Christie Browne, Prabin Chemjong, Daria Korobanova, Seyoung Jang, Natalia Yee, Carey Marr, Natasha Rae, Trevor Ma, Sarah-Jane Spencer and Kimberlie Dean
Rates of self-harm are elevated in prison, and there is limited evidence to support the efficacy of brief risk screening at reception to predict and prevent self-harm. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
Rates of self-harm are elevated in prison, and there is limited evidence to support the efficacy of brief risk screening at reception to predict and prevent self-harm. This study aims to examine the predictive validity of the self-harm/suicide screening items embedded in a prison mental health screening tool from two key domains strongly associated with risk: previous suicidal/self-harm behaviour, and recent ideation.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of men and women were screened on entry to prison, with eight screening items covering the two key domains of risk. Follow-up data on self-harm incidents were collected for 12 months post-screening. The predictive validity of individual screening items, item combinations and cumulative screening score was examined for the overall sample and for men and women separately.
Findings
Individual screening items across the two domains were all strongly associated with self-harm in the follow-up period, with odds ratios varying from 2.34 to 9.24. The predictive validity of both individual items, item scores and item combinations demonstrated high specificity but low to moderate sensitivity, and modest area under the curves (AUCs). Predictive validity was generally better for men than women; however, differences were not statistically significant.
Practical implications
Identifying those at risk of self-harm in prisons remains challenging and brief universal screening at prison entry should be only one component of a broader prison risk assessment and management strategy.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of very few to prospectively examine self-harm behaviour following risk screening. Predictive validity was examined in a representative sample of individuals in custody, and for men and women separately.
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Maria Mathews, Dana Ryan, Lindsay Hedden, Julia Lukewich, Emily Gard Marshall, Judith Belle Brown, Paul S. Gill, Madeleine McKay, Eric Wong, Stephen J. Wetmore, Richard Buote, Leslie Meredith, Lauren Moritz, Sarah Spencer, Maria Alexiadis, Thomas R. Freeman, Aimee Letto, Bridget L. Ryan, Shannon L. Sibbald and Amanda Lee Terry
Strong leadership in primary care is necessary to coordinate an effective pandemic response; however, descriptions of leadership roles for family physicians are absent from…
Abstract
Purpose
Strong leadership in primary care is necessary to coordinate an effective pandemic response; however, descriptions of leadership roles for family physicians are absent from previous pandemic plans. This study aims to describe the leadership roles and functions family physicians played during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and identify supports and barriers to formalizing these roles in future pandemic plans.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with family physicians across four regions in Canada as part of a multiple case study. During the interviews, participants were asked about their roles during each pandemic stage and the facilitators and barriers they experienced. Interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis approach was used to identify recurring themes.
Findings
Sixty-eight family physicians completed interviews. Three key functions of family physician leadership during the pandemic were identified: conveying knowledge, developing and adapting protocols for primary care practices and advocacy. Each function involved curating and synthesizing information, tailoring communications based on individual needs and building upon established relationships.
Practical implications
Findings demonstrate the need for future pandemic plans to incorporate formal family physician leadership appointments, as well as supports such as training, communication aides and compensation to allow family physicians to enact these key roles.
Originality/value
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to examine the leadership roles of family physicians, which have been largely overlooked in past pandemic plans. This study’s findings highlight the importance of these roles toward delivering an effective and coordinated pandemic response with uninterrupted and safe access to primary care.
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John Jacques, Sarah‐Jane Spencer and Paul Gilluley
Medium secure units were designed to treat patients for up to three years, but some patients spend longer in acute medium secure settings which in general do not have a 'longer…
Abstract
Medium secure units were designed to treat patients for up to three years, but some patients spend longer in acute medium secure settings which in general do not have a 'longer term focus'. The aim of this investigation was to assess and describe the needs of these patients. A survey questionnaire was designed and sent to responsible clinicians who had patients admitted at least five years previously to the Three Bridges Medium Secure Unit (males) in West London. Carer ratings using the Camberwell Assessment of Need: forensic version (CAN‐FOR) were completed by the primary nurse for each patient, complementing the survey questionnaire. Of 122 medium secure male patients 25 (21%) had been admitted at least five years before. We found high levels of co‐morbidity and treatment resistance. The CAN‐FOR revealed two groups, one with chronic challenging behaviour, treatment‐resistant mental illness and need for a high level of support, and another more able group not needing as much support but with a dependency on the hospital. It is considered here whether certain groups would benefit from a different approach or setting.
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Sarah Spencer‐Matthews and Meredith Lawley
This research aims to better understand the issues of why individualised communications should be incorporated into customised customer contact service and how customer contact…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to better understand the issues of why individualised communications should be incorporated into customised customer contact service and how customer contact management should be implemented.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative methodology of case research was used. In total nine Australian service industry case studies, involving 34 in‐depth interviews, were undertaken.
Findings
The analysis revealed three themes: optimisation of market factors, the process of implementation, and requirements for smooth customer contact management implementation. These findings showed minor implementation problems with service and organisational requirements driving customer contact management implementation overall. In addition, factors to assist with smooth customer contact management implementation are identified.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations, which could be addressed by future research, include application to other industries, expansion to other countries, the consumer perspective and the need for statistical generalisation.
Practical implications
Key practical implications include the identification of the need for firms to consider customer contact management as an avenue for differentiation and competitive advantage as well as providing guidelines for the successful implementation of customer contact management.
Originality/value
This research builds theory about customer contact management for the first time.
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Therese A. Joiner, X. Sarah Yang Spencer and Suzanne Salmon
Against a background of a customization imperative embraced by manufacturing firms in industrialised nations and the concomitant call for more balanced performance measurement…
Abstract
Purpose
Against a background of a customization imperative embraced by manufacturing firms in industrialised nations and the concomitant call for more balanced performance measurement systems (PMS), this study seeks to examine the mediating role of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in the relationship between a firm's strategic orientation of flexible manufacturing and organisational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A path‐analytical model is adopted using questionnaire data from 84 Australian manufacturing firms.
Findings
The results indicate that, first, firms emphasising a flexible manufacturing strategy utilise non‐financial as well as financial performance measures; second, these performance measures are associated with higher organisational performance; and third, there is a positive association between a firm's strategic emphasis on flexible manufacturing and organisation performance via non‐financial and financial performance measures.
Practical implications
While there is agreement on the beneficial role of non‐financial performance measures in supporting strategic priorities associated with customization strategies, equivocal research results have emerged on the role of financial performance measures in this context. The study underscores the importance of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in this context.
Originality/value
The paper reinstates the value of financial performance measures for firms pursuing customization type strategies and adds to one's knowledge of PMSs by exploring the intervening role of such systems in linking flexible manufacturing strategy to organisation performance.
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Purpose – This chapter examines how the kollektiv, a form of workplace organization established in the Soviet Union, continues to shape cultural expectations of work in…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter examines how the kollektiv, a form of workplace organization established in the Soviet Union, continues to shape cultural expectations of work in post-Soviet Russia.
Methodology/Approach – This chapter describes a workplace ethnography conducted in a college department in Novosibirsk, Russia in 1999–2000 and 2002, with follow-up trips in 2005–2006. Participant observation is combined with interviews of teachers and students in the department.
Findings – The kollektiv established in the Soviet Union has persisted in modified form in post-Soviet Russia. Instead of a means of Party control, the kollektiv became popularly associated with the group cohesion that arises from frequent social interaction. This sense of cohesion, accompanied by attendant habits of sharing holidays with work colleagues, has persisted to varying degrees among adults in Russia today. Furthermore, the structure of the kollektiv has been maintained for students in schools and colleges, so that new generations of Russian youth are raised to expect to work in cohesive small groups. Their behaviors and expectations contribute to the persistence of the kollektiv in Russian society in the present and near future.
Originality/Value of the paper – This chapter makes two unique contributions: (1) it adds a focus on white-collar work to the predominantly blue-collar and service occupations studied in Russia to date and (2) it presents workplace ethnography of academics, a group rarely studied ethnographically.
Sarah Yang Spencer, Carol Adams and Prem W.S. Yapa
This paper aims to examine the antecedent factor, top management's commitment to environmental sustainability, for the adoption of a sophisticated internal environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the antecedent factor, top management's commitment to environmental sustainability, for the adoption of a sophisticated internal environmental information system; measured by the broad‐scope, timeliness, aggregation and integration of such information. The paper also seeks to examine whether the availability of such a system would lead to improved environmental performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper investigates responses from a survey of Chief Financial Officers or chief management accountants in the top 200 listed companies in Australia. It uses linear regression analysis based on a multiple‐mediator model with percentile‐based bootstrap, bias‐corrected (BC) and bias‐corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap confidence intervals to identify significant mediators.
Findings
It was found in this study that top management commitment to environmental sustainability was associated with the adoption of a sophisticated internal environmental information system. Further, the availability of aggregated environmental information was found to mediate the relationship between top management commitment to environmental sustainability and environmental performance. However, there was no significant relationship to other mediating variables.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations relate to the collinearity of mediators which make it difficult to identify the impact of specific mediators in a multi‐mediator model. The implications are that other methods may provide further value, but these may need to be based on either different data or larger samples.
Practical implications
The findings point to the importance of aggregated environmental accounting information to organisations aiming to improve their environmental performance.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the corporate environmental accounting literature by empirically linking the top management commitment to environmental sustainability and to environmental performance through the adoption of accounting information provisions. The results of this study also provide guidance to practitioners about how to ensure their commitment to environmental sustainability will be translated to environmental performance and to some extent provide some answer to whether countries such as Australia should implement Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) to account for carbon costs.
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Purpose – This introductory essay to an edited volume proposes possible contributions from economic sociology to the study of work broadly defined. Weber had a vision of economic…
Abstract
Purpose – This introductory essay to an edited volume proposes possible contributions from economic sociology to the study of work broadly defined. Weber had a vision of economic sociology as a study of not only economic phenomena but also economically relevant and economically conditioned phenomena. Work, in its market and nonmarket variety, falls in all these categories and thus presents a fruitful research arena for economic sociologists who have thus far primarily studied markets and corporations.
Methodology/Approach – The essay provides an analytic review of literature in economic sociology, uses information from the content analysis of recent publications in sociology of work, and provides an overview of chapters included in this edited volume.
Value of paper – Applying economic sociology to work means: (a) investigating its embeddedness in social structures, culture, and politics; and (b) uncovering the socially constructed nature of what constitutes paid market work. This article also proposes that economic sociologists can expand the boundaries of work by examining such activities as care work, work in the informal economy, and prison work.
Erica S. Jablonski, Chris R. Surfus and Megan Henly
This study compared different types of full-time caregiver (e.g., children, older adults, COVID-19 patients) and subgroups (e.g., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study compared different types of full-time caregiver (e.g., children, older adults, COVID-19 patients) and subgroups (e.g., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic for potentially meaningful distinctions.
Methodology/Approach
Data from the 9,854 full-time caregivers identified in Phase 3.2 (July 21–October 11, 2021) of the US Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS) were analyzed in this study using multinomial logistic regression to examine relationships between caregiver types, marginalized subgroups, generation, and vaccination status.
Findings
The prevalence of caregiving was low, but the type of full-time caregiving performed varied by demographic group (i.e., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, generation, and vaccination status). The relative risk of being a COVID-19 caregiver remained significant for being a member of each of the marginalized groups examined after all adjustments.
Limitations/Implications
To date, the HPS has not been analyzed to predict the type of full-time informal caregiving performed during the COVID-19 pandemic or their characteristics. Research limitations of this analysis include the cross-sectional, experimental dataset employed, as well as some variable measurement issues.
Originality/Value of Paper
Prior informal caregiver research has often focused on the experiences of those caring for older adults or children with special healthcare needs. It may be instructive to learn whether and how informal caregivers excluded from paid employment during infectious disease outbreaks vary in meaningful ways from those engaged in other full-time caregiving. Because COVID-19 magnified equity concerns, examining demographic differences may also facilitate customization of pathways to post-caregiving workforce integration.