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1 – 10 of 28Bethan R. Mead, Jessica A.C. Davies, Natalia Falagán, Sofia Kourmpetli, Lingxuan Liu and Charlotte A. Hardman
Household food insecurity and poor well-being have increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting lockdown measures. Home food growing has been…
Abstract
Household food insecurity and poor well-being have increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting lockdown measures. Home food growing has been associated with improved food access and well-being, but it is unknown what role it plays during food supply crises and lockdown. It is also unclear how home food growing and social restrictions may affect opinions about growing food in urban areas (i.e. urban agriculture; UA).
A cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the UK national lockdown in March-April 2020 to measure home food growing, perceived food insecurity, well-being, and opinions of UA. The participants were 477 UK-based adults (369 female, mean age 39.57 years ± 13.36); 152 participants were engaged in home food growing prior to the pandemic. Responses were compared to data collected from a separate sample of participants before the pandemic (N=583) to explore potential shifts in opinions about UA.
Participants who engaged in home food growing had lower levels of food insecurity (U=19894.50, z=−3.649, p<0.001, r=−0.167) and higher well-being (U=19566.50, z=−3.666, p<0.001, r=−0.168) than those not engaged in home food growing. Perceived food insecurity partially mediated the relationship between home food growing and well-being; home food growing was associated with less food insecurity, which in turn was associated with better well-being. There were no differences in opinions of UA compared to the sample of participants from before the pandemic.
Home food growing may have had a protective effect over perceived food security and well-being in the early stages the pandemic. Opinions of UA were positive and unchanged compared to data collected pre-pandemic. Policies that support home food growing and access to suitable growing spaces and resources may be beneficial for food system resilience and well-being.
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Andreja Siliunas, Mario L. Small and Joseph Wallerstein
Today, low-income people seeking resources from the federal government must often work through non-profit organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the constraints…
Abstract
Purpose
Today, low-income people seeking resources from the federal government must often work through non-profit organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the constraints that the poor must face today to secure resources through non-profit organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper. The authors review cases of non-profit organizations providing federally supported resources to the poor across multiple sectors.
Findings
The authors find that to accept government contracts serving the poor, nonprofit organizations must often engage in one or several practices: reject clients normally consistent with their mission, select clients based on likely outcomes, ignore problems in clients’ lives relevant to their predicament, or undermine client progress to manage funding requirements. To secure government-supported resources from nonprofits, the poor must often acquiesce to intrusions into one or more of the following: their privacy (disclosing sensitive information), their self-protection (renouncing legal rights), their identity (avowing a particular self-understanding) or their self-mastery (relinquishing authority over daily routines).
Originality/value
The authors show that the nonprofits’ dual role as brokers, both liaisons transferring resources and representatives of the state, can complicate their relation to their clients and the predicament of the poor themselves; the authors suggest that two larger trends, toward increasing administrative accountability and demonstrating deservingness, are having both intended and unintended consequences for the ability of low-income individuals to gain access to publicly funded resources.
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This paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on female students' learning diaries from a basic management course.
Findings
The findings show how students respond to the topic of gender inequality through a neoliberal postfeminist discourse. The students' discourse is structured around three discursive moves: (1) rejecting “excessive” feminism, (2) articulating self-reliant professional futures and (3) producing idealized role models through successfully integrating masculinity and femininity.
Originality/value
This article contributes to current understanding of the role of postfeminist sensibilities in shaping student participation in the management profession. Awareness of students' responses to gender-equality initiatives offers management educators insight into the inclusion of equality topics in teaching in ways that support equal gender socialization in the management profession.
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Kristen Faile, Paula Roberts and Cate Loes
This paper aims to provide instructors with a hands-on engaging and experiential class activity designed to teach undergraduate and graduate students about different…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide instructors with a hands-on engaging and experiential class activity designed to teach undergraduate and graduate students about different organizational structures in management courses. Through this exercise, students will be able to self-identify the challenges and strengths of working under contrasting organizational structures.
Design/methodology/approach
Split into two (or four) teams, students construct origami animals based on their team’s organizational structure, using both mechanistic and organic structures to create a zoo based on a set of instructions and boundary conditions. Materials required include origami paper, markers, printed instructions, origami animal instructions, and role title cards for each student. The exercise takes approximately 30–45 min, including debriefing discussion. All materials/instructions needed are included with this paper (except origami paper and markers).
Findings
Through this exercise, students internalize the challenges and strengths of working in organizations with contrasting structures. The debrief discussion will help solidify student understanding of what the day to day experience of working in different organizational structures might look like, the pros and cons of different structures, and what type of employees or industries might thrive under different structures.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is being submitted for the “Special Issue Call for Papers: Modern Day Experiential Exercises.”
Practical implications
This activity allows students to draw their own conclusions about organizational structure and to engage in a fruitful discussion about what working at different types of organizations looks like on a day-to-day basis.
Social implications
This activity allows students to strengthen their skills in communication, teamwork, and leadership by having them work in teams to complete a challenging, competitive task.
Originality/value
While teaching organizational structure in management courses has traditionally been limited to traditional forms of instruction such as lecturing and reviewing different organizational charts, this activity gives students a fun competitive in-class activity in which they practice working as a part of contrasting organizational structures to see what type of structure they might thrive in.
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Anne Pässilä, Allan Owens, Paula Kuusipalo-Määttä, Tuija Oikarinen and Raquel Benmergui
In exploring the impact of reflective and work applied approaches, the authors are curious how vivid new insights and collective “Eureka” momentums occur. These momentums can be…
Abstract
Purpose
In exploring the impact of reflective and work applied approaches, the authors are curious how vivid new insights and collective “Eureka” momentums occur. These momentums can be forces for work communities to gain competitive advantages. However, the authors know little of how learning is actively involved in the processing of creating new insights and how such a turning to learning mode (Pässilä and Owens, 2016) can be facilitated. In the light of cultural studies and art education, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the method of dramatising characters (DC) in a specific innovation culture can be facilitated. In this viewpoint, the authors are suggesting one approach for this type of turning to learning which the authors call Beyond Text, outlining its theoretical underpinnings, its co-creative development and its application.
Design/methodology/approach
In this Beyond Text context, the authors are introducing the method of DC and the method of iStory both of which are the authors’ own design based on the theory of the four existing categories of a research-based theatre.
Findings
The findings of this viewpoint paper are that both iStory as well as DC methods are useful and practical learning facilitation processes and platforms that can be adopted for use in organisations for promoting reflexivity. Especially they can act as a bridge between various forms of knowing and consummate the other knowledge types (experiential, practical and propositional) in a way that advances practice-based innovation.
Originality/value
The originality and value of iStory and DC is that they can be utilised as dialogical evaluation methods when traditional evaluation strategies and pre-determined indicators are unusable.
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This paper aims to explore graduate perspectives about the creation and use of professional artefacts to communicate work-based inquiry projects to professional audiences.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore graduate perspectives about the creation and use of professional artefacts to communicate work-based inquiry projects to professional audiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was based on constructivist qualitative interviews with 14 graduates from a part-time professional practice in arts programme and used thematic analysis to interpret and discuss the findings.
Findings
Participants indicated a perceived value in the use of the professional artefact as a way of articulating their professional inquiry. Professional artefacts enable essential communication skills for professional contexts, have the capacity for engaging with professional audiences that are external to the university, have the potential for enabling further study and workplace employability, show awareness of project management and leadership capabilities and helped some individuals build on and share their own personal philosophy of practice with peer professionals.
Research limitations/implications
As a small-scale research project that used purposive sampling, the findings are not representative, but could provide the creative means to develop professional artefacts within work-related educational programmes and workplace learning programmes.
Practical implications
It is argued that the process and production of professional artefacts can provide the means for communicating work-based projects to professional audiences within workplace settings.
Originality/value
Professional artefacts explore and present developmental aspects of work-based inquiries with distinctive creative approaches to favour practice knowledge and innovation that can be expressively shared with peer professionals.
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Rebecca Conlan-Trant, Paula Connolly, Alison O’Sullivan, Anurag Nasa, Mary Sammon and Lauren Alexander
Sleep disturbance is a common difficulty in the general population. It has become particularly prevalent in the context of disruption to routine brought about by the COVID-19…
Abstract
Purpose
Sleep disturbance is a common difficulty in the general population. It has become particularly prevalent in the context of disruption to routine brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to trial a patient-guided “sleep workbook” intervention, which was developed by multidisciplinary team members, combining principles of sleep hygiene education and cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia behavioural strategies, and to evaluate its efficacy in a mixed-methods study.
Design/methodology/approach
Service users of the community mental health service were invited to participate. A total of 30 service users agreed to participate. A total of 15 participants completed both the intervention and the mixed-methods survey. Four participated in the focus group. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed on the collected quantitative data. A thematic analysis was carried out of qualitative survey responses and focus group discourse.
Findings
There was a statistically and clinically significant improvement in quantity and quality of sleep following intervention. Mean hours of sleep prior to the intervention was 4.4 hours [standard deviation (SD) = 2.2], compared to 6.1 hours (SD = 2.2) afterwards (p = 0.003). Quality of sleep improved from a mean of 2.5 (SD = 2.1) to 6.1 (SD = 2.3) following the intervention (p = <0.001). Four themes were developed using the qualitative data: “under-recognition of sleep difficulties”, “ruminations”, “practical utility” and “therapeutic autonomy”.
Originality/value
There is a growing need for occupational therapists and clinicians to provide interventions for patients with sleep difficulties and to develop sleep management practice. This patient-guided sleep workbook may be an effective intervention for these patients.
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Gina Gaio Santos, José Carlos Pinho, Ana Paula Ferreira and Márcia Vieira
Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to assess the moderating effect of the psychological contract (PC) type (relational, transactional and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to assess the moderating effect of the psychological contract (PC) type (relational, transactional and balanced) on the relationship between psychological contract breach (PCB) and organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors administered a survey to a sample of 159 nurses working in a large public hospital. To analyse the survey data, the authors used partial least squares with SmartPLS v.3.3, a variance-based structural equation modelling technique that combines principal component analysis, path analysis and regression analysis.
Findings
This study shows that nurses counteract the loss of resources following a PCB by investing more in stronger interpersonal relationships with co-workers and patients as a way to recuperate from resource loss and gain social resources. In addition, the moderating effect of the PC type reinforces the relationship between a PCB and OCB in a way that relational and balanced PC types support OCB-I positively but negatively OCB-O. Furthermore, the transactional PC does not reinforce negatively the link between PCB and OCB-I, and the negative interacting effect on the PCB and OCB-O link is only partially supported.
Research limitations/implications
The study findings are grounded on a cross-sectional research design and a convenience sampling strategy.
Practical implications
The results highlight the relevance of human resources management practices centred on employee involvement and participatory supervision styles for ensuring OCB display at the workplace.
Originality/value
The results add new evidence to COR theory by highlighting the importance of social resources as a mitigator in the relationship between nurses’ PCB and OCB towards co-workers and patients (OCB-I). Hence, the OCB-I display will vary in function of the target and the moderating effect of PC type (relational, balanced or transactional).
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Alicia Martín-Navarro, María Paula Lechuga Sancho and Jose Aurelio Medina-Garrido
Companies are increasingly implementing business process management systems (BPMSs) to support their processes. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding whether users…
Abstract
Purpose
Companies are increasingly implementing business process management systems (BPMSs) to support their processes. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding whether users also use BPMSs to manage the knowledge needed for processes to be completed. This study aims to analyze the factors that cause users to use BPMSs to manage the knowledge required in business processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes an original model that integrates two successful information system models applied to BPMSs and knowledge management systems. To test the hypotheses derived from this new model, data were collected from 242 mature BPMS users from 12 Spanish and Latin American companies. Structural equation modeling with AMOS was used to examine the model.
Findings
Users’ perceived usefulness of a BPMS when using it for knowledge management (KM) is the only factor influencing them to use it for KM.
Practical implications
This study has practical implications for managers wishing to successfully implement a BPMS to support processes and for employees to use the knowledge embedded in the tool. The latter will only happen if users perceive the tool’s usefulness for KM.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this model is the first empirically validated model to successfully analyze BPMS users’ tendency to use BPMSs as a tool to support necessary KM in processes.
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Hilka Pelizza Vier Machado, Sergio Augusto Vallim Gaiotto and Monica Cristina Rovaris Machado
This research aimed to describe the phenomenon of the growth of enterprises in the vision of social entrepreneurs.
Abstract
Purpose
This research aimed to describe the phenomenon of the growth of enterprises in the vision of social entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative study developed joining eight social entrepreneurs in four organizations, two cooperatives and two associations. Data were obtained in semi structured interviews. Data were analyzed with interpretativist and the classical content analysis.
Findings
The main findings indicated the growth phenomenon presented in five categories: growth intentions, growth meanings, support of other organizations and participation in networks, strategies and difficulties. The results of the research have shown that the growth for the social entrepreneurs is a collective phenomenon, characterized by search of economic value and empowerment.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of the research was study only two types of organizations, one garbage cooperative and two association.
Practical implications
The results can help managers of social incubators and stakeholders because it was evidenced the efforts and difficulties that social entrepreneurs face to survive and to search growth.
Social implications
Our findings may contribute to the formulation of public policies oriented to social entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
This paper presents the first theoretical contribution about the growth in a specific context, the context of social entrepreneurs.
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