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The purpose of this paper is to understand how social networks can help to produce the “magic” of extraordinary results for organizations.

In this exploratory study four cases (from published reports) are compared in order to illustrate different management approaches to utilizing the power of networks.

Social networks can be central to a strategy for organizational transformation (OT), as in three of these cases. They can also be fundamental to a firm's mode of organizing from its inception business and permanently, as in the second case (W.L. Gore). The three cases illustrate several approaches to connecting social networking with management's OT strategies. An important difference exists between informal, autonomous networks and networks that “talk” to management.

These cases illustrate what is possible, not what is typical. All four cases involve social networks already aligned to official goals. This exploration of networking in the service of OT suggests some hypotheses but cannot rigorously test them.

Social networks can create, contain, and convey much of a company's intellectual capital and can control much of its potential for “magical” improvement. The basic principles of OT (developing a learning organization) apply here.

The comparative study of four cases is fruitful but rare. Network literature mostly consists of single cases and surveys at a distance.

Organizational staffing strategies are turning increasingly to workers removed from the core workforce, a practice known as externalization. Our survey of 153 growing firms examined environmental and organizational predictors of three forms of externalization: part‐time workers, temporary workers, and work‐at‐home arrangements. The results indicated that firms externalize in response to labor market conditions, although the predictive role of labor market forces varied across externalization forms. Various employee‐centered human resource management policies were associated with externalization practices, and there was evidence that internal labor market policies are negatively associated with externalization. Findings are discussed in terms of externalization strategies and implications for future research.

There was a time in Britain when even senior representatives of the financial services industry were prepared to be quoted in the press as expressing doubts as to whether there was anything intrinsically wrong with directors and other corporate insiders taking advantage of their better knowledge about their companies in their own investment dealings. Indeed, some even went so far as to say that this was both proper and natural. True it is that, in Britain or for that much in continental Europe, there are few, even among the groves of academia, that would have advanced the theories justifying insider dealing that Professor Henry Manne so clearly articulated in ‘Insider Trading and the Stock Market’. Nonetheless, in what was then the leading book on the law and practice of the stock market, the authors, a leading Queen's Counsel and an eminent stockbroker, expressed the view in 1972 that a stockbroker who learnt even privileged information should not allow this to operate to the detriment of his client. Having said this, Sir Winston Churchill complained that it was defamatory to assert that advantage had been taken of ‘inside information’ during the so‐called Marconi scandal in 1911, and there are comments in a report to the House of Commons by special commissioners as early as November 1696 roundly criticising promoters of over‐valued stock selling out, in the entrepreneurial fashion eloquently advocated by Professor Manne, on the basis of their privileged knowledge and position. Thus, discussion of the pros and cons of insider dealing, at least in Britain, has tended to be emotional rather than based on economic or even pseudo‐economic analysis of empirical data. Even the surveys that have been conducted on attitudes to the practice would hardly impress a statistician.

Within human services, client satisfaction is highly prioritised and considered a mark of responsiveness in service delivery. A large body of research has examined the concept of satisfaction from the perspective of service users. However, not much is known about how service providers construct client satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to throw light on healthcare professionals’ perspectives on patient satisfaction, using tuberculosis (TB) clinics as a case study.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 35 TB clinic supervisors purposively sampled from six out of the ten regions of Ghana. An unstructured interview guide was employed. The recorded IDIs were transcribed, edited and entered into QSR NVivo 10.0 and analysed inductively.

Respondents defined service satisfaction as involving education/counselling (on drugs, nature of condition, sputum production, caregivers and contacts of patients), patient follow-up, assignment of reliable treatment supporters as well as being attentive and receptive to patients, service availability (e.g. punctuality at work, availability of commodities), positive assurances about disease prognosis and respect for patients.

Complementing opinions of health service users with those of providers can offer key performance improvement areas for health managers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a first study that has examined healthcare providers’ views on what makes their clients satisfied with the services they provide.

Health care delivery is experiencing a multi-faceted epidemic of suffering among patients and care providers. Compassion is defined as noticing, feeling and responding to suffering. However, compassion is typically seen as an individual rather than a more systemic response to suffering and cannot match the scale of the problem as a result. The authors develop a model of a compassion system and details its antecedents (leader behaviors and a compassionate human resource (HR) bundle), its climate or the extent that the organization values, supports and rewards expression of compassion and the behaviors and practices through which it is enacted (standardization and customization) and its effects on efficiently reducing suffering and delivering high quality care.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that synthesizes the literature in health services, HR management, organizational behavior and service operations to develop a new conceptual model.

The paper makes three key contributions. First, the authors theorize the central importance of compassion and a collective commitment to compassion (compassion system) to reducing pervasive patient and care provider suffering in health care. Second, the authors develop a model of an organizational compassion system that details its antecedents of leader behaviors and values as well as a compassionate HR bundle. Third, the authors theorize how compassion climate enhances collective employee well-being and increases standardization and customization behaviors that reduce suffering through more efficient and higher quality care, respectively.

This paper develops a novel model of how health care organizations can simultaneously achieve efficiency and quality through a compassion system. Specific leader behaviors and practices that enable compassion climate and the processes through which it achieves efficiency and quality are detailed. Future directions for how other service organizations can replicate a compassion system are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the associations among psychopathic and borderline traits, intimate partner violence (IPV) and sensitivity to facial affect. The authors hypothesized that IPV men high in psychopathic traits would exhibit reduced sensitivity to expressions of distress specifically (fear + sadness), while IPV men high in borderline traits would show heightened sensitivity to facial affect more generally.

A community sample of 79 IPV men in heterosexual relationships were exposed to slides of facial affect displays while psychophysiological reactions were recorded. Sensitivity to facial affect was operationalized as accuracy in recognizing and skin conductance responses (SCR) while viewing discrete facial expressions.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) features were positively related to accuracy in labeling fear and surprise while primary psychopathy (Factor 1) was negatively related to accuracy in labeling disgust. Borderline traits were positively associated with SCR while primary psychopathy was negatively associated with SCR while viewing slides of facial affect. Secondary psychopathy (Factor 2) follows the same physiological patterns of BPD traits but the correlates are weaker. Results suggest that IPV men high in traits of primary psychopathy show hypoarousal whereas those high borderline features show hyperarousal to facial emotions.

Limitations include a small sample of heterosexual violent community couples. Women’s IPV was not analyzed. Findings suggest that BPD and primary psychopathy traits are diametrically opposite in SCR, making them powerful comparison groups for psychophysiological studies. Findings challenge Blair’s (1995) model of a specific deficit in processing distress cues for individuals high in psychopathic traits. Rather results suggest that IPV men high in traits of primary psychopathy show more pervasive hypoarousal to facial emotion. The hyperarousal of men high in BPD traits across facial expressions supports Linehan’s (1993) emotional vulnerability model of borderline personality disorder.

Differences in psychophysiological responding to emotions may be clinically relevant in the motivations for violence perpetration. The hypoarousal associated with primary psychopathy may facilitate the perpetration of proactive violence. The hyperarousal associated with BPD and secondary psychopathy may be fundamental in the perpetration of reactive violence. Treatment matching by IPV perpetrators’ personality traits may improve the efficacy of battering intervention programs. Perpetrators high in borderline personality features may benefit from emotional regulation therapies, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy. IPV men high in traits of primary psychopathy may benefit from affective empathy and validation training.

Currently, battering intervention programs show little efficacy in reducing intimate partner recidivism. Experimental psychopathology studies such as this one may inform advocates seeking to develop new, tailored treatment packages for partner violence offenders with different personality disorder traits.

Many treatment providers assume that men who batter women have deficits in empathy and emotional intelligence. However, this study suggests that rather than global deficits, deficits depend on personality traits. The current study is the first to assess psychophysiological reactivity in response to facial affect displays among IPV perpetrators. Examining SCR responding to photos of facial affect may be used in future studies of affect sensitivity.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of computer-based psychotherapeutic interventions for common mental health difficulties. Building on this, a small number of such interventions have now been developed to address substance dependence, one of which is Breaking Free Online (BFO). A new “eTherapy” self-help service, which was set up by the UK mental health charity Self-Help Services, has provided access to BFO to service users presenting with comorbid mental health and substance misuse difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a range of clinical outcomes in the first cohort of service users accessing this dual diagnosis service.

A number of standardised psychometric assessments were conducted with service users at baseline and post-treatment at discharge from the service. Outcome data were available for 47 service users out of an original cohort of 74.

Statistically significant improvements were found in terms of measures of social functioning, depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug use and social anxiety. Clinically relevant gains were also identified, with fewer service users reaching threshold scores for depression and anxiety at post-treatment compared to baseline. Effect sizes also indicated that the identified improvements across the psychometric measures were robust and significant.

These findings provide further support for the clinical effectiveness of BFO, and also provide evidence that an eTherapy self-help service may be appropriate for some individuals presenting with dual diagnosis. Further research is underway with larger and alternative clinical populations to examine the effectiveness of BFO and also this novel eTherapy self-help approach.

This paper has provided initial data to support effectiveness of a novel eTherapy service for dual diagnosis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of four psychopathy factors (Interpersonal Manipulation (IPM), Callous Affect (CA), Erratic Lifestyle (ELS), and Antisocial Behaviour (ASB)) and the length of incarceration in reactive aggression. The predictive effect of dissatisfaction with peer relations, childhood experiences of violence, and criminal friends on reactive forms of aggressive acts is also explored.

In total, 129 (n=129) male prisoners incarcerated in Stargard Szczecinski Prison were recruited for the study. Cross-sectional design using self-report questionnaire of retrospective and prospective nature was utilised.

Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that only one psychopathy facet, IPM, forms a significant association with reactive aggression. Another accurate correlate of reactive aggression was the length of incarceration.

The results of the present study indicate that the commonly suggested two-factor models of psychopathy may be misguided. Future studies examining the effect of psychopathy facets on aggression should consider IPM and CA as separate dimensions. Additionally, this study is the first to demonstrate that reactive aggression may be exacerbated during incarceration.