexity is a major leadership challenge. To better understand how managers’ behaviors aggravate or reduce complexity, we reviewed 1,400 responses to a proprietary organizational complexity survey. Analysis identified specific managers’ behaviors that contribute to perceived complexity. We draw from these findings, literature on complex adaptive systems, and our consulting experiences to identify specific strategies managers can use to make it simpler for people to get things done, and even to “master” complexity by turning it into a source of strategic advantage.
Wayne A. Hochwarter, Ilias Kapoutsis, Samantha L. Jordan, Abdul Karim Khan and Mayowa Babalola
Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers…
Abstract
Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.
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In 1939, an English artist, designer and teacher named Ann Gillmore Rees arrived in New South Wales. Over the next nine years Rees taught design and craft to adults in Sydney…
Abstract
In 1939, an English artist, designer and teacher named Ann Gillmore Rees arrived in New South Wales. Over the next nine years Rees taught design and craft to adults in Sydney, working for the Children’s Library and Craft Movement (later to become the Creative Leisure Movement), the Australian Red Cross, and the Society of Arts and Crafts of New South Wales. Although the period from 1939 until 1948 represents only a short period in what was a long and diverse career, Rees’ students included some notable figures, among them Margaret Oppen who went on to establish the Embroiderers Guild of NSW, Ysobel Irvine, later a popular teacher at the Workshop Art Centre in Willoughby, and the noted interior designer Marion Hall Best. Despite her active participation in the cultural life of Sydney, Rees is curiously absent from most of the histories of craft and design in Australia and very little has been written about her work as a teacher. This article outlines Ann Gillmore Rees’ teaching activities in Sydney, with particular focus on the Craft Training School and Correspondence Courses in Colour and Design and Fabric Printing that she developed for the Society of Arts and Crafts of New South Wales. It also analyses the role these classes played at a time of limited access to formal educational programmes in craft and design and consider how, in these classes, Rees combined elements of vocational, recreational and informational adult education so as to appeal to a wide audience.