Clementine Hill O’Connor and Rachel Baker
This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer ethnographer.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings in this paper are based on four years of ethnographic research within a social enterprise.
Findings
This paper finds that there are significant benefits of the role of the volunteer ethnographer and suggests ways to address some of the challenges.
Research limitations/implications
As the field of social enterprise and ethnography grows and researchers engage with methodological discussions about participant observation, the authors suggest that attention should also be paid to the specifics of the role of the volunteer ethnographer.
Originality/value
There is growing interest in the use of ethnography in social enterprises. This paper offers unique insight into how this methodology has been applied in the context of self-reliant groups and the importance of the engaging with discussion about the specific role of the volunteer ethnographer.
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This chapter seeks to help and support online educators in their efforts to improve tomorrow. Specifically, the chapter shares practical strategies and tools that online educators…
Abstract
This chapter seeks to help and support online educators in their efforts to improve tomorrow. Specifically, the chapter shares practical strategies and tools that online educators can easily apply, adapt, and/or personalize in order to help promote a mindfully multicultural classroom in their online classrooms and programs. The chapter includes a wide range of actionable tools and exercises to help online instructors optimize the learning experience for all students by building upon the unique strengths and diverse cultural backgrounds of all students in their online classrooms. The strategies help instructors leverage diversity as a means to promote equity and social justice in online programs and, ultimately, the world as a whole. The chapter relies upon Gollnick and Chinn’s (2017) six beliefs that are fundamental to multicultural education and presents strategies from two perspectives or lenses (student-focused and faculty-focused). Approaching the issue from a dual-sided lens is intended to best support the ultimate goal of improving the student learning experience. Emphasis is placed on both public and private interactions between faculty and students. Public interactions include all discussion board and announcement communications. Public interactions also include resources that are shared in the online classroom for all students’ benefit.
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Daniel A. Wren, Regina A. Greenwood, Julia Teahen and Arthur G. Bedeian
This paper aims to highlight myriad accomplishments of C. Bertrand Thompson, who is perhaps most well known as a scientific-management bibliographer and a Taylor disciple, in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight myriad accomplishments of C. Bertrand Thompson, who is perhaps most well known as a scientific-management bibliographer and a Taylor disciple, in the belief that his contributions as a pioneer management theorist and consultant in Europe deserve to be more widely known and more deeply appreciated.
Design/methodology/approach
Archival, primary and secondary sources were used in the research.
Findings
Thompson was among the first to bring management consulting to Europe. He understood the importance of adapting scientific-management principles to meet the diverse needs of each client for whom he consulted. Thompson’s strong belief and value system remained constant throughout his life.
Practical implications
Understanding the needs of customers or clients and adapting systems to meet those needs is essential in achieving success as a consultant.
Originality/value
By drawing on rarely accessed published and unpublished materials, this paper discusses Thompson’s many contributions to management thought and practice, most of which previously have not been highlighted in the referent literature.
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Kristin Klimley, Bethany Broj, Brittany Plombon, Caroline Haskamp, Rachel Christopher, Estefania Masias, Vincent B. Van Hasselt and Ryan A. Black
Police officers are increasingly interacting with individuals with mental illnesses. Officers who encounter these persons have three choices: detain, arrest and transport to a…
Abstract
Purpose
Police officers are increasingly interacting with individuals with mental illnesses. Officers who encounter these persons have three choices: detain, arrest and transport to a correctional facility; resolve the situation informally; or initiate an involuntary psychiatric admission. The decision to place someone under an involuntary psychiatric admission is based on a variety of factors. This paper aims to collaborate with two metropolitan Police Departments in South Florida to explore individual and departmental factors that contribute to involuntary psychiatric admissions initiated by their officers.
Design/methodology/approach
This investigation examined 1,625 police reports of involuntary psychiatric admissions in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Descriptive statistics for the entire sample were computed, and percentages of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT)-trained officers for both departments in each year were determined.
Findings
Results highlighted differences in rates of involuntary commitments, CIT-trained officers and associated variables (e.g. mental health diagnoses, substance use) between the two cities.
Practical implications
Implications of the findings, and directions that future research in this area might take, are discussed.
Originality/value
There is a dearth of literature pertaining to involuntary psychiatric admissions in general and factors specific to involuntary psychiatric admissions initiated by police. This paper adds preliminary findings and implications to this body of research.
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Rachael Wheatley and Sam Baker
This discussion paper aims to highlight the role of occupational therapy (OT) in understanding stalking and in interventions designed to assist the perpetrator to lead a more…
Abstract
Purpose
This discussion paper aims to highlight the role of occupational therapy (OT) in understanding stalking and in interventions designed to assist the perpetrator to lead a more fulfilling life through healthier occupations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study highlights the role of OT in understanding stalking and in designing interventions to assist the perpetrator by extending discussions, drawing on the authors’ practitioner experiences and upon recent study findings on what drives men who stalk.
Findings
Stalking is a problem behaviour that is often effort-intense, all-consuming, emotionally driven and psychologically damaging for both victims and perpetrators. It consists of a patterned occupation of time which is overarchingly dysfunctional, yet intrinsically purposeful. As humans, our actions and occupations have meaning to us. Stalking can be conceptualised as a meaningful yet self-defeating and harmful pattern of occupations. This paper illustrates how stalking could be addressed through the additional contribution of OT to multi-agency approaches.
Research limitations/implications
This paper extends the discussion by drawing on the authors’ clinical practitioner experiences and upon recent study findings on what drives men who stalk.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the role of OT in understanding stalking and in interventions designed to assist the perpetrator to lead a more fulfilling life through healthier occupations.
Originality/value
This marriage of knowledge from OT and stalking research is set out in support of the application of OT within multi-agency approaches to working with people who stalk.
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Faye Kathryn Horsley, Trevor Keith James, Natasha Baker, Rachel Broughton, Xanthe Hampton, Amy Knight, Imogen Langford, Ellie Pomfrey and Laura Unsworth
This study aims to explore whether early anti-social fire exposure (ASFE) is associated with how adults engage with fire and how they view fire.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore whether early anti-social fire exposure (ASFE) is associated with how adults engage with fire and how they view fire.
Design/methodology/approach
An opportunistic sample (N = 326) was recruited. Participants completed an online survey exploring ASFE, fire use, strength of fire-beliefs and interest in/attitudes supportive of fire. Additionally, implicit fire bias was measured using the affect misattribution procedure (AMP).
Findings
Participants with ASFE engaged with more criminalised fire use as adults. They also scored higher on fire interest and general fire beliefs and showed an implicit dislike of fire stimuli, compared to non-exposed participants (although differences in fire use were not statistically significant when gender was accounted for). Males also had higher levels of fire interest, held stronger fire related beliefs and were more likely to have been exposed to ASFE during childhood. However, there were no gender differences in fire use or on the implicit task.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have practical application, namely in relation to early intervention and rehabilitative approaches. However, a limitation is that participants’ cultural background were not accounted for. Additionally, we advise caution in interpreting the implicit results and call for further research.
Social implications
The need for better early interventions for young people is highlighted, along with better screening which, currently, is unstandardised and inconsistent across the country (Foster, 2020). This demands a community-engagement approach.
Originality/value
This is the first study to explore type of early exposure to fire. It is also the first to adopt the AMP as a measure of implicit fire-bias.
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This paper aims to consider whether ethical persuasion can be part of public relations practice.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to consider whether ethical persuasion can be part of public relations practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper contends that the critical issue for practitioners is not whether they engage in persuasion, but whether they do so ethically. Accordingly, a definition of ethical persuasion is derived by examining unethical propaganda. The paper then considers what standard might be used to assess the ethics of persuasion. The notion of “the public interest” – ubiquitously linked to ethical practice in public relations – is considered but found to be too elusive to guide the practice individual practitioners. Other more assessable standards are identified, as is a guiding approach to ethics. The approach to ethics adopted in this paper is rule utilitarianism. The methodology of this paper is deductive and derivative analysis, argument and synthesis, drawn from a broad body of literature.
Findings
Persuasion can be ethical, and a definition of ethical persuasion is proffered. The public interest is not a standard that individual practitioners can determine, decide, know, or apply to assess the ethics of their practice. Ethical persuasion can, however, be assessed using other standards, discussed in the paper. Consequently, a set of criteria and standards to practicing ethical persuasion is developed.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not extend into a discussion of practical persuasive techniques. Therefore, an extension of this examination could consider a thorough assessment of the ethics of practical persuasive communication techniques.
Practical implications
Directly relevant to the daily work of public relations practitioners, communicators, adertisers and marketers, who are interested in acting ethically. The paper provide a basis for a guide to assessing the ethics of persuasive practice.
Originality/value
This paper confronts both the question of whether practitioners can use the notion of the public interest to assess the ethics of practice, and also what constitutes ethical (and unethical) persuasion, and considers how persuation can be used ethically.
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Adrienne E. Williams, Kameryn Denaro, Michael B. Dennin and Brian K. Sato
Not all students who did well in high school are successful in college, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors with the most affected student…
Abstract
Purpose
Not all students who did well in high school are successful in college, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors with the most affected student groups including women, first-generation or historically disadvantaged students. Certain study skills may be associated with greater success in college, yet these skills may be less regularly used by those underrepresented groups.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports the results of a survey given to several hundred newly-matriculated students before they began their first courses at a selective, public research university in the United States. Students in nine courses responded to the survey, with 1815 total respondents. Logistic regression and linear mixed effects models were used to analyze the data.
Findings
We found three skills were associated with course grade when adjusting for incoming GPA, SAT math and reading and GPA of other courses. Self-testing and rereading were both associated with increased grades, and flashcard use was associated with decreased grades. Of particular significance, underrepresented minority (URM) students were less likely to reread than majority students, and flashcard use was more common in women and URM students.
Research limitations/implications
It is possible study skills changed over the course of the term because participants were surveyed at the beginning of their courses. Our future work will expand the courses surveyed and include a post-course survey.
Originality/value
Information that some student groups use less effective study skills will allow instructors and student support services to provide more targeted and useful study strategy advice.
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Amy Jane Griffiths, Diana Baker, John Brady, Kelly Kennedy, Anaiza Valladolid, Rachel Wiegand and Raquel Delgado
This paper describes a case study of a developmental program evaluation on the Autism Community Toolkit, a collaborative skills training program for parents and school…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper describes a case study of a developmental program evaluation on the Autism Community Toolkit, a collaborative skills training program for parents and school professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the training on participants’ knowledge, competence and perceived collaboration; and potential improvements to the training program.
Design/methodology/approach
The program included multiple training sessions for families and school professionals, designed to educate participants on autism, evidence-based interventions and to increase home-school communication and collaboration. Data collection methods included pre- and post-measures and feedback forms.
Findings
Results indicated that the training program was beneficial for participants overall. Pre- and posttest measures indicated growth in knowledge and competency in autism interventions. While there were no statistically significant differences in the quantitative measure of collaboration, qualitative results suggest that participants reported increased collaboration posttraining.
Practical implications
Overall, the training program was effective, and the ongoing implementation assessment was conducive to continuous improvement. The authors also discuss difficulties with implementation and recommendations for future intervention implementation.
Originality/value
This case study provides practical information about creating, evaluating and improving a unique intervention designed to support school–home collaboration.