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1 – 10 of 29Peter Grootenboer and Kevin Larkin
The authors argue that middle leaders are the key educators in school-based educational development. Schools often secure small-scale funding to engage in government or systemic…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors argue that middle leaders are the key educators in school-based educational development. Schools often secure small-scale funding to engage in government or systemic initiatives, and these projects require a leadership “close to the classroom” if they are to realise sustainable educational gains. This leadership often comes from the middle leaders – those who practice their leading in and around classrooms. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
A single case study methodology is used to investigate two middle leaders, leading a small-scale project. Their leading practices are examined using the “theory of practice architectures”, to identify how these practices were enacted within their educational context.
Findings
While principals play a crucial role in enacting change, it is the middle leaders who are closer to the classroom than most principals, and whose practices more directly impact teaching and learning as they are best placed to ensure that meagre resources are well used to improve student learning. They do this by ensuring that development is collegial and a response to evidence-based needs.
Practical implications
First, middle leaders need support in facilitating educational development. Second, their leading practice is crucial for sustainable school-based development. Third, site-based educational development occurs most effectively when it is evidence-based. Finally, this form of educational development requires high-level collegiality.
Originality/value
This paper is original in two key ways: first, it addresses the under-researched practices of middle leaders; and, second it employs the practice theory to understand school leadership and development.
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Margaret O'Connor, Jennifer Watts, Melissa Bloomer and Kevin Larkins
The purpose of this paper is to determine how Australian workplaces, their managers and employees respond to those who are grieving at work, as a result of chronic or terminal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine how Australian workplaces, their managers and employees respond to those who are grieving at work, as a result of chronic or terminal illness, or caring for those with chronic or terminal illness. The review draws on Australian and relevant international literature and seeks to answer this question.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was undertaken in preparation for an Australian study examining workplace supports for people who are grieving – because they are carers, have experienced a death, or are balancing their own illness with their work. Using a range of search terms, the literature was searched for relevant work between 1980 and 2010. The search found examples of workplace supports throughout the world and some developing Australian literature.
Findings
Despite illness and death occurring at any stage of a person's life, there is little research that identifies workplace issues associated with grief and loss. And while workplace legislation allows for minimal supports, there was evidence that some workplaces have begun to offer flexibility for work life balance.
Practical implications
Effective workplace supports will involve individual and workplace responses, but also require legislative approaches in order to effect broad‐based system change.
Originality/value
The paper compares Australian and international literature about workplace supports and provides an overview of the issues arising.
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As business communicators, we seek the ‘holy grail’ of our industry — a way to contribute to the bottom line, and demonstrate that contribution in hard business terms. We want the…
Abstract
As business communicators, we seek the ‘holy grail’ of our industry — a way to contribute to the bottom line, and demonstrate that contribution in hard business terms. We want the hard evidence to support our belief that internal communication is more than a fashionable ‘nice to have’, but also a critical element of business performance. It will be this ability to measure the impact of our work on the top and bottom lines of our businesses that will win us a seat at the boardroom table. This will give the role of the corporate communicator the credibility and influence it deserves. This paper offers not only the latest thinking in using internal communication and marketing as an effective business tool, but also the rationale and measures for communicators to develop their role and the arena in which they work. It introduces the concept of emotional capital, and explains the impact this has on an organisation. More importantly, it demonstrates how it can be measured as a tangible element of the balanced scorecard, increasing quality, profitability and shareholder return.
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Zack P. Pedersen, Kyungyeol (Anthony) Kim, Kevin K. Byon and Antonio S. Williams
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceived enjoyment that is derived from spectators observing other spectators’ dysfunctional behavior during a game.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceived enjoyment that is derived from spectators observing other spectators’ dysfunctional behavior during a game.
Design/methodology/approach
Using four forms (i.e. fighting, verbal assault, disrupting play and throwing missiles) of spectators dysfunctional behavior (SDB), two experiments (N = 252 for Study 1 and N = 92 for Study 2) were conducted in which video clips corresponding to the four types of SDB were used as experimental stimuli.
Findings
The findings indicate that participants enjoyed viewing spectators running onto the field of play significantly more than the other forms of SDB (i.e. fighting, verbal assaults and throwing missiles). The results also show no significant difference between how much spectators enjoyed the actions of fighting, verbal assault and throwing missiles.
Originality/value
The novelty of this study include the usage of a multidimensional approach to the concept of SDB and testing for a positive outcome pertaining to SDB that has largely, if not fully, been examined using negative inputs and outputs.
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Michael Daffern, James Ogloff and Kevin Howells
There is a considerable body of research on the assessment and prediction of aggression in psychiatric hospitals. A range of clinical and demographic characteristics associated…
Abstract
There is a considerable body of research on the assessment and prediction of aggression in psychiatric hospitals. A range of clinical and demographic characteristics associated with aggressive inpatients, such as young age and active symptoms of psychosis, have repeatedly been shown to contribute to aggression. Environmental factors have also been shown to be important. The study examined aggressive behaviours in an Australian forensic psychiatric hospital, using aggression‐specific recording instrumentation developed for the study. The purpose of the study was to compare results using aggression specific‐recording instrumentation with a previous study using retrospective methods relying on standard hospital incident forms, and to examine the relationship between type, direction and severity of aggression with the use of seclusion.In contrast with the results obtained in a previous study, staff rather than patients were more often the victims of both verbal and physical aggression, although patients were more frequently the victims of more severe forms of aggression. Patients were verbally and physically aggressive towards other patients at similar rates, although they were more frequently verbally, rather than physically, aggressive to staff. Acute wards recorded more aggression than rehabilitation wards. Males and females were aggressive at similar rates. A reduction in reported incidents of verbal and physical aggression, particularly against staff, occurred over the course of the study. Patients were secluded and incident forms were completed following approximately 30% of aggressive behaviours. Whether or not a patient was secluded and whether or not an incident form was completed depended on a range of factors, including the nature of the victim and the type and severity of the aggression.
This paper aims to provide a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2005.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2005.
Design/methodology/approach
This article gives a review of the 2005 Poetry Publication Showcase.
Findings
This review represents a wide‐ranging selection of contemporary poetry collections and anthologies.
Originality/value
This list documents the tremendous range of poetry publishing from commercial, independent and university presses as well as letterpress chapbooks, art books and CDs in 2004 and early 2005.
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Sara Trucco, Maria Chiara Demartini, Kevin McMeeking and Valentina Beretta
This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore, this paper analyses whether auditors perceive that voluntary non-financial reporting impacts audit risk differently for old clients as compared with new clients.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is conducted on a sample of Italian audit firms through a paper-based questionnaire. Both Big4 and non-Big4 audit firms have been included in the sample.
Findings
Results show that integrated reporting is perceived to be the most relevant reporting method and intellectual capital statement the least relevant. Surprisingly, empirical findings over the sample period show that auditors do not perceive statistically significant differences between old and new clients.
Practical implications
Auditors can identify opportunities to adapt their assessment model to include voluntary non-financial report information. Moreover, they can use different assessment models regarding the research variables in the case of new and old clients.
Originality/value
Empirical findings highlight the growing role of voluntary non-financial reporting in the auditors’ perception of their client’s audit risk. All the observed voluntary non-financial reporting forms, except for intellectual capital, are considered as relevant by auditors in the evaluation of their client’s audit risk when compared to an indifference point. In addition, findings reveal that female auditors perceive a reduced gap in the relevance between integrated reports and intellectual capital reports compared to their counterparts.
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Brendan M. O'Mahony, Jane Creaton, Kevin Smith and Rebecca Milne
– The purpose of this paper is to find out how intermediaries interpret their role working with vulnerable defendants at court.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to find out how intermediaries interpret their role working with vulnerable defendants at court.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study six intermediaries who have worked with defendants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview and the interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Findings
Intermediaries appeared to be trying to make sense of their developing identities as professionals in the courtroom and this theme is conceptualised through social identity complexity theory.
Practical implications
Health and care professionals undertaking a new function in the criminal justice sector should receive training about the psychological processes underlying developing professional identities. Such training should reduce the cognitive load when they work in the new environment and failure to undertake this training may lead to less efficient practice. Gaining an understanding of their professional positioning within the court environment may assist with retention of intermediaries in this new role.
Originality/value
This is the first published study where intermediaries have been interviewed about their experiences with defendants. Recommendations are made including the requirement for additional training for intermediaries to understand the underlying psychological processes and conflicts they may experience when working with defendant cases.
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This article explodes traditional notions of ethnographic documentary, and instead positions the emerging practice of ethnocinema as a 21st century modality that falls within the…
Abstract
This article explodes traditional notions of ethnographic documentary, and instead positions the emerging practice of ethnocinema as a 21st century modality that falls within the paradigm of what Denzin calls the ‘eighth moment scholarship’ in this ‘fractured future’. Drawing on the monological, dialogic and imagistic ‘data’ from the ethnocinematic research project Cross‐Marked: Sudanese Australian Young Women Talk Education, the article uses ethnographic documentary film theory (including Minh‐ha, Rouch, and Aufderheide) and the critical pedagogical scholarship of McLaren to examine notions of performative identity construction and the possibility of intercultural identities and collaborations. Utilising the central metaphor of Minh‐ha’s ethnographic and filmic ‘zoo’, which cages those who are Othered by race, class, gender, sexuality and a myriad of differences, this article and ethnocinema overall seek to overthrow notions of difference, culture and community while recognising the increasingly prescient power of McLuhan’s dictum that the ‘medium is the message’ in this rhizomatic age.
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The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated bibliography of the new poetry volumes from the Poets House 2009 Poetry Showcase.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated bibliography of the new poetry volumes from the Poets House 2009 Poetry Showcase.
Design/methodology/approach
The titles were selected from the Poets House 2009 Poetry Showcase as titles that are both challenging and accessible.
Findings
This list provides the librarian and reader with a guide to collection development in poetry.
Originality/value
This is one of the few lists of its kind showcasing contemporary poetry.
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