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1 – 10 of 36Birgitta Schwartz and Karina Tilling
Research and experience show that evidence-based practice (EBP), i.e. using the best available knowledge in daily professional work, is difficult to achieve in social services…
Abstract
Purpose
Research and experience show that evidence-based practice (EBP), i.e. using the best available knowledge in daily professional work, is difficult to achieve in social services. The purpose of this study is to understand the development of organizational EBP learning processes in daily work through workplace education for staff and managers of supported homes for people with cognitive disabilities. The authors examine how the EBP model and new knowledge are understood and made actionable in the workplace, applying theories of organizational learning.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used empirical material collected from an EBP workplace education pilot in Sweden, as well as documents on national EBP implementation in Swedish social services. Before the pilot, a focus group interview was conducted with regional senior managers. Participating managers and staff were individually interviewed two to three years after the pilot.
Findings
The study illustrates how knowledge-based action emerged from education where EBP was interpreted, understood, reflected on, and tested, supported by codified EBP tools in the work context. The participants, when supervised, and when observing and questioning their own behaviors in practice, contributed to double-loop learning (DLL) processes. Codification of EBP knowledge into useful tools and socialization processes during education and workplace meetings was crucial in developing individual and group DLL and knowledge-based actions.
Originality/value
The bottom-up approach to EBP development and the adaptive contextual learning at the workplace gave new insights into organizational learning in social service workplaces.
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Ian Pepper, Colin Rogers and James Turner
First-line leaders across the emergency services are instrumental in leading the development of a workforce fit to face current and future challenges. As such in addition to…
Abstract
Purpose
First-line leaders across the emergency services are instrumental in leading the development of a workforce fit to face current and future challenges. As such in addition to utilising their specific craft, leaders need to be equipped to understand and apply evidence-based practices. With a focus on first-line leadership in policing, this paper will have both national and international resonance for those organisations attempting to embed an evidence-based culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper utilises a review of literature to develop a viewpoint identifying challenges and benefits of the adoption of evidence-based policing (EBP) by first-line leaders.
Findings
First-line leaders, whether police officers, police staff or volunteers, require opportunities to develop their own knowledge, understanding and skills of applying EBP in the workplace. Acknowledging challenges exist in the widespread adoption of EBP, such learning, at the appropriate educational level, will enable leaders to effectively champion the adoption of EBP, informing both their own decision-making and professional practices as well as those across their teams.
Practical implications
The first-line leader role is highly influential, as such, it is essential that these leaders develop their knowledge, understanding and application of EBP in the workplace in order to lead the expected cultural change.
Originality/value
This paper provides a current framework for the understanding of the context and potential impact of educationally levelled formal leadership learning required to champion the broad adoption of EBP across policing.
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B.S. Patil and M.R. Suji Raga Priya
The purpose of this study is to target utilizing Human resources (HRs) data analytics that may enhance strategic business, but little study has examined how it affects components…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to target utilizing Human resources (HRs) data analytics that may enhance strategic business, but little study has examined how it affects components. Data analytics, HRM and strategic business require empirical investigations and how to over come HR data analytics implementation issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A semi-systematic methodology for its evaluation allows for a more complete examination of the literature that emerges theoretical framework and a structured survey questionnaire for quantitative data collection from IT sector personnel. SPSS analyses data.
Findings
Future research is essential for organisations to exploit HR data analytics’ performance-enhancing potential. Data analytics should complement human judgment, not replace it. This paper details these transitions, the important contributions to theory and practice and future research.
Research limitations/implications
Data analytics has grown rapidly and might make HRM practices faster, more efficient and data-driven. HR data analytics may improve strategic business. HR data analytics on employee retention, engagement and organisational success is insufficient. HR data analytics may boost performance, but there is limited proof. The authors do not know how HRM data analytics influences firms and employees.
Originality/value
Data analytics offers HRM new opportunities, along with technical and ethical challenges. This study makes a significant contribution to HR data analytics, evidence-based practice and strategic business literature. In addition to estimating turnover risk, identifying engagement factors and planning interventions to increase retention and engagement, HR data analytics can also estimate the risk of employee attrition.
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Blockchain is a disruptive technology that has matured to deliver robust, global, IT systems, yet adoption lags predictions. The authors explore barriers to adoption in the…
Abstract
Purpose
Blockchain is a disruptive technology that has matured to deliver robust, global, IT systems, yet adoption lags predictions. The authors explore barriers to adoption in the context of a global challenge with multiple stakeholders: integration of carbon markets. Going beyond the dominant economic-rationalistic paradigm of information system (IS) innovation adoption, the authors reduce pro-innovation bias and broaden inter-organizational scope by using technological frames theory to capture the cognitive framing of the challenges perceived within the world’s largest carbon emitter: China.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews with 15 key experts representing three communities in China’s carbon markets: IT experts in carbon markets; carbon market experts with conceptual knowledge of blockchain and carbon market experts with practical blockchain experience.
Findings
Perceived technical challenges were found to be the least significant in explaining adoption. Significant challenges in five areas: social, political legal and policy (PLP), data, organizational and managerial (OM) and economic, with PLP and OM given most weight. Mapping to frames developed to encompass these challenges: nature of technology, strategic use of technology and technology readiness resolved frame incongruence that, in the case explored, did not lead to rejection of blockchain, but a decision to defer investment, increase the scope of analysis and delay the adoption decision.
Originality/value
Increases scope and resolution of IS adoption research. Technological frames theory moves from predominant economic-rational models to a social cognitive perspective. Broadens understanding of blockchain adoption in a context combining the world’s most carbon emissions with ownership of most blockchain patents, detailing socio-technical challenges and delivering practical guidance for policymakers and practitioners.
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Julie Stubbs, Sophie Russell, Eileen Baldry, David Brown, Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz
Constantin Bratianu, Alexeis Garcia-Perez, Francesca Dal Mas and Denise Bedford
This study aims to examine whether and how the experience of specialized external governance mechanisms mandated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 – the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine whether and how the experience of specialized external governance mechanisms mandated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 – the actuary and auditor – affect pension plan funding.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses data from annual pension plan regulatory reports (Form 5500), Form 10-K filings, Form DEF 14A filings (company proxy statements) and publicly available data sources. The hand-collected data include information related to the pension plan’s actuary and auditor and various pension plan data disclosed in the company’s financial statement footnotes.
Findings
The author finds that more experienced actuaries and auditors are associated with better funded pension plans, especially when the company has higher financial risk or lower board independence. Additional analyses indicate that companies with more experienced actuaries and pension plan auditors are more likely to make higher annual pension plan contributions and hold fewer Level 3 fair value assets.
Originality/value
The dearth of pension plan governance research generally focuses on whether and how internal governance mechanisms affect pension plan funding. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study of the relationship between external pension plan governance mechanisms and pension plan funding.
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Lucia Regina and José Aguiomar Foggiatto
Breast cancer is the most diagnosed type of cancer in the world, and mastectomies to remove tumors are still common. An external breast prosthesis (EBP) can be used to minimize…
Abstract
Purpose
Breast cancer is the most diagnosed type of cancer in the world, and mastectomies to remove tumors are still common. An external breast prosthesis (EBP) can be used to minimize the asymmetry, due to the ablation. Some governments do not cover costs of that assistive technology, and women end up using socks and fabric pockets filled with seeds, to simulate the volume lost in the surgery. This study aims to offer to those women a decent solution, ergonomic, but still affordable.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed 20 mastectomized Brazilian women, listened to their relate and 3D scanned them, to give rise to personalized external lightweight breast prostheses. The authors used free software for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, and low-cost 3D printers. From the strategy of bespoke products, this study generalized the method, to conceive mass customized prostheses, in a compromise solution that reduces personalization, conserving the best features of design.
Findings
This study achieved a method to manufacture ergonomic, bespoke external breast prostheses, using low-cost technology. Previous literature made them using expensive scanners, software and printers.
Research limitations/implications
The authors validated this method during pandemic, which restricted the number of patients the authors could have access to. This impacted authors’ possibility to work on matching the color of the final product and real skin. The authors understood, though, that precision of color, in the final product, is challenging, because of the peculiar aspects of human skin.
Originality/value
Using the method the authors proposed, personalized external breast prostheses can be manufactured using low-cost resources, democratizing better quality of life for more breast cancer survivors.
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Dmitry Kucherov and Victoria Tsybova
The purpose of this paper is to identify the differences in employer branding between the companies that participate and those that do not participate in employer ranking.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the differences in employer branding between the companies that participate and those that do not participate in employer ranking.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative data were collected through a survey from 188 companies operating on the Russian labour market. Descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, correlation analysis and multivariate analysis of variance were used to analyse the collected data.
Findings
The findings revealed specific profiles of the companies that participated and did not participate in employer ranking. Companies differed in their employer branding orientation, internal branding, employer branding strategy, employer branding programmes and employer branding communications tasks. At the same time, brand orientation did not differ between participants and non-participants of employer ranking.
Originality/value
This study integrates the employer brand equity theory and the signalling theory to better explain the differences between participants and non-participants of employer ranking.
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This paper aims to make the case for early action approaches with migrant families, introducing a set of principles for practice, mapped against the Professional Capabilities…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to make the case for early action approaches with migrant families, introducing a set of principles for practice, mapped against the Professional Capabilities Framework for social work and the Social Work England professional standards.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first explores the context of social work with migrant families, outlining the challenges and gaps in our conceptual understanding of this work. The paper then introduces a conceptual model of work with migrant families which draws on the literature from social work and allied professions, and informed by social work values and ethics.
Findings
Current social work practice with migrant children has been criticised as defensive, procedural and lacking a coherent conceptual basis, particularly for those who are subject to the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) rule. This field of social work practice would benefit from an evidence-informed model of practice, anchored in human rights approaches and focused on early action. Eight principles, drawn from existing good practice in other social work and social care contexts, are outlined as the basis for a new model of practice in social work with migrant families.
Originality/value
The NRPF rule is a provision in the immigration rules that prevents people who are subject to immigration control from claiming most social security benefits in the UK. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in research about the NRPF rule and its negative impact on children. However, there is currently no evaluated model of social work practice for children and families with NRPF.
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