Mark Robinson, Gary Raine, Steve Robertson, Mary Steen and Rhiannon Day
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an evaluation of a community mental health resilience intervention for unemployed men aged 45-60. The focus is on examining…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an evaluation of a community mental health resilience intervention for unemployed men aged 45-60. The focus is on examining the place of facilitated peer support within a multi-dimensional men’s mental health programme, and exploring implications for resilience building delivery approaches for men.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a mixed methodology design involving before and after survey data and qualitative interviews, to report results concerning effectiveness in changing men’s perceived resilience, to consider project processes concerning peer support, and to situate these within wider community environments.
Findings
The programme significantly raised the perceived resilience of participants. Project activities promoted trusting informal social connections, gains in social capital arose through trusting relations and skill-sharing, and peer-peer action-focused talk and planning enhanced men’s resilience.
Research limitations/implications
The paper considers facilitated peer support on a programme, rather than on-going informal peer support or more formal peer support roles (a limitation reflecting the boundaries of the funded programme).
Practical implications
The paper discusses emerging considerations for resilience building, focusing on gender-sensitive approaches which can engage and retain men by focusing on doing and talking. It highlights the importance of peer support in community interventions which feature a social model of change. There is potential for encouraging further peer mentoring and peer led support beyond facilitated peer support in programme delivery.
Social implications
Potential exists for gender-aware programmes to sustain salutogenic change, co-producing social assets of peer support, male-friendly activities, and context sensitive course provision.
Originality/value
The paper adds fresh evidence of gendered intervention approaches with a specific focus on facilitated community peer support, including effects on male resilience. Little previous resilience research is gendered, there is little gendered research on peer support, and unemployed middle-aged men are a significant risk group.
Details
Keywords
Mark Robinson, Steve Robertson, Mary Steen, Gary Raine and Rhiannon Day
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an evaluation of a mental health resilience intervention for unemployed men aged 45-60. The focus is on examining the place…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an evaluation of a mental health resilience intervention for unemployed men aged 45-60. The focus is on examining the place of activities within a multi-dimensional men’s mental health programme, and exploring interactions between social context factors and models of change.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on before and after survey data and qualitative interviews, to report results concerning effectiveness in changing men’s perceived resilience, to consider project processes concerning activities, social support and coping strategies, and to situate these within wider environments.
Findings
The programme significantly raised the perceived resilience of participants. Activities were engaging for men, while the complex intersection between activities, social networking, and coping strategies course provided opportunities for men to develop resilience in contexts resonant with their male identities.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation is that the evaluation could not measure longer term impacts.
Practical implications
The paper discusses emerging considerations for resilience building, focusing on gender-sensitive approaches which can engage and retain men by focusing on doing and talking, in the contexts of men’s life-course, highlighting embodied (male) identities not disembodied “mental states”, and facilitating social support. There are challenges to recruit men despite stigma, support men to speak of feelings, and facilitate progression.
Social implications
Potential exists for gender-aware programmes to sustain salutogenic change, co-producing social assets of peer support, male-friendly activities, and context sensitive course provision.
Originality/value
The paper adds fresh evidence of gendered intervention approaches, including effects on male resilience. Application of a context-sensitive change model leads to multi-component findings for transferring and sustaining programme gains.
Details
Keywords
Liz Chapman, Elizabeth Baker, Peter H Mann, WA Munford and AGK Leonard
‘WHAT A novel arrangement. Is any reason given?’
From a methodological point of view, life cycle costing (LCC) is well developed with respect to conventional costs. However, when it comes to costs related to environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
From a methodological point of view, life cycle costing (LCC) is well developed with respect to conventional costs. However, when it comes to costs related to environmental issues, neither the items nor their estimation have been well developed. This paper aims at investigating the possibilities of using life cycle assessment (LCA) results to identify and estimate environmental costs or benefits in an LCC.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins by looking at the driving forces for introducing environmental costs in companies, continues by identifying external and internal environmental cost issues, and concludes with an attempt to estimate the internal costs.
Findings
Some of the items of an LCC have to do with increased/decreased sales, others with good will. Both are difficult to estimate, but LCA or LCA‐like investigations may be helpful in identifying relevant issues. Future costs to the product system may also be estimated, for example, with a distance‐to‐target type of weighting. LCA may be helpful in roughly estimating risks, especially together with those LCA impact assessment methods that model damage. Such an item in LCC can be dealt with as an insurance fee or, if the risk is too high, as a way of including necessary preventive actions.
Research limitations/implications
The literature on the subject is limited and not sufficient to aid in estimation of environmental costs and benefits for a company. It seems reasonable to begin an improvement of the methodology by looking at future costs and benefits.
Practical implications
This paper may help in structuring the task of using LCA information for estimating environmental costs in LCC.
Originality/value
There has been increased interest recently in the integration of LCA and LCC, such as in the SETAC (Society for Ecotoxicology and Chemistry) working group on LCC. This paper contributes with new outlooks and structures for that work.
Details
Keywords
Kathy Cosgrove, Mary Suiter and Scott Wolla
The authors make the case that data literacy is a key component to critical thinking in the world today. They describe the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database and how it…
Abstract
The authors make the case that data literacy is a key component to critical thinking in the world today. They describe the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database and how it can be used. They provide a classroom lesson that uses FRED to help students gain an understanding of inflation and price stability.
Details
Keywords
Does religiosity impact wages differently for males and females? Does the impact on wage of different dimensions of religiosity, namely the importance of religion, the frequency…
Abstract
Purpose
Does religiosity impact wages differently for males and females? Does the impact on wage of different dimensions of religiosity, namely the importance of religion, the frequency of religious practice with others and individually, differ for men and women? The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, made public in 2004, this paper investigates whether there are evidences for a gender difference in the impact of religiosity on wage. A Mincerean wage regression is estimated using both multiple linear regression and Heckit.
Findings
Religious females are found to receive a premium over their labour earnings, through the frequency of private-prayer while the same dimension of religiosity penalizes males’ mean wage. The by-gender impact slightly widens for the subsample of employees, while it diminishes for the self-employed.
Research limitations/implications
Making use of the most comprehensive data set available and standard methodology, the paper creates stylized facts that are of interest to the scholars of a multiplicity of disciplines.
Practical implications
It advances the body of knowledge about the impact of religiosity on productivity and whether it has a by-gender component.
Social implications
The research also informs policy-makers in their decision about the appropriate level of accommodation of religiosity in the workplace.
Originality/value
The present work is the first research paper examining the by-gender impact of different dimensions of religiosity on productivity thereby wage.
Larisa Brojan and Peggi L Clouston
The accessible nature of straw bale building lends itself well to self-built and workshop-built housing; straw is known to be both relatively inexpensive and easy to work with for…
Abstract
The accessible nature of straw bale building lends itself well to self-built and workshop-built housing; straw is known to be both relatively inexpensive and easy to work with for people new to construction. A question then arises as to whether or not hiring an experienced builder can reduce overall costs of such a structure. This study conducts a worldwide survey to straw bale home owners to answer this question and to determine general economic data on straw bale homes, such as: what home owners value, who the main builder typically is, and what usually causes budgets to overrun. A key finding is that self-building is economically justified if the projected saving is higher than the cost of a contractor and if the usually longer time needed to build the home is amenable to the investor. An economic case study is also conducted on a straw bale home in Radomlje, Slovenia. All building expenses are categorized by building phase and subgrouped by cost in accordance with accepted building standards. A key observation is how demanding any specific building phase is in comparison to conventional building.
Details
Keywords
Nicholous M. Deal, Christopher M. Hartt and Albert J. Mills
Nils Stieglitz and Nicolai J. Foss
Entrepreneurs in a competitive economy face three fundamental problems. They need to search for and discover a business opportunity (Kirzner, 1973), evaluate it (Knight, 1921)…
Abstract
Entrepreneurs in a competitive economy face three fundamental problems. They need to search for and discover a business opportunity (Kirzner, 1973), evaluate it (Knight, 1921), and then seize the opportunity to reap entrepreneurial profits (Schumpeter, 1911) (Langlois, 2007). The problem that we address is how the ability to exploit business opportunities is influenced by entrepreneurial search and the economic organization of entrepreneurship (Arrow, 1962; Lippman & Rumelt, 2003b; Aghion et al., 2005; Foss, Foss, & Klein, 2007). In many cases, the discovery for a new business opportunity needs to be motivated by expected gains, since the search and evaluation of business opportunities is a costly, resource-consuming process (Denrell, Fang, & Winter, 2003; Nickerson & Zenger, 2004; Foss & Klein, 2005; Teece, 2007; Foss & Foss, 2008).1 We show the critical role of expectations for understanding of the economic organization of entrepreneurship, and argue that transaction cost economics, with its insistence on bounded rationality, but farsighted contracting offers useful insights and presents rich opportunities for further theoretical and empirical research (cf. also Furubotn, 2002).
Sam Mosallaeipour, Seyed Mahdi Shavarani, Charlotte Steens and Adrienn Eros
This paper aims to introduce a practical expert decision support system (EDSS) for performing location analysis and making real estate location decisions in the organization’s…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce a practical expert decision support system (EDSS) for performing location analysis and making real estate location decisions in the organization’s facility and real estate management (FREM) department in presence of several decision criteria, under risk and uncertainty. This tool is particularly useful for making strategic decisions in facility planning, portfolio management, investment appraisal, development project evaluations and deciding on usage possibilities in an unbiased, objective manner.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed EDSS uses fuzzy logic and uncertainty theory as two of the most useful tools to deal with uncertainties involved in the problem environment. The system performs an unbiased mathematical analysis on the input data provided by the decision-maker, using a combination of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Global Criterion Method; determines a suitable compromise level between the objectives; and delivers a set of locations that complies best with the outlined desires of the management as the final solution. The application of the system is tested on a real case and has delivered satisfactory results.
Findings
The proposed EDSS took the defined objectives, the list of alternative locations, and their attributes as the required input for problem-solving, and used a combination of AHP, Possibilistic approach, and global criterion method to solve the problem. The delivered outcome was a set of proper locations with the right attributes to meet all objectives of the organization at a satisfactory level, confirmed by the problem owners.
Originality/value
The application of such a system with such a degree of preciseness and complexity has been very limited in the literature. The system designed in this study is an Industry 4.0 decision making tool. For designing this system several body of knowledge are used. The present study is particularly useful for making strategic decisions in the domains of portfolio management, investment appraisal, project development evaluations and deciding on property usage possibilities. The proposed EDSS takes the information provided by the experts in the field (through qualitative and quantitative data collecting) as the inputs and operates as an objective decision-making tool using several bodies of knowledge considering the trends and developments in the world of FREM. The strong scientific method used in the core of the proposed EDSS guarantees a highly accurate result.
Details
Keywords
- AHP
- Strategic decision-making
- Asset management
- Investment efficiency
- Investment appraisal
- Expert decision support systems
- Facility and real estate management (FREM)
- Location analysis
- Multi-criteria decision-making
- Technological decision-making tools
- Real estate location decisions
- Real estate strategy
- Real estate projects
- Investment efficiency