Search results

The measuring of emergency readmission rates to hospital following discharge is one of fifteen health outcomes the United Kingdom government monitors on an annual basis. There is a wide variation between readmission rates, and it is especially important to older people that there is a reduction in unacceptable variations. A closer understanding of reasons for readmission is therefore necessary to inform future developments, identify patients who may be at high risk of readmission and target resources more appropriately. A review of literature from the United Kingdom and international studies may help in determining the reasons for the unplanned readmission of older people. This could then allow for a re‐allocation of resources in the most cost‐effective and cost‐efficient manner. The literature review was conducted via keywords and combination of keyword searches from 1990‐2003 using various electronic databases. There were several themes that emerged from the literature, and these have been described within the paper. Following the review of the literature it emerged that many international studies into the causes of readmission of older people have an inconsistent approach in defining certain terms. However, in the United Kingdom, there appears a more consistent approach. Most studies agree that the majority of readmissions occur as a result of a relapse or complication of an initial illness. However, some American studies associate the readmission of older people with a specific disease, and the antecedent care process. The findings in the literature have identified several gaps that enable recommendations for future research to be made.

Suggests that female funeral service practitioners (FSPs), in particular, may be exposed to a combination of classic healthcare stressors (e.g. shift work, work/family balance), unique funeral industry stressors, and stresses associated with working in non‐traditional occupations. Explores the relationships betweeen the stressors, perceived stress and two m ental health outcomes: anxiety and depression. Suggests that there needs to be both direct and indirect relationships between these. Expands the knowledge regarding the types of work and non‐work stressor that can affect mental health outcomes among women working in onn‐traditional occupations. Comments that this information should be particularly useful as women are increasingly entering historically male‐dominated fields.

The purpose of this study is to consider entrepreneurial imagery that sheds light on differing and emerging patterns of female entrepreneurial identity which illustrate shifts in the locus of power that challenge masculine hegemony and power structures. As a concept, power has an image component, and shifts in power are often conveyed by subtle changes in the cultural semiotic. Globally, images of female-entrepreneurship are socially constructed using stereotypes which are often pejorative. The semiotics of gendered identity as a complex issue is difficult to measure, assess and understand. Gender has its own semiotic codes, and, universally, images of female-entrepreneurship are socially constructed using pejorative stereotypes. Entrepreneurial imagery can shed light on differing and emerging patterns of female-entrepreneurial identity illustrating shifts in the locus of power that challenge masculine hegemony and power structures. Artefacts, images and semiotics construct alternative gendered social constructs of the entrepreneur to the heroic alpha-male. The imagery associated with the female-entrepreneur is either said to be invisible, or associated with “Pinkness” and the “Pink Ghetto”. Therefore, images, forms and presence associated with gendered entrepreneurial identities have been explored.

One hundred images of female-entrepreneurship were analysed semiotically using photo-montage techniques to identify common stereotypical representations, archetypes and themes. The resultant conceptual typology highlights the existence of near universal, archetypal gendered entrepreneurial stereotypes including the Business Woman; the Matriarch; the Diva; and the Pink-Ghetto Girl.

Although the results are subjective and open to interpretation, they illustrate that the contemporary female-entrepreneur, unlike their male counterparts, is not forced to adopt the persona of the “conforming non-conformist” because they have more options available to them to construct an entrepreneurial identity.

This study extends research into entrepreneurial identity by considering visual imagery associated with socially constructed stereotypes. In looking beyond images associated with the “Pink-Ghetto” the author challenges stereotypical representations of the appearance of female-entrepreneurs, what they look like and how they are perceived.

This study widens knowledge about entrepreneurship as a socio-economic phenomenon via images forming part of enterprising identity, a physical manifestation of nebulas phenomena acting as “visual metaphors” shaping expected constructs.

The aim of the study was to assess the impact of the gender of the celebrity and the gender of the consumer who is exposed to an ad featuring a celebrity on consumer response to celebrity endorsements. The hypotheses were tested in an experimental study. The results indicated support for four hypotheses regarding differential response by women to ads featuring celebrity endorsers, differential responses to ads featuring female celebrity endorsers, as well as differential response to female celebrity endorsers. Partial support was found for an interaction effect of gender on response to the gender of celebrity endorsers. The implications of the study results as well as limitations and possible future research avenues are discussed.

“Services to the Unemployed” bring to mind responses which recognise the special needs of workers faced with sudden unemployment. Community‐based supports that can provide for major needs of unemployed workers might include re‐employment opportunities, job training, vocational counselling, income maintenance, food and meal programmes, legal aid, housing services, and physical and mental health services.

Telephone directories have been an integral part of most public and academic libraries for nearly a century. Telephone directories represent an anomaly among library collections; known to virtually all users, they nevertheless often go unrecognized when librarians discuss reference sources. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to examine the history of telephone directory collections; second, to describe and analyze a survey of telephone directory collection use.

The purpose of this article is to augment evaluation of the effectiveness of broadband videoconferencing among distributed research teams.

Textual output from informal interaction in videoconferencing and chat room sessions was recorded and analyzed using qualitative and content analysis methods to test for knowledge processes thought to be embedded in informal collaborative interaction. An exit survey used nominal and ordinal data categories to measure participant perceptions of using videoconferencing technologies to enhance knowledge‐based collaboration. Indicators of informal interaction and knowledge processes were drawn from the knowledge management (KM) and videoconferencing literatures.

Analysis confirms communication and informal interaction dynamics supportive of knowledge creation and transfer. A summary assessment of the research addresses barriers identified in the study and suggests approaches for future KM research in video‐mediated research domain.

Project time and resource constraints imposed research limits in terms of inter‐coder reliability and attention to several human factors and behavioral considerations highlighted in the study. The latter, however, are suggestive of further research opportunities, specifically in terms of user expectations and cultures of use of videoconferencing in the organizational setting.

The research provides a template for communications‐based evaluation of advanced applications using broadband technology and collaborative workwares.

The paper is a first‐of‐its‐kind evaluation of true broadband videoconferencing that advanced a knowledge management perspective based on human communication dynamics over a normative information technology framework.

This paper aims to explore how neo‐liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA.

A critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo‐liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and self‐sufficiency are compared.

The paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare‐to‐work initiatives, underpinned by neo‐liberal tenets, can act in a counter‐intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.

The economic and social implications/contradictions of neo‐liberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed.

This paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo‐liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.