Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine playful practices in the science video composition of a fourth-grader.

With an analytic interest in “chasing the theory of muchness” (Thiel, 2015a) that describes distinctive moments of affective energies in playful learning, the authors explored a child’s video in which a food chain is dramatized.

The authors identified how muchness manifested in/through her compositional play.

The potential of playful composing and dramatizing to support meaning-making across contexts and disciplines is discussed.

The need to develop effective approaches for responding to healthcare incidents for the purpose of learning and improving patient safety has been recognised in current national policy. However, research into this topic is limited. This study aims to explore the perspectives of professionals in mental health trusts in England about what works well and what could be done better when implementing serious incident management systems.

This was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. In total, 15 participants were recruited, comprising patient safety managers, serious incident investigators and executive directors, from five mental health trusts in England. The interview data were analysed using a qualitative-descriptive approach to develop meaningful themes. Quotes were selected and presented based on their representation of the data.

Participants were dissatisfied with current systems to manage serious incidents, including the root cause analysis approach, which they felt were not adequate for assisting learning and improvement. They described concerns about the capability of serious incident investigators, which was felt to impact on the quality of investigations. Processes to support people adversely affected by serious incidents were felt to be an important part of incident management systems to maximise the learning impact of investigations.

Findings of this study provide translatable implications for mental health trusts and policymakers, informed by insights into how current approaches for learning from healthcare incidents can be transformed. Further research will build a more comprehensive understanding of mechanisms for responding to healthcare incidents.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

While recent years have seen a number of studies of social networks in therapeutic communities (TCs) and other residential settings, these have primarily focused on male residents. This paper aims to conduct a longitudinal social network analysis of interpersonal interactions in a TC for women.

The data consists of a longitudinal directed social network of instances of feedback between 56 residents of a 16 bed TC for women over a period of 611 days. Mean age of the participants was 33.1 years, mean length of stay was 133.9 days and 91% of the participants were female. Feedback consisted of written affirmations for prosocial behavior and written corrections for contravening TC norms. Data was analyzed using a latent factor longitudinal social network model.

Residents react to peer intervention in complex ways. Residents reciprocated affirmations (B = 0.14, 95% confidence interval = 0.10, 0.18) and corrections (B = 0.20, 95% CI = 0.13, 0.25). Controlling for reciprocity, participants who received affirmations were more likely to affirm and correct peers (B = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.06, 0.15; B = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.23), suggesting that the encouragement offered by affirmations leads to increased activity. Homophily by admission time occurred in both affirmations and corrections (B = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.37; B = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.29, 0.74).

While affirmations and corrections serve as vehicles for behavioral reinforcement and social learning, they also allow residents to interact in ways that strengthen social bonds.

Population ageing, coupled with economic uncertainty and a shifting workforce structure, has directed the attention of public and organizational policy makers toward the potential contribution of older workers and skilled migrants in meeting labor supply shortages in ageing populations. This chapter presents labor supply and demand scenarios for 10 OECD countries and examines trends in the labor force participation of older workers against the backdrop of changes to the nature of work in an era of globalization, casualization, and, increasingly, automation. Brief analysis of each country’s situation and policy responses indicates that China, Japan, and Korea stand out as being at particular risk of being unable to maintain growth without undertaking drastic action, although their areas of focus need to differ. A limitation of the study is that GDP projections used in labor demand analysis were based on historical rates and represented past potential and a long-run average of historic economic output. Future research might also undertake comparative analysis of case studies addressing different potential solutions to workforce ageing. A key implication of the study is that there is a need to take a blended approach to public policy regarding older workers in a changing labor market. Where migration has historically been a source of labor supplementation, this may become a less viable avenue over the near future. Future shortfalls in labor imply that economies will increasingly need to diversify their sources of workers in order to maintain economic growth. For public policy makers the challenge will be to overcome public antipathy to migration and longer working lives.

Despite repeated policy initiatives, progress in improving patient safety in the National Health Service (NHS) in England over the past two decades has been slow. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy (NHS England and NHS Improvement, 2019), which is being implemented currently, aims to address this problem. The purpose of this study is to identify learning from the implementation of past patient safety policies and thereby suggest means of supporting the NHS in delivering the current policy initiative successfully.

The authors identified key health policies in the domain of patient safety, published since 2000, by searching the United Kingdom (UK) government website. Discussion papers from the research literature concerning these policies were collated and reviewed. The authors then used a thematic analysis approach to identify themes discussed within these papers. These themes represent factors that support the effective delivery of patient safety policy initiatives.

Within the discussion papers the authors collated, concerning 11 patient safety policies implemented between 2000 and 2017, five inter-related core themes of capability, culture, systems, candour and leadership were identified. By evaluating these themes and identifying composite sub-themes, a conceptual framework is presented that can be used to support the delivery of patient safety policy initiatives to maximise their impact.

The conceptual framework the authors illustrate, arising from this new contribution to the body of knowledge, can be translated into a novel self-assessment for individual NHS trusts to understand organisational development areas in the domain of patient safety improvement.

Sport leagues are subject to the potential market entry of new leagues playing essentially the same sport. The economic analysis of market entry and exit is used to interpret two Australian cases of new league entry. These new entrants were World Series Cricket (cricket) and Super League (rugby league). The role of the media in the creation of both new leagues was crucial, providing commercial rationale, seed-funding and organizational capabilities. In addition, strategic input competition for venues and players helped weaken the incumbent league. The two cases analyzed provide a template for intending sport league entrants.