Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are routinely offered in organizational policy, yet employee access to FWAs is highly dependent upon support from their immediate supervisor…
Abstract
Purpose
Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are routinely offered in organizational policy, yet employee access to FWAs is highly dependent upon support from their immediate supervisor. There is little empirical research that specifically investigates the role of the human resource function (HR) in supporting managers to implement FWA policy. Through the lens of HR systems theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how HR supports managers to implement FWAs.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a case study in the Australian Insurance industry, this paper analyzes corporate documents and interviews with 47 managers, supervisors and HR staff across four diverse business units.
Findings
This study identifies supervisors’ perceived ability to implement FWAs as a potential barrier to utilization. Five mechanisms of HR support to overcome perceived barriers are identified in the data. An HR system that enables managers to support FWAs requires alignment of HR policies; the provision of supportive technology; an HR structure that facilitates proactive advice and support; HR business partners with influence; and managerial training on FWAs.
Practical implications
This paper provides HR practitioners with insights into the mechanisms that can support managers to implement FWAs or other devolved HR policies.
Originality/value
Applying HR systems theory, this case study utilizes the perspectives of senior managers, supervisors and HR staff to explain how the HR function supports or constrains managers in the effective implementation of FWAs.
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Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) is a well understood, yet under-recognized, placental disease affecting any given pregnancy at a rate of 1 in 1,000. There is no…
Abstract
Purpose
Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) is a well understood, yet under-recognized, placental disease affecting any given pregnancy at a rate of 1 in 1,000. There is no clustering of TTTS; instead the threat remains pathologically distinctive due to its pervasiveness. However, while incidence rates are random, survival rates are not. Despite compliant acceptance of “routine prenatal care,” sadly, there are many women who for currently unknown reasons are not receiving the advanced prenatal care needed to appropriately screen for, diagnosis and treat TTTS. And these women are paying the ultimate price for such obstetrical oversight.
Methodology
This study hypothesizes that differential care being given by primary obstetricians of TTTS patients is resulting in experienced inequalities. Utilizing social reproduction theory, and through ethnographic and quantitative analyses of primary data, this study seeks to divulge the complex social processes taking place (or failing to take place) within the world of American obstetrics, and begin to understand how they are affecting TTTS mortality and morbidity rates.
Findings
Findings illuminate a profound imbalance of power and influence amongst the following entities: American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine; obstetrical training and practice; and levels of patient awareness and advocacy.
Value
This study argues that the current social relations being reproduced by these entities are perpetuating a climate that allows for disregard of proper TTTS management. Specifically, this study theoretically explores what social relations and subsequent (in)actions are being reproduced prior to TTTS diagnoses, and applies the effects of those observations.
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Kevin Murphy and Michael Olsen
The objective of this research is to conduct an exploratory study that will gain consensus among restaurant industry professionals, academics and outside industry experts on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this research is to conduct an exploratory study that will gain consensus among restaurant industry professionals, academics and outside industry experts on the set of work practice dimensions in a high performance management systems (HPMS) for restaurant managers in the US casual restaurant sector.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory case study method was employed that used a combination of data collection techniques: interviews for the pilot study, the Delphi method and secondary data collection. Restaurant experts were chosen to consider the components of an HPMS construct for unit management in the US casual restaurant business. Assumptions were made based on a review of strategic human resource management literature, then experts were interviewed and a Delphi was conducted to gain consensus.
Findings
The authors find thirteen dimensions of an HPMS, which are common to unit management in US casual restaurants. Three work practices that were not considered relevant dimensions to the casual restaurant industry were removed from the Delphi. This translates into a difference of seven work practices between a manufacturing work system and a restaurant work system, which are either excluded or included in a restaurant work system.
Originality/value
Previous strategic human resource management research has dubbed HR work practices “high performance work practices”. With few exceptions these studies have been conducted in contextual settings that do not possess similar operational characteristics to the restaurant service industry. That there are differences in the business models between these industries and hence in the work practices between them is apparent from the results. Additionally, this study was targeted to management in the restaurant industry, not overall employment as the other studies.
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Purpose: The author seeks to identify how suicide-bereaved individuals conceptualize their relationships with deceased loved ones. The author engages Durkheim’s theory of suicide…
Abstract
Purpose: The author seeks to identify how suicide-bereaved individuals conceptualize their relationships with deceased loved ones. The author engages Durkheim’s theory of suicide to provide a new framework to analyze this population.
Methodology: The author uses qualitative research and coding methods to produce a secondary analysis of previously collected interview transcripts.
Findings: The author concludes that participants experience the suicide of a loved one as a social event, conceptualizing it similarly to how Durkheim defined his four suicide types – characterized by too much or too little regulation and/or integration.
Research Limitations: As a result of the secondary analysis, a lack of demographic information remains the largest limitation, and the available demographic information indicates the participant population is not a diverse one. Therefore, the larger analysis is limited.
Practical and Social Implications: This work provides potential ways to improve current prevention and postvention practices for both the suicide-bereaved and those struggling with suicidality. Subsequently, it may help to improve the health outcomes of these groups.
Originality: To the author’s current knowledge, this is the first published use of Durkheim’s Suicide (1897/1966) as a framework to directly examine the suicide-bereaved population in this way. Thus, this work contributes to suicidology and sociology more broadly in two ways: by providing a new way to understand and ultimately help a vulnerable population and by providing a new use of a classic theory.
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Angela Page, Joanna Anderson, Penelope Serow, Elvira Hubert and Anne O’Donnell-Ostini
Inclusive education can be viewed as an ongoing active process or journey that is impacted by changes in policy, practices, and values (Anderson & Boyle, 2020). This “journey…
Abstract
Inclusive education can be viewed as an ongoing active process or journey that is impacted by changes in policy, practices, and values (Anderson & Boyle, 2020). This “journey toward inclusion” is not always an easy undertaking, but rather a progression that requires modification to systems, structures, and functioning in schools. Nauru, a small Pacific republic situated in the Micronesian central Pacific Ocean, has worked in partnership with Australian education providers since 2011 to improve educational learning experiences for all Nauruan students. More recently, initiatives by the Nauru Government resulted in the commissioning of a national project to develop a Nauru policy on inclusive education and also to deliver professional development for teachers that would be needed to support inclusion. Inclusive education staff at the University of England, Australia, guided the development of the project which culminated in the Nauru Inclusive Education Policy and Guidelines (2017) (Page, 2018). From this policy, a series of workshops were delivered on unpacking the policy directions, guidelines, and roles and responsibilities for teaching staff in Nauru. This chapter describes the university staff who are working in collaboration with Nauruan teachers in order to develop their capacity to create inclusive classrooms. In doing so, we embraced approaches that incorporated culturally responsive practices into our work, using the framework of Ekereri (educational approaches that embody the core values of Nauruan culture) into our practices. With this chapter, we hope to further the understanding of how contextual factors influence the collaboration and implementation of educational partnerships between culturally distinctive groups of people.
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James Brackley, Penelope Tuck and Mark Exworthy
This paper examines the contested value of healthy life and wellbeing in a context of severe austerity, exploring how the value of “Public Health” is constructed through and with…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the contested value of healthy life and wellbeing in a context of severe austerity, exploring how the value of “Public Health” is constructed through and with material-discursive practices and accounting representations. It seeks to explore the political and ethical implications of constructing the valuable through a shared consensus over the “facts” when addressing complex, multi-agency problems with long time horizons and outcomes that are not always easily quantifiable.
Design/methodology/approach
The theorisation, drawing on science and technology studies (STS) scholars and Karen Barad's (2007) agential realism, opens up the analysis to the performativity of both material and discursive practices in the period following a major re-organisation of activity. The study investigates two case authorities in England and the national regulator through interviews, observations and documentary analysis.
Findings
The paper demonstrates the deeply ethical and political entanglements of accounting representations as objectivity, consensus and collective action are constructed and resisted in practice. It goes on to demonstrate the practical challenges of constructing “alternative accounts” and “intelligent accountabilities” through times of austerity towards a shared sense of public value and suggests austerity measures make such aims both more challenging and all the more essential.
Originality/value
Few studies in the accounting literature have explored the full complexity of valuation practices in non-market settings, particularly in a public sector context; this paper, therefore, extends familiar conceptual vocabulary of STS inspired research to further explore how value(s), ethics and identity all play a crucial role in making things valuable.
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Samantha E. Erskine, Robert Bonner and Verónica Caridad Rabelo
This study identifies the strategic intersectional identity management (SIIM) behaviors that Latina nonprofit CEOs engage in to navigate hegemonic spaces.
Abstract
Purpose
This study identifies the strategic intersectional identity management (SIIM) behaviors that Latina nonprofit CEOs engage in to navigate hegemonic spaces.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected via semi-structured life history interviews with Latina CEOs of nonprofit organizations and analyzed using critical race feminist thematic analysis grounded in critical race theory (CRT), Latinx Critical Legal (LatCrit) theory and feminist theory. Counterstorytelling methods reveal Latina CEOs’ SIIM behaviors and challenge dominant narratives of leadership.
Findings
Latina CEOs recounted experiences of identity threats and their identity manifestations and suppression strategies within five contexts: white supremacy hotbeds, liberal white supremacist spaces, pan-ethnic Latinx communities, white feminist spaces and women of color (WOC)-led workplaces.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on Latina CEOs of nonprofits, a distinct context which shares many similarities with for-profit CEO roles. We use a small sample size that, while appropriate for our methodology, limits generalizability.
Practical implications
This research provides valuable insights for practitioners, including board members, donors, staff and coalition partners. It highlights the need for changes in board development, funder education and transformative allyship among coalition partners.
Originality/value
This paper offers SIIM as a way to challenge monolithic constructions of Latinidad and advocates for intersectional analyses and nuance when studying and supporting Latina leaders.
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Waiting lists have been a cause of concern since the inception ofthe NHS. Many theories have been put forward to explain their existenceand there have been many proposals to…
Abstract
Waiting lists have been a cause of concern since the inception of the NHS. Many theories have been put forward to explain their existence and there have been many proposals to reduce their length. With the current changes in the NHS and the introduction of the Patient′s Charter has come a renewed emphasis on reducing waiting lists and waiting times. However, analysis of incentives within the new system suggests that waiting lists may be reduced by limiting access rather than by increasing treatment rate. Further, not only GP Fundholding, but also the contractual relationships between District Health Authorities and hospitals may lead to two‐tier systems, with admission priorities based on source of funding rather than clinical urgency. Overall, it is concluded that the NHS Review may result in fewer people obtaining treatment, but with shorter waits for those who do receive treatment.
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Penelope Allison, Anna Mnatsakanova, Erin McCanlies, Desta Fekedulegn, Tara A. Hartley, Michael E. Andrew and John M. Violanti
Chronic exposure to occupational stress may lead to depressive symptoms in police officers. The association between police stress and depressive symptoms and the potential…
Abstract
Purpose
Chronic exposure to occupational stress may lead to depressive symptoms in police officers. The association between police stress and depressive symptoms and the potential influences of coping and hardiness were evaluated. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Stress level was assessed in the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress Study (2004–2009) with the Spielberger Police Stress Survey. The frequency and severity of events at work were used to calculate stress indices for the past year. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale was used to measure depressive symptoms during the past week. Linear regression was used to evaluate the association between the stress indices and depressive symptom scores. Models were adjusted for age, sex, race, smoking status and alcohol intake, and stratified by median values for coping (passive, active and support seeking) and hardiness (control, commitment and challenge) to assess effect modification.
Findings
Among the 388 officers (73.2 percent men), a significant positive association was observed between total stress and the CES-D score (β=1.98 (SE=0.36); p<0.001). Lower CES-D scores were observed for officers who reported lower passive coping (β=0.94 (SE=0.45); p=0.038) and higher active coping (β=1.41 (SE=0.44); p=0.002), compared with their counterparts. Officers higher in hardiness had lower CES-D scores, particularly for commitment (β=0.86 (SE=0.35); p=0.016) and control (β=1.58 (SE=0.34); p<0.001).
Originality/value
Results indicate that high active coping and hardiness modify the effect of work stress in law enforcement, acting to reduce depressive symptoms.
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Throughout history, from ballads to requiems, music has played an important social role in reflection on mortality. Not only do musicians articulate their angst and thoughts about…
Abstract
Throughout history, from ballads to requiems, music has played an important social role in reflection on mortality. Not only do musicians articulate their angst and thoughts about death, but, in so doing, they enable listeners to explore their own feelings. While the relationship between music and mental health can be examined from a number of perspectives, two broad approaches can be taken: artist-centred approaches and listener-centred approaches. The first analyses the life and work of artists, focussing particularly on the ways in which they explore death and angst in their music. The second looks at the ways in which the life and work of an artist is interpreted by listeners. Within these general approaches, a complex set of questions emerge – often at the interface of both approaches. How is the music used by listeners in their reflection on mortality? How is music used to manage mental health? Does reflection on the life and work of an artist contribute to suicidal ideation? Is the reception of music altered by an artist’s suicide? Using both these approaches and drawing particularly on the work of Émile Durkheim, this discussion demonstrates the significance of popular music analysis for death studies, focussing particularly on the issues surrounding popular music’s relationship to suicidal ideation.