Search results

The concept of personal recovery is now a key pillar of service delivery. It aims to support individuals to flourish and establish a new identity following an acute episode or diagnosis. This view of recovery is unique to each person on that journey. However, there has been a significant focus on measuring these experiences. This paper aims to explore the influence of social constructionism on the concept of recovery within an Irish context, seeking to understand the influence of language, discourse and power on service users’ experiences.

A qualitative, interpretivist methodology was adopted for this case study design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service users. Thematic analysis was chosen as the method of analysis.

Personalising recovery did not always lead to the removal of biological symptoms, but with the appropriate supports, individual’s recovery journey was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, personal recovery places overwhelmingly responsibility on the individual to succeed, largely driven by neoliberal discourse. This focus on individualism and the pressure to succeed was further experienced when people sought to re-integrate into society and participate in normalised social order. Ultimately, for many service users, they viewed personal recovery as an unfulfilled promise.

It is not a representative sample of service users within an Irish context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore influence of social constructionism on the concept of personal recovery within a mental health service context.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Executives are searching for ways to deliver consistent improvements in productivity and profitability while addressing economic realities. One initiative that has been discovered by many organizations is the integration a quality process into their or ganization that is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). Many studies have been done showing that award winning companies tend to out perform peers and competitors, yet many managers are reluctant to under take the large initiative required to work toward the award. This reluctance may stem from the belief that the reported benefits are not those that are important for managers to justify the effort. The purpose of this research is to begin an exploratory study that examines the expectations of company managers, executives, and other professionals regarding the types of firm performance and returns that would be needed to justify undertaking the MBNQA process. The results showed that while financial performance of the firm is the strongest justification managers consider, and that while their expectations for improved financial performance are some what high, the financial returns are certainly not out of the realm of normal expectations for returns from other projects.

Determining the proper sample size and frequency of sampling such that quality is assured while financial losses are not unnecessarily incurred is critical to an effective quality program. The main purpose of the present work is to design a fuzzy controller to adjust sample sizes and frequency of sampling according to potential fuzzy benefit/loss. A set of fuzzy rules is given where, depending on the antecedents, the sample size and/or sampling frequency may be decreased, remain static or be increased. At any given moment the proportion of defects in the sample determines the firing strength of the rules suggesting an appropriate sample size and sampling frequency. The firing strength is then modified to include an analysis of the decision maker’s belief that as sampling takes place and adjustments are being considered benefit or loss would be incorporated prior to any action or adjustment to sample size and/or frequency.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Alternative workplace strategies cost money to implement. There are benefits to these strategies which, up to a point, justify the investment. After that point, however, more aggressive strategies must be justified through offsetting reductions in facilities costs. At the extreme, organisations can actually implement alternative workplace strategies expressly for the purpose of reducing facilities costs and achieving overall infrastructure cost savings in the process. The US General Services Administration developed the Cost per Person Model in 1999 to help customers measure cost according to a more inclusive workplace definition. The spreadsheet tool was designed to track the overall cost per person of providing facilities, information technology and telecommunications services. The model recognises that alternative work environments are part of the overall cost equation. Also, the Cost per Person Model was designed as a tool for assessing the financial impacts of various alternative workplace strategies. In practice, the costs of aggressive alternative workplace strategies can be offset by reduced facilities costs. This paper summarises the professional use of the model over the first four years of its existence, including several actual case applications. The paper also discusses features of the redesigned version of the model introduced in 2003. Finally, the author suggests that organisations can determine optimal levels of alternative workplace strategy applications, and that additional research and case studies using the Cost per Person Model can help form the basis for an understanding of how today’s organisations provide workplace services in a knowledge‐based work environment.