Search results

This study aims to explore whether early anti-social fire exposure (ASFE) is associated with how adults engage with fire and how they view fire.

An opportunistic sample (N = 326) was recruited. Participants completed an online survey exploring ASFE, fire use, strength of fire-beliefs and interest in/attitudes supportive of fire. Additionally, implicit fire bias was measured using the affect misattribution procedure (AMP).

Participants with ASFE engaged with more criminalised fire use as adults. They also scored higher on fire interest and general fire beliefs and showed an implicit dislike of fire stimuli, compared to non-exposed participants (although differences in fire use were not statistically significant when gender was accounted for). Males also had higher levels of fire interest, held stronger fire related beliefs and were more likely to have been exposed to ASFE during childhood. However, there were no gender differences in fire use or on the implicit task.

The findings have practical application, namely in relation to early intervention and rehabilitative approaches. However, a limitation is that participants’ cultural background were not accounted for. Additionally, we advise caution in interpreting the implicit results and call for further research.

The need for better early interventions for young people is highlighted, along with better screening which, currently, is unstandardised and inconsistent across the country (Foster, 2020). This demands a community-engagement approach.

This is the first study to explore type of early exposure to fire. It is also the first to adopt the AMP as a measure of implicit fire-bias.

The problem of determining a rational function whose magnitude characteristic approximates some arbitrary functions of frequency in an equiripple sense is discussed. A novel method that provides a rational all‐pole equiripple approximation to any arbitrary magnitude response in the frequency domain is described. The technique is applied to a typical example that serves to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.

As operational environments become increasingly fluid, organizations are turning to teams as a proven performance arrangement to structure complex work. Teams are ubiquitous in modern organizations because they can be used to create synergies, streamline workflow, deliver innovative services, satisfy incumbent needs, maximize the benefits of technology connecting distributed employees, and seize market opportunities in a global village. Teams are also increasingly used because coordinating the “…activities of individuals in large organizations is like building a sand castle using single grains of sand” (West, Borrill, & Unsworth, 1998, p. 6).

The recent focus on literacy in Social Studies has been on linguistic design, particularly that related to the grammar of written and spoken text. When students are expected to produce complex hybridized genres such as timelines, a focus on the teaching and learning of linguistic design is necessary but not sufficient to complete the task. Theorizations of new literacies identify five interrelated meaning making designs for text deconstruction and reproduction: linguistic, spatial, visual, gestural, and audio design. Honing in on the complexity of timelines, this paper casts a lens on the linguistic, visual, spatial, and gestural designs of three pairs of primary school aged Social Studies learners. Drawing on a functional metalanguage, we analyze the linguistic, visual, spatial, and gestural designs of their work. We also offer suggestions of their effect, and from there consider the importance of explicit instruction in text design choices for this Social Studies task. We conclude the analysis by suggesting the foci of explicit instruction for future lessons.

The study aims to identify the evoked “sense of place” that the campus community attributes to a watershed area in a Malaysian higher institution, aiming to enhance their participation in watershed conservation. Central to this objective is the incorporation of the concept of a watershed as a place, serving as the conceptual framework for analysis.

This case study explores an urban lake at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia’s oldest higher institution. It uses diverse qualitative data, including document analysis, semi-structured interviews, vox-pop interviews and a co-production workshop, to generate place-based narratives reflecting the meanings and values that staff and students associate with the watershed. Thematic analysis is then applied for further examination.

The data patterns reveal shared sense of place responses on: campus as a historic place, student, staff and campus identity, in-place learning experiences and interweaving of community well-being and watershed health. Recommendations advocate translating these narratives into campus sustainability communication through empirical findings and continuous co-production of knowledge and strategies with the campus community.

The research findings play a critical role in influencing sustainable campus planning and community inclusion by integrating place-based frameworks into sustainable development and watershed management. The study recommends the process of identifying place-based narratives with implications for the development of sustainability communication in a campus environment.

This paper contributes both conceptually and empirically to the sustainable management of a campus watershed area through place-based thinking. It outlines a process for enhancing campus sustainability communication strategies.

The chapter aims to explore the themes of enterprise, leadership and partnership through examining aspects of the changing roles of and relationships between public, private and third sectors in the city of Leeds.

The chapter draws on the author’s long involvement in the city of Leeds, augmented by recent interviews with a range of different senior actors and set within the context of relevant literature.

The chapter suggests that despite a history of diverse enterprise, there have been some elements of external forces and internal culture and operational style that have held the city back. Recent national, city region and local reforms may have positive impacts and enable the city to realise more of its potential, though there remain formidable obstacles to progress.

Despite providing rich and meaningful insights that enhance understanding, the single case approach limits the potential for generalising the findings.

Other cities can learn from the experience of Leeds and how the ways of working here relate to findings by academics in other cities.

The general forces of change in enterprise, governance and leadership can only really be understood in terms of how they play out in specific settings.

Business literature reveals the importance of generating innovative products and services, but much of the innovation research has been conducted in large firms and not replicated in small firms. These firms are likely to have different perspectives on innovation, which means that they will probably behave differently to large firms. Our study aims to unpack how firms in Spatial Information perceive and engage in innovation as a part of their business operation.

To investigate these questions we conduct 20 in-depth interviews of top management team members in Spatial Information firms in Australia.

We find that small firms define innovation very broadly and measure innovation by its effect on productivity or market success. Innovation is seen as crucial to survival and success in a competitive environment. Most firms engage in product and/or service innovations, while some also mentioned marketing, process and organisational innovations. Most innovations were more exploitative rather than exploratory with only a few being radical innovations. Innovation barriers include time and money constraints, corporate culture and Government tendering practices. Our study sheds a light on our understanding of innovation in an under-researched sector; that is Spatial Information industry.

This paper aims to demonstrate the effective development of creative and innovative capability in a rigid bureaucratic public sector environment of an area of the British Transport Police, championed by the Area Commander and informed by extant literature.

The focus is on an intervention that addressed two related issues suggested by extant literature, cognitive blocks to creative thinking and organisational barriers. A diagnostic assessment of the climate for creativity prompted reflection leading to simultaneous interventions, combining supervisory and senior management support with a structured process of creative problem solving focusing on problems generated at a strategic level.

This has proved highly effective. At the end of the first year, five six-week cycles had already resulted in more than 600 new ideas, of which 52 were in the pipeline and 13 had already been endorsed. Few required financial investment and have increased effectiveness and optimised use of resources – literally doing more with less. Evidence is emerging of a climate more supportive of creativity and innovation.

Positive outcomes have significant implications for the enhancement of creativity and innovation through intrinsic motivation. This example has potential for other public service organisations.

Simultaneous interventions across multiple levels are rare. That this has been achieved in a rigid bureaucratic environment public sector organisation adds to the unique value of this contribution.

Extensive research has been done to measure the effect of personality and cognitive styles on creativity. However, an in-depth study is required to identify the impact of cognitive style and creativity on organizational problem-solving. The objective of this paper is to look into this lacuna and study the effect of cognitive style and creativity of leaders on their organizational problem-solving.

The study uses a survey-based design. Data have been collected from 90 middle and senior-level managers from a diverse range of industries. The authors assessed their proposed hypotheses by conducting statistical analysis using SPSS and SmartPLS.

The results of the study reveal that leaders, who've scored high on intuition feeling (NF) cognitive style and proactive creativity, are suitable for solving open type of organizational problems. On the other hand, NF type of leaders with “contributory creativity” are ideal for solving closed type of organizational problems. Further, leaders scoring high on intuition thinking (NT) and proactive creativity are suitable for solving open types of organizational problems. Interestingly, the combination of NT with expected creativity is not suitable for closed type of organizational problems. On the other hand, a leader scoring high on sensing thinking (ST) cognitive style is more prone to perform contributory creativity.

The study would help the human resource (HR) planning processes of an organization. It would assist HR professionals while recruiting, selecting or deploying employees for creative works within an organization. Therefore, the paper would be useful for HR managers, personnel, management development specialists, consultants and HR academicians.

The relationship among cognitive style, creativity and problem type has not been adequately explored in extant literature on leadership and organizational development. This study would thereby enrich the literature.

The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how valid research data in biodiversity citizen science are produced through information practices and how notions of credibility and authority emerge from these practices.

Data were collected through an empirical, interview-based study of the information practices of 15 participants active in the vicinity of the Swedish biodiversity citizen science information system Artportalen. Interview transcripts were analysed abductively and qualitatively through a coding scheme by working back and forth between theory and data. Values of credibility, authority and validity of research data were unfolded through a practice-oriented perspective to library and information studies by utilising the theoretical lens of boundary objects.

Notions of credibility, authority and validity emerge through participant activities of transforming species observations to data, supplementing reports with objects of trust, augmenting identification through authority outreach and assessing credibility via peer monitoring. Credibility, authority and validity of research data are shown to be co-constructed in a distributed fashion by the participants and the information system.

The article extends knowledge about information practices in emerging, heterogeneous scholarly settings by focussing on the complex co-construction of credibility, authority and validity in relation to data production.