Pamela Fisher and Lisa Buckner
Since the 2008 financial crisis, state retrenchment has added to the harshness of life for marginalised groups globally. This UK study suggests community activism may promote…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the 2008 financial crisis, state retrenchment has added to the harshness of life for marginalised groups globally. This UK study suggests community activism may promote human capacity and resilience in innovative ways. The purpose of this paper is to address the relationship between non-normative understandings of time and resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
This research paper is based on qualitative study of the work of a third sector organisation based in an urban area in the UK which provides training in mediation skills for community mediators (CMs). These CMs (often former “gang members”) work with young people in order to prevent conflict within and between groups of white British, South Asian and Roma heritage.
Findings
CMs are reflexively developing temporalities which replace hegemonic linear time with a situationally “open time” praxis. The time “anomalies” which characterise the CMs’ engagement appear related to aesthetic rationality, a form of rationality which opens up new ways of thinking about resilience. Whether CMs’ understandings and enactments of resilience can point to broader changes of approach in the delivery of social care is considered.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to critical understandings of resilience that challenge traditional service delivery by pointing to an alternative approach that focusses on processes and relationships over pre-defined outcomes.
Social implications
Hegemonic understandings of time (as a linear process) can delegitimise potentially valuable understandings of resilience developed by members of marginalised communities.
Originality/value
This paper is original in developing a critical analysis of the relationship between resilience and time.
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Special libraries in science and technology constitute a vital link in the process of information transfer. A study of how special libraries in the UK are functioning at present…
Abstract
Special libraries in science and technology constitute a vital link in the process of information transfer. A study of how special libraries in the UK are functioning at present is essential to any planning for a general improvement in their services and to heighten their contribution to the country's scientific and technological progress. This paper records the partial findings of a recent survey and is concerned with the identification and analysis of the essential elements of the framework within which special libraries work: such as, the nature of their management, major activity of the parent organization, subject‐specialization of the library's holding, documentation activity, staff‐structure, budget‐provision, size of library stock, and its growth rate, weeding‐out policy, etc. It brings out the wide variation in the behaviour pattern of special libraries in science and technology, belonging to different categories, e.g. libraries in private firms vis‐à‐vis government libraries, or basic research vis‐à‐vis applied research libraries. It also draws attention to areas of deficiency where action is needed.
In 1966, the Government's Office for Scientific and Technical Information offered to increase its support for Aslib specifically to encourage it to build up a viable research…
Abstract
In 1966, the Government's Office for Scientific and Technical Information offered to increase its support for Aslib specifically to encourage it to build up a viable research department, to undertake systematic programmes of research into scientific and technical information systems, and to provide consultancy services in this field. In response to an appeal from Lord Kings Norton, then President of Aslib, some twenty member organizations agreed to share with OSTI the cost of this new development during its first three years. The three‐year development period ended in December 1969, and an account of the progress made during this period was published in Aslib Proceedings for May 1970.
My research over the last few years has been concerned with the use of automatically‐obtained keyword classifications for information retrieval. Such a classification can be…
Abstract
My research over the last few years has been concerned with the use of automatically‐obtained keyword classifications for information retrieval. Such a classification can be described as a thesaurus, but those classifications which have been most successful in my experiments do not resemble the normal kind of manually‐constructed thesaurus, and the bases on which automatic and manual thesauri are constructed are quite different. Human beings explicitly consider the meanings of words in grouping them, but word meanings are not accessible to computers. Automatic word classification is therefore based on information about the distributional behaviour of words in documents, on the assumption that words which behave in similar ways in terms of document occurrences are semantically related. That is to say, groups of words which are based on the statistical associations of their members in documents should reflect their meaning relations, at least sufficiently for the purposes of retrieval.
Aslib has had a Research and Development Department since 1959. It has received powerful financial support from the Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and from…
Abstract
Aslib has had a Research and Development Department since 1959. It has received powerful financial support from the Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and from industry, because it is recognized that a continuing department, accumulating experience, and working in close contact with operational services, is the most favourable environment for the advance of information science. Aslib's subscription income now contributes substantially to the support of the department. With the right pressure and the right encouragement from the Aslib membership, the department will continue to justify the support it receives.
Rachel M. Saef, Emorie Beck and Joshua J. Jackson
Our theoretical understanding of subjective well-being in the workplace is incomplete without a dynamic understanding of antecedents and outcomes of subjective well-being. While…
Abstract
Our theoretical understanding of subjective well-being in the workplace is incomplete without a dynamic understanding of antecedents and outcomes of subjective well-being. While between-person differences provide useful information about employee outcomes, these differences do not provide information about the relationships between subjective well-being and employee outcomes that evolve over time and across situations. In this paper, we discuss specific statistical methods within the nomothetic and idiographic perspectives that can support dynamic research on subjective well-being in the workplace and outline unanswered contemporary questions regarding structure, processes, and dynamics of subjective well-being that may be addressed with these methods reviewed; some of which were proposed in early research but progressed slowly due to a lack of adequate methods. This discussion highlights how idiographic methods from outside organizational psychology can be applied to the study of worker subjective well-being to strengthen this dynamic approach in a way that addresses limitations associated with reliance on between-person models.
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In this article, we situate organizational cynicism at the nexus of the related constructs of burnout, stress, and antisocial behavior. We expand Dean, Brandes, and Dharwadkar's…
Abstract
In this article, we situate organizational cynicism at the nexus of the related constructs of burnout, stress, and antisocial behavior. We expand Dean, Brandes, and Dharwadkar's (1998) notion of behavioral cynicism to include cynical humor and cynical criticism. We also propose that cynical behavior has important, non-linear effects on employee work performance. Finally, we suggest that cynical behavior may act as a coping mechanism for employees and that such behavior moderates the stress–performance relationship.
Vanessa Boudewyns and Pamela A. Williams
The purpose of this study is to describe the trends and practices of comparative prescription drug advertising by examining the types of comparative claims made in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe the trends and practices of comparative prescription drug advertising by examining the types of comparative claims made in direct-to-consumer (DTC) and direct-to-physician (DTP) print advertisements.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a content analysis of 54 DTC and DTP print prescription drug advertisements (published between 1997 and 2014) with comparative claims.
Findings
Efficacy-based comparisons appeared in 64 per cent of advertisements, and attribute-based comparisons appeared in 37 per cent of advertisements. Most advertisements made direct (vs indirect) references to competitors (85 per cent), compared the advertised drug to a single (vs multiple) competitor (78 per cent), focused exclusively on one type of comparison claim (i.e. efficacy-, risk- or attribute-based) (70 per cent) and did not contain data-driven visual aids (82 per cent). Some differences between DTC and DTP advertisements emerged. More DTP than DTC advertisements included data-driven visual aids (82 per cent vs 0 per cent, respectively), included numerical data (88 per cent vs 53 per cent) and conveyed statistical significance (52 per cent vs 12 per cent).
Research limitations/implications
The study used a convenience sample rather than a random sample of advertisements; thus, the findings might not be generalizable to all pharmaceutical DTC and DTP advertisements. Examining the tactics that advertisers use to educate and influence consumers and physicians sets the foundation for future studies that examine the effects of their exposure to comparative claims. Suggestions for future research are discussed.
Originality/value
This study is the first to examine and statistically compare the comparative advertising tactics used in both consumer and physician prescription drug advertisements.
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Mikel Walker Cole, Pamela J. Dunston and Tracy Butler
The purpose of this paper is to review published research on using interactive read-alouds in the instruction of English language learners (ELLs). In particular, this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review published research on using interactive read-alouds in the instruction of English language learners (ELLs). In particular, this paper emphasizes the practical application of research findings to help classroom teachers and other educators make instructional decisions that promote both effective and equitable instruction.
Design/methodology/approach
For this literature review, the authors conducted a systematic keyword search of multiple electronic databases to identify relevant research studies. Once studies were identified, the authors used a qualitative content analysis method (Guba and Lincoln, 1981; Holsti, 1969; Lincoln and Guba, 1985) to identify themes.
Findings
The findings were grouped into three distinct categories: pedagogy, language and culture. While many aspects of effective interactive read-alouds are similar for ELLs and mainstream students, this paper highlights elements of interactive read-alouds that are different or especially important for ELLs.
Originality/value
This review, unlike the 2,000 potentially relevant studies initially identified, considers the interplay of pedagogy, language and culture when using interactive read-alouds with ELLs. The explicit focus on practical classroom application makes this literature review useful for both researchers and practitioners.
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This paper contributes to discourse about complex disasters by applying cultural lenses to the study of coastal infrastructure (such as seawalls and dikes), thus departing from…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contributes to discourse about complex disasters by applying cultural lenses to the study of coastal infrastructure (such as seawalls and dikes), thus departing from studies that focus on characterising, assessing, and predicting the physical resilience of hard structural forms that dominate knowledge about coastal infrastructure.
Design/methodology/approach
This ethnographic study nuances Philippine coastal infrastructure through examining the material registers of a seawall bordering an island inhabited by artisanal fisherfolk. By “material registers”, this research refers to the socially informed ways of regarding and constructing material configurations and how the latter are enacted and resisted. Data collection was accomplished through focus groups with community leaders, on-site and remote interviews with homeowners, and archival research to further understand the spatial and policy context of the structure.
Findings
The discussion focuses on the seawall’s three material registers (protection, fragility, and misrecognition) and reveals how infrastructure built for an island community of fisherfolk simultaneously fulfils, fails, and complicates the promise of disaster resilience.
Research limitations/implications
This research demonstrates the potential of “material registers”, a term previously used to analyse architecture and housing, to understand the technopolitics of infrastructure and how materially informed tensions between homeowners' and state notions of infrastructure contribute to protracted experiences of disaster and coastal maladaptation.
Practical implications
This research signposts the need for disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, and sustainable development policies that legitimize the construction of infrastructure to recognize the latter's relationship and impact on multiple sphere of coastal life, including housing and citizenship implications.
Social implications
This research highlights how infrastructure for coastal disaster risk management implicates geographically informed power relations within a community fisherfolk and between their “small” island community and more politically and economically dominant groups.
Originality/value
Whereas studies of coastal infrastructure are focused on quantitative and predictive research regarding hard structural forms in megacities, this study apprehends disaster complexity through examining the cultural and contested nature of infrastructure for coastal flood management in an island community of fisherfolk.