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The traditional critical incident technique (CIT) and variants of the same have frequently been applied in service research for several decades. The technique has often been used to capture data on and analyse both negative and positive critical incidents. While one technique displays hosts of critical incidents in benchmark‐type series (SIT), another variant describes the dynamism in one discrete critical incident and a third the dynamism of the configuration of critical incidents (SPAT). In this article the different variants are discussed in relation to psychological theory focusing on the concepts of time, history and memory. To be able to analyse the criticality from the individual customer’s perspective, we argue that one must understand the significance of critical incidents in the light of human memory mechanisms and judgement processes. The discussion forms the basis for suggesting a new, tentative framework for analysing the criticality of critical incidents. We call this criticality critical incident technique (CCIT).

This paper aims to examine the connection between information system (IS) availability and operational risk losses and the capital requirements. As most businesses today become increasingly dependent on information technology (IT) services for continuous operations, IS availability is becoming more important for most industries. However, the banking sector has particular sector-specific concerns that go beyond the direct and indirect losses resulting from unavailability. According to the first pillar of the Basel II accord, IT outages in the banking sector lead to increased capital requirements and thus create an additional regulatory cost, over and above the direct and indirect costs of an outage.

A Bayesian belief network (BBN) with nodes representing causal factors has been used for identification of the factors with the greatest influence on IS availability, thus helping in investment decisions.

Using the BBN model for making IS availability-related decisions action (e.g. bringing a causal factor up to the best practice level), organization, according to the presented mapping table, would have less operational risk events related to IS availability. This would have direct impact by decreasing losses, related to those events, as well as to decrease the capital requirements, prescribed by the Basel II accord, for covering operational risk losses.

An institution using the proposed framework can use the mapping table to see which measures for improving IS availability will have a direct impact on operational risk events, thus improving operational risk management.

The authors mapped the factors causing unavailability of IS system to the rudimentary IT risk management framework implied by the Basel II regulations and, thus, established an otherwise absent link from the IT availability management to operational risk management according to the Basel II framework.

This paper aims to quantify the impact of craft worker shortage on construction project safety performance.

A database of 50 North American construction projects completed between 2001 and 2014 was compiled by taking information from a research project survey and the Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics Database. The t-test and Mann-Whitney test were used to determine whether there was a significant difference in construction project safety performance on projects with craft worker recruiting difficulty. Poisson regression analysis was then used to examine the relationship between craft worker recruiting difficulty and Occupational Safety and Health Administration Total Number of Recordable Incident Cases per 200,000 Actual Direct Work Hours (TRIR) on construction projects.

The result showed that the TRIR distribution of a group of projects that reported craft worker recruiting difficulty tended to be higher than the TRIR distribution of a group of projects with no craft worker recruiting difficulty (p-value = 0.004). Moreover, the average TRIR of the projects that reported craft worker recruiting difficulty was more than two times the average TRIR of projects that experienced no craft recruiting difficulty (p-value = 0.035). Furthermore, the Poisson regression analysis demonstrated that there was a positive exponential relationship between craft worker recruiting difficulty and TRIR in construction projects (p-value = 0.004).

The projects used to construct the database are heavily weighted towards industrial construction.

There have been significant long-term gains in construction safety within the USA. However, if recent craft shortages continue, the quantitative analyses presented herein indicate a strong possibility that more safety incidents will occur unless the shortages are reversed. Innovative construction means and methods should be developed and adopted to work in a safe manner with a less qualified workforce.

The Poisson regression model is the first model that quantifiably links project craft worker availability to construction project safety performance.

This paper provides interesting insights for anti‐virus research, as it reflects a period of rapid uptake in the application of the Internet and the use of e‐mail for business purposes. The purpose of the research is to provide independent justification of the growing prevalence of computer virus incidents over the past five years, and identify patterns in the frequency and distribution of computer viruses. Specifically, the analysis focuses on examining the claims that computer viruses are increasing in prevalence, that computer viruses follow an evolutionary pattern and that seasonality exists in the distribution of computer viruses.

This paper aims to explore consumer attitude towards service failure and recovery in the higher education in general and with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure in particular.

The data are collected from 120 students of three undergraduate colleges of University of Jammu using purposive sampling.

The findings reveal that all recovery efforts pertaining to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure are significant in overcoming the respective service failures.

The present study is limited to address service failure and service recovery relationship with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure and limited to three undergraduate colleges operating in Jammu city only. The sample of the study is small which needs to be considered before generalizing the results.

This study makes a maiden attempt to identify service failure issues with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure using quantitative methodology in higher education and role of service recovery strategies in monitoring and reducing service failure.

Incidents requiring command and control require all personnel from firefighters (FFs) to the incident commander (IC) to make continuous decisions often with limited information and under acute time-pressure. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the stress reactivity of specific roles during the command and control of an immersive, computer-based incident.

Experienced firefighting personnel undergoing incident command training participated in this study. Participants completed measures of state anxiety and stress immediately before and after taking part in a computer-based simulation of a large-scale incident run in real time. During the simulation personnel assumed one of four roles: IC, sector commander, entry control officer (ECO), and command support officer. Following the simulation personnel then completed measures of perceived workload.

No significant changes in state anxiety were observed, but levels of stress and perceived workload were related to task roles. Specifically, ICs reported the greatest levels of mental and temporal demands and stress when compared with ECOs.

Limitations include the lack of environmental factors (such as rain, darkness, and noise), a relatively small sample size, and the use of self-reported questionnaires.

The application of immersive training environments as a method of developing FFs experience of incident command roles and skills pertinent to high-acuity, low-frequency events.

The paper represents one of the first attempts to identify the self-reported anxiety, stress, and perceived workload of specific role demands during the command and control of simulated incidents.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of information technology (IT) in the performance of front office employees in hotels. This is done by testing and analyzing up to what level the task performance content of receptionists depends on IT and by testing and analyzing up to what level the contents of the service encounters in which they participate depend on IT.

This paper includes in-depth interviews with 30 receptionists, using the job task performance model and the critical incident technique in the service encounter model.

IT takes part heavily in the task performance of front office workers, who rely on IT to get their job done. On the other hand, in service encounters, the value of the human presence is still high, and in most critical incidents, IT do not participate.

The sample was located in the same destination with only two types of hotels.

The dependence of front office employees with IT is so high that some of the receptionists could be substituted by IT in the near future. However, human participation in satisfactory critical incidents is very high.

Receptionists should get ready and trained taking into account that the value they provide is higher in tasks that are both not routine and in which face-to-face interactions take place.

Usually, front office employees are managed with human resources view, without taking into consideration specifically how IT has spread into the hospitality industry.

Major incidents in tunnel environment will pose several challenges for the emergency service organisations in terms of heat, visibility and lack of experiences from working in confined environments. These aspects, in turn, could pose challenges to establish collaboration. This study aims to contribute to the field of collaborative tunnel responses by exploring how “common knowledge” (Edwards, 2011) is built by the emergency services organisations, that is, what the organisations consider important while working on a potentially common problem, and their motives for the interpretations and actions if a major tunnel incident occurs.

Participants from the road traffic control centre, emergency dispatch centre, emergency medical service, rescue service and police were included in the study. Data from four focus group sessions was analysed using thematic analysis.

The study revealed that the tunnel environment presents specific aspects of how common knowledge was produced related to lifesaving and safety. The themes structuring mechanisms to reduce uncertainty, managing information for initial priorities, aligning responsibilities without hampering each other's work and adjusting actions to manage distance, illustrated how common knowledge was produced as crucial aspects to a collaborative response. Organising management sites, grasping and communicating risks, accessing the injury victims, was challenged by the confined environment, physical distances and imbalance in access to information and preparedness activities in tunnel environments.

This study offers new insights of common knowledge, by illustrating a motive perspective on collaborative responses in tunnel incidents. Creating interoperability calls not just for readiness for action and tunnel safety, but also training activities acknowledging different interpretations and motives to further develop tunnel responses.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the quality of care of patients presenting with challenging behaviour.

Current guidelines are described, and adherence to the standards is audited, with a particular emphasis on physical restraint.

The results of the clinical audit revealed that in the substantial majority of episodes of challenging behaviour, non-physical techniques were used prior to the need to intervene with physical restraint; however, when physical restraint was used, there was limited use of staff debriefs to facilitate reflection- and work-based learning. A potential diagnostic link to the likelihood of use of prone position restraint was also a finding. The results of a quality improvement project undertaken in response to the findings of the clinical audit demonstrated significant and sustained improvements in adherence to most standards.

Continuous improvements to the safety of both patients and staff when managing acute challenging behaviour requires ongoing quality improvement interventions underpinned by the application of human factors principles.

The completion of this audit cycle suggests that it is useful to measure specific points of care processes, however, continuous improvement interventions are indicated to lead to sustained improvement – in this paper this is demonstrated by the safer management of challenging behaviour.

While data breaches are reported daily, organizations are struggling with quantifying their cybersecurity posture. This paper aims to introduce the Universal Cybersecurity Footprint Index (UCFI), an organizational measure of Cybersecurity Footprint. The UCFI helps organizations understand the challenges related to their overall cybersecurity posture and be able to assess it for their supply chain cybersecurity. The Theory of Cybersecurity Footprint states that the risk and damage that can be caused by an attacked organization are not related to the size of the organization but to a range of parameters that may affect the interconnected entities in their supply chain.

Based on the 26 elements found in prior research, a survey was conducted, using 27 subject matter experts to reveal the most relevant elements and then specify their importance level to calculate their relative weight.

Results indicated that 20 of the 26 elements were validated, and their weights were calculated. Finally, an equation representing the UCFI for an organization is introduced.

Organizations can choose their partners according to a minimum value of the UCFI to reduce their cybersecurity risks.

Supply chain cybersecurity incidents have demonstrated in the past several years to provide a massive impact on society. Thus, further assisting in mitigation of cyberattacks to the supply chain is significant.

This research aims to provide further assistance for organizations in quantifying their cybersecurity footprint in effort to help reduce cyber incidents, especially those for small organizations.