Stephen Peckham, Wenjing Zhang, Tamsyn Eida, Ferhana Hashem and Sally Kendall
To research involvement of healthcare staff in the UK and identify practical organisational and policy solutions to improve and boost capacity of the existing workforce to conduct…
Abstract
Purpose
To research involvement of healthcare staff in the UK and identify practical organisational and policy solutions to improve and boost capacity of the existing workforce to conduct research.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method study presenting three work packages here: secondary analysis of levels of staff research activity, funding, academic outputs and workforce among healthcare organisations in the United Kingdom; 39 Research and Development lead and funder interviews; an online survey of 11 healthcare organisations across the UK, with 1,016 responses from healthcare staff included for analysis; and 51 interviews of healthcare staff in different roles from six UK healthcare organisations.
Findings
Interest in research involvement is strong and widespread but hampered by a lack of systematic organisational support despite national policies and strategies to increase staff engagement in research. While useful, these external strategies have limited universal success due to lack of organisational support. Healthcare organisations should embed research within organisational and human resources policies and increase the visibility of research through strategic organisational goals and governance processes. A systems-based approach is needed.
Research limitations/implications
The research gathered data from a limited number of NHS trusts but these were purposively sampled to provide a range of different acute/community health service organisations in different areas. But data was therefore more detailed and nuanced due to a more in-depth approach.
Practical implications
The findings are relevant for developing policies and practice within healthcare organisations to support research engagement. The findings also set out key policy and strategic recommendations that will support greater research engagement.
Social implications
Increased research activity and engagement in healthcare providers improves healthcare outcomes for patients.
Originality/value
This is a large scale (UK-wide) study involving a broad range of healthcare staff, with good engagement of nurses, midwives and Allied Healthcare Professionals who have not been previously achieved. This allowed valuable analysis of under-researched groups and comparisons by professional groups. The findings highlight the need for tailored action to embed research reporting, skills, professional development and infrastructure into organisational policies, strategies and systems, along with broader system-wide development.
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In this paper the authors aim to examine the dominance of machine and organism metaphors in organisational studies. They argue that these metaphors impede progress towards…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper the authors aim to examine the dominance of machine and organism metaphors in organisational studies. They argue that these metaphors impede progress towards sustainable development because they perpetuate a story that dehumanises and de‐prioritises humans at the expense of the organisation which in turn becomes a rarefied and prioritised subject. This result is not consistent with the whole of humanity narrative that is entwined within sustainable development. To develop these arguments, the authors discuss sustainable development, highlighting how the concept implicates the central role of humans. They then discuss the limitations of the machine and organism metaphors relative to sustainable development. The paper then offers a different view of metaphors and suggests a more holistic understanding that is compatible with the achievement of sustainable development.
Design/methodology/approach
As a conceptual paper, this article reviews existing literature and offers critique of the use of the dominant metaphors of machine and organism.
Findings
Machine and organism metaphors perpetuate a language and understanding that dehumanises work and organisations. The implication of this is that organisational practice and research needs to adopt new metaphors to facilitate sustainable development.
Research limitations/implications
As a conceptual document, this manuscript offers new avenues for future research and practice.
Practical implications
The arguments presented challenge scholars', educators' and practitioners' use of machine and organism metaphors when discussing organisations.
Originality/value
The originality/value of this paper lies in reflecting upon the metaphors of organism and machine relative to sustainable development and in turn reflecting upon the metaphors associated with and the central role of humans within the sustainable development concept.
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The objective of this discussion is to present an intersectional framework to better inform our reading and understanding of contemporary reports of sexual assault and sexual…
Abstract
The objective of this discussion is to present an intersectional framework to better inform our reading and understanding of contemporary reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment. I posit that contemporary incidents of sexual violence must be read within the historical framework of slavery, where plantations served as the first site of sexual exploitation that has provided the ideological and practical scaffold for the continued erasure of the abuses of Black women and men in the workplace and under the law. This legacy, nonetheless, has yielded a coded language for according visibility to the “deep story” of rape and race in the United States.
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Jenny Lunt, Sally Hemming, James Elander, Amy Baraniak, Kim Burton and Destiny Ellington
The prevalence and multi-system nature of post-COVID-19 symptoms warrants clearer understanding of their work ability implications within the working age population. An…
Abstract
Purpose
The prevalence and multi-system nature of post-COVID-19 symptoms warrants clearer understanding of their work ability implications within the working age population. An exploratory survey was undertaken to provide empirical evidence of the work-relevant experiences of workers recovering from COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
A bespoke online survey based on a biopsychosocial framework ran between December 2020 and February 2021. It collected quantitative ratings of work ability and return-to-work status, qualitative responses about return-to-work experiences, obstacles and recommendations, along with views on employer benefits for making accommodations. A sample of 145 UK workers recovering from COVID-19 was recruited via social media, professional networks and industry contacts. Qualitative data was subject to thematic analysis. Participants were mainly from health/social care (50%) and educational settings (14%).
Findings
Just over 90% indicated that they had experienced at least some post-COVID-19 symptoms, notably fatigue and cognitive effects. For 55%, symptoms lasted longer than six months. Only 15% had managed a full return-to-work. Of the 88 who provided workability ratings, just 13 and 18% respectively rated their physical and mental workability as good or very good. Difficulties in resuming work were attributed to symptom unpredictability, their interaction with job demands, managing symptoms and demands in parallel, unhelpful attitudes and expectations. Manager and peer support was reported as variable.
Originality/value
Workplace health management characterised by flexible long-term collaborative return-to-work planning, supported by more COVID-centric absence policies and organisational cultures, appear pivotal for sustaining the return-to-work of the large segments of the global workforce affected by post-COVID-19 symptoms.
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Health care organizational research should pay greater attention to the specific settings where health is practiced. An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is…
Abstract
Purpose
Health care organizational research should pay greater attention to the specific settings where health is practiced. An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is presented from 29 months spent in a private, concierge-type radiation oncology center. A thick description of the setting and interaction among center staff and patients is offered in an attempt to establish why qualitative research of health care settings is so important. Findings are compared to Ellingson’s work on health care setting. Humor, ritual and defiance have therapeutic value and deserve greater attention in cancer treatment centers and health care organizations more broadly. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is presented from 29 months spent in a private, concierge-type radiation oncology center through thick description.
Findings
This study reinforces the literature on the value of institutionalizing humor and ritual to improve patients’ experience in cancer care given the dominance of large public institutions, most easily accessed by academic researchers. Suncoast Coast Radiation Center’s “institutionalized humor” is an important finding that should be examine further. Scholarship can also illuminate the use of ritual in settings where health care is practiced.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to a particular research setting which is a private, concierge care radiation oncology treatment center in the Southeastern USA.
Practical implications
Cancer care centers should consider carefully institutionalizing humor and ritual into their daily practices. Further, patient defiance should be reinterpreted not as a patient deficiency but as a therapeutic coping mechanism by patients.
Social implications
While nearly half of cancer care in the USA is offered in private, for-profit institutions, the vast majority of the understanding of cancer care comes only from non-profit and government-run institutions. Shining a light of these neglected cancer care settings will add to the understanding and the ability to improve the care offered to patients.
Originality/value
This is the first health ethnography in a concierge care, cancer care treatment setting. It tests the proposition that humor, ritual and defiance play an important role in a private concierge cancer care organization.
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Sally Hemming, Hilary McDermott, Fehmidah Munir and Kim Burton
Long-term health conditions are a significant occupational and global burden and can undermine people's ability to work. Workplace support for self-management of long-term…
Abstract
Purpose
Long-term health conditions are a significant occupational and global burden and can undermine people's ability to work. Workplace support for self-management of long-term conditions has the potential to minimise adverse work effects, by enhancing health and work outcomes. No data exist about employers' views concerning supporting workers with long-term conditions to self-manage.
Design/methodology/approach
The exploration of employers' views involved recruiting 15 participants with responsibilities for workplace health, well-being and safety responsibilities, who participated in a semi-structured interview about self-management and support. Data were analysed using a qualitative six-stage thematic analysis technique.
Findings
Self-management support is not purposely provided to workers with long-term conditions. Support in any form rests on workers disclosing a condition and on their relationship with their line-manager. While employers have considerable control over people's ability to self-manage, they consider that workers are responsible for self-management at work. Stigma, work demands and line-manager behaviours are potential obstacles to workers' self-management and support.
Practical implications
Workplace discussions about self-managing long-term conditions at work should be encouraged and opened up, to improve health and work outcomes and aligned with return-to-work and rehabilitation approaches. A wider biopsychosocial culture could help ensure workplaces are regarded as settings in which long-term conditions can be self-managed.
Originality/value
This study highlights that employer self-management support is not provided to workers with long-term conditions in a purposeful way. Workplace support depends on an employer knowing what needs to be supported which, in turn, depends on aspects of disclosure, stigma, work demands and line management.
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Ian J. Norman and Sally J. Redfern
Describes alternative approaches to quality assurance in nursing and traces the historical shift from one approach to the other; quality as inspection to quality as opportunity…
Abstract
Describes alternative approaches to quality assurance in nursing and traces the historical shift from one approach to the other; quality as inspection to quality as opportunity. Early proselytizing approaches were superseded by an emphasis on quantitative measurement and attempts at “objective” evaluation which involved the development of the generic audit. More recently, the move has been towards locally developed audit and standard setting.
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Abstract
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Tanya Fitzgerald and Sally Knipe
In this chapter we have broadly sketched the educational history of Aotearoa New Zealand to show that this historical backdrop offers a fascinating insight into contemporary…
Abstract
In this chapter we have broadly sketched the educational history of Aotearoa New Zealand to show that this historical backdrop offers a fascinating insight into contemporary debates. In the following chapters we adopt a thematic approach to the history of teacher preparation in Aotearoa New Zealand. We do not offer an institutional or chronological historical narrative, but rather, the chapters are interconnected as they re-trace, recall and re-tell this educational history. Our core thesis is that across the long history of teacher preparation these themes permeate the shifts and changes in educational policy and practice and that ruptures at particular historical moments are not unique. We draw on a number of historical examples to underscore the oftentimes personal impact of the wider policy environment and the educational stories of aspiring teachers. Importantly, we have documented the methodological approaches employed and the archival research that has influenced our reading of the materials.