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1 – 10 of over 1000Nigel Rees, Patrick Rees, Lois Hough, Dylan Parry, Nicola White and Brady Bowes
Ambulance services staff worldwide have long been at risk of encountering violence and aggression directed towards them during their work. Verbal forms of violence and aggression…
Abstract
Purpose
Ambulance services staff worldwide have long been at risk of encountering violence and aggression directed towards them during their work. Verbal forms of violence and aggression are the most prevalent form, but sometimes incidents involve physical injury, and on rare occasions homicides do occur. Exposure to such violence and aggression can have a lasting negative impact upon ambulance staff and has been associated with increased levels of stress, fear, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and burnout syndrome. Despite the significance of this issue, little progress has been made to tackle it. The purpose of this paper is to describe this multi-agency approach being taken in Wales (UK) to reduce such harms from violence and aggression directed towards ambulance services staff.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretative post-positivist narrative methodology and policy analysis approach was followed. Snowball methods of gathering data were used to construct this narrative involving meetings, telephone calls, review of policy documents, legislation and academic literature.
Findings
The authors report how tackling violence and aggression directed towards emergency workers has become a priority within Wales (UK), resulting in policy developments and initiatives from groups such as the UK and Welsh Government, the Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Services (NHS) Trust, Health Boards, the NHS Wales Anti-Violence Collaborative and the Joint Emergency Services Group (JESG) in Wales. This has included changes in legislation such as the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 that came into force on 13th November 2018 and policy changes such as the obligatory responses to violence in health care and the JESG #WithUsNotAgainst Us campaign. Our study however reflects the complexity of this issue and the need for further high-quality research.
Originality/value
The experiences and activities of Wales (UK) reported in this paper adds to the international body of knowledge and literature on violence and aggression directed towards ambulance services staff.
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Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of…
Abstract
Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple's dimpled face. Frieda and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, was myfriend, myuncle, mydaddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heals. So I said, “I like Jane Withers.” (Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 2000 p. 19)
Bridget Juniper, Nicola White and Patricia Bellamy
The purpose of this paper is to compare factor analysis (FA) with an alternative approach known as impact analysis (IA) in determining items for a questionnaire to measure…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare factor analysis (FA) with an alternative approach known as impact analysis (IA) in determining items for a questionnaire to measure employee wellbeing.
Design/methodology/approach
FA and IA were conducted on a raw data set drawn from an earlier study to develop an assessment that measures the impact of work on employee wellbeing. IA is an accepted clinical methodology used to verify items in the development of health‐related quality of life instruments that evaluate patient wellbeing in clinical trials.
Findings
FA and IA gave rise to considerably different assessments. IA resulted in a 51‐item scale spread across ten different domains. FA generated an eight‐factor scale with 46 items. In total, 31 variables were common to each version. The additional 20 items using IA included a number of variables that were identified by employees as being important to their wellbeing. The 15 extra items yielded by FA included six variables that were perceived by staff to be relatively unimportant. Five factors were fairly consistent with five of the domains. Both scales showed adequate internal consistency reliability.
Research limitations/implications
The present study suggests an alternative methodology for measuring employee wellbeing. The small number of subjects who participated in the earlier research is a limitation.
Originality/value
The study offers exploratory research into an alternative way to measure wellbeing in the workplace that draws on an accepted clinical methodology already used to assess and evaluate patient wellbeing.
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Bridget Juniper, Pat Bellamy and Nicola White
The purpose of this paper is to test the performance of two generic scales designed to evaluate employee well‐being against a new well‐being scale constructed for a specific…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the performance of two generic scales designed to evaluate employee well‐being against a new well‐being scale constructed for a specific sector; call centres.
Design/methodology/approach
The method to develop the new scale is based on well‐established clinical models used to evaluate the well‐being of patients. Potential variables were confirmed using an item selection method known as impact analysis which places keen emphasis on the frequency and importance of variables according to employees themselves.
Findings
From a potential pool of 102 items, impact analysis confirmed 43 variables most strongly associated with adverse well‐being. These were distributed across eight separate dimensions. Content validity and internal reliability were satisfactory. The results showed that existing scales were substantially insensitive to aspects of work that were perceived to be important and troubling to call centre employees and could therefore provide incomplete accounts of employee well‐being.
Research limitations/implications
Confirmation of the assessment's measurement properties will be the subject of future studies. The generalisability of the findings to other call centres will also be investigated.
Practical implications
For employers and researchers wishing to evaluate and act on well‐being within a particular sector, this approach to measurement may offer a practical, parsimonious alternative to existing, generic options. Impact analysis also addresses criticisms of factor analysis when used in well‐being scale construction.
Originality/value
The findings suggest support for a new approach to measuring the well‐being of sector specific workers that is based on clinical evaluation practices.
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Abstract
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Hao Qin, Hongwei Wang and Aylmer Johnson
This paper aims to explore the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of the new generation of engineering designers. A survey study is used to approach what their…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of the new generation of engineering designers. A survey study is used to approach what their information needs are, how these needs change during an engineering design project and how their information-seeking behaviours have been influenced by the newly developed information technologies (ITs). Through an in-depth analysis of the survey results, the key functions have been identified for the next-generation management systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first proposed four hypotheses on the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of young engineers. Then, a survey study was undertaken to understand their information usage in terms of the information needs and information-seeking behaviours during a complete engineering design process. Through analysing the survey results, several findings were obtained and on this basis, further comparisons were made to discuss and evaluate the hypotheses.
Findings
The paper has revealed that the engineering designers' information needs will evolve throughout the engineering design project; thus, they should be assisted at several different levels. Although they intend to search information and knowledge on know-what and know-how, what they really require is the know-why knowledge in order to help them complete design tasks. Also, the paper has shown how the newly developed ITs and web-based applications have influenced the engineers' information-seeking practices.
Research limitations/implications
The research subjects chosen in this study are engineering students in universities who, although not as experienced as engineers in companies, do go through a complete design process with the tasks similar to industrial scenarios. In addition, the focus of this study is to understand the information-seeking behaviours of a new generation of design engineers, so that the development of next-generation information and knowledge management systems can be well informed. In this sense, the results obtained do reveal some new knowledge about the information-seeking behaviours during a general design process.
Practical implications
This paper first identifies the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of the new generation of engineering designers. On this basis, the varied ways to meet these needs and behaviours are discussed and elaborated. This intends to provide the key characteristics for the development of the next-generation knowledge management system for engineering design projects.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a novel means of exploring the future engineers' information needs and information-seeking behaviours in a collaborative working environment. It also characterises the key features and functions for the next generation of knowledge management systems for engineering design.
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Snow White is one of the most popular fairy tales worldwide. Therefore, it is not surprising that the story has been reconsidered multiple times during the current trend of…
Abstract
Snow White is one of the most popular fairy tales worldwide. Therefore, it is not surprising that the story has been reconsidered multiple times during the current trend of producing fairy tale adaptations. Especially the Evil Queen has become an object of further examination in many recent instalments of the story. In this chapter, I analyse the revision of Snow White's stepmother in the book series The Lunar Chronicles (2012–2016), the films Mirror Mirror (2012), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016), as well as the TV-series Once Upon a Time (2011–2018). Compared to other villains in recent fairy tale adaptations, who are, like Maleficent, redeemed, the queen remains an embodiment of evil and terror in most adaptations. I outline the depiction of the Evil Queen in present-day US-American fairy tale narratives, assessing what makes her the most villainous woman in all the fairy tale realms and questioning why many of these stories try to understand but do not forgive her. The focus of this investigation is on the backstory that she is equipped with, her crimes, and her ultimate fate. Although she has been abused, traumatized, and betrayed, she seems to remain an uber villain, not only attempting to kill her stepdaughter but also destroying nature, starving her people, and spreading a deadly virus. This kind of representation might result from the fact that her opponent is by the very name the purest fairy tale princess ever known.
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Nicola Sum, Reshmi Lahiri-Roy and Nish Belford
Identity, positioning and possibilities intersect differently for South Asian women in white academia. Within a broader migrant community that defines Australian life, these…
Abstract
Purpose
Identity, positioning and possibilities intersect differently for South Asian women in white academia. Within a broader migrant community that defines Australian life, these identities and positioning imply great possibility, but pursuing such pathways within academia is a walk on the last strand of resilience. This paper explores this tension of possibilities and constraints, using hope theory to highlight the cognitive resistance evident in the narratives of three South Asian women in Australian academia.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use collaborative autoethnography to share their narratives of working in Australian universities at three different stages of careers, utilising Snyder's model of hope theory to interrogate their own goal-setting behaviours, pathways and agentic thinking.
Findings
The authors propose that hope as a cognitive state informs resistance and enables aspirations to contribute within academia in meaningful ways whilst navigating the terrain of inequitable structures.
Originality/value
The authors' use of hope theory as a lens on the intersectional experiences of career making, building and progression is a new contribution to scholarship on marginalised women in white academe and the ways in which the pathways of resistance are identified.
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Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014)…
Abstract
Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014). Much of the research on rape culture focuses on the experiences of heterosexual women, and few studies have explored rape culture in the context of dating apps. This chapter explores how men who have sex with men (MSM) understand and experience rape culture through their use of Grindr and similar dating apps. A thematic analysis of interviews with 25 MSM dating app users revealed problematic user behavior as well as unwanted sexual messages and images as common manifestations of rape culture on dating apps. Participants explained that rape culture extends beyond in-app interactions to in-person encounters, as evident by incidents of sexual violence that several participants had experienced and one participant had committed. Participants were unsure about the extent to which MSM dating apps facilitate rape culture but asserted that some apps enable rape culture more than others. This chapter demonstrates the importance of investigating sexual violence against people of diverse gender and sexual identities to ensure their experiences are not minimized, ignored, or rendered invisible.
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