Search results

This paper aims to provide an overview of South African perspectives on preventing, monitoring and combating hate victimisation, towards informing international understandings.

Using a general review approach, this paper provides a historical examination of measures proposed by the South African Government and civil society since 1994, to prevent, monitor and combat hate crime, hate speech and intentional unfair discrimination.

Regardless of a constitutional commitment to social inclusion, diversity and minority rights, significant progress remains lacking after almost three decades of related advocacy, lobbying and limited government intervention. Findings of the South African Hate Crimes Working Group (HCWG) longitudinal Monitoring Project emphasise the need for decisive legal responses to hate victimisation.

A Bill, recognising hate crime and hate speech as distinct criminal offences, has been in development for almost 15 years and will soon serve before Parliament. Enactment of this legislation will be ground-breaking in Africa.

This paper contributes to the field of hate studies by providing an overview of the journey towards current conceptual understandings of hate in (South) Africa. It sets the stage for evaluating the potential of the redesigned HCWG monitoring tool, which holds promise for early identification and intervention in hate hotspots and targeted sectors. This instrument can establish trends not only in South Africa but also across the African continent.

This study aims to examine the scope and contribution of Forensic Clinical Psychology (FCP) advice from the National Crime Agency (NCA) to criminal investigations in the UK to address the gap in current knowledge and research.

The 36 FCP reports reviewed were written between 2017 and 2021. They were analysed using Toulmin’s (1958) application of pertinent arguments to the evaluation process. The potential utility of the reports was analysed in terms of the advice provided.

Most of the reports involved murder and equivocal death. The reports focused primarily on understanding the offender’s psychopathology, actions, motivation and risk to self and others using a practitioner model of case study methodology. Out of the 539 claims, grounds were provided for 99% of the claims, 91% had designated modality, 62% of the claims were potentially verifiable and 57% of the claims were supported by a warrant and/or backing. Most of the reports provided either moderate or high insight into the offence/offender (92%) and potential for new leads (64%).

The advice provided relied heavily on extensive forensic clinical and investigative experience of offenders, guided by theory and research and was often performed under considerable time pressure. Flexibility, impartiality, rigour and resilience are essential prerequisites for this type of work.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically evaluate forensic clinical psychology reports from the NCA. It shows the pragmatic, dynamic and varied nature of FCP contributions to investigations and its potential utility.

Decentralised administrative arrangements and the active function of local government organisations are essential to tackle crisis effectively. Using Bangladesh as a case study, this paper examines the central and local government administrative arrangements during COVID-19 pandemic.

This study applies qualitative content analysis and interviews to explore the local government’s role in Bangladesh’s COVID-19 management by interviews of 18 participants including government officials, experts, non-government organisations (NGOs) representatives, and the general public. This paper also analysed academic papers, policy documents and other publicly available documents, including newspaper reports.

The Constitution of Bangladesh intensified the active participation of local government in each administrative unit through decentralised administrative management. This paper however reveals that the administrative arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh was primarily a centrally led system. The local government was not sufficiently involved, nor had it integrated into the planning and coordination process. This indicated the absence of active decentralised administration.

This study fills the research gap of the administrative pattern and local relations in COVID-19 management by exploring the local government’s role during the catastrophic situation and highlights the importance of decentralised administrative actions in managing the crisis.

The efficiency of each of an organization’s individual workers determines its effectiveness. The study aims to explore the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational effectiveness with employee performance as a mediating variable.

Data were collected from 800 police officers in the Greater Accra and Tema regions. The data were supported by the hypothesized relationship. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling.

The results show that career planning and employee performance were significantly related. Self-managed teams and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Similarly, performance management and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Employee performance significantly influenced organizational effectiveness. The results further indicate that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practices and organizational effectiveness.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s police service focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for the police administration in the adoption, design and implementation of well-articulated and proactive HRM practices to improve the abilities, skills, knowledge and motivation of officer’s to inordinately enhance the effectiveness of the service.

By evidencing empirically that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practice and organizational effectiveness, the study extends the literature.

The study aims to provide a critical review of the extent to which digital technologies are likely to replace human labour, the exponential rise in the amount of work to be done and how far distinctively human skills are future-proofed and therefore likely to be in short supply. It reviews the evidence for a permanent switch to home and remote working enabled by emerging technologies. It assesses the business, digital and labour strategies of work organisations and the promise and challenges from a dominant trend towards a digitally enabled flexible labour model.

A critical review of 1020 plus case studies and the extant literature was carried out.

The relationship between emerging technologies and work is widely misunderstood, and there are major qualifiers to the idea of an overwhelming tsunami of technology drastically reducing headcounts globally. Distinctive human skills remain valuable, the amount of work to be done is increasing exponentially and automation is becoming more a coping than a labour replacement mechanism. Moves to a hybrid digitalised flexible labour model are promising but not if short-term, and if the challenges they represent are not managed well.

The main limitation is that we are making projections into the future, though we are drawing on a lot of different sources and evidence and past data projected into the future.

The problem is not labour displacement but large skills shortages that will slow down the speed of technology adoption. Skills development is vital, as is the taking of long-term perspectives towards the management of hybrid, flexible working based on human-machine interactions.

Organisations need to revitalise their training and development and labour management models. Governments and intermediary institutions need to manage transition states if the skills required to gain economic growth are to be available, and to ensure that large labour pools do not get bypassed from not having requisite skills.

The study offers a more subtle and complex perspective on the emerging evidence about the future of technology and work.

Using a mobile phone is increasingly becoming recognized as very dangerous while driving. With a smartphone, users feel connected and have access to information. The inability to access smartphone has become a phobia, causing anxiety and fear. The present study’s aims are as follows: first, quantify the association between nomophobia and road safety among motorists; second, determine a cut-off value for nomophobia that would identify poor road safety so that interventions can be designed accordingly.

Participants were surveyed online for nomophobia symptoms and a recent history of traffic contraventions. Nomophobia was measured using the nomophobia questionnaire (NMP-Q).

A total of 1731 participants responded to the survey; the mean age was 33 ± 12, and 43% were male. Overall, 483 (28%) [26–30%] participants received a recent traffic contravention. Participants with severe nomophobia showed a statistically significant increased risk for poor road safety odds ratios and a corresponding 95% CI of 4.64 [3.35-6.38] and 4.54 [3.28-6.29] in crude and adjusted models, respectively. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC)-based analyses revealed that NMP-Q scores of = 90 would be effective for identifying at risk drivers with sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 61%, 75% and 72%, respectively.

Nomophobia symptoms are quite common among adults. Severe nomophobia is associated with poor road safety among motorists. Developing screening and intervention programs aimed at reducing nomophobia may improve road safety among motorists.

A significant increase in financial crime globally emphasises the importance of forensic interviewing to obtain useful and reliable information as part of a commercial forensic investigation. Previous research has identified two interviewing strategies that are aligned with the legal framework in South Africa: the PEACE model (P = preparation and planning; E = engage and explain; A = account, clarify and challenge; C = closure; E = evaluation) and the person-centred approach (PCA). The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical underpinnings and application of the PEACE model and the PCA as commercial investigative strategies aligned with the legal context in South Africa.

A scoping review was undertaken to identify literature relevant to the theoretical assumptions and application of the PEACE model and the PCA.

Literature for the most part reports on the PEACE model but offers very little information about the PCA. A critical analysis revealed that the PEACE model incorporates a clear guiding structure for eliciting information but lacks content needed to create an optimal interpersonal context. To promote this, the PCA proposes that interviewers demonstrate three relational variables: empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard. The PCA suggests a basic structure for interviewing (beginning, middle and end), while providing very little guidance on how to structure the forensic interview and what information is to be elicited in each phase.

Combining the PEACE model and PCA presents an integrated interviewing technique best suited for obtaining useful and reliable information admissible in a South African court of law. The PEACE model has a clear structure, and the PCA assists in creating an optimal interpersonal context to obtain information in an interview.

Senior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.

Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.

The research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.

Given Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

Cannabis use continues to increase worldwide, and a number of nation states are changing their cannabis policies. Policy changes require research into key populations, namely, people who use cannabis. This study aims to examine sociodemographic differences of young Finns who reported using cannabis mainly for self-medication versus mainly recreationally, as well as their reported effects of cannabis use.

The data come from an anonymous online survey (N = 247, 70.0% males, 25.9% females, 4.1% other) that was analysed using multiple logistic regression. The authors focused on whether various demographic indicators differed between those who reportedly used cannabis mainly for recreational purposes and mainly for self-medicinal purposes. The authors also qualitatively examined the respondents’ experienced effects of cannabis, both desired and undesired.

Being older and female, living in a smaller city and earlier age of initiation of cannabis use were statistically significant in predicting the medicinal use of cannabis. The majority of recreational effects were related to themes such as relaxation and pleasure, but many participants also reported desired medical effects. Similarly, many participants reported several undesired effects.

Understanding especially young people’s motivations to use cannabis, which include using it for various medical effects, can improve the design of harm reduction and treatment programmes as well as enhance the well-being of people who use cannabis.

This study gives a nuanced account of sociodemographic factors and motivations of young people who use cannabis in Finland as well as the reported effects it has on them, which complements data from national drug surveys.

Nurses' turnover intention has become a major issue in developing countries with high power distance cultures. Therefore, the authors attempt to investigate how turnover intention among nurses' can be reduced through paternalistic leadership (PL). The authors further investigate the mediating role of job satisfaction between the associations of benevolent, moral and authoritarian dimensions of PL with turnover intention. Finally, the authors examined perceived organizational support (POS) as a conditional variable between job satisfaction and turnover intention.

The authors collected data from 374 nurses working in public and private hospitals of high power distance culture using a questionnaire-based survey on convenience basis.

Structural equation modeling confirms that benevolent and moral dimensions of PL positively affect nurses' job satisfaction which helps them reduce their turnover intention. While the authoritarian dimension of PL negatively affects job satisfaction to further enhance their turnover intention. In addition, the authors noted POS as a conditional variable to trigger the negative effect of job satisfaction on turnover intention.

The authors used a cross-sectional design to collect responses and ensured the absence of common method variance through Harman's Single factor test.

This study identified the mechanism (job satisfaction and POS) through which benevolent, moral and authoritative dimensions of PL predict turnover intention among nurses working in high power distance culture.

護士有離職意向，在擁有高權力距離文化的發展中國家，已成為一個重大的問題。因此，我們擬探討如何可以透過採用家長式領導、把護士離職的意欲減低，繼而研究工作滿足感，在離職意向與家長式領導中仁慈、道德和獨裁這三個層面的關係中所起的中介作用。最後，我們就組織支持感，作為是工作滿足感與離職意向之間的一個條件變數，進行了研究。

本研究透過採用在便利的基礎上進行的問卷調查，從374名在高權力距離文化的公營和私營醫院內工作的護士取得數據，進行分析。

結構方程模型證實了家長式領導中的仁慈和道德這兩個層面，會對可減低護士離職意欲的工作滿足感，產生積極的影響。家長式領導中的獨裁層面、則會對護士的工作滿足程度產生負面的影響，繼而增強其離職意欲。而且，我們確認了組織支持感是一個會增強工作滿足感與離職意向之間負相聯的條件變數。

我們以橫斷面的設計法來收集回應，並透過採用哈曼 (Harman) 的單因素檢定法，來確保共同方法變異不會存在。

本研究確定了一個 (工作滿足感與組織支持感) 機制，透過這機制，家長式領導中的仁慈、道德和獨裁這三個層面可預測於高權力距離文化工作的護士的離職意向。