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1 – 10 of 15Ann Scheck McAlearney, Jennifer Hefner, Julie Robbins and Andrew N. Garman
Despite hospitals’ efforts to reduce health care-associated infections (HAIs), success rates vary. We studied how leadership practices might impact these efforts.
Abstract
Purpose
Despite hospitals’ efforts to reduce health care-associated infections (HAIs), success rates vary. We studied how leadership practices might impact these efforts.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted eight case studies at hospitals pursuing central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI)-prevention initiatives. At each hospital, we interviewed senior leaders, clinical leaders, and line clinicians (n=194) using a semi-structured interview protocol. All interviews were transcribed and iteratively analyzed.
Findings
We found that the presence of local clinical champions was perceived across organizations and interviewees as a key factor contributing to HAI-prevention efforts, with champions playing important roles as coordinators, cheerleaders, and advocates for the initiatives. Top-level support was also critical, with elements such as visibility, commitment, and clear expectations valued across interviewees.
Value/orginality
Results suggest that leadership plays an important role in the successful implementation of HAI-prevention interventions. Improving our understanding of nonclinical differences across health systems may contribute to efforts to eliminate HAIs.
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Jacqueline A. Stefkovich, Kevin M. McKenna and Andrew L. Armagost
A charter school is a public school but without some of the constraints that bind public school leaders. On the other hand, charter schools are businesses, needing to find space…
Abstract
A charter school is a public school but without some of the constraints that bind public school leaders. On the other hand, charter schools are businesses, needing to find space, market their “product,” and attract teachers who share their mission. This business aspect of education combined with a specifically articulated mission and somewhat greater freedom and flexibility in educating children can, and often does, raise the ethical stakes for administrators and teachers as they endeavor to provide leadership in charter schools. These issues are best addressed through examining standards and dispositions set forth by professional bodies as well as a consideration of the ethical frames of justice, care, critique, and the profession.
Jakob Müllner and Igor Filatotchev
In this chapter, the authors review emerging literature on multidimensional, information age-related phenomena across different disciplines to derive common themes and topics. The…
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors review emerging literature on multidimensional, information age-related phenomena across different disciplines to derive common themes and topics. The authors then proceed to analyse recent developments in these fields to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the most disruptive challenges for multinational companies (MNCs) competing in the modern information age. These challenges include more efficient peer-to-peer communication between stakeholders, crowd-organisation, globalisation of value chains and the need to organise knowledge resources. The aim of the chapter is not to review all age research, but to identify fundamental uncertainties for MNCs and discuss strategies of tackling such information age phenomena from an international business perspective.
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Charles Geisler and Ben Currens
Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of…
Abstract
Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.
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Andrew L. Wiley, Melody Tankersley and Andrea Simms
Although we have improved identification of and access to evidence-based interventions for addressing student problem behavior, teacher use of these practices remains low. In this…
Abstract
Although we have improved identification of and access to evidence-based interventions for addressing student problem behavior, teacher use of these practices remains low. In this chapter, we examine teachers’ causal attributions for student problem behavior and their implications for use of effective school-based behavioral interventions and supports. Attribution theory and research suggest that causal attributions strongly influence how individuals (e.g., teachers) perceive and respond to the problem behavior of others (e.g., students). Teacher perception regarding problem behavior and appropriate responses to it can be a significant barrier to the adoption and sustained implementation of empirically supported practices. In light of these factors, causal attribution theory and research can be used as a framework for better understanding and even changing teacher beliefs related to acceptance, implementation, and sustained use of effective behavior management practices. In this chapter, we make the case for cultivating an understanding of teachers’ causal attributions of student problem behavior and considering implications of causal attributions in future research. We explore how such research endeavors can potentially positively impact teacher implementation of effective school-based behavioral interventions and supports.
To better understand the key issues surrounding Global Ecopolitics, it may be beneficial to examine the background to the environmental movement over time. The environmental…
Abstract
To better understand the key issues surrounding Global Ecopolitics, it may be beneficial to examine the background to the environmental movement over time. The environmental movement is perhaps the most significant contemporary global movement to have emerged in recent decades. The relationship between humankind and nature has been the subject of much debate and enquiry over time. The environmental movement had its cultural origins in literary accounts of humanity's relationship with nature, beginning from the romantic poets such as William Blake, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, whose works were concerned with the reconciliation of man and nature. This aesthetic could also be found in subsequent transcendentalist American literature, such as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, published in 1854 (Shabecoff, 2003, pp. 37–71). The transcendentalists were interested in the spiritual connections that connected humankind and nature with God and could be seen as the forefathers of deep green ecologists. Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was published in 1859, creating further interest in the understanding of nature. George Perkins Marsh wrote of the destructive impact of agriculture in his book Man and Nature in 1864. President Teddy Roosevelt would develop the National Parks with Gifford Pinchot of the Forestry Service in the early 1900s. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, concerns about protecting wildlife led to the emergence of a progressive conservation movement, alongside federal regulation of natural habitats and the establishment of national parks. Influential conservation groups included the National Audubon Society, founded in 1886, and the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir in 1892. Muir and Pinchot would become adversaries in the campaign to prevent the building of a dam in Yosemite National Park in the early decade of the nineteenth century (ibid.).