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The paper is targeted to health service management teams as an aid to understanding the relationship between investment in process redesign in a clinical laboratory environment and improved quality of service/increased clinical activity.

An audit of the unit's serum screening capability was performed against the standards of the current UK allocation scheme for cadaveric kidneys. Based on findings of this audit the laboratory's serum screening protocol was redesigned involving development of a new testing strategy and introduction of novel methods. A concurrent review of the effects of this initiative in terms of cadaveric kidney offers received/transplant numbers was undertaken and a cost‐benefit analysis made.

An improved eligibility of the patient cohort for cadaveric kidney offers was obtained together with a reduced unexpected positive crossmatch rate. These factors have together contributed to an increase in transplant numbers at the centre. Significant cost benefits have been achieved

The relevance of the findings relating to patient eligibility for available cadaveric grafts is limited to organ‐sharing schemes in which recipient sensitisation is considered as part of the allocation process.

The experience reported demonstrates the necessity of assessing the clinical impact of changes in practice when judgements are being made regarding the costs of laboratory services. In this respect the paper is the first from within this discipline to make this association.

Surveys that collect data regarding behavior estimates are found in many fields including, but not limited to, those that conduct consumer research, health studies, sexual behavior, drug use, political polls, and many types of education studies. These studies typically use either vague behavioral quantifiers as the response set, or enumerated response sets where the respondent needs to select or tally the target behavior, or a combination of both types. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between these two methods of estimating educationally related behaviors.

Data for this study was taken from the 2010 administration of Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE), which is administered to incoming first‐year students. Respondents included 30,964 first‐year entering students from 81 higher education institutions in the USA. Data analysis was then carried out.

This study found that the more frequent the behavior, the shorter the time frame the respondent uses when estimating the behavior using enumerated strategies. In addition, this study showed that for many educationally relevant behaviors vague quantifiers are associated with increasing enumerated responses for the same behavior showing that two behavioral estimates are providing consistent estimations of the same behavior. Another equally important finding is that there were few meaningful group differences regarding these estimates.

Overall, the results from this study shed new light on interpreting behavior estimations using vague and enumerated responses.

Can we broaden the boundaries of the history of economic thought to include positionalities articulated by grassroots movements? Following Keynes’s famous remark from General Theory that ‘practical men […] are usually the slaves of some defunct economist,’ we might be wont to dismiss such a push from below. While it is sometimes true that grassroots movements channel preexisting economic thought, I wish to argue that grassroots economic thought can also precede developments subsequently elaborated by economists. This paper considers such a case: by women at the intersection of the women’s liberation movement and the claimants’ unions movement in 1970s Britain. Oral historical and archival work on these working-class women and on achievements such as their succeeding to establish unconditional basic income as an official demand of the British Women’s Liberation Movement forms the springboard for my reconstruction of the grassroots feminist economic thought underpinning the women’s basic income demand. I hope to demonstrate, firstly, how this was a prefiguration of ideas later developed by feminist economists and philosophers; secondly, how unique it was for its time and a consequence of the intersectionality of class, gender, race, and dis/ability. Thirdly, I should like to suggest that bringing into the fold this particular grassroots feminist economic thought on basic income would widen the mainstream understanding and historiography of the idea of basic income. Lastly, I hope to make the point that, within the history of economic thought, grassroots economic thought ought to be heeded far more than it currently is.

Narrative inquiry and life history are privileged methods for studying people's lives, experiences, and identity construction. In this article, I argue that critical life history inquiry is especially suitable for studies of those, who have actively involved in progressive social and cultural movements and have developed an identity as activist educators.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

This study investigates the situations in which productive organizational energy (POE) and organizational performance increase through customer passion, that is, perceived customers’ affective commitment and customers’ positive word-of-mouth behavior. We integrate research on POE with research on customer influences on employees. Based on emotional contagion processes we develop hypotheses for the energizing influences of customers at the organizational level. We test the hypotheses using a dataset containing 495 board members and 8,299 employees of 152 organizations. The results show that customer passion is positively related to POE, which is in turn positively related to organizational performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the effect of customer passion on organizational performance through POE depends on top management team’s (TMT’s) customer orientation. By providing first insights into the linkages and contingencies of customer passion, POE, and organizational performance, this study puts forth a more holistic understanding of the energizing effect of customers on organizations.

Knowledge transfer plays a key role in the succession process. While much attention has been given to the passing of business knowledge form incumbent to successor, less is known about the use of nonfamily knowledge during this most crucial of family business events. The purpose of this paper is to look how knowledge from nonfamily employees is treated at times of succession. Importantly, it considers how the controlling family’s cultural background may influence nonfamily knowledge use, and subsequent implications for the succession process.

An exploratory comparative case study design is adopted in order to uncover the complex social and cultural dynamics around knowledge use. Four case studies are presented from family businesses of different, and contrasting, cultural origins. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations and formal secondary data from the organisations, all of whom operate in the UK.

Findings reveal a complex picture, part influenced by the cultural dynamics of the family and part by business necessity. Specifically, power–distance appears as an informative cultural dimension, influencing how knowledge is used and nonfamily are perceived. While some family businesses privilege the knowledge from family, others see the need to build knowledge relationships more broadly.

This paper provides further evidence to the heterogeneity of family businesses. It moves beyond a processual explanation of succession to develop a more contextually aware understanding of the dynamics and sensitivities involved.

The Commission appointed jointly by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization continues to plod its weary way towards the establishment of Codex standards for all foods, which it is hoped will eventually be adopted by all countries, to end the increasing chaos of present national standards. We have to go back to 1953, when the Sixth World Health Assembly showed signs of a stirring of international conscience at trends in food industry; and particularly expressed “the view that the increasing use of various chemical substances had … , created a new public health problem”. Joint WHO/FAO Conferences which followed initiated inter alia international consultations and the setting up of the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.