Search results

The purpose of this study is to describe peer support work in a men’s mental health unit from a lived experience and service user’s perspective. The intertwining of process (a lived experience perspective) and subject (the therapeutic value of peer support) leads to greater knowledge and insight into peer support for people with mental health problems.

This service user narrative draws on the extracts from a reflective journal of interactions and conversations with people with mental health problems as well as feedback from service users and staff about the value of peer support. These methods allow a first-person, service user’s, reflective and narrative account of peer support work.

Peer support work, particularly hearing voices sessions, are found to be highly therapeutic and worthwhile. They promote insight and create feelings of safety and hope in what can sometimes be a frightening and hostile ward environment. Peer support provides emotional and practical support. Sharing stories and experiences of mental illness with people leads to trust, feelings of being valued, heard and accepted as well as better experiences of care and being seen as a person first. Due to their shared experiences, peer support workers are able to befriend people with mental health problems on the ward. Peer support work bridges the gap and vacuum of care between people with mental health problems and staff. It compensates for understaffing to provide more holistic and person-centred care and support.

Lived experience/ service user perspectives and narratives on peer support are rare, particularly in a hospital setting. This article provides a rich, perhaps overlooked and hidden narrative on the nature of peer support work. People with mental health problems, like Ben, are often excluded from society, health and social care, education, employment and research. This narrative opens up a pathway to understanding peer support from a service user perspective.

This chapter is building conceptual background of psychological risk for international tourists. Drawing on Place Attachment Theory, Moral Disengagement Theory, Followership Theory, Job Demands-Resources, Acculturation Theory and Goal Progress Theory of Rumination, this chapter proposes a framework of psychological risks with six psychological risks that tourists could encounter in foreign destination: destination detachment risk, moral disengagement risk, risk of false risk assessment, burnout risk, risk of loneliness and risk of rumination. High destination detachment could lead tourists to behave less environmentally friendly, while high moral disengagement could lead tourists to behave less ethically friendly. Followership to the influencers in social media could lead tourists to engage in risk-taking behaviours and false risk assessment, leading to burnout risk, risk of loneliness and risk of rumination, where negative autobiographical memory is created and forming memory-related distress when they arrive homes. Place detachment and moral disengagement risk local environmental and social health, while burnout, loneliness and rumination pose risks for the tourists' psychological health. Several studies propose suggestions for the destination manager and tourists to manage the risk effectively and adequately, including place attachment and moral engagement campaign, careful travel planning and social support.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether or not early, mid, late career stage truck drivers view the safety regulations differently and how drivers’ regulatory attitudes influence their compliance attitudes and intentions.

This survey study is designed to evaluate the differences in truck drivers’ attitudes toward safety regulations across career stages. Moreover, the study applies ordinary least squares path analysis to determine the influence of drivers’ regulatory attitudes on compliance attitudes and intentions.

Results revealed that drivers in early and late career stages harbor different perceptions of the burden safety regulations place on driving operations, the effectiveness of driver-focused safety regulations in maintaining road safety, and the acceptability of certain unsafe acts. Moreover, drivers’ attitudes toward regulations directly and indirectly influenced compliance attitudes and intentions.

The participant sample was taken from employees of four large motor carriers operating refrigerated and dry box trailers over the road in interstate commerce. While the sample is roughly representative of this segment, the authors recommend caution in generalizing the findings across the diverse US trucking industry as a whole.

Findings suggest that motor carrier management should tailor safety and regulatory familiarization training across career stages. Moreover, carriers should provide targeted communication regarding the effectiveness of regulations and impact of regulations on driving operations in order to alleviate drivers’ negative attitudes toward regulations where possible.

This study marks the first application of career stage theory to the motor carrier safety context. This study also provides further evidence as to the efficacy of drivers’ attitudes toward safety regulations in predicting drivers’ compliance attitudes and intentions. A better understanding of these phenomena may lead to improved compliance and safety.

This paper aims to investigate how the extant literature on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) empirically explores the perspective of emerging economy suppliers operating in global supply chains (GSCs). It thereby explains the role of emerging economy suppliers in determining the success of SSCM.

A systematic literature review of 41 empirical papers (published between 2007 and 2021) was conducted, involving both descriptive and thematic analyses.

The findings demonstrate that emerging economy suppliers have a key role in SSCM, given their use of positive feedback loops to proactively create remedies to surpass barriers using their collaboration mechanisms, and exploit authentic sustainability outcomes as reinforcements to drive further sustainability initiatives. The authors also demonstrate that suppliers are particularly focused on the cultural and institutional dimensions of sustainability. Finally, the authors provide an explanatory analytical framework to reduce the institutional distance between buyers and their global suppliers.

This review identifies avenues for future research on the role of emerging economy suppliers in SSCM.

Recognising remedies to surpass barriers and reinforcements to drive new actions can aid SSCM in GSCs and improve understanding between buyers and suppliers.

The valorisation of cultural and institutional issues can lead to more responsible supplier interactions and improved sustainability outcomes in emerging economies.

This review only analyses the viewpoint of emerging economy suppliers, whereas prior SSCM reviews have focused on the buyer perspective. Thus, the authors reduce supplier invisibility and institutional distance between GSC participants.

The purpose of this paper is to study the reform of public purchasing directives initiated by the European Union (EU) and discuss them in light of the criticism against existing public purchasing directives.

A literature review of empirical articles is critical to existing public purchasing directives to summarize the main directions and categories of their criticism, and a thorough reading of the proposed reform of the public purchasing directives is carried out to see if the changes will answer some or all of the criticism directed toward the public purchasing directives.

The reforms seem to be a step in the right direction, particularly with respect to public organizations possibility to support innovation and new product and service development, but little change in the possibilities for development of strategic, long-term relationships.

The reform has just been introduced, and so the analysis of the possible effects of the reform is not based on empirical data (since such data do not exist yet), but mostly on the authors experience in the field and through a comparison with selected literature.

An early assessment of the possible effects of the reform regarding public procurement directives in the EU area is introduced.

The pulsed-laser powder bed fusion (PBF) process is an additive manufacturing technology that uses a laser with pulsed beam to melt metal powder. In this case, stainless steel SS316L alloy is used to produce complex components. To produce components with acceptable mechanical performance requires a comprehensive understanding of process parameters and their interactions. This study aims to understand the influence of process parameters on reducing porosity and increasing part density.

The response surface method (RSM) is used to investigate the impact of changing critical parameters on the density of parts manufactured. Parameters considered include: point distance, exposure time, hatching distance and layer thickness. Part density was used to identify the most statistically significant parameters, before each parameter was analysed individually.

A clear correlation between the number and shape of pores and the process parameters was identified. Point distance, exposure time and layer thickness were found to significantly affect part density. The interaction between these parameters also critically affected the development of porosity. Finally, a regression model was developed and verified experimentally and used to accurately predict part density.

The study considered a range of selected parameters relevant to the SS316L alloy. These parameters need to be modified for other alloys according to their physical properties.

This study is believed to be the first systematic attempt to use RSM for the design of experiments (DOE) to investigate the effect of process parameters of the pulsed-laser PBF process on the density of the SS316L alloy components.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the intention of companies to reduce transportation emissions by 2020 and the barriers and the discriminating factors that affect the reduction.

A literature review identified potential logistical and technical actions and their barriers, and discriminating factors for reducing transportation emissions. A survey of freight transport-intensive industries in Sweden examined the effects of, intention for implementation of and barriers to 12 actions to reduce CO₂ emissions from freight transportation. In total, 172 logistics managers responded, representing a response rate of 40.3 per cent.

Logistics service providers (LSPs) and freight owners are likely to reduce a considerable amount of CO₂ emissions from freight transportation by 2020 using a combination of actions. The lowest level of confidence was for reducing CO₂ emissions by changing logistics structures, while there was greater confidence by means of operational changes. The actions have few barriers, but there is often a combination of barriers to overcome. Three discriminating factors influence the intention of a firm to reduce transportation emissions: perceived potential, company size and LSP/freight owner. The industrial sector of a freight owner has minor influence. Companies that are particularly likely to reduce emissions are LSPs, large companies, and those that perceive a large reduction potential.

Logistical and technical barriers appear to hinder companies from implementing actions, while organisational barriers and external prerequisites do not. Barriers cannot be used to predict companies’ intentions to reduce transportation emissions. The authors examined the impact of three discriminating factors on reduction of transportation emissions. The research is based on perceptions of well-informed managers and on companies in Sweden.

The findings can be used by managers to identify firms for benchmarking initiatives and emissions-reducing strategies.

The study provides insights into intended CO₂ reductions in transportation by 2020. It presents new knowledge regarding barriers and discriminating factors for implementing actions to reduce transportation emissions.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry due to several advantages and capabilities, including use of rapid prototyping, fabrication of complex geometries, reduction of product development cycles and minimization of material waste. As metal AM becomes increasingly popular for aerospace and defense original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), a major barrier that remains is rapid qualification of components. Several potential defects (such as porosity, residual stress and microstructural inhomogeneity) occur during layer-by-layer processing. Current methods to qualify AM parts heavily rely on experimental testing, which is economically inefficient and technically insufficient to comprehensively evaluate components. Approaches for high fidelity qualification of AM parts are necessary.

This review summarizes the existing powder-based fusion computational models and their feasibility in AM processes through discrete aspects, including process and microstructure modeling.

Current progresses and challenges in high fidelity modeling of AM processes are presented.

Potential opportunities are discussed toward high-level assurance of AM component quality through a comprehensive computational tool.

The purpose of this study is to explore circular economy (CE) initiatives and apply the stimulus-organism-response theory to find the socio-political drivers and enablers of CE in the pharmaceutical industry. CE as a concept was relatively not studied much with respect to socio-political interests from operations management perspectives. This was especially so in the pharmaceutical industry.

This research study was anchored in the theoretical conversation of stimulus-organism-response theory to find the socio-political interests and enablers of the regenerative CE principles. These were the functions of remanufacturing, reuse and recycle. For this research study, data was collected in two steps. First, eight industry practitioners were interviewed to understand the CE practices in the pharmaceutical industry. Then 166 chiefs of production and operations functions from 124 pharmaceutical companies were surveyed. The quantitative data was empirically analyzed using SmartPLS3 software.

This research study revealed that pressure from suppliers and other public stakeholders were driving regenerative CE practices in the pharmaceutical industry. The results further stated that CE enablers such as green information technology systems and internal environmental management were critical for making pharmaceutical manufacturing operations circular.

This research study measured the constructs on a formative scale. Studies measuring socio-political interests, CE enablers and sustainability practices constructs on a formative scale were much required for the development of the CE theory. This research study output could be applied across geographies and industries to measure the indicators of CE.

This research study indicated that in the context of the pharmaceutical industry, there was an overemphasis on the remanufacture and reuse principles. However, the focus on recycling principles was mostly subdued. For managers and regulators in the pharmaceutical sector, this research study provided clear insights that for more effective CE implementation. This was based on an effective application of recycling practices in the critical functions in pharmaceutical industry.

Earlier research studies on green and environmental manufacturing were focused on linear production models. To provide clear and robust foundations for CE theory, this research study considered operations management from the perspective of the value chain. This comprised the entire circular production model. Earlier research studies had treated socio-political interests, CE enablers and sustainability practices as reflective constructs. This study was one of the foremost to measure these constructs on a formative scale.

Despite the growing importance and complexity of modern supply chains, little scholarly attention has been devoted to cognitive processes in supply chain management (SCM). In particular, we know little about the structure of supply chain managers’ cognitive frames and how differences between frames affect sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).

Given the relative scarcity of the topic, this paper uses a conceptual approach. Building on prior literature from cognitive psychology and related areas, it develops ideal types of cognitive frames with which supply chain managers approach sustainability-related decisions.

This study first develops three ideal-type cognitive frames – unidimensional, hierarchical and paradoxical. This paper then shows that it makes a difference which one of these a supply chain manager holds when addressing issues related to sustainable supply. Thereafter, this study discusses the antecedents that can explain why a manager holds a particular cognitive frame.

This paper represents one of the first analyses of how the structure of a supply chain manager’s cognitive frame impacts their firm’s sustainable supply initiatives. Although developed with regard to SSCM, the arguments have implications for other management areas too, not least for the education of future SCM professionals.

Given their boundary-spanning role, attention to the cognitive processes of supply chain managers is crucial to understanding the conditions under which firms can address sustainability challenges in their supply chains.