Sarah O’Connell, Glenn Reynders, Federico Seri, Raymond Sterling and Marcus M. Keane
The purpose of this paper is to standardised four-step flexibility assessment methodology for evaluating the available electrical load reduction or increase a building can provide…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to standardised four-step flexibility assessment methodology for evaluating the available electrical load reduction or increase a building can provide in response to a signal from an aggregator or grid operator.
Design/methodology/approach
The four steps in the methodology consist of Step 1: systems, loads, storage and generation identification; Step 2: flexibility characterisation; Step 3: scenario modelling; and Step 4: key performance indicator (KPI) label.
Findings
A detailed case study for one building, validated through on-site experiments, verified the feasibility and accuracy of the approach.
Research limitations/implications
The results were benchmarked against available demonstration studies but could benefit from the future development of standardised benchmarks.
Practical implications
The ease of implementation enables building operators to quickly and cost effectively evaluate the flexibility of their building. By clearly defining the flexibility range, the KPI label enables contract negotiation between stakeholders for demand side services. It may also be applicable as a smart readiness indicator.
Social implications
The novel KPI label has the capability to operationalise the concept of building flexibility to a wider spectrum of society, enabling smart grid demand response roll-out to residential and small commercial customers.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need for an early stage flexibility assessment which explicitly includes source selection that can be implemented in an offline manner without the need for extensive real-time data acquisition, ICT platforms or additional metre and sensor installations.
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Richard Jefferies, Ibrahim H.N. Sheriff, Jacob H. Matthews, Olivia Jagger, Sarah Curtis, Peter Lees, Peter C. Spurgeon, Alex Oldman, Ali Habib, Azam Saied, Jessica Court, Marilena Giannoudi, Meelad Sayma, Nicholas Ward, Nick Cork, Olamide Olatokun, Oliver Devine, Paul O'Connell, Phoebe Carr, Rafail Angelos Kotronias, Rebecca Gardiner, Rory T Buckle, Ross J Thomson, Sarah Williams, Simon J. Nicholson, Usman Goga and Daniel Mark Fountain
Although medical leadership and management (MLM) is increasingly being recognised as important to improving healthcare outcomes, little is understood about current training of…
Abstract
Purpose
Although medical leadership and management (MLM) is increasingly being recognised as important to improving healthcare outcomes, little is understood about current training of medical students in MLM skills and behaviours in the UK. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study used validated structured interviews with expert faculty members from medical schools across the UK to ascertain MLM framework integration, teaching methods employed, evaluation methods and barriers to improvement.
Findings
Data were collected from 25 of the 33 UK medical schools (76 per cent response rate), with 23/25 reporting that MLM content is included in their curriculum. More medical schools assessed MLM competencies on admission than at any other time of the curriculum. Only 12 schools had evaluated MLM teaching at the time of data collection. The majority of medical schools reported barriers, including overfilled curricula and reluctance of staff to teach. Whilst 88 per cent of schools planned to increase MLM content over the next two years, there was a lack of consensus on proposed teaching content and methods.
Research limitations/implications
There is widespread inclusion of MLM in UK medical schools’ curricula, despite the existence of barriers. This study identified substantial heterogeneity in MLM teaching and assessment methods which does not meet students’ desired modes of delivery. Examples of national undergraduate MLM teaching exist worldwide, and lessons can be taken from these.
Originality/value
This is the first national evaluation of MLM in undergraduate medical school curricula in the UK, highlighting continuing challenges with executing MLM content despite numerous frameworks and international examples of successful execution.
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Victoria Hogan, Margaret Hodgins, Duncan Lewis, Sarah Maccurtain, Patricia Mannix-McNamara and Lisa Pursell
The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of ill-treatment and bullying experienced by Irish workers and to explore individual and organisational predictors. The most…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of ill-treatment and bullying experienced by Irish workers and to explore individual and organisational predictors. The most recent national figures available are specific to bullying and predate the economic recession; therefore, this study is timely and investigates a broader range of negative behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey study on a national probability sample of Irish employees was conducted (N = 1,764). The study design replicated the methodology employed in the British workplace behaviour study.
Findings
The results showed that 43% of Irish workers had experienced ill-treatment at work over the past two years, with 9% meeting the criteria for experiencing workplace bullying. A number of individual and organisational factors were found to be significantly associated with the experience of ill-treatment at work.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides national-level data on workplace ill-treatment and bullying that are directly comparable to British study findings.
Practical implications
The findings indicate that a significant number of Irish workers experience ill-treatment at work, and that workplace bullying does not appear to have decreased since the last national study was conducted in Ireland.
Social implications
This study is of use to the Irish regulator and persons responsible for managing workplace bullying cases, as it identifies high-risk work situations and contributing individual factors.
Originality/value
This study provides national Irish data on workplace behaviour and ill-treatment following a severe economic recession.
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Kathryn Brownbridge, Simeon Gill, Sarah Grogan, Sarah Kilgariff and Amanda Whalley
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the link between underdeveloped and ill-informed sizing practices, fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the link between underdeveloped and ill-informed sizing practices, fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste. The literature review identifies: issues that limit the effective development and application of sizing systems, the link between the complexities of consumer fit expectations, body image and self-esteem and maps the link between fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste.
Design/methodology/approach
Data analysis draws from a wider study designed to investigate women’s experiences of dress fit and body image. In total, 20 women aged 18-45 years were audio recorded while they tried on a number of mass-produced dresses, and were asked to select one dress, which they could keep.
Findings
All the dresses were selected except one style, which failed to satisfy any of the women’s fit requirements. The findings clearly demonstrate why this dress was considered to be unsatisfactory as well as the subsequent link between poor fit and body dissatisfaction.
Social implications
Findings support the theory that women identify with their clothes’ size and when this link is disrupted it causes discomfort and body dissatisfaction, which, in turn, contributed to rejection of the garment increasing the potential for the creation of waste.
Originality/value
This study is the first to link unsatisfactory fashion sizing practice with the production of textiles waste. The process of capturing women’s interactions with high street fashion dresses whilst trying them on enabled a detailed analysis that contributes new evidence to the debate around sizing practice, poor fit and its impact on body image and self-esteem.
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Margaret Hodgins, Sarah MacCurtain and Patricia Mannix-McNamara
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.
Findings
There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.
Research limitations/implications
The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.
Practical implications
The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.
Social implications
Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.
Originality/value
That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.
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David O'Connell and Mara Fitzgibbons Adams
This study builds upon previous research on grace in the workplace, using scholarship from the fields of psychology, business ethics, philosophy and religion with the purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study builds upon previous research on grace in the workplace, using scholarship from the fields of psychology, business ethics, philosophy and religion with the purpose of clarifying how people experience grace in their work, when it happens, why it happens and what are the affective outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from employed adults in the USA. Research questions were explored using qualitative and quantitative methods.
Findings
Working from a conceptual framework linking the occasions of grace, the reasons for grace-giving and the resulting sentiments, the design and findings of a mixed methods study are presented. The results clarify how individuals from various work environments, demographic groups and spiritualties enact and react to grace-giving at work.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to organizational change and workplace spirituality literatures by unpacking what precipitates workplace grace episodes, what is the nature of the interpersonal exchanges and individuals’ affective responses. This approach allows us to better understand what happens in the specific moments of grace and how grace-giving might be encouraged.
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Harriet Martineau's writing about Ireland spanned over 35 years of her career and, as a topic of socio-cultural, political, and economic interest, was second only to her prolific…
Abstract
Harriet Martineau's writing about Ireland spanned over 35 years of her career and, as a topic of socio-cultural, political, and economic interest, was second only to her prolific writing on the United States. Through the contexts of her writing (fiction and nonfiction) and of 19th-century Anglo-Irish history, this discussion examines a singular episode in Martineau's life and work, one that highlights her complex views on Ireland and challenges her assumptions about the relentless conundrum popularly termed “the Irish Question.” Martineau's brief epistolary relationship with the young repeal advocate, Mr. Langtrey, helped shape and clarify her thinking about Anglo-Irish relations; subsequently, she produced some of the best writing of her career as a traveling correspondent for the Daily News, reporting on post-famine Ireland. Although on a par with her better-known sociological analyses of America, Martineau's writing about 19th-century Ireland remains comparatively unexamined by scholars of the British Empire, of Victorian intellectual and social history, and of the enduringly contentious Anglo-Irish relations.
Margaret Hodgins and Patricia Mannix McNamara
The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of workplace ill-treatment of administrative and technical staff in the higher education sector, with a particular…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of workplace ill-treatment of administrative and technical staff in the higher education sector, with a particular focus on organisational response.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative interpretative phenomenological research design was employed. Using non-random, purposive sampling strategies nine self-selecting participants from three of the seven universities in the Republic of Ireland were interviewed in person. Data were analysed thematically employing the Pietkiewicz and Smith’s (2012) four-stage data analysis model.
Findings
Thematic analysis yielded four main themes: micro-political nature of bullying, cynicism about the informal response, the formal procedures exacerbate the problem and significant and adverse health impact. Participant narratives engender the lived experience for the reader.
Research limitations/implications
As participants were self-selecting respondent bias is acknowledged.
Practical implications
The findings of this study add to the accumulating evidence that organisations are failing to address workplace bullying.
Social implications
In failing to protect employees, the adverse health difficulties experienced by targets of bullying are further exacerbated.
Originality/value
While the literature yields much in terms of types of behaviours and impact, and argues for anti bullying policies and procedures in the workplace, what is evident is the selective organisational use of policy and procedures and inherent biases in place which expose a reluctance to effectively protect dignity and respect in the workplace.
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Patricia Mannix McNamara, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Sarah MacCurtain and Michael O’Brien
The purpose of this paper is to report the experiences of redress seeking and organisational responses for targets of bullying.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report the experiences of redress seeking and organisational responses for targets of bullying.
Design/methodology/approach
A phenomenological research design was adopted. In total, 22 primary teachers (seven males, 15 females) in Ireland were self-selected for interview, following an advertisement detailing the study in a national teacher union magazine. Data were analysed utilising an interpretative phenomenological analysis framework.
Findings
All those interviewed had made official complaints as per available procedures for addressing workplace bullying in their schools. All participants had engaged in Stages 1 and 2 of the official complaints procedures including uptake of recommended counselling. Three participants ceased engagement at Stage 2. In total, 18 participants had engaged in Stage 3 with 12 ceasing engagement at this stage. Seven participants had proceeded to Stage 4. It is noteworthy that no participant articulated satisfaction with the outcome, but conversely all had articulated further upset and acceptance of the reality that redress would not be forthcoming. These participants who had exercised agency in attempting to seek redress were met with power abuses and cultures of collusion.
Research limitations/implications
This is a small-scale study with self-selecting teachers. The data point to some problematic assumptions underpinning anti-bullying policies in small organisations.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to discourses of power/agency in workplace bullying. It challenges researchers and policy makers to elucidate more carefully the issues surrounding seeking redress for bullying.