Search results

Using the example of a project dedicated to labour market re‐activation in major shipyards in Sweden (Gothenburg) in the late 1970s, the purpose of this paper is to examine how integrated employment policies may be achieved using more deliberative public action than that offered by New Public Management (NPM).

Based on original archival research and interviews with ex‐participants, the research reconstructs how this project was designed and operated; its analysis is based on a capability perspective.

The paper analyses the problems encountered by projects promoting labour market integration and personal capabilities in the context of a productivity drive in a contracting industry that requires the retention of the most productive workers to stave off industrial collapse. It argues that deliberative democracy offers the more effective means for co‐ordinating integrated employment policies than governance strategies associated with NPM.

This paper offers an example highly pertinent to the labour market conditions currently facing European economies in the current financial crisis.

The paper offers original insights into the operation of the Swedish social model in practice, in a context of industrial crisis. Many scholars have analysed this model of labour market management from a national perspective: far fewer have addressed its practical limitations.

Despite the perceived benefits of implementing virtual reality (VR) training in elite sport, arguably the most important element – the perceptions of practitioners – has been largely understudied. Therefore, the present study aims to explore practitioners' perceptions of VR training in elite football and baseball, with a focus on the important factors, obstacles, perceived knowledge and practical use of the technology.

A quantitative approach measuring practitioner perceptions via an online questionnaire was adopted. Football respondents (n = 25) represented practitioners from major football leagues across the world, and baseball respondents (n = 15) represented practitioners from Major League Baseball.

Both football and baseball respondents reported that the most important factor for implementation of VR training was improvement in on-field performance (technical and tactical); whilst cost was viewed as the biggest obstacle. Both football and baseball respondents also noted that the most likely group to receive VR training would be injured and rehabilitating athletes. Mann–Whitney U tests revealed that football respondents perceived coach (p = 0.02) and executive approval (p < 0.001) as significantly greater obstacles than baseball respondents.

This research provides novel and invaluable information for stakeholders within VR regarding what the elite organisations of different sports perceive as the most important factors for implementation, as well as greatest obstacles preventing use. This information should guide future development and marketing of VR training systems in sport.

The purpose of this paper is to answer this question by discussing the practicality of implementing microreactor technology towards large-scale renewable energy generation, as well as provide an incentive for future researchers to utilize microreactors as a useful alternative tool for green energy production. However, can microreactors present a viable solution for the generation of renewable energy to tackle the on-going global energy crisis?

In this paper, the practicality of implementing microreactor technology toward large-scale renewable energy generation is discussed. Specific areas of interest that elucidate considerable returns of microreactors toward renewable energy production are biofuel synthesis, hydrogen conversion and solar energy harvesting.

It is believed that sustained research on microreactors can significantly accelerate the development of new energy production methods through renewable sources, which will undoubtedly aid in the quest for a greener future.

This work aims to provide a sound judgement on the importance of research on renewable energy production and alternative energy management methods through microreactor technology, and why future studies on this topic should be highly encouraged. The relevance of this opinion paper lies in the idea that microreactors are an innovative concept currently used in engineering to significantly accelerate chemical reactions on microscale volumes; with the feasibility of high throughput to convert energy at larger scales with much greater efficiency than existing energy production methods.

The Transfer of Functions (Food and Drugs) Order, 1955 (S.I. 1955 No. 959), providing for the transfer of certain food hygiene functions from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the Minister of Health, was laid before Parliament on July 5th.

Alongside its remarkable growth, problematic Bitcoin investment (BI) behavior and its associated negative consequences have become prevalent, and only a few studies have examined it. Therefore, this study aims to examine problematic BI behavior by investigating its specific antecedents and consequences and identifying which antecedents were more influential in it. In addition, we also examine the role of financial literacy on the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior.

We collected survey data from 413 investors with Bitcoin investment experience in 2018, when a Bitcoin frenzy occurred. The partial least squares method was used to test the proposed research model.

The results show that prudent, negative urgency, overexpectation and sensation seeking are positively associated with problematic BI behavior, while restraint is negatively associated. Problematic BI behavior is negatively related to investor well-being. Our findings also indicate that both objective and subjective financial literacy moderate the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior. Four types of investors in terms of their objective and subjective Bitcoin knowledge show different patterns in the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior.

This study offers insights for researchers by providing a deeper understanding of the contextual antecedents of problematic BI behavior and the role of financial literacy in it. This study provides detailed implications for financial institutions, policymakers, and regulators to guide rational Bitcoin investment behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to assess the management responses and intentions of 3,279 US firms from all industries, before and after the coronavirus outbreak, to identify the level of managerial concern about specific financial issues and potential economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper uses textual analysis of official management reports to search for specific single words in five domains related to corporate finance and governance. This paper focuses on the relative frequency of single words using a weighting scheme that adjusts for document length and for the inverse document frequency. This paper then uses t-tests to investigate the univariate differences across groups of reports before and after the US stock market crash in February 2020.

The applied textual and empirical analysis provides evidence that firms’ primary concerns relate to the disruption in supply chains, liquidity need and coronavirus-led recession. This paper also shows that the main cost reduction measure they are considering is salary reduction, rather than workforce reduction. This paper also shows evidence that firm managers are rather swift to provide coronavirus-related information in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) corporate filings.

The findings provide a primary view of the directions, on which US firms will move in the near future, and thus, they can be used as tools for the formulation of appropriate government policies in the corresponding sectors, which could mitigate the economic risks related to the pandemic. At the business level, the disseminated knowledge can assist firms either in the same sector or in similar/related sectors to “locate” themselves within the map of the pandemic and to adjust or align correspondingly their strategies and decisions as they will have a view of the bigger picture.

The empirical analysis divulges US firms’ management primary concerns after the COVID-19 outbreak, and thus, offers insights to the processes taking place in the US business community and the formulating new corporate and economic reality.

Major gaps exist in the documented history of occupational therapy in Ireland. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling these gaps by providing an overview of three major transitions in Irish occupational therapy in the century preceding the opening of St. Joseph?s College of Occupational Therapy in 1963. Research on occupational therapy’s past is valuable not only for recording and commemorating key events and individuals but also for allowing reflection on and questioning of contemporary practice and assumptions.

This descriptive paper draws on multiple documentary sources to present an overview of the first 100 years of the use of occupation as therapy/occupational therapy in Ireland from 1863 to 1963.

Three major transitions in occupational therapy in Ireland are presented: from moral treatment and the use of occupation as therapy to medical patronage of occupational therapy, from medical patronage to the early/pre-professional era and finally from the pre-professional era to the era of professionally qualified occupational therapists. To illustrate these transitions, a small number of individuals and their contributions are discussed including Dr Eamon O’Sullivan, Dr Ada English, Donal Kelly, Olga Gale and Ann Beckett.

This paper charts the foundations upon which the currently thriving profession of occupational therapy are built. The Association of Occupational Therapists of Ireland recently celebrated their 50th anniversary (AOTI, 2015a), and in 2017, it is 100 years since occupational therapy was formalised in Clifton Springs, New York, USA. Occupational therapy is a relatively young profession, and great opportunities exist to research its history in Ireland to capture the memories and experiences of the pioneers who laid the foundation of the profession as well as to situate the development of the profession in the broader social, cultural and scientific contexts within which it developed.

The causes and consequences of loyalty and disloyalty in groups have received little attention from social psychologists. This chapter analyzes how groups respond to loyalty (defined as staying in a group, even though one could obtain a better outcome by leaving, because staying benefits the group) and disloyalty (defined as leaving a group, because one can obtain a better outcome by doing so, even though leaving harms the group). Attention is given to factors that influence the valence and intensity of group responses to loyalty and disloyalty on the part of both ingroup and outgroup members.